Tyrone Shoelaces

All of what you say is true. I think the first time I saw him play in the flesh a few years back he played left back and he looked a real class act in a very poor team. Unfortunately he got injured after about 70 minutes and had to go off.

When we were all bemoaning our lack of a rough and tumble dominant centre half a few weeks back we could have done worse than sign Collins on a one year contract. He's always been a tough competitor in the past.

Sounds like it. I think James Collins is a good signing though if he can stay fit. The Juries out on Judge. See what I did there ?

I remember watching Rovers " A " team playing Rochdale Reserves at Spotland, Crown Oil Arena now, a few times in the 1960's. Our team mainly consisted of mostly of 17 and 18 year old lads but you would get the odd top class International player coming back from injury. Rochdale Reserves consisted of about half a dozen old established professional players and a few of their young lads also. The standard was good and the old pros gave the kids a good grounding in the rough and tumble of playing against men. That's how the likes of Pickering, England, Newton, Byrom, Metcalfe etc could play in the First Division at 17 or 18 years of age and cope physically. I think that's missing from todays game. I went watching a pal of mine play for Rochdale Reserves against Burnley " A " team around that time and he was playing directly against Alex Elder who old timers will recall as the dingles Northern Irish International left back. He'd been a top class player but was just coming back from a broken leg. My pal was a flier who could catch pigeons and he gave Elder a bit of a chasing.

In Johnno we trust !

The only way we can accommodate him into the team if Lenihan and Rodwell are playing well is the dreaded 3 at the back.

What have you seen so far that suggests he has a finisher's instinct in his game ?

Same goes for playing him in central midfield.

I was looking over my shoulder after our pretty dismal Xmas defeats. Next week will be a good test, win that playing well and we'll be looking good for the run in. Will it be too late to encourage the Chicken Chokers to get the cheque book out again though ?

Yeah, that's the one. As you say - if we beat them I'll start looking up at the top 6 and not down the league.

Similar to a goal we conceded at Preston I think. Lenihan came bombing out of the line to get to the ball in the right side of midfield. Failed to get to the ball by a mile and left a big gap that Preston exploited to score. He should have held his position and left it to the midfield to deal with.

He picked the ball up against Millwall in the old inside left position. I asked when do you see a player get the ball from out wide by the touch line and then do that ?

How many times do you see somebody come inside off the wing and score ? Most of the time they just run into heavy traffic. You can still play team mates in playing off your better wing. The players that do the damage are the ones that get around the side of teams. Like Murphy did for Newcastle the other night.

I don't get this playing right footed players on the left and vice versa. If Armstrong is predominantly right footed he should play on the right hand side.

That's a good player to have on the bench. He can fill in for lots of players.

Good, that'll do me.

I've given up trying to predict what team we'll put out tomorrow. I just hope it's not three at the back again and we put in a performance. Play to our ability and we should have enough in the tank to win.

Yeah he's right Super Mac started out like Fred Pickering as a pretty average left back. Maybe we should try Williams up front ? He's really average.

I don't think he'll start tomorrow, I think Nuttall will.

Good attacking players, poor defenders.

With all due respect we don't want players who provide " competition " for existing players we want players who take the shirt and keep it. We've signed too many players who are just back up standard.

You can always count on Rovers to give struggling opponents a helping hand. I was there for the 3-1 home defeat two or three days after we won 8-2 away at West Ham, after that debacle you realise that anything is possible in football ! There was a cartoon in the Daily Express that Saturday morning showing a bloke selling cricket style scorecards instead of programmes outside Ewood Park ! I think the players believed that. We need to come out with all guns blazing, get our foot on their throat and keep it there. We need to be thinking we're playing Burnley not Ipswich. Will we ?

Position -yes, happy. Squad - not really happy. Performance - not happy.

1-1 draw for me also I'm afraid. I'd love to see us slaughter a team but the way we play doesn't lead to us making enough clear cut chances to slaughter teams.

You know better than that Jim, it's 11 versus 11 on Saturday. That's all that matters. I ended up playing on the losing side in plenty of games were we were going to win in a canter. If your mental attitude isn't right before you know it you've handed the initiative to your opponents and it's not easy to get it back.