Did the prediction thing in the LT which is actually from the Mirror. The advantage/disadvantage of the game is you don't see the league positions until all the games are predicted. In my guesses Rovers finished 4th 4 points behind Boro and 6 points ahead of Coventry and Norwich tied 7th. Luton 5th Millwall 6th so the Gregg Broughton Derby in the play offs. Dingles get the new points record and Sheffield United comfortably make 2nd. The one surprise was Blackpool overtaking Cardiff and surviving. Deliberately didn't enter any crazy results so I guess the outcome reflects the relative difficulties on paper of the remaining fixtures.

Venkys Quietly subsidising the club up to FFP maximum. every season Letting management manage Giving management a long term framework now. They might not make perfect selections of personnel but Swag and Mowbray are dramatic improvements over what went before at Rovers under Venkys and I would put both in the top quartile of Championship management Putting a vision of a sustainable Premier League club and sufficient oomph behind it to attract Broughton and JDT The Category A Academy and the only non PL club in PL2 L1 although we need to up our performance to stay in that league We are not alone in having players and management leave at end of contracts. Judgement calls. Other clubs sell players during promotion pushes and pay huge compensation to fired managers... Gibson at Boro. Coates at Stoke. Which other current Championship owners do you want? That is where my 90% figure came from.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/240912/broadcasting-payments-to-clubs-in-the-english-premier-league/ Last season dingles received £96m for coming rock bottom of the Premier league. That doesn't include parachute payments. Significant new media deals kick in next season.

Picking up 3 threads on here. Dack - no place for a player averaging better than a goal every 2 games when starting? Not arguing Szmodics isn't in the only place you could fit Dack and that Szmodics hasn't dramatically upped his game but Dack brings something we don't have a lot of- goals

No you wouldn't Think about it seriously

I would put Sheffield United at only 50% chance of going up despite 3 points, goal difference and a game advantage over Boro. Dingles to get very close to Reading's record points hall. Beyond that I am not tempting fate but one or other of Gregg Broughton's duo could make it. Current bottom 3 to drop.

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.