Has to be the same team in my opinion, there could be temptations to bring in Johnson, Dolan, Ayala if fit, Elliott etc but I would go same again and have Ayala and Johnson over Carter and Chapman as subs if available. Has to be a game we win, if we fail to we are just again back to square one.

The obvious thing with Wharton is that he is definitely a level or two above the other young centre backs that have played in the last couple of years. When Magloire, Carter and Grayson have been given a couple of first team games, they have looked like boys rather than men. Wharton has clearly massively benefitted physically from playing nearly 100 games of senior League football. Regarding Douglas, it was logical based solely on Bell's performances since he signed that he was not a competent option to bring in to try and improve the team defensively as he cannot defend one on one. Especially if it was specifically to negate the threat of a player who he played against in the same fixture last season and said player scored 2 of 3 goals! Whether Douglas is good enough defensively, we cannot be sure at this stage but he certainly appears (as did Cunningham) to be levels above Bell who is lucky to still be at the club.

Now the key is consistency and also winning games we are less comfortable in, your season doesnt tend to be determined by how you play on your very best days. We are still down in 10th and 4 points from the play offs with a game extra played and I dont feel like we are genuine contenders while we have such a deficit so we need to put an elusive run of wins together. We have won 5 from 13, none of which we won by a single goal and maybe slightly less so v QPR but in the games v Preston, Wycombe, Coventry (who all went down to 10 men) and Derby we blew them away. In the other games we have been poor and/or have always felt at arms length from our opposition yet havent been able to ever add further wins and indeed seldom even single points.

Needs to score with much more regularity to start asking a question regarding any sort of value but I cannot believe the improvement, very pleasing.

Fantastic performance and result but not half as enjoyable not being part of a packed end of happy supporters.

Never to the extent that Bell will be a more favourable alternative though!

Brilliant performance and easy win v a dreadful PNE. Think they need a change as things seem to have gone very stagnant there. Thought Douglas was superb, any notion of playing the useless Bell seemed illogical and Douglas seems a considerable and needed upgrade. Kaminski could have sat in the stands, Nyambe was good on the right with one superb pass in the first half and both centre backs were equally good, Wharton deserves his praise but equally on the back of a poor start to the season, Lenihan deserves praise for his return to form especially guiding the younger Wharton. The front 3 were quiet for 40 minutes but Gallagher did brilliantly to get Rafferty sent off which changed the game. Great to see Brereton get to 3 goals now and really look like a different player. Rothwell was fairly ineffective but came to life for the second with a superb individual run and assist, Holtby controlled the game and showed realy quality and class and Trybull was much more comfortable deeper. The subs had it very easy with the game as it was when they came on but all did well and great to see Dolan score after great contributions from Elliott and Brereton. Today more than ever, not being in the ground and instead watching batter Preston only on a stream in an empty stadium did massively take the shine off I have to say. Presume I am not on my own there.

It is very unfair to question Armstrongs attitude at this stage, he was anonymous on Saturday but I dont think that it was him being moody or lazy, and the game before he got 2 goals, top scorer for a side in the bottom half suggests that his performances cant be questioned, and he certainly shouldnt be moved to accommodate a player as average as Gallagher.

I get that there would be a hit to the integrity (similarly with only now introducing extra subs) of the competition but for me that is not a reason not to deny fans from attending as soon as is allowed. This is such a unique situation and fans havent been at grounds for 8 or 9 months, as soon as it is possible and even if it is not widespread across the leagues. We cant have fans especially considering that they will have bought season tickets to be still unncessarily sat at home in spite of being allowed to attend for fear of a slight advantage to be gained dependant on location. If you are in a Tier 3 area, its unfortunate but the emphasis should be getting as many people in stadiums as is allowed as and when that happens. Any competitive advantage will be blunted with proposals to not allow fans to sing anyway. Regarding whether it would be "worth" Rovers opening as and when they can have 2k fans in, surely there is no choice, I and a couple of thousand others have purchased season tickets that I expected to be honoured as soon as is possible/feasible. Otherwise they shouldnt have released them on sale to begin with as attendances were always going to be reintroduced with restrictions initially.

The thing with Armstrong though is you cant argue with his numbers, the bad games can be accepted when his overall contribution is so vast. That is the frustration with quite a few players for me, they fit in with this same narrative that we are about to suddenly string wins together and get into the top 6, that the best is yet to come without much evidence of that actually materialising. You look at Brereton and Rothwell as 2 examples, both will be in everyones teams tomorrow, both have got plenty of praise, both have got attributes of being good players, but even now at a point when both have started to establish themselves, neither are contributing enough tangibly to be important attacking players for a team in the top 6. There seems to be an article or a quote about Rothwell every week in the Lancashire Telegraph on how he "knows" that he needs to get goals and assists, or how when he does get one that this can kick start a run, but it never really comes about. My team would be: Kaminski Nyambe Lenihan Wharton Douglas Holtby Trybull Rothwell Elliott Armstrong Brereton Subs: Pears, Carter, Bell, Downing, Buckley, Gallagher, Dolan, Davenport, Chapman The 2 changes are obvious and they both improve us, Nyambe is a better right back compared to Rankin Costello and Holtby coming in will give us more balance. I hope he doesnt meddle any further and bring in inferior players like Gallagher (despite his goal at the weekend) and Bell. Centre back is a worry with Wharton there, we could do with Ayala back but Preston arent the most prolific team in the league, until the play us usually.

Statistically? Defensive output? I have seen using my own eyes since Bell signed that he is a poor defender, you even said yourself that you arent a big fan, stats dont prove or disprove that, one on one Bell very rarely excels against anyone. He often stands off, he rarely prevents crosses coming in and hes been a weakness in our team since we got promoted. If Douglas is worse defensively than Bell, or indeed if he individually would cause us to concede at least 2 goals simply based on his own lack of ability to defend against a bog standard player like Barkhuizen/Barky, then he really is an appalling signing. I would like to think that it isnt the case. My issue with this suggestion is two fold. Firstly, I dont think that having pace necessarily gives a player the upper hand and in Bell's case, it doesnt seem to help him defensively, Downing played a few games last season at left back and invariably did better against quick wingers than Bell even in spite of his lack of pace because he had the intelligence and the positional sense to counteract his own weakness. If a full back is not fit for purpose against a quick but average wide man then he isnt fit for purpose full stop. Secondly, I totally disagree with making individual selections especially of inferior players to counteract the opposition and based on specific skillsets, its over thinking things, its counterproductive and it goes back to one of Mowbray's historical weaknesses in which he over thinks things and ends up tricking himself. I think it was Oldham at home when Mowbray was laughably bigging up their random right back as a danger, he ended up playing Bell on the left wing in front of Williams and we ended up 2 down at half time before changing it. That doesnt mean that against the divisions best players that I dont respect their qualities but even then, I would suggest more subtle tactical tweaks would make more sense than to play inferior players. Similarly last year off the back of an impressive win against Brentford, you suggested that we should bring in Williams I think for Downing and should change things up to try and counteract the physicality of Gregory and Vokes. We went unchanged and we won rather than compromising our own skills whilst overthinking of how to target average players. Again against Wigan you suggested dropping Downing because of Jamal Lowe's pace, Mowbray played Downing and Lowe didnt have a sniff. There is also surely the obvious flaw in your theory too, that Barkhuizen scored 2 and Preston scored 3 last season, who was our left back? Amarii Bell!

But Bell cant defend, which totally reverses any benefit that his pace might provide. Douglas had a good game and has a far better calibre than Bell, I cant fathom why you would play an inferior player, intelligence trumps pace every time. You cant start changing your full backs anytime they come across a pacy winger, its the same as last year when we went to Stoke and you suggested making changes to counter Lee Gregory, or when you suggested dropping Downing v Wigan who had Jamal Lowe, really average players who do not warrant us making specific changes to counter act. If you get into the habit of playing inferior players in fear of players of the standard of Tom Barkhuizen then you know that you are miles off.

I get that, the reason that it didnt sit right with me is because everyone at the club publically accepted relegation before it happened and I refuse to accept that such an attitude was necessary as much as I understand prudence and not taking risks with finances. Even if a team insists on spending absolutely nothing upon promotion, you can still attack the Premier League with a bit more ambition without writing the season off before it starts.

They might well go back up, but it still wouldnt justify their own chairman and manager saying publically that they had less than 5% chance of survival and throwing in the towel before a ball was kicked, sapping any hope from a season of Premier League football. They could have given the Premier League a proper go, whether that was by not spending as they did but just having a better attitude or indeed spending shrewdly and prudently on players that wouldnt break the wage structure, in an ideal world they could have stayed up and been 10x better off, but also safe in the knowledge that relegation was something that wouldnt pose any risks. The problem with endorsing such defeatism is that it assumes that the only other option is to take a massive risk and buy a series of over priced and aging players for massive sums, when there is a happy medium. The money that they have spent this summer on players like Hugill and Dowell hasnt particularly improved them either.

Yeah I certainly wouldnt be watching that back.

Refereeing performances in the Championship regularly provoke criticism and blame.

A very good summary of Rovers in 2020, giving away a needless soft goal, flattering to deceive, fairly disjointed and ultimately found shifting the attention away from our own failings by blaming officials. The decisions at the end were undoubtedly questionable, the Brereton one to be honest he was looking for as he often does but the Armstrong one seemed a definite foul, but lets not fuel a narrative that it cost us the game. We should have had a free kick, I cant remember us scoring a free kick in the League since the Mulgrew days so the chances of getting a winner would have been a small, and a red card at that point would have been fairly immaterial. We drew because we didnt play very well, because we conceded a stupid goal, because we didnt play particularly well and we didnt create many clear cut chances. Many players again would struggle to get beyond maybe a 5 or 6 out of 10. That is now us 7 points away from the play offs, we cant accumulate points at a top 6 rate without having over 2 wins worth of points to make up just to catch up. We are loitering in the bottom half yet there is this illogical assumption that we are not far off going on a sudden and uncharacteristic run of wins. Performance wise, Kaminski again was very comfortable in goal. Douglas I thought looked a huge upgrade on Bell, Rankin Costello on the other hand was poor in both directions and although his injury is unwelcome, Nyambe is the better right back without doubt. Lenihan was fine I though, Wharton can defend although he is really poor on the ball and there were once or twice that it played us into danger. The midfield balance was all wrong, Trybull is so ponderous on the ball and didnt impress in a position he doesnt suit. Johnson wasnt particularly influential and his booking was totally needless and costly. Rothwell tried to take the game by the scruff of the neck but mainly it came to nothing, same with Brereton. Elliott was really poor I thought and Armstrong totally anonymous. Gallagher did well to sneak in to get a goal from a clever Douglas knock down. I just find it frustrating, we dont seem to be going anywhere, I cant shake this feeling of stagnation, I question both the manager and the players and for me blaming the referee is just a smokescreen and an easy place to shift blame to cover our own failings.

This has been absolutely terrible. The front 3 totally anonymous, Rothwell the only player with any urgency but often with minimal end product, Trybull no better than Evans in that role and Whartons lack of quality on the ball nearly costing us once or twice. Production values have been particularly bad too, showing needless replays and missing attacks and just some dreadful camera work. I dont think overall its been too bad this season but today its been beyond amateur. Commentators talking their usual nonsense too.

Another goalless and drab draw in the Championship tonight, we are the exceptions in the league this season with our goalscoring and our flimsy defence.

Where is it from?

Yep groundhog day is certainly an apt phrase. Indeed it has a "Hoilett will sign in 24 hours" vibe and the fact that deep into November that he is still pleading with the owners to do the contracts shows how disorganised they are. I have never seen from Armstrong or Dacks persespective as to why it is in their best interests to commit at this time rather than hold off, and Nyambe at particular we should be at a stage where we are very close or have already signed or even been rejected.

If you think about it though, there will be families etc using the same passes when in normal circumstances they would obviously have seperate tickets, that will bring the numbers down. Many will be on furlough or worse so will be down financially. That might lead to people not buying or even seeking free alternatives with less disposable income. It is almost impossible to feel at least an element of detachment as if its going through the motions and the experience will be much worse. More season passes may have been sold had Waggott and co had any modicum of common sense. We are again loitering in mid table. So many factors. The one thing I dont understand is why the delay is such an integral factor but it seems that even more trivial issues such as that and production values are a deterrant and at the end of the day especially in these circumstances it is totally understandable why people are not willing to part with their money for an unavoidably inferior product. I have got a season pass and buy the away games but it isnt the same so it is understandable.

Obviously it is nothing like being in the stadium, but if that is the case, you wouldnt watch away games in normal times on TV, you wouldnt watch full re runs or even highlights or via the red button if its as cut as dry as that.

I think Travis would be more likely to replace Rothwell rather than Johnson, Johnson albeit inconsistent has performed far more than Rothwell and I dont think Travis has the tactical discipline to have Holtby and Rothwell running off around him, I think it would be restrictive.

Must win game this weekend, we need to go on a run having already considerably lagged behind the top 6. The injury situation is unfortunate although its the same across the board sadly. Teams arent at full strength across the board and a few (Evans, Ayala, Williams, even Nyambe) are just injury prone players and we cant hide behind these too much. Assuming that Nyambe and Holtby (why is he doing the media if he is unavailable?) miss out and Kaminski is fine to play, would go with: Kaminski Rankin Costello Lenihan Wharton Douglas Rothwell Johnson Downing Elliott Armstrong Brereton Subs: Pears, Grayson, Bell, Trybull, Buckley, Davenport, Gallagher, Dolan, Chapman