Every player is disappointed to be subbed, but 99% of them are mature and professional enough not to publicly disrespect the manager and the player coming on.

Dacky can spend the first hour reflecting on the wisdom of shaking his head while applauding fans as they boo-ed the manager. JDT clearly has a thing about showing the right attitude. Cant wait to see the centrally-located Gallagher heading in a hat-trick of crosses…

I thought there were three reasons to hook him: ineffective on the night generally, coming back to receive it off one of the CBs only to give it straight back to them, then that ludicrous sliced “pass” that put WBA through - even if it had gone where intended it was still an awful idea. I thought he’d started playing for himself second half. And all the head-shaking when he went off not exactly Team First. I was wondering how permanent was his new found attitude shift that got him back into the team - leopards and spots etc. Hopefully he reverts to being the responsible team leader on Saturday, if picked…

I thought the disallowed goal showed the vast gulf in strikers’ instinct between Gallagher and Dack. After Wharton heads it across, Gallagher forlornly throws himself into a diving header but is two seconds late as ever, while Dack is already waiting where the ball is going to be.

Disappointing in that we had 4 or 5 opportunities to stop that goal: Brereton’s failure to stop the run, Gally could’ve held back a bit and not given the ref the chance, Gally’s header was awful, no-one stayed with the scorer who held back from the charge in, and Carter could’ve done a Hendry and got his knackers down low in anticipation of the shot. But then they missed two absolute sitters so overall a fair result.

Excellent point in the end. Played much better when the subs came on, all of who did very well. We can’t keep playing with ten by starting Brereton though.

Not that unique, focussing on EG rather than goals/wins was the bedrock of Brentford’s transformation. Mind you, given we were bottom of the EG league, it could only improve.

Here’s where I think their thinking lies: our Academy is probably going to produce players who end up better and worth more than the kind of players we have and can currently buy. Can academy players alone get us up so we might stay up - probably not - we need better non-academy players around them than we currently have, but we can’t afford them. So we need to develop and sell one or two academy players so we can buy better non-academy players, assuming the academy pipeline can keep producing. There’s lots of reasons how this can go wrong, but then there’s even more reasons how keep doing what we have been doing before will go wrong. Fans want to win every game and every season to be a promotion push. But, in my sixty years supporting Rovers, we’ve won five promotions and two trophies. So what does that make the other 53 seasons? All failures? Furphy, Smith, McKay were all failures? I’d say all were hamstrung by not being able to get good money for one or two players to be able to buy several better ones. Lee did that with the Tony Field money; Kendall did it by still being one of the best midfielders in the country and finding Crawford; Dalglish did it with Jack’s money. I’m not averse to the thinking that coming out on top of half a dozen clubs who have 5x the income requires something more than sack the manager and play Gally in the middle, but I do have big question marks over the execution, especially after this window, which looked nothing like stage 1 of a strategy being implemented,

Playing out from the back and selling players we develop for huge sums to Premiership clubs are inextricably linked though: if they don’t/can’t demonstrate they are skilled at playing out from the back, no Premiership club will buy them. There’s no big money market for players who tonk it down the channels for our carthorse of the day to chase. This, I believe, is why he isn’t playing to the mythical strengths of the current squad.

But with appalling positional and movement awareness. The players who do well against Nyambe beat him before they get the ball.

I’m sick of Brereton hiding out on the left wing, waiting for the perfect ball between the defenders, but the one saving grace keeping him there tonight is that Nyambe will be completely unaware of his runs in behind.

We did, but then we were the ones going. There were at least as many stayaways telling us (well, me at least) we were idiots, the club was a shambles, 7 years previous they’d been watching Duggie and Ronnie in their pomp with us near the top of Div 1 etc etc. Back to the current omnishambles, my money is on Broughton/JDT are already telling Waggott he can go into the Summer window with them or with Sylvester, but not both.

There’s no “ultimately” about it: he abdicated a key oversight responsibility at 5.30 and went off to a footy match leaving his direct underling in total charge. Maybe he thought Sylvester fully capable but that doesn’t matter, anything could’ve happened. What if Sylvester had had a heart attack or a car crash that evening? Waggott is no different to Captain Smith going to his bed as the Titanic went full steam ahead at night in an ice field.

Another good leader steps up. I’m beginning to see the beginnings of a silver lining coming from this, maybe even a turning point. And who knows, O’Brien might’ve done an Ardilles and got crocked straight away.

He’s stepping up as a leader and taking responsibility for the monumental fuck ups of people who don’t even report to him. My prediction: Waggott and Sylvester will get the chop at some stage for this.

Completely disagree. Broughton has been interviewed several times as to what his role encompasses, and the Company Secretary - the man responsible for registering deals - does not report to Broughton. It’s absolutely Waggott’s area of accountability. On Tuesday night he had two competing responsibilities: directly oversee the successful registration of transfers or be at a football match. Which was more important?

You don’t have the playing career like his without being a perfectionist highly intolerant of sloppiness in others. Can’t see him accepting this as one of those things.

Exactly how I see it. The Club Secretary is clearly responsible for proper submission of the paperwork, and he reports to the CEO, Waggott, who is accountable for having the correct people and processes to do this crucial task. I think it extreme dereliction for Waggott, as the man accountable, to be 100 miles away that evening, rather than being on hand to ensure the man responsible had every resource needed. Broughton, whose job was done on the transfers by mid-afternoon, was right to have been at what was an important cup tie. In any normal business, both Sylvester and Waggott would be fired for such a colossal failure, but, of course, we are anything but.

One that will pay for a significant chunk of his money down the drain transfer fee.

All 23 yrs old. Can’t possibly develop any more….

I was convinced he had no future with us when he (and his girlfriend) were at loggerheads with the manager, who’d probably never heard of Dack before he came. Very interesting to see Dack admit as much when dumped from the matchday squad a few times. His response to that has been mature and to the benefit of all. I’m particularly impressed by his seemingly overnight transformation from team cheeky chappy to mature leader.

I thought Wrexham’s front man today far better than Gallagher.

So how does the bloke with the jump on his man right by the penalty spot, powering towards goal, NOT score the rebound? Because he STOPS to watch what happens. Meanwhile, the other bloke who’d had his back to the goal while twice as far away and was double-marked, busts a gut to get close just in case… Fuck off, Gallagher, you imposter.

The most completely display of uselessness from Gallagher I’ve ever seen. Brereton not far behind. Wharton capping it off with his trademark commit and get neither ball nor man, and Kaminski fumbling two in.

Well that goal had everything: dicking around, another Morton negative assist, Khadra shot, fumbled in by Kaminski.