I do hope there are some dingles in Malta at the moment. The editor who does the weekend football compilation video sent out on cable to all bars etc is a mad keen Citeh nut. He has only spliced City's 6 in between every other match highlight with each repeat shown from a different camera angle at the Etihad. And with it being international break it is showing 24 hours yesterday, today and up until kick off time tomorrow.🤣

Venkys are now more competent than 90%+ of owners. They were rock bottom but the last 6 years have been a dramatic improvement

Palace have gone back to Woy

Totally disagree, sorry. Clubs going up without parachute payments have a good track record of staying up if the owners are willing to put a good chunk of the Premier League dosh into player recruitment and the player recruitment team and football management are up to scratch.

Vale goals at West Ham and Norwich were pretty significant for Cup progress but otherwise has yet to really show at Championship level. Edun has been pretty decent consistently when he has come in. One sub par performance has got the crowd on his back a bit but I am sure he can do a decent enough job at Championship level.

A team with a good run-in forcing their way into the play-offs invariably does better in the lottery than one which has just missed out on automatic. Boro could end up in both categories this season! I should be solely focused on the Rovers but got a sneaking wish for Sheffield United to blow-up and miss out on automatic promotion for genuine points not collected rather than a points deduction.

Oops! But there you go- 18 regular seasoned first teamers plus another 5 who have seen first team football and been pretty decent

As I posted on the Championship thread, 9 games in 28 days to the normal season end for them now.

Perhaps I will be corrected but my understanding is the issue is the FFP limit, and we don't know if Venkys would pump more in if they could legitimately.

Apart from Boro, I don't go along with this "others have greater strength in depth" than us argument. Unless posters are referring to the mighty squads of Coventry, Luton and Millwall. Watford have amazing forwards but are a shambles for the most part elsewhere. Baggies on paper scare the living daylights but on the pitch are very lacklustre. And as for Norwich- here's to a Rovers treble over them. We are getting to the point of the season when making up a deficit of 4 points or more across an ever decreasing number of games is becoming a bigger ask. Today's disappointment is tempered by Sheffield United having to face Haaland without their City loanees and now needing to play 9 games in 28 days at the season end. Our squad isn't that miniscule. Assuming no training ground or international injuries, JDT will have Pears, Kaminski, JRC, Brittain, Ayala, S Wharton, Hyam, Carter, Pickering, Morton, Travis, Thomas, Dack, Szmodics, Brereton, Gallagher (16) to select from as players with a lot of minutes plus Edun, Garrett, A Wharton, Phillips and Vale (5 more) whom we know can do thorough reliable jobs before needing to select from Mola, Leonard and the kids. Accepting Buckley is out for the duration, that is not overwhelming riches but far from a bad situation to be in going into 9 league games and 3 play-off fixtures spread over 2 months.

Sorry to put a downer on everyone but I am predicting with absolute certainty we will not get 3 points today. Have a great time everyone and make sure you out-sing those Tykes!

Ahmedhodzic playing for them tomorrow will make Sheffield United a completely different proposition to the team we beat two weeks ago. He is the all round central defender then some. It is reported that Sheffield United have failed to pay Malmo any monies due for his transfer (as well as the Brewster instalment). But 13 minutes.. hey ho

Dolan is a bit small to be a keeper isn't he?

Today's results were far better for us than I had expected and much better than when I looked at the scores of games in progress mid-afternoon. Didn't ever expect to be going into the international break 4 points ahead of 7th. Ps can we borrow Haaland when we play the dingles?

Six and out.

I like the fact that if you give an empty football field in front of Szmodics he can race across it with the ball under control and lay off a decent pass to a player in space at the far end. Surprisingly few players even at Championship level can do that.

If Boro beat PNE tomorrow, league or cup will be a very live issue for our opponents on Sunday.

Definitely got to give Dolan a long term deal. 100 appearances already pretty well guarantees a transfer fee value. Great shame that Henley never kicked on from that great start but Dolan's two match wonder show is now 50 times longer.

Add Hyam and Carter to those two. Good problems for JDT to have with a manic April, May and hopefully, June, to come.

Palace are at Arsenal on Sunday who will be stinging about that Europa exit last night. Some freak results at the bottom on Saturday could make the bottom of the PL table look horrible for the board at Selhurst. By the way, I am not expecting Burnley to beat Manchester City but won't be surprised if Guardiola over thinks the game and give the dingles a chance. Fully expect it to be a narrow margin and City to know they have been in a game. The dingles keeper is likely to be the weak point.

I am sure our backroom staff have been watching those two epic Wrexham games against Sheffield United. Here's hoping we have the same spirit as those Wrexham boys on Sunday. Sheffield United were completely rattled by the non-league outfit.

Strong rumours in South London Palace are about to pot Viera and appoint Kompany. Seems very unlikely to me but there you go.

A little issue of a winning goal to get and then defend. With the best will in the world, even the best players usually take a minute or two to get into the game when coming off the subs bench and we didn't have that luxury last night.

February and March fixtures looked daunting when I was looking at them at Christmas. We have come through them far better than I dared hope.

Last night has placed a play-off place destiny firmly in Rovers' hands especially as 5 play off rivals have to play us. Get the same number of points as Norwich less 4, West Brom minus 5, Coventry and Watford less 6, Preston less 7 and Sunderland we can give an 8 point head start to and we can add at least two fixtures to the season end. Below that gets to conceding more than a point a game at which point we should be singing Tony Mowbray's Blue and White Army if we finish below Bristol City... The 9 last games divide up currently into 5 Play-off 6 pointers - Luton and Millwall are so late in the season they maybe just play-off rehearsals - Norwich, Coventry and North End are likely to be absolute MUST WINS.. for our opponents which could make for red card and injury risks. Given how we have counter attacked recently, could be fun games to watch. 2 against Birmingham and Hull who could slip into a bit of relegation bother so will be keen to make themselves absolutely safe Huddersfield who are in heaps of relegation bother and fighting for their existence And then them lot which is best viewed as null points but a free hit. Not going to predict individual results but it is going to take injuries, and/or a regression to slow football by Rovers, and/or at least two other clubs going on a long run of wins to see us finish 7th or lower.