pikerman

Thanks Blanco lunch time Guinness is not good for the brain😆😆

Gilbert comes on looks up and plays a cracking cross into the box for Lath to rescue us a point and his reward is to be sat on the bench again. The lad may be useless but unless he is given three or four games to settle in how will we ever know, training ground stats are fine up to a point but some players just do not progress until they are on the big pitch

Oh that was a peach of a cross by Gilbert onto Laths head get in

Our game plan now appears to be to keep the score down to single figures

On paper that looks like the weakest team cobbled together this season, Southampton must be clapping their hands in glee

That unfortunately was a typical game between us and Blackburn not entirely sure how it finished nil nil mind. Might as well just enjoy the rest of the season now and try and sort out who is worth keeping for next season

The dreaded 4 2 3 1 is back and it seems to have passed the initiative to Blackburn and out tired legs are starting to show

The Forss injury knocked us sideways and the fizz went out of our game plan. Chances at both ends but we are struggling to find space in the centre. Other thoughts, Matt Clarke and Engel having good games but Carrick really must stop Ayling rushing upfield as there is no one coming back to cover him

Our three centre halves are being pulled all over the place by Blackburn as our midfield and Ayling have gone shooting upfield at every opportunity, great if you score but it leaves us very open

I was trying to be open minded then remembered Rotherham, Plymouth, Bristol City and others. You adapt a system to the players you have not try and shoehorn players into a pre determined formation that quite clearly they are unhappy with. The five at the back isn’t pretty but it has at least given us a solidity which we were missing

Please Carrick don’t revert back to the 4 2 3 1 we don’t have the players to make it work and we will get picked off again

To echo the rest, Birmingham are at the best average and we really should walk away with three points. RVB just seems to be getting stronger and better each game, Ayling running up and down the right like a spring chicken and really looks to be enjoying himself. Latte Lath has so much potential next season could be very big for him he must be a nightmare to play against with that pace and strength. If we score the next one the Blues will crumble

Credit where credit is due, Carrick set us up today to be much more competitive and then upped the anti in the second half and we got the rewards. I thought Howson today was excellent along with Clarke but really there wasn’t a bad performance out there, real Jeckll and Hyde stuff watching this team

Well we seem more organised at the back than the other night but it is a hugely scrappy game with Carrick apparently ditching his footballing philosophy and playing long balls up from the back Warnock style. I reckon first goal wins this

3 at the back 4 at the back or 5, it makes no difference until you sort out the midfield cover in front of them. We were appalling in that first twenty minutes against Norwich and it all stems from the same problem not having midfielders who compete for the ball and who repeatedly get the wrong side of their man. Hopefully Carrick will have seen what we all saw on Wednesday and has had time to adapt his tactics otherwise I fear the worst today

My reading of last nights events exactly RR, up until the sending off we were on a battering, the flat back five were penned in and we were overrun in midfield. Norwich just seemed to capitulate after that, our full backs pushed up McNair stepped up into midfield and they were left not knowing what to do. We badly needed those points and hopefully the transfusion of confidence that win will bring but we really need to find a settled way of for the rest of the season that we can slot players in and out of

Phew we needed those three points you could almost hear the air hiss out of the pressure cooker when the third went in

What a strange half of football, we were getting tonked until the sending off and then the goal just breathed oxygen into us to a point where we started to pass the ball and looked a yard faster. More of the same in the second half partly so that I can gloat at Ashley Barnes , I can’t stand that bloke

This formation we are trying to play is just not working we have given them the midfield and it is just a matter of time before they score again, 0-0 has gone now is the time to change things

Add Ayling to that list and I would be quite happy to never see them in a Boro shirt again. I can’t believe how angry I still am after Saturday, I can take defeat and players having an off day but strolling around picking their collective noses with hardly a sweat stain on their shirts is not acceptable

No Greenwood, no Thomas and no Barlaser, no more than they deserve after that pathetic performance on Saturday.

And there it is the inevitable second I just can’t see where this team is going to get another point from, I think Carrick is done after this

I told you Barlaser is just a liability get him off

Our heads are down now and we have stopped looking for the ball and moving into space, this really is not good enough as stoke are a really poor team

Transfer market via his Leicester valuation, beggars belief doesn’t it