Rovers Midfield

As the DFP says - with Rowe, Crawford, Whiteman, Blair, Beestin and Ben Khemis in contention for three midfield berths we should manage without Kane, but lets hope we don't have to. I do feel a bit sorry for the latter two as they are both very good on the ball but I suspect they can't sustain 90 minutes of lung-busting pressing. Tuesday was a master class, with Blackpool being hunted down all over the pitch.

The main thing about introducing the "reserves", like Beestin and Ben Khemis is that the pace of the real games must be difficult to replicate in training and (I hope) that is the reason why Beestin looked so sluggish in his first sub appearance. Crawford seemed out of his depth in his first League game at Southend, but he looks more up with it now. After his lay-off even Rowe needs time to get up to speed.

I think that the point is that McCann quite rightly demands full commitment; he does not like those who drift around passing the ball sideways. McCann's style is the polar opposite of Dickov's players and approach.

So although there may be potential on the sidelines no one could come in and provide even 50% of what Kane gives us and (excluding Rowe) to get 75% of what he gives out of any of the the others from the those in reserve would be as much as we could expect.

Kane did indulge in a bit of showboating on a couple of occasions vs Balckpool and I do not think that is desirable unless you have say, a 3 goal lead.