From what I have seen so far, the Leeds attack could do serious damage now 40m Rutter is at his level while Leicester are the only set-up who might run away with it. If Southampton changed their Manager and defence in January, they would have a very strong second half to the season. Hopefully not. Hull play decent football as we have seen at Ewood while Birmingham have impressed with their play if not their results. Sticking my neck out but I haven't seen any other Championship outfit play the way JDT is setting up Rovers. We are exceptional at missing easy chances... (even if we have netted 20 in 8 games this season)

Until the Southampton and ten man QPR games, Sunderland results were nothing to write home about. Hoping for the win but no idea what JDT will do with the front line nor what the result will be. Should be a cracker of a game though. Swag's woven grass pitch is supposed to drain better and be far more resilient in heavy rain than conventional pitches so I would beyond stunned if there is a serious doubt about the game going ahead. Would probably need the Swag bus doing hand-break turns at Ewood to get it postponed.

Ipswich did absolutely nothing to win that game as Southampton gift wrapped the 3 points for them. Southampton offered no sustained pressure in the second half and a better team than Ipswich would have murdered them - like Sunderland did. Southampton giving the ball away and playing into trouble caught the eye but Ipswich are a bit sloppy as well. What needs to be noted is Ipswich are a team of giants.

Watching Southampton v Ipswich. Ipswich should be at least 3 ahead on Southampton gifts (Hirst badly missed one). My worry about this one is it has less venom that a walking football pre-season friendly. I fancy our Sunderland game will be a full bloodied affair yet Ipswich not only have an extra day's recovery, I doubt there is so much as a bruise or a graze on their players at half time and nobody will be anywhere near being out of breath. For a so-called passing team, Southampton are statues making it easy for Ipswich to pick up the mistakes off the player on the ball. Southampton being so woeful makes it difficult to assess Ipswich but I have seen nothing to worry or scare us.

The answers to the ? are the litmus test of the skills of Gregg Broughton and team and of JDT. PLUS of the 7 individuals to work hard building physical strength and adapting to JDT ball and Championship opposition. I think both Moran and Telalovic were a bit shell shocked from fleeting Rovers TV glimpses of them at the end. Compared with the other 5, Tronstad and Sigurddson have regular football at higher levels behind them but the Championship poses its own challenges. If we get all 7 up to standard, it's going to be a very competitive squad.

If Swag policy is to alienate the fans, he couldn't be doing a better job. If he is sending a visual and aural message to Pune, he couldn't be doing a better job. If he is undermining his own position with the two sets of people he depends on, he couldn't be doing a better job.

Burnley v Man U on Saturday. Shame both can't lose.

Will we be over 20,000 on Wednesday night? Only 15 years ago we would goa complete season without a league crowd of under 20,000

Watched extended highlights of the last two Sunderland games and they come to Ewood on a 4 game unbeaten run. They will be the best side we have played to date this season. Players are above average for the Championship and their two new central defenders could turn out to be a bit special. They punish weaknesses. A Russell Martin defence and 70 minutes of 10 man QPR had 8 put past them combined. So long as we cut out the errors and misses which have cost us dropped points, JDT ball should prevail. They look vulnerable to recycling attacks. We will be a bit different from what they have faced so far.

Just reflecting and we haven't yet played any team that was better than us and all the points dropped have been self-inflicted. If I can repeat this refrain after the QPR game before the next international break, we might be on to something this season irrespective of shopping in the remnants bin...

Will be some recoveries if Gally and Trav are fit. Can see JRC starting in midfield with Garrett and Telalovic leading the line because he is a bit bigger than Leonard. Moran or Dolan is a toss up. Should be a good game and hopefully JDT knows Mowbray never has a plan B.

Exhausted after watching that! We don't do easy... But we got the 3 points again and this JDT side has the resilience to see through a tough last 30 minutes. Officials- oh dear. It was a penalty in my opinion Dieng scything through Dolan's pirouette. And as for the linesman on the Jack Walker stand. He even had the markings of the 6 yard box to help him. Crooks 2 yards inside, no Rovers player except Pears either in the box or even parallel to the line. And he missed 3 bad fouls on Rovers players. Dolan didn't score in the 2nd minute not because he is too little but because it was a horrendous header. Dolan didn't score in the first minute of the second half because his chest trap was horrible. That said, Moran sadly showed JDT was right to start with Dolan. It was also a rude welcome to the Championship for Telalovic who didn't look as greased lightning as his build-up. Thankfully JRC was fantastic when he came on. Phew, thank you for the 3 points and the walking survivors stagger onto Wednesday night.

I have an accounting and finance background and I cannot see any scenario in which the last 13 years make any sense to Venky's from a wealth improvement standpoint, no matter how convoluted the corporate structure (it is very simple compared with many I have seen) or creative the tax accountants. The Rao family is plenty wealthy enough to take the 7m seizure on the chin and fund Rovers up to the FFP maximum. Either they have finally lost patience or, taking what is being said at face value, there is something else making Indian investigators unhappy or appeals are in process making sending money to VLL ahead of judgement dangerous and/or provocative.

Great to see JDT in such an upbeat mood in his Rovers TV interview ahead of the Boro game!

This one is worth watching for how Adam Wharton handles Lewis O'Brien on its own.

If Pears isn't dropped after his Plymouth performance, I will seriously worry there is something wrong with Wahlstadt

If we are still in contention, which I believe we will be, after - a £5m cut to the transfer budget mid window - a 15% cut to wage budget on top of already one of the smallest budgets in the Championship - a block on signing players over 27 Broughton and his team are miracle workers. And sure the DoF is going to undermine the entire football club by saying on Rovers TV the squad is weaker! What planet are some people on? Despite the 3 early signings, the reality is we have scarcely seen anything of the 7 new players and we are 7 games into what will be a minimum of a 50 game season. We can't meaningfully offer supporters' judgement until after the forthcoming 7 games in 22 days including some pre-season bookies' favourites for promotion.

30 minutes for Sigurddson is the stand out for me. I had worried we were going through this 7 games in 22 days coming up with no prospect of seeing him.

Everything in his background says he is a punt who was a long way down Greg's shopping list. Sometimes punts come good spectacularly. Everyone at Rovers deserves a big lucky break. Let's hope he at least has a Jon Stead like instant impact.

As far as I can see there is nothing to clean. You can put a few ribbons on her but she is still what she is. If they are preparing an exit, the very last thing they would have done is precisely what they did do this summer. This summer budget cuts smack of a knee jerk emotional reaction to the Gary Neville pad punishment. And that was caused by some creative description 12 years ago which was never corrected and caught them this summer.

Surname Rao so the new director is family possibly/probably. Is he Balaji's son? Have you looked at some of the owners in the PL? The Raos have nothing to worry about on that count. Swag has a changed landscape within which to operate. Beyond that there is little to see or say at the moment.

Palace won 9-1 on Saturday. That will be a test against the league leaders.

We have hardly seen anything of any of the players who have come in so we have no idea what sort of a window it was. Just a case of get praying... Bloxham looks promising though

We know Venky's got clobbered in India by the Indian Foreign Exchange Authorities for misrepresenting the purchase of Neville Palace as a chicken investment- for all we know there maybe chickens living there. We know we were given totally misleading reasons for the budget cuts- and that is being charitable. We know Gregg has not given his usual post-window interviews and frankly that says far far more than any interview would And we know we have gone from having a project to not having a project. Beyond that we are utterly in the dark. It is a bit difficult to keep a thread going about nothing..