Miller11

Hopefully long enough to get a goal. Better starting him and hopefully getting our noses in front and subbing him off once he’s knackered.

Lazy argument and untrue. He was never the quickest but his movement is a lot cleverer than most. Bringing him on when they have shut up shop like they did yesterday was never going to be easy for him, but he offered miles more than any of the front three that started.

I like the look of that! My nephew likes to watch the warm up from the front of the Riverside pre-match and we stood right in front of the shooting drills. It was frightening to see. Only one player looked a remotely competent finisher - didn’t miss, clearly had better technique than all the rest, every type of shot hit the back of the net. That man was Bradley Dack.

Funny how the only time we managed to get the ball in the back of the net was a header from a centre back. I’d have put Leonard on as well (a lot earlier than Tomasson did). I thought him and Sorba Thomas were effective when they eventually got on, but I’d have thrown Ayala up top too as we were desperate for goals… if nothing else it might have encouraged Hyam to knock one long instead of playing one-twos with Pears in Brittain in injury time.

I wish we’d chucked Ayala up top last night

We play some dreadful stuff at times that is painful to watch too. And how often the good outweighs the bad is very much up for debate.

What constitutes “good football”? Passing it round but mostly backwards to no avail? Despite what TV pundits and viewers would have you believe, the point of a game of football is scoring more goals than your opponents. Good football = goals. What’s good about what we are doing?

Project Crewe mark II

I’ve seen people elsewhere advocating selling them, even going as far as saying it would be “exciting” due to some naive misapprehension it would give us money to spend. It’s probably the same people still maintain we got a good deal for Raya. They obviously play far too much football manager.

I’m also struggling with the idea of it being an enjoyable season too. The events of Tuesday night will haunt me for a long time.

That was infuriating. I was disappointed when I saw the front three was unchanged, I was fuming at the start of the second half after Dolan, Hedges and Brereton all put in wretched performances and remained on the pitch. Knew he wouldn’t make a sub until we went a goal down. Thomas made a positive difference but Dack was massively up against it with Luton parking the bus at that point. Both should have started, not bringing them on at half time was inexplicable. Pathetic performance from Travis. What was the point in bringing Brittain on? Leonard on far too late. Is Hyam completely thick or is he playing to instructions with his insistence on passing it around at the back in the last seconds when we are desperate for goals? The same happened on Tuesday. Aside from this he’s dipped generally. Again we try to walk it in for the vast majority of the game. JRC and Pickering having our best attempts in the first half sums up how toothless our forwards are. Minor miracle now needed for the playoffs. It should’ve been so different.

The biggest driver is without a doubt fear of missing revenue targets. There is absolutely no appetite for risk and they won’t gamble on selling more with reductions across the board. Not since they pushed catering out to Sodexo. They seem happy bringing in a potentially limited but guaranteed revenue via the easiest path.

Every time (and there’s been a lot) we’ve mentioned the numbers that Preston have shifted to Waggott, the response is always “but they haven’t generated the revenue we have”.

But still won’t have been to Wembley!

The constant attempts to walk it in are driving me mad.

This was tagged into the pre-match email for tomorrow. It’s really annoyed me. 1. On initial inspection it looks like an error 2. the “based on 10 payments” is snook in on the top corner, no asterisks next to the advertised prices, no “per month” underneath 3. The figures are wrong. My payments are actually £38.10 because of the stealth booking fee they add to all tickets. My first payment which I’ve just made was £80.20 because it also includes the fee you pay to the finance company

Rovers need to stop looking at what other clubs do and figure out an appropriate response for our situation. You’ll struggle to find another club whose gates are as low as ours in terms of percentage of capacity, which tells us the offering over recent seasons is not attractive and we need a radical new approach.

Months ago everyone was saying they hoped we weren’t going into the games against Luton and Millwall needing anything, and here we are.

You seem reluctant to acknowledge any flaws with Broughton at all which is quite astonishing considering the (non)events of the January window.

I didn’t mention and don’t really care that much about the administration problem, though he certainly bares some responsibility for the fiasco as does Silvester. We’ve had a better midfielder than O’Brien in our squad all season who we haven’t utilised enough. It means absolutely nothing to agree a deal until it’s signed and sealed. Broughton gets no brownie points for trying but failing, he doesn’t get any for Undav scoring two today either. He was clearly expected to bring in a striker in January and he failed miserably.

It’s naive at best to assume a deal is done before it’s signed and ratified, so it’s no excuse at all. Broughton should know better and there’s no excuse for his failings in January.

Dack has 180 minutes to prove his worth, though that might be difficult from the bench. I’m clinging to the hope of a Dack inspired fairytale end/extension to the season. That would change the outlook somewhat, but as things currently stand I expect both will be off.

Leaving the O’Brien debacle aside, the biggest issue is Broughton’s miserable failure to bring in a centre forward. Sob stories around players “going back on their word” are just bad excuses and people need to stop making them. Likewise people claiming “it’s difficult signing players in January”. Bollocks. Other teams manage it. He had time, he had funds apparently, he has failed in the most fundamental part of his job.

It’s got a 103rd minute Amari’i Bell equaliser written all over it.

Another point I forgot to add… The club introduced an international flexi season ticket this year apparently off the back of loads of requests from fans. They thought there was heavy demand based on what supporters were asking for, but they sold 2. I get the sense this has added to their reluctance to try more novel approaches.