Not fit to lace Holtby's boots in my view!

Lad is an excellent finisher. Didn't see any other aspect of his game which was up to scratch - be it through ability or attitude. Wish him the best, but he was the obvious casualty if we had to trim the squad by 1.

Can see the logic, but I disagree. An underappreciated problem we face is that we're down three first team coaches, not just Eustace, so I'm not sure it's realistic for us to keep carrying on without standards slipping somewhere. That's before we get onto the question of whether those who remain are good enough. I think the longer we carry on, the less likely any siege mentality will compensate for not having a proper coaching set up, so whilst getting someone in by Swansea isn't essential, I wouldn't leave it until the summer either.

I think Boro would work nicely for him in fairness. It's unlikely that he'll get a prem job - fairly or not - and so he can join a club that if they can sort their form out have every chance of a top 6 finish this year. If they fall short, fans won't hold him responsible and he has a good chairman and decent squad to start again with next year. Other than a recently relegated club, it's as good as he's likely to get for me.

Absolutely. It would be a sentimental move, and you can't afford to make those for such an important role. If it we were using 'blind' CVs, Duff's wouldn't put him much beyond Boateng or Boa Morte in most fans' eyes. Great to see him doing well, but we have to be going for a manager who we think is capable of leading a Prem side in a few months.

It would be harsh on Forshaw, but I think Buckley should play. Mainly because we're likely to have about half of the 74%(!) possession that we had vs Plymouth, so younger legs are what's required for this one.

You'd basically be looking at either i) go full Nottingham Forest and buy a new team to stay in the league, or 2) pick up a few of the best young players in the Championship and bank the rest of the money to be strong in the Championship. The way that we've operated over the last 10 years or so strongly suggests the latter. I think if we were set up to be hard to beat, frustrate teams and be direct, then perhaps one or two of our players could compete with some better quality around them. I'd be interested to see how Travis & Tronstad go especially. But like most teams coming up from the play offs, as things stand there's a massive gulf in quality and we'd do well to even to lay a glove on most teams.

He did. Nice lay off, but until then he was struggling to impose himself like he often has done when he is denied space. Lots of effort on show as always. Second half was a totally different story. When he can isolate defenders Dolan looks really dangerous, just as he can do when he's playing with another forward with feet as quick as his, like Kargbo seems to have. To be clear, I'd be delighted if he were to sign an extension, as unlikely as it seems now.

I think like most Championship attackers, Dolan isn't good enough to excel if you don't play to his strengths. When he has a bit of space to play with he's very handy at this level. Without it he can be totally anonymous. Yesterday was a perfect case in point - he struggled in the first half, then looked top drawer once we scored and they started leaving a bit more space. I'm really hoping that Kargbo's pace alongside Gueye's form could be a catalyst to bring more from the rest of our attack. Dolan's an obvious one who would benefit from the extra space, but Cantwell hasn't really had anyone running in behind to aim for until now. We've seen that Ohashi has a quality finish on him but can be easy to defend against if all you're doing is hitting it long towards him. We've been lacking a decent blend for as long as I can remember, but all of a sudden it seems like we've got a nice mixture of pace, power, finishing and hold up play. A lot of that is relying on Kargbo kicking on from his promising cameos though.

Isn't that the truth!

Their form is as bad as it gets. Utterly dire. Their last 10 reads W1, D1, L8. In that time they've not scored more than one goal in a game, and have failed to score in three of their last four. The Championship is mad and away points aren't to be sniffed at, but we have to be targeting three points from this one.

I think we need to bank on requiring 70 points at least. We might be lucky and need a couple fewer, but that's only happened twice since 2006 according to a quick Google. Maybe even longer. With that in mind, we need to be looking to get about at least another 20 points to be confident of the play offs. 6 wins with a couple of draws. Looking at the fixtures I really think we need to make a serious dent in that over the next 5 games. Swansea (A), Norwich (H), Derby (A), Stoke (A) & Cardiff (H). These are all on form that varies between average and utterly abysmal. Getting say 10 points from these would put us firmly in pole position before our remaining 8 games, which are undoubtedly tougher on paper.

Absolutely delighted with Gueye's turnaround. I'd like to think I was always in the 'let's wait and see' camp, but I didn't in my wildest dreams expect as good an all round performance as we saw last night. As recently as a month ago I was worried he could end up being a total disaster, so I'm not going to criticise anyone who wrote him off. Funnily enough if we were going to be comparing him to Rovers' horror strikers of yester year, he's sort of the anti-Chris Brown. Brown's ability was extremely limited and we signed him at a time when his body was letting him down, *but* at least he knew the position and could bring others into play. Gueye's ability to bring the ball under control was on show from that first friendly. The main issue is that he looked like he'd never played the game in terms of knowing where to run, how to spot the movement of others, general game awareness. The development of that side of his game has been massive and means that he's worth his place in the team even when he doesn't offer much of a goal threat. If he can do all that whilst scoring 10+ goals a year, then what a bargain he'll turn out to be.

Like the first post I quoted, it's a totally valid view. I think a lot of it comes down to how you view the first half of the season until JTD left. Early doors we played some great stuff (and had Adam Wharton). When it went wrong we looked absolutely abysmal, and so whilst Eustace's results *overall* were pretty similar, when you look at JDT's spell in two chunks then it felt like he pulled us out of a real nosedive. Tomasson may have also done that of course, but he wouldn't have done that by making us more solid. I think that was needed for us to stay up, and it's what we've carried on into this season. We've certainly had better managers and he's not been here long enough for me to feel particularly attached or let down. But I wish we still had him.

That's a valid and defendable point of view, but I think it sells his contribution well short. Especially the keeping us up part. Agree the football was defensive (personally that doesn't bother me, but I appreciate others care more). But staying up last year was largely about the solidity he introduced. Szmodics' goals were essential too, but he was banging them in under JDT in the final months & that wasn't delivering us points. I think when JDT had got us so committed to a particular way of playing over a decent period of time, it's quite hard to 'unlearn' that overnight. So I think the fact that we were generally hard to beat is testament to the work he did, and bar the odd hiccup like Bristol City you could see a positive direction of travel. This season I think has been a story of us generally being good but we've buckled when the squad has been stretched. Had our form remained patchy from now til the end of the season once we managed to get some players back, then we could criticise the manager, but from the situation we're in now he gets a good grade on this season too. I think success of managers at this level is often less about ability and more about fit. I think Eustace fitted really well with our group, and whilst you're right that he isn't irreplaceable, we were in a good place with him and even a manager with a good record won't necessarily be able to replicate what he was doing.

Third game in six days for both teams. That'll definitely come into it, and I'm pleased we're at home. Difficult team to pick, this one. You'd ideally like to go with as close to the same 11 as yesterday, but some fresh legs will be needed. I'd be looking at Sanderson in for Batth and this is probably a good game to be bringing Kargbo in.

I think Johnson mainly (and rightly, in my view) gets a pass mainly because of his involvement with the academy at a time that they were really exceptional - but I totally agree with you about Benson. The stick that occasionally comes his way when we have next to no evidence about how good he is at his job baffles me, to be honest.

The small time way in which the club has responded to Eustace leaving is almost as concerning as his departure in the first place. Everything about the club away from the playing side screams amateur hour.

Agree. A good deal all things considered but hardly a steal for a Championship club. I think it's also a good illustration why lots of deals only get done in the last minute though. Forest will be happy letting him go for a fraction of his salary off the books when the alternative is paying them all. If we made the same offer a week ago I'd imagine they'd have sent us packing.

Close to my sentiments. A lot of comments on here about getting the likes of Sanderson, Woodrow and especially Forshaw. I get it, but the only way they end up playing a good amounts of minutes is when other players are unavailable. And recent games show that the alternative at the moment are kids. The measure of success for this window is about whether the new forwards can make us more potent going forward. That's the top and tail of it. And all that remains to be seen.

Agree. Like others I hate the fact that we've brought in £40 million quid over the last year or so and the big majority of that seem to be going on operating costs. But loans and short term deals make sense to make sure we don't fall away after a strong start.

To be honest, I don't think it's possible to do that at the moment with any degree of confidence. It probably won't be for weeks. The one thing you'd say about Rovers' window - for all its sort termism - is that we're not weaker. The Baker/Forshaw swap appears to be a downgrade so far, but everyone else is adding to the squad. Middlesbrough and West Brom have both lost key players, so there's immediate pressure on the players they bring to bring a lot to the table just to keep them at the same level. I know Boro signed Iheanacho but he wasn't that impressive in a stronger Leicester team. Armstrong would obviously be a massive coup if they get him, but if they don't then they're short of a recognised goal scorer and we know better than most how much damage a substandard new keeper can do. That's not to say that I think we've had a better window either. All of the players we've brought in in recent days are big unknown quantities in different ways. But it's possible that their windows could actually derail their seasons, whereas at worst we should have better depth than we had previously.

If either Dennis or Kargbo are as quick as I'm hoping they are (and obviously not totally deficient in other areas) then having at least one of them in the team should be hugely beneficial for Dolan, Cantwell and Gueye. It's so much easier to defend when all the play is in front of you and you don't have to worry about players running in behind. Having a player who can do that well shouldn't just be another string to our bow in attack, it should also give the players not doing that more space and time on the ball.

I'd get why there would be a disappointment with him being brought in as the only new forward. But as another option when we had next to nobody on the bench on Friday is sounds pretty astute to me. He's obviously not a prolific goal scorer, but he was a prem player this time last year and played a decent role in getting a team promoted the year previous. As a squaddie I'm sure he'll be able to add something.

In fairness I'm not sure it is a little more. Six months of £20k a week plus the loan fee that Swansea are supposed to have paid, you won't get much change for a million quid if not more. The sort of money we should absolutely be able to afford, but it's still a lot for better depth for half a season.