Hmm, I thought surely there is no chance he goes to Derby. But if they are going to officially approach him, surely theyve had some encouragement. Either way, he is clearly not happy here.

He wont go to Derby, but theres no coincedence that hes linked to every vacant Championship job.

Its depressing that the first thought is the financial benefits though. We are football fans, to win an FA Cup would be something that you remember fondly for the rest of your life. It likely would never be topped in the next 50 years. It would be better financially to get promoted, however theres nothing to suggest the owners would suddenly be willing to sell up. We would likely go up and back down and would be better off financially (or at least the owners would be) but does that outweigh the memories of winning the FA cup? Every game isnt a cup final in the Premier League. If you was to win at home to Palace, it wouldnt feel half as good as winning a cup final. Even if we won at Old Trafford it wouldnt.

Exactly. They wouldnt swap that FA cup which they will remember forever as the pinnacle of supporting their club just for another season on the gravy train. You arent going to tell the grandkids about that season you avoided relegation.

Watford fans said that he had a bad attitude when he had his unsuccessful loan spell there last season. And please dont tell me that you dont care what other fans think, I know you dont, in this instance you specifically asked. I definitely didnt say that we didnt need a left back. We do need one. The positions we have signed players in are the ones we needed to be filled. But... The timing of the signings was terrible, most done right at the end of window with only 15 league games left, when we have continued to lose game after game in the meantime. The lack of match sharpness is a concern coupled with the timing. Dennis and Woodrow in particular have played very little game time for so long. Getting them up to speed when we have only a third of the season left is a problem. The quality is debatable and the jury is still out. It feels like it was a case of getting who we could in more than anything else, it didnt seem well planned and cant be hence the registration issue. We badly needed immediate cover for our main 2 midfielders. We failed there. We have brought in attackers and some pace in 2 of them, but 2 of the 3 we signed have not done very much in a number of years and the third has only really excelled in Serie C. We can only hope at least one or two are game changers. And the fact that all but one are short term sticking plasters is another concern. Thats what you get when the owners dont give a shit.

Are they likely to put a second side out? Went basically as strong as they could at Bristol City. Cunha was banned. Obviously one is certainly not happening and the other almost certainly isnt happening any time soon either. But one of the Rovers pages put up a poll earlier, would you rather win the FA Cup or get promoted. I found it incredible that most preferred promotion.

Im sure we will get lots of people saying they dont care but I would really like to win and it is important. I would make a few changes and start all the new players as we havent time to ease them in with cameos, there are 15 league games left and they have to be better than Hedges, Dolan and co. Some of the defenders in particular could do with a rest but we dont have the options without significantly weakening ourselves. Beck is carrying an injury and Travis is just back so they are the 2 I think should be prioritised. Toth Brittain Hyam Batth Ribeiro JRC Buckley ACD Woodrow Kargbo Dennis

Wont be missed. Mind you, a couple of others on the list are in the same boat.

Its the sort of window you expect when again the owners have refused to reinvest any of the considerable sales proceeds. Loads of desperate temporary bodies at the end of the window when their parent clubs had little choice but to accept minimal wage contributions. They are only available for 15 games and will eat into that getting up to speed. Dennis is understandably the most eye catching but its easy to lose focus of the fact that since a decent season 3 seasons ago, hes done nothing since. He has scored 6 goals in that time. There are also question marks about his attitude and he certainly isnt the ruthless goalscorer that the manager wanted. Expectations drop as the window goes on to the point where we start to expect no one at all. So when you bring 2 strikers on deadline day, regardless of any likely impact, people get excited. Its all down to the owners. Could £1m and probably not that much in combined wages have been spent more efficiently? Perhaps, but we needed so many positions simultaneously and we havent adequately filled them all, notably in midfield. I would suggest that the players that Eustace is most keen to get into the 11 arent any of the new signings, its the likes of Tronstad, Carter and Ohashi who will all be rusty themselves.

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Its not in any way a criticism of Eustace. But I struggle to see a "decent enough" attack capable of getting us onto the play offs. We are reliant on cobbling an attack together with the new players as the likes of Hedges and Dolan arent up to it and Cantwell has not provided the quality we hoped we were getting, instead regressing week by week. Dennis is a talented player but has never been prolific, will take time we dont have to get up to speed and has not really done anything since that spell at Watford a number of years ago. Woodrow isnt going to turn the dial much and Kargbo is an unknown quantity. Our current position is a result of results predominantly earnt through our defence, with a run of 6 wins on the bounce doing some seriously heavy lifting, when we kept 5 clean sheets on the bounce. Since then, the midfield duo that was key in protecting the defence have both suffered injuries, Tronstad still being a few weeks away, and we failed to bring in sufficient cover. Pears has reverted back from much improved to liability gifting goals away in most games, and the defenders themselves possibly partly due to that lack of protection in front them and the keeper behind them coupled with fatigue/injury niggles also seem far away from the solidity they showed earlier in the season. To suddenly spin from 8 points in 11 games to maybe 28 in 15 games is a huge ask.

But, but...you had a couple of weeks notice. Eustace said after the penalty against Leeds that he hadnt allocated a penalty taker and judging by the nonsense after both awards in the last week, that hasnt changed. Eustace should pick a taker/an order depending on who is on the pitch to avoid any arguments.

Nope, I dont have belief or faith in us getting into the play offs. Might make me a lesser fan in your eyes. Dont think the players we have are good enough and Eustace is obviously doing a good job but hes not been given the right tools. You look at the league. There are 2 teams a point behind, 3 more are 3 behind and a further 3 are 4 behind. All of them have a game in hand bar QPR. So to make it, we have to be in the top 2 of a group of 9, so its going to take some serious points. On 45 now, usually takes into the 70s, so if its not 2 points a game it will be just off. And now to us. We have 8 points in 11 games. That not a sticky spell, thats more than that. The midfield is key, we arent half the team without Travis AND Tronstad in it. Buckley and Forshaw do not provide adequate cover and Tronstad is still out for a bit. The defence is looking leggy and isnt well protected with Tronstad out so we are struggling to keep clean sheets. Pears has reverted back to a liability making regular mistakes. Our attack has been poor all season, even in our 6 game winning run we were usually winning 1 nil. Expectation that these new signings will make the change, but youve got players who havent played in a while, the manager is quite cautious, and they need to gel, so any ideas of a suddenly exciting and free scoring attack seem pie in the sky.

That team would be ripped apart with only one player in midfield.

They shouldnt be bickering before a penalty and it has happened before. They should know the taker in advance. It would require probably an average of 2 points per game from here on in. Well beyond this squad. Even if those 3 transform our attack, too many points have been spurned waiting for those deals to be done. Pears has gone back to being a calamity, our previously solid defence is anything but and without Tronstad the midfield is all at sea.

8 points in 11 games. Play offs arent happening.

I never said he was. I dont fear him either, West Brom just have a better team and squad.

We wont make the play offs, we will scrape the odd game to feel like we are still in but weve seen it all before. We have been massively boosted by a 6 game spell where we conceded only 1 goal and everyone was playing well beyond their usual level. To be here now is one thing but a typical spell of terrible results means that there is a considerable cluster of teams all trying to be top 2 in a mini league. To try and get to the play offs, over 15/16 games we will probably need to consistently play at top 2 level to finish top 2, ie 5th or 6th. The usual standard of players is revealing itself. Pears has reverted back to being error prone. Our defence is no longer rock solid. Our midfield is off the boil without 1 of only 2 Championship levels midfielders that we have. And now our consistently poor attack cant get away with nicking 1 goal a game. No one can see a win at West Brom and unfortunately a Mowbray/Armstrong combination might feel like the hammer blow.

Got what we deserved, nothing. Hedges, Dolan, Buckley, we know they arent good enough. Pears in recent weeks has reverted back to an absolute liability and our defence in general has stopped being solid and now can have rings run around it by average players. It very much feels like a season destined to fizzle out. Another loss nudges us right back into a big pack of teams.

Hedges, Dolan, Buckley. Abysmal.

I think if you are specifically targetting the recruitment team then you have a fair point. My personal frustration again lies at the feet of the owners and the lack of funding. Im not expecting comparable budgets to some above us but equally I find it impossible to compartmentalise the budget and the success or failure of the window. Im annoyed that again the lack of budget may not have provided the manager with enough but hopefully this time will be different. If he does achieve it its in spite of them. Within those restrictions our last 3 managers have managed to massively overperform and some of our recruitment has defied the budget considerably yet in the past never enough to sustain a top 6 finish.

You are using exaggerations and misconceptions to paint people into being negative for the sake of it. Some of what you say is beyond paraphrased to the point of being made up. The response to Weimann signing was quite positive as a squad player who can score a goal which he has been. And Gueye and Ohashi were greeted with quite a lot of intrigue and excitement themselves. They certainly werent written off as crap when they signed. And the football manager wonderkid generation line again is totally baseless. The primary frustration is with the owners for not giving us the money. Its a seperate argument to question whether we have got the best out of our tiny budget, but ultimately the question is, have we got enough to get into the play offs. If we do manage to make the play offs, our biggest hope lies in Eustace who does seem capable of getting a team to outperform its individual ability as you say. We have never made the play offs so the recruitment has never been right before in hitting our target. Down predominantly to the budget rather than the skills of those on the football side.

He keeps giving the ball away, including in the build up to the Oxford goal. And he lacks the mobility to get about the pitch.

Hard to excel in limited game time but I dont think his performances have done anything to suggest that Plymouth were wrong to not want him.

Do you think those 2 teams have had better or worse windows than us? If you had to put the 3 clubs in order of the business done, what would it be. Boro for me have undoubtedly had a better one. Latte Lath is a big loss, but Iheanacho is obviously a far more eye catching signing. They have also added Whittaker and Iling Junior which blows us out of the water and their attacking options are really strong. You love Giles, im not convinced by him, but Travers is a very good signing who should help them to concede less goals. Overall, they end the window miles stronger. West Brom are obviously reliant on the Armstrong deal. They have spent big fees on 2 players who I know little about and also have loaned Lankshear. The keeper is a loss even though the one theyve recalled is very highly rated and has done well in League 1.