"I am sick and tired of, IMO, all the 'slow build, evolution, on a journey' cr@p from Mowbray that sadly some, including our owners, seem to buy. IMO, it's merely self preservation stuff from Mowbray." Mowbray has said enough in the past two years for me to understand the slow build up was to delivering a promotion drive this season. He has been given incredible time and support from Pune so he has to deliver starting at Luton - that is assuming we don't wake up a week on Saturday to find 15 players in quarantine.

Likelihood is he caught it at Rovers. The entire squad and staff should be tested.

Rovers games averaging 3.06 goals per game so far.

I am not looking at 2001. I am looking at today. Our season starts at Luton as fingers crossed we will only have 5 absentees as opposed to being without double figures of players in all our most recent games. We don't know whether this squad is good enough when at anything like full strength. All we do know is that with a rotating half a first eleven out we have generated W4 D2 L5 F21 A15 and kept in touch with the leading pack. Based on performances to date, if we play Luton, PNE and Barnsley in the remainder of this month with essentially our first eleven minus only Dack and Travis, we should be looking to collect a minimum of seven points and when those two are back we SHOULD be looking at promotion. Reading Mercer's post above we are pretty well saying the same things. The only difference is I am sitting in my shorts, teeshirt and flipflops.

Glad to have sparked a debate. I said he could- not he would. There are perhaps half a dozen 17/18 year olds in world football you would rate ahead of Harvey today. You will be really struggling to name more.

In business, you have to ignore sunk costs- it is money that is gone.

Brockhall getting a deep clean and the analysis staff all quarantined. I would certainly do a blanket test before anyone is allowed back this week.

I desperately hope we will be turning to making one or two signings capable of keeping us in the Premier League by the time January comes round. The present squad really ought to be in the too good for the Championship category now but I wouldn't put any of our current players today automatically in a top half of the Premier League starting eleven whereas you might select one or two each from Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich. But I think our squad overall is top end of the Championship quality if we get our enforced absences down to five or less per game. Translating that to names, it would mean being without Travis, Dack, Bennett, Butterworth and Evans (apparently it is a bad hamstring injury) for Luton and welcoming back availability of Ayala, Bell, Douglas, Holtby, Vale, Downing - have I missed anybody? Having Travis and Dack back at their very best should put us in too good for the Championship level on the field if not in the dug out... The huge advantage is our players are predominantly young- Saturday's starting eleven averaged 23 years of age and was the youngest in this round of the Championship. Thoughts?

It is true. A lot of us were nervous about Brad when he signed. Clearly a significant upgrade but Brad had had a few horror shows in his Anfield days.

I just want Dack back at least as good as he was before the injury. In this benighted season, odds are there won't be a selection problem fitting him in because of covid/injuries/suspension unavailabilities.

Hopefully Bradley Dack taking one of the 11 starting slots squeezes Evans further away from getting picked. If Evans manages to push all except two of Travis, Johnson, Rothwell, Holtby, Trybull, Buckley, and potentially JRC, Elliott and even Brereton (as an alternative to Rothwell) out of the first eleven, good luck to him!

Matter of opinions- I am projecting the rate of improvement forwards, not a plateauing of where he is now.

Elliott has both the ability and nous to be cute. Watch him, he doesn't have that much body to body contact with the opposition because of his speed of thought, anticipation and breathtaking ability on the ball plus range of passing and intelligent running off the ball. An unbelievable talent who will go on to be among the top half dozen player in this country and perhaps become a globally important player.

I am sticking my neck out. But I think the league is going to be very competitive all season. Norwich, Bournemouth and Watford for sure have players who were very comfortable in the Premier League but then other clubs have outstanding individuals too. We have played two of those plus Reading, Swansea and Boro with at least 8 players Mowbray should be able to call on in the reverse fixtures unavailable and we have certainly not been embarrassed. Video footage of the other clubs above us doesn't frighten me either. And if we are unhappy with our position, what about the much fancied, PNE, Cardiff, Forrest and Derby below us. OK here comes the rub- It is going to be as big a challenge making 2nd as 6th. If we are genuine contenders for the play-offs, I think that will by default also mean we are challenging for automatic promotion as well because I can see there being a bunching up at the top this season rather than a top two parade. The gap between 2nd and 7th is currently 3 points with a quarter of the season gone.

If he doesn't follow up with the ball gettable, Kaminski would get rightly criticised. The QPR player was cute in how he positioned his body and most times the officials won't see it as a foul in the resulting melee.

On the current rate of progress 1) Ben is finally playing with confidence and self-belief 2) In a fully fit Rovers squad with everybody available, he certainly gets on the pitch in the 14 players used and I would start him in every game against a bottom half team likely to park the bus against us. 3) Come next summer, it is now easy to foresee Ben having a market value at least the equal of what we paid for him. All we need to do is call them the BEA or BAD and based on Brentford's experience the £20m+ offers will come rolling in... If that's your thing.

We have just got Brereton to the level he is in the Skybet Team of the Week and then contracted to sell him...

Crazy crazy at Plainmoor. Torquay 5 Crawley 6 Final score after extra time. Crawley scored their first goal on 83 minutes. Torquay's equaliser in "normal time" came in the 21st minute of added time...

Worth remembering that the Venky's have been really difficult for the bidding clubs to deal with when bids have been received for players they didn't want to part with.

The key is having a forward threat that overwhelms the opposition defence with problems. Ben no undoubtedly adds to their headaches and having two players who can run through you with the ball in Brererton and Rothwell allied to the creative passing of Holtby and Elliott is going to continue tearing oppositions apart. Having those four on the pitch together with Dack and Arma is a salivating proposition. Quite how you do get all six on at the same time I don't know but Ben has added defensive maturity this season so it might not be kamikazi football to try it. We could be seeing Ben taking on an Elliott style rotation including midfield duties but then where does Travis fit? If we get Rothwell Holtby and Ben to up their accuracy in strikes on goal then some unfortunate club could get hit for double figures this season.

Jury out on this season and that is all that really matters. 1) I am not looking at any game thinking Mowbray cost us so far this season. Equally I am not looking at any points gained because of managerial wizardry. 2) if he keeps it that way, then it is a function of the squad being good enough to get us up. I certainly think it is at least good enough to be in contention and that is down to a superb summer window so thumbs up Tony for that 3) we have had at least eight players unavailable every game so far this season. We are still in contention so that is creditable. You can't judge Mowbray adversely on our current table position BUT 4) Starting at Luton Mowbray will have the majority of his massive squad available. How he sets them up in a winning system, selects his 18, his 11 and uses his 3 subs is all about Mowbray. There is no hiding place. Every game hereon in has Mowbray totally exposed as the Manager.

We almost at the point of taking him for granted but Elliott was very very good again.

What a relief getting three points! We were always the better side but delighted/relieved we weathered the storm they generated middle of the second half and scored two lovely goals to secure the win. Rothwell and Brereton were the players with the eye catching performances. Great to see Armstrong fully mobile. Nyambe was very good apart from one horrible loss of possession which lead to the corner which lead to the penalty which lead to the goal. Nobody had a bad game and Kaminski clearly commands the back in a way Pears can only dream of. Lost count but even with Rothwell, Kaminski, Johnson, Trybull and Grayson back I think we still had eleven players unavailable with Evans the latest casualty addition after two minutes. Hugely happy with the international break for once. I think could be down to only Dack, Travis, Bennett and Butterworth being out by the time we go to Luton which will feel like our season starting all over again. 8 points off top 7 points off 2nd 5 points off 6th The damage of the recent weeks could have been far greater than it has turned out to be.

We have the beating of QPR but when we are in advanced positions the movement by players off the ball stops instead of speeding up the way you see Prem League teams play. We don't hurt teams by pushing on when in possession well inside the final third which means we are playing in front of defenders instead of behind them. At the very least there is a sending off to be had if we gamble a bit more. Has the feeling of Dieng having a man of the match performance. We are not being clinical again.