Tyrone Shoelaces

He needed to work the goalkeeper at least, their guy had a similar shooting chance and put it in the top corner.

Yes that's true. Long may it continue.

That'd be great. Let's hope we can bring a couple of players in who will definitely improve the team. We'd not be far off then.

I don't agree with you about the cock up late on, Bennett should have taken charge of that situation and put the ball into row Z. He did well to rectify the error by throwing himself at the subsequent shot. It's a bit worrying that we got completely undone twice by " ale house " balls down the middle.

I think the mayhem has subsided to a certain extent and Mowbray has to take most of the credit for that. However it's a bit like living with an alcoholic, you never know when they'll fall off the wagon and the craziness will start all over again.

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.