Then how has he kept some clean sheets, if he's worth at least a goal start for the opposition?

It doesn't sound like Hilton is any kind of answer, and the other keeper isn't available, not to mention is also guilty of continuing to make mistakes. I think the squad is running on fumes rather than not trying. But I do think some pragmatism is needed at times. There doesn't seem to be a Plan B.

Where are you getting 30 games since he left from? He has played 18 in all comps for Villareal (mostly off the bench of course) and 6 in 2023 for Chile, not sure how many of those were after he left us. Did you mean 20 or something?

4-0 away against QPR wasn't convincing? Or 3-0 Stoke? Beating Norwich 3-1 with ten men?

Amazing neither team has scored since it went to 2-1, especially Wolves. Nsangou nearly scored a spectacular goal from some 40 yards or so with the keeper off his line, and Wolves should have had 3 really. Some very close shaves.

Ref is soft as fuck. 2-1 now after a free kick out of nothing.

Gilsenan subbed off at 71 minutes. Presumably with an eye on him sitting the bench at the weekend. Him and Bloxham are players who always seem pretty decent to me on the few occasions I've seen them.

Excellent goal from Gilsenan. Thought the pass to him was over hit but he somehow stretched his foot onto it to leave the keeper stranded, did well to keep it in play at the byline and finish from a fairly tight angle.

Bloxham 1 nil. Didn't see that coming. He didn't mess around with the finish after we got a lucky break into space.

O'Grady Macken sent off for a second yellow. Must have been watching Brittain in the first team.

Not sure who Mullarkey-Matthews is either, first time I've heard that name.

I wonder who the trialist is.

This is one of the most telling posts on this thread. I'm sure even Chaddy would admit he is highly prone to taking the club's side on matters and finding a way to justify what they do. So when even he is criticising the move with such strong words as 'pathetic', 'daft and stupid', what argument can there really be that it's anything other than precisely that? Someone needs to get the higher-ups at the club to take a look at this thread. I haven't seen a single post remotely supporting this decision. With that being the case, why do anything other than reverse it? Any negligible savings in printing, posting and packaging will easily be offset by lost revenue from reduced sales, and then some. Stop cutting off your nose to spite your fucking face, Rovers!

No need. If you've been a Rovers fan since Venkys arrived, you've already had a savage beating.

That's not feasible. The manager isn't in charge of transfers for starters, that's been made abundantly clear. The policy of buying young and using youngsters comes from elsewhere, and the primary reason is that the budget is dogshit. If we can barely afford (or sometimes can't afford) to buy inexperience, how are we supposed to buy experience? Switching managers to someone who wants experience will just leave us with a frustrated new manager, or perhaps an experienced League Two side.

It's not entirely clear yet whether Siggy would represent brilliant business or risky business, given the inconsistencies in what we've had out of him and his injury issues. That's why it's the perfect time to negotiate a deal in theory. I think he hasn't been properly fit for most of his time here, and if he had, and had been firing on all cylinders most weeks, we would already be utterly out of the race to sign him, let's face it. Hopefully if we do sign him, he's on the verge of full fitness and about to smash this league once the deal is done. My only reservation is his stock was considered quite high when we brought him in initially, which seems to be when the 'deal in principle' was arranged. So I wonder how high those wages are, for a club who can't afford many players on high wages. It's unlikely his agent will want to climb down much, if at all, from what was agreed initially. But if we get him on reasonable wages he could turn into an absolute bargain.

Tbf Khan was exceptional there too. It was close between them. Believe Khan won the award, but being in a better team will help that. Duff was the best LW in the world at that point too for me.

I'm not convinced that's true. I feel like most come from counter attacks and nicking the ball off opponents who are 'fucking around at the back'. But I'd have to review all our goals to be sure. Certainly last night's second didn't, and though the highlights don't go back far for the first, even if we initially had the ball at the back it looks more like fucking around in the middle that created it. Be interesting to review how many goals we score as a result of playing at the back vs how many we concede from it. But I can't be arsed. It's also a little tricky because how do you define it as actually created from fucking around at the back rather than just we had the ball at the back at some point because that's simply how we play? There's also the big intangible it creates in terms of teams pressing up on us because of it, or even falling back because they don't want to fall into the trap. Employing it as a tactic changes the way space is used on the pitch by the opposition. But again, I'm not convinced it is a direct feature of more than half of our goals.

I give the player in space the ball. Whether they're beckoning for it or not.

I think we are good at it, and confident at it, so we feel we can get away with passing to marked players rather than it being a strategy as such. That complacency will bite us in the ass sometimes though, like with this one.

I'd be beyond astonished if that's how it's discussed in training after the game. It doesn't make a lick of sense in that situation to choose Moran as the receiver. We can talk all we like about drawing players out of position with riskier passes to open up spaces, I get the logic behind all that, but when a player is already in a very good space, how can that remain the tactic? Giving it to a wide player who has space to maraud down the flank is also another way to move opposition players out of position. I'm confident Carter will be told he made the wrong choice. I wonder if he simply didn't see the player out wide. On the replay from behind the goal he doesn't seem to look in that direction at all. If he did see him, perhaps he thought the Bristol player that checked his run and came back inside was going to keep going out wide (still a bad call even if he had though).

If you're in acres of space, ahead of the play, and don't want the ball, you shouldn't be on the pitch. It shouldn't take waving your hands like a loon for your teammate to think you want it.

I didn't see the whole match to know how he was passing all night, but within that moment, whilst he was a little clumsy with it and could have done better, it was harder for him to come through that situation a winner than it was for Carter to just make the sensible pass to the player in space. I like Carter but that was brain dead.

It's definitely way more on Carter (think that's who it was) for choosing the suicide ball to him instead of the easy ball to the unmarked lad out to the right. I also thought Wahlstedt was slightly culpable, although it should never have come to that anyway.

The only reason one was a goal and the other wasn't, is because Wahlstedt pulled off a good save.