For me, there are very few people (tealady, ball boys, bar staff, etc) at the club that aren’t at least a bit responsible for what’s happening. The manager is responsible as the main face of the club, the players are making the kinds of errors that come from complacency, lack of effort/discipline or fatigue, the DoF is delivering about the best you could imagine with his budget and remit, but all of them have this run on their records now. I genuinely believe that more players back from injury (Hedges, JRC and Gallagher) and we see an improvement on the pitch. Rotation increases, players can give more, for longer. We all know the truth though - this club has a ceiling, which is imposed by exec level and the owners. This is a nice little earner for the jobsworths (include Benson, Lowe and Johnson, there, by the way) so going above this level barely suits their agenda, least of all Waggott’s. “JDT Out” is understandable after we’ve been watching this kind of football, but this is temporary. Four winnable games in January. Go unbeaten in January and there’ll be very few calling it.

I’d be inclined to agree on the principle, but I think he’s just not met the challenge of being the captain. Probably best for everyone if we can get a good fee for him and he can try and kick on elsewhere.

Sparks, he’s solidly linked with the Palace job, which is basically up for grabs at the minute. I can’t think of a manager with a higher stock and currently out of a job in this country at present, just as a lot of clubs here and abroad will be looking at their managers as disposable. He badmouthed this club’s current administration over the O’Brien debacle to the extent that you could only assume we marched into his living room the previous Christmas Day and pissed on his family. If you think Steve Cooper’s even taking the call, you’re beyond help.

Christ, that’s a laugh. Planet are you on?

The way it is, you’d expect us to be lodging the complaints regularly and I wonder if The Saddest WhatsApp Group Chat In The World (EFL match officials) has decided they’ll take the piss. Thoroughly meaningless to be apologised to after the fact and with the standard of referees visible, it’s not like the FA/EFL have a production line of capable ones ready to step in.

Refs are piss weak in this league and are cowed to home fans/not getting grief. Be a ref, we need more of them, but be half decent and stand by your decisions. Make proper decisions, stop trying to have an easy life for 90 mins and whinge about abuse when you ref totally inconsistently and arbitrarily.

Only explanation I can come up with for Hyam is he’s been rushed back.

To be fair, his first cameo, he looked like a fish out of water, didn’t appear to have any of the right attributes. We were expecting a speed merchant, if you remember. Both he and Gregg said as much in interviews. Has clearly been hard at work in the intervening window, he appears a lot more aligned with what we’re doing and utilising what he does have to good effect.

Well-deserved that we came back into that. Second came through dogged determination and a rare spot of luck with the deflection, but well-earned. Reset at half time but take the game to them. Hull will be that little bit unsure coming back out to a home crowd who will probably not believe the score if they went to the bar at 20 mins gone. Big opportunity, but needs calm heads, hard work and presence of mind. JDT can instil that at half-time. 4-2 Rovers FT, one early from Telalovic, one late from Szmodics on the break.

Harry Pickering is floundering. How have the defence become so shaky?

This could be 2-2, but we are woefully down on confidence, luck and momentum. They’re awful goals to concede, almost a comedy of errors. You can’t invite players on as we did when you’re this out of sorts. Telalovic and Markanday appear sharp and have been bright, which is encouraging. Reliable players making errors like that will undermine any good, though.

Really didn’t want to see Brittain in the team after recent performances. Still not over the double-yellow petulance.

O’Riordan’s 6’4” and has 3 goals so far this season, so something that fans have been crying out for, which is a set piece threat (assuming he is netting from set pieces, of course). If there’s cash to spend on players that could profit for us further down the line, I don’t see much of a problem with it. Will wait to see how he does, if it does happen, but he’s had games at L1 and L2 level, so he’s probably ready to challenge for a place in a Championship team over the next few months.

JRC, Hedges, Dolan, Pears and Gallagher out and you’d say they’re all either starters or are challenging those ahead of them every day in training. I was watching on my phone while out in Clitheroe y’day, so fair to say I was distracted, but I think it’s difficult to place too much blame on the players. Didn’t look up for it at all and the bare minimum is effort. Anything less than maximum effort is an insult to your supporters and inexcusable. Some players losing their place on merit, others keeping it in spite of poor performances (Moran is visibly exhausted, everything about his game has fallen away and he needs a rest). It’s true that our style is stubborn but I don’t think we can implement an entirely new system overnight. I hope the players get a bollocking, I would expect JDT to be the kind of manager that can dole one out in his own way. I still think JDT is right for the job. Those calling for a change are justifiable in doing so, but I don’t think it’s close to as bad as is being made out.

Where the ever-loving fuck have I said I was looking forward to it?

Huddersfield have executed a game plan extremely well, no slight to them, fully deserving of the three points. I disagreed with those at the beginning of the season predicting a mid table finish, but it’s clearly where we are. Ho hum, life goes on, I’ve hopefully 50 years of loving Rovers and hating Venky’s, still to come.

Not at all. The industry I’m in doesn’t really exist here to any meaningful extent. If it helps, I’ve been trying to open a branch here for about a year. As the song famously says, “Oh, Lancashire is Wonderful.”

Ewood Park catchment area supremacy in full-flow. No surprises. Sorry for having aspirations outside of East Lancs, I guess?

You could just as easily look to the fans that do leave when we go behind and wonder if that affects mentality for the players on the pitch. Average age of the 11 on the pitch when we conceded the two goals is 22.9 years old. The 23-year-olds that work for me tend to need a helping hand and a bit of encouragement when things aren’t going well, not being stormed out on and written off as not being good enough. Different strokes, I suppose.

Extremely disappointed to lose that game, but nevertheless an enjoyable day at Ewood, being north for the festive period for the first time in a good few years. The weather didn’t help walk-ups, I suspect, nor the lack of service from Northern rail (13.23 - arguably the main train people would catch into Blackburn - inexplicably cancelled the day before), but a sterling effort from all involved to engage and entertain the fans pre-match. I unfortunately can’t be a regular at Ewood, given I live in London. But talking to the friends I attended with, there are many who comment “oh, we used to go when they were in the premier league… won’t go with these owners in charge,” and other such justifications, as though that’s a particular badge of honour. Boggles the mind, but people are fickle, I guess. Still a shame, a busy Ewood is a special thing, as I remember from 99/00 onwards, when I did have a season ticket for a few years and yesterday felt a little closer to that kind of atmosphere, damp though it was. The reason I raise it, is because the efforts of the fan groups, very young squad, manager, DoF and other staff that are meaningfully working to progress us (not all of them are, clearly) deserve more from the general fanbase. Club could do more to solicit that, hopefully yesterday is another step in that direction. Saw a lot of big-mouth, Football Factory clobber-wearing types in the JW Upper move for the exits as soon as the second went in, which I always chuckle at. I will never for the life of me understand early leavers. One interesting thing I saw - Wharton family sat about 6 rows in front of us. Right at the end, a tall gent in a heavily Errea-branded puffer made a beeline for them to congratulate them, before an extremely swift exit. The family looked surprised to see him. I was too far away to catch anything, but he looked a bit football-y. Made me wonder if there’s an Errea-sponsored club looking at our prized asset?

Tom Lockyer should retire a premier league player, sad as it is that the choice is being taken from him. They often say football is a family and I’m sure he’ll find work in the game, having built up a lot of goodwill. Life is longer than a playing career. Onto the game currently in-play: Burnley are coming back down next season and I have a feeling that Kompany’s number could be up. I suspect the promotion push might be a shade more difficult, second time around. People go on about Leo, but could you imagine the outrage on here if we’d spent £19m (and the rest) on James Trafford? Long-time head-scratcher of mine: they - famously - call us “The Bastards” which is all well and good, but clearly a response to their nickname of “The Dingles.” I don’t get it. “Hahaha, you’re all probably born out of wedlock” isn’t much of a response to the initial, “haha, you’re all quite dense, owing to the disproportionately high instance of breeding within your own gene pool!”

Twice in a day?!

Highlights: few and far between, but Leo made some excellent saves and that’s encouraging. Pickering was solid and contributed. Kept Adam Armstrong quiet. Sammie Szmodics never stopped closing down. lowlights: Brittain, Hill, Moran and Tronstad had poor games. No urgency to shift play to our left, where we are strongest. They kept play out on the right and we suffered for it. Execution across the team was of a low standard and I can’t be sure of it, but fatigue and enforcing coach travel for long-distance games surely has something to do with it. Overall, away at Southampton won’t define this season and with players back, we should have every chance of overturning this at Ewood. We lost that game, they didn’t do too much to win it. Russell Martin will not get this team promoted, he’s a used car dealer of a manager, definition of a tin-pot Guardiola. Celebrating like he did, over a 4-0 against ten men, with our injury list and average squad age is fitting of the gilet-sporting, competitive Dad, Klopp-impersonating half-man he is.

Rovers commentators confirming (implicitly) on the stream that everyone thinks Russell Martin is a dickhead.