Mantra

Got that nervous can’t sleep feeling before a game, first time in a few months. Got a massive chance to make a statement here, 3 wins on the bounce and beating a team in automatic promotion spots would show we mean business. but having gone 2 games without conceding a goal makes me feel like it’s time we conceded one, and if it’s an early one I fear their tails will be up and may score 2 or 3. Can’t help but feel they’ll test Trafford much more than Ipswich and Shrewsbury did. wouldnt mind us switching back to 4-3-3 for this game, we were all over them in reverse fixture just couldn’t finish our chances. however, they’ve improved and we’ve changed our team a lot so probably largely irrelevant. Definitely take a draw but big, big chance for us to turn our season around now.

Most Rotherham fans place Sadlier as a 10 rather than a winger. A player that is technically gifted but lacking defensively and can score from long range and good on set pieces. Seems like Sheehan 2.0 if you ask me but he can also play wide.

We know they ain't the richest owners in the country, never mind in League One. Lost a major source of revenue and took out a loan to cover it which most agree values the club at a higher than expected price. Let's not forget we've dropped 400k on 2 players in the last month. They're doing a good job so far, crack on.

Buzzing for this one. Both teams trying to attack. They'e just signed Jack Clarke now to add to Patrick Roberts, so two tricky young wingers. Heard they might be in for Defoe too. Hopefully their new signings are lacking match fitness or struggle to gel with their new teammates. Going to be a hard one but I back us.

Midfield depth is MJ, Morley, Lee, Thomason, Darcy. 3 seniors and two young. Could do with one more senior in case one of the seniors get injured. Obviously Dapo, Xav, Delf, Kachunga could play in the '10 role', but just thinking about players that can play central/holding midfield.

Fair play to Mowbray they didn’t look that great when we played them preseason. A strange road back to the PL for them if they make it. Venkys somehow stumbled onto a decent season.

Saw this today, Wigan paying almost double our wages makes that 4-0 loss a little easier to stomach. Well, it doesn't but context..... I guess. Charlton and Doncaster underperforming for their wage bill. Sheffield and Ipswich going to have to make substantial cuts if they don't go up this year, surely. Cambridge, Accy and MK Dons doing well considering theirs. We're under performing slightly, but hopefully not for too much longer. Mad how far we've fallen that we apparently pay less wages than Burton, Oxford, Wycombe.

Just noticed that Blackburn are third, how they done that?

Mad how everyone can be in agreement that the Kane "foul" wasn't a foul yet VAR does nothing. VAR is better than it was at the start but still a long way to go to get it right.

They can't advise to give a yellow can they? Only to change the decision to a red, or reverse a red. Is stupid though

Sunderland game is the first of a run-in that sees us play 9 games in 28 days. Saturday/Tuesday every week until Feb 26th. Huge chance to build momentum and this is probably the toughest one in that run. If we can win this, we'll have gained a load of confidence for the next few - Cambridge, Morecambe and Charlton who are all very beatable. COYW

Yeah definitely need to build confidence before we can implement that sort of style. The squad upheaval and getting promoted into a harder league are also factors into why it's not worked as well as Evatt might've hoped. Perhaps with a stable season in League One under our belt we'll be better prepared to implement it next year. For now, just need to keep grinding out the results and it's good that Evatt is prepared to go against his principles somewhat to achieve that.

Don't wish to tarnish the match day jubilation thread with my thoughts on Evatt-ball. Buzzing to have snatched a last minute winner but just got me thinking about how we've had our best results when we're not playing the free-flowing, expansive football that Evatt wants to play. We've had a handful of wins where the Evatt-ball performance has also been there. Crawley 4-1, Charlton 4-1, Ipswich 5-2. But we've had far more where we play Evatt-ball and the results don't follow... Sunderland, and Sheffield defeats spring to mind. And my memory of last season is the games where we dominated possession usually resulted in us failing to break teams down, concede shit, sloppy goals and lose. Same can be said of many results this season. Only after we changed shape, and got our defending right did we start picking up consistent results, but rarely were those results dominant performances. eg. last season - Morecambe 1-0, Salford 1-0, FGR 1-0. I think we can add Ipswich 2-0 and Shrewsbury 1-0 to that. We still play much better football when we grind out results than we did under Parky but gets me wondering if we'll ever see a run of games where we get the @Zico "click 5-0". I think the squad hasn't been strong enough at the start of both seasons under Evatt to effectively play that style and win. It's one thing dominating possession but it's another thing to not "fanny around at the back" and to be incisive and clinical when teams counter that tactic.

Swear he's always like that with goals, very little emotion

Shrewsbury definitely had a better performance than us, first half, if not overall. But don't think they made any huge chances