Deeg67

Port Vale, doomed to relegation from League 1, into the quarters. What a strange game this is.

Don't forget the laughably obvious Chelsea handball in the box that VAR naturally ruled was fine.

Pretty woeful but I thought that was the best Ricardo has looked for ages, actually.

If it's about shoehorning both into the lineup I'd sooner use Mukasa as the false nine.

How about Mukasa as a false 9?

Skipp has consistently been better than Winks this season. Winks is the guy who goes to the reserves for JJ IMHO, not Skipp.

Maybe time to recognize that Phil Parkinson must be a pretty decent manager. Wrexham spend aggressively for every level but it's not like he's doing this with Messi and Ronaldo.

Weak link in the side, sadly. Desperately need Vesty or Lascelles back to pair with Nelson (and eventually both to rotate with Nelson).

He's 100% going on loan to a PL or European 1st division side next season.

Vesty and Lascelles won't handle two matches a week for long even if they get healthy, so there'll be opportunities for Nelson either way.

They stole him from West Ham, had zero to do with his development.

The key for Rowett will be getting Jannik and Lascelles back and established as the CB pair. Will it happen, who knows - both old and injury-prone but they're the best we have. If he gets the pair of them healthy his track record shows he can patch together enough defensive improvement to survive. Mukasa had a goal, an assist, and three more shoulda-assists in about 20 minutes. He's clearly a difference-maker at this level. With the likes of Mukasa, James, Ramsey and even Reid around him (eventually) we can clearly score enough goals to stay up with even modest improvement defensively.

James and Ramsey should be pretty close. If you have those two plus Fatawu back I don't see how you justify one of our horrendous strikers in the starting eleven. Find a formation to fit three of those and possibly all four.

Vesty and Lascalles as the CB pair would help, but who knows if that will ever happen.

For all the abuse he takes here, Vesty is badly missed right now.

Goal, assist, and should have had three more assists bar comically inept finishing. What a talent - he may keep us up on his own.

That backheel from Divine, man... Great strike by Winks but wow.

That aged well.

Mukasa is going to be a special player.

Absolutely baffling to me that any neutral could root for Chelsea against Wrexham.

That's the gist of it. "A manager at least" is, sadly, the best we can do at this low ebb but it's still better than status quo.

Vastly experienced and not atrocious. Anyone disappointed with this move is totally detached from reality. Rowett is the best we were going to do given how toxic the job is. Is he as mid as it gets? Yes - and for LCFC right now, that's like A-5 Kobe beef, not hamburger. His one job is to keep us up and there was nobody more likely to do it who was going to take the job. Survive. Stay in the Championship until some miracle happens and Top has to sell the team, or somehow a competent DoF gets hired. Then you can get a better manager.

Yeah, that was a belter. Birmingham unlucky, they were the better side.

If Dyche would take it (which I doubt), sure - he gives you the best chance to stay up. But even he probably hasn't fallen quite so far as to want the job.

The wait is over.