Cantwell is having a stinker.

Agree Buckley is poor but that's a generous take for Cantwell. He needs to stop pissing around when he gets it if he's deep, gonna cost us a goal.

Cantwell lucky the offside flag went up there, needs to pick a different area of the pitch if he's going to fuck around with the ball like that. He nearly got caught in a similar position a minute earlier.

Not imposing ourselves at all so far. Will have to play better than this.

At least he's up against Beck

Yeh seems odd to me to have him, Forshaw and O'Grady Macken on the bench. Don't they all play basically the same position? But only one CB and only JRC (who can also play CM) who can play another defensive position. We had 3 CBs on the bench in the cup (overkill in the opposite direction). Litherland injured?

Seeing Buckley starting makes me nervous.

Yeh he moved weeks ago to Ohashi's old club.

I guessed it was gonna be Burnley...good lad, endearing himself quickly! Needs better taste than Lynx Africa and Drake though.

He has a job getting them there? It's over halfway through the season and they're 1 point outside the top 6 with the same GD as 6th. They might have injuries but they still have a strong squad and the job is half done.

By Tayo did you mean Tosin Adarabioyo? I actually didn't think he looked that bad, just didn't look ready yet. Ungainly, not sharpened his decision making, and Harwood-Bellis looked much better, but I could see the potential. Felt he may go on to have a Shane Duffy sort of career (minus the being a bellend part). But I'm certainly surprised how far he has come this quickly.

Probably a lot more confident and understanding of the senior game since then after regular first team football in Scotland. I'd have hoped for that sort of effect with Garrett and O'Riordan if they'd played regularly, but we've wasted 6 months for them both now. If Markanday can carry his League Two form into League One, maybe he can surprise some people in the summer. People are quick to forget how much football is played in the mind.

Wow, I didn't know that, that's ludicrous. Is that a rule or just elitism?

Might depend a little bit on which Diaz showed up and if Armstrong has learnt how to pass to teammates. But in theory, and injuries permitting, yeh we could walk it with that side. Our defence, at least with the way its organised, is one of the best in the league. Our CM pairing is one of the best in the league. With those attackers added in we would have the pace and finishing to be utterly lethal on the counterattack. Our only remaining weaknesses would be keeper (I'm sure I'll take flak for that but currently Pears is an average Championship goalie for me, who is having a mostly solid/good season with a great defence in front of him, but isn't a top 6 quality goalie) and cover for CM. That aside, we would be pretty rampant. We have far more professional clubs and more money than Spain too, that's inexcusable.

You should be saying which way is right - it's clearly theirs. There's a reason no English manager has won the Prem.

In that league they might have occasional use for someone who is just a strong, fearless, aggressive lump. Agree, Sanderson is already clearly far more athletic. He also seems to be fairly strong, fearless and aggressive. I'm sure time will reveal the flaws in his game that have seen him fall out of favour, but so far I'm definitely happier with him than I would've been with Hanley. Maybe we'll even come to regret not making it a permanent while his stock was low...or maybe we'll be glad it was just a loan. That's why an option would've been nice.

Random musing, and no sense crying over spilt milk and all that, and I'm certainly not suggesting it's possible, but I reckon if you added Armstrong, Diaz and Szmodics to this team, we'd be challenging for the title.

Wonder whether they're up or down financially from bringing him in to replace Sanderson. I'd rather the player we've got though. I wonder if we've been sensible enough to put an option to buy in there...wait, answered my own question when I used the word sensible.

Dolan will only walk for free if a foreign side signs him.

I'd be pretty pleased with my guesstimate if it's out by 0.5 or less either way. Still, I might need to be right more than once to make a career! Good. They've been on a crazy winning run so I feared he might struggle to get his first chances. Lets hope he hits the ground running then.

Of course, I only mean in that general vicinity, but also I'm mostly just knocking up numbers for fun. Will be interesting to see if it's anywhere near accurate, but football seldom works like that. He could as easily score at a better rate for Chesterfield as he could go on to not score at all for Orient in just a half season where who knows if he'll even be given much opportunity. Our other League One loans have gone dreadfully this season, hopefully this one is better.

McFadzean meant to be likely to be heading to Chesterfield. It will surprise nobody if Siggy is sold this window, but if he actually is injured then I doubt he'll be going anywhere til summer. I won't. I have no real feelings on BTA one way or the other, apart from his goals record looks a bit too slim for my liking, I just don't take Lampard's views one way or the other as mattering overmuch.

A team in a higher league may be paying a higher wage contribution than Chesterfield were, yes. Although I'd imagine it's at least as much to do with testing him in a higher league. For potential resale if nothing else.

Markanday's goals record for us is 1 in 7 (5 goals in 35 games). For Chesterfield it was 1 in 3.4 (7 goals in 24 games). Using that incredibly basic and scientifically unsound gauge, you'd expect him to land about a goal every 5.2 games playing at a level inbetween the two. Lets see if that ends up being ballpark. (Completely ignoring that 4 of his 5 for us have come in the League Cup not the league, and that the vast majority of his games for us have been off the bench, as I can't be arsed to calculate all that...well ok I did it anyway, adjusted for 90 minutes, he essentially averages about 1 every 8.38 full games for us in the league going off just last season and ignoring his tiny cameos in prior years, and 1 every 3.34 in the league for Chesterfield, so you'd expect about 1 every 5.9 games in League One).

Markanday loaned out to playoff-chasing Leyton Orient in League One https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2025/january/16/markanday-makes-orient-move/