Remember after an utter dire first half at home in the early part of the season with Buckely in same position and thinking how on earth could we score or win. That game it was 0-0 t half time. Second half, up pops BB with a goal out of nowhere and the goal totally changes. Hmm. Buckley should be off for being a prima donna as someone mentioned (or 2 yellows.)

Glen and JHrover –thanks again for useful posts. Sorry, this is a bit late and I realise the discussion has moved on but I’ve only just managed to get to this thread now. Thank you one and all for some fascinating psychology and entertainment on the Rothwell thread and this one. As Bankend rover said…. haha maddness...It seems like the only fools here are us posters. Indeed. As I said, a lot of hot air. 😃 So have the fleckle-spitted, vein-popping, 70s pub player neandertals taken their blood pressure tabs –all that wasted anger. I wonder if they will boo Joe if he appears. (Oh no, just abuse his partner on social media.) Presumably, all will be sweetness and light with some Mogga spin and the Rothwell effigies cast aside. Do they still want our Trav to lay one on Joe or break his leg? Or perhaps just leave him to get on with helping us get promotion? Incidentally, the idea of Trav as hard man is laughable. Really? Just a thick gob wind up merchant. Most amusing watching him strut around the pitch on match day offering his ‘wisdom’ to fellow players. (And for the record, bear in mind that I think Travis is at times the kind of essential water carrier that all teams and us need.) On another tack, I’ve thought for a while that Ben’s goal spree won’t continue. Angered my wife by suggesting he won’t get more than 8 league goals next half. Seriously hope I’m wrong. Rothwell has been improved by Mowbray. Really? Yes he was plucked from the bench from Oxford (well done) but do you really think Mogga can improve the skills of a player? Any player? Teach him all he knows about being an old time defender? We have overachieved thus far. I have no confidence that Mogga has planned this. Stumbled upon it maybe. Still, gotta enjoy it while it lasts. Go on, I’ll do a Jim –not a relegation thread but midtable mediocrity again. Tony to be thanked and potted. Prove me wrong lads. 😃

JHRover, glenM and Rev –thanks for the sane posts today. I see the battle for the control of the narrative is well underway. Effigies being rolled up, scapegoats manufactured, excuses made. 😀

Hmmm I don't see anyone suggesting he would cause us to lose out on promotion, Best chance of going up in a decade and he purposely unsettles the team. Got to go down as one of Rovers biggest ball bag ex-players. he's got mere months to wait and he's just potentially ruined our first opportunity of getting promoted If we slip up he's going to take so much shit for this. Also where has anyone said he's not good enough? Get rid immediately, get someone in better. He's an inconsistent tw*t anyway. Or he could be a bad egg that we need rid of. Fuck him, he's not irreplaceable Callumrovers Good post. Rochdale_rover Is that you Waggott?

Oh dear, apologies if it was somewhat unclear. Perhaps I should spell it out. I suggested that it wouldn't take long before fans were out suggesting that Rothwell was going to cause us to lose out on promotion. so the third paragraph of my post was a quote proving just that. My 6th and 7th para prove the ridiculous contradictory nonsense statements on here. My final para was meant to suggest the amusing irony of fans in one breath moaning about Rothwell leaving and in the next saying he wasn't any good in the first place so good riddance. Ie as revidge pointed out fickle and nonsensical. I do hope that is clear enough for you.

islander No.

Glen9. Cheers –several good posts. Some tosh on here- Rothwell didn’t refuse to play. Whichever way I look at it, it’s shithousery on Rothwell behalf, letting everyone including his teammates and himself down when the club is in second place in the league and promotion a real prospect. There you go –Rothwell (who according to many is average at best) is now the reason why we will not get promotion. Plus a load of Neanderthal macho crap on here. Leave one on him. Jeeze. If darragh downed tools I'd bea amazed . . Rothwell is a shithouse . Darragh in the past hasn't always been the best but a shithouse he is anything but…. ……Darragh down-tooled when we got relegated and Sheff United wanted him….. And now loads coming out and saying he wasn’t good enough anyway, let’s get rid. LOL.

Good post glen9 Shock horror. Club comes in for player with big money. Player wants to go. The worst thing for me about this is that it will give 'uncle tony' (and fans) excuse for losing out on promotion.

Lots of hot air here. Players don’t play for a shirt, they play for money and their families. Players like to be respected –Mowbray has never shown complete faith in Rothwell, particularly in previous seasons. Players respect coaches/management teams who can improve them. Rovers will take £6 million all day long. The rest is propaganda.

This site has around 30 people posting regularly Waco, it represents less than 0.1% of the Rovers fan base. I can assure you that the vast majority of Rovers fans are enjoying the win tonight, against an opposition that have spent way beyond our means, its a very good win, an impressive win. Onwards and upwards. Tosh. Utterly outplayed 1st half. They looked sharp, fit, nice passers. We looked lethargic and like a team trying not to lose. At home. Body language was poor. Buckley getting the hump because he didn’t get a couple of fouls in the tackle. (Travis too.) Pathetic. Even worse when he had to go to rightback. But but…for all their play, Reading had no shots on target (think that was the same at the end of the game?) And I thought that at the end of the first half we could go on to win this tragic game if we had any ambition. Sure enough, we come out second half, clearly with more energy and press high (instead of acting like an away side in the first half by sitting in our own half and trying to hit on the break by some pathetic long ball stuff). Rothwell does his thing, gets a little lucky by falling over and scrambling the ball against the post only for Gallagher to score a goal when he couldn’t miss from 1 yard. Dolan, lively all game (who on earth here is talking of his poor play) then scores a lovely curler. Cue us retreating again (fair enough) to sit on 2-0. Van Heck was excellent (do people watch the game game as me?)/ Defending strongly. On lovely strong piece of defending at the back, nice pass forward to Dolan for a break who crosses left foot to far post for Brereton? who nods down for, guess who, van Heck who has sprinted forward and almost scored. Those who are chiding him for missing are missing the point – he created it and wasn’t content to just sit at the back but galloped forward to try and get the goal. Class. So. The Mogga failed by any measure last season and remained in post. Let’s see. Will we finish above last season? Travis man of the match? He is a thick player who is slow of thought and looking for a scrap. Good at playing it sideways and back though. Next, it'll be that the ref cost us and was utterly biased.

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the demonstration of why we will be a mid-table mediocrity (at best)under this regime.

Jack Straw, Henry Winter.

Based on this, football will become like the C of E - a habit for a dwindling number of people who can’t quite remember why they engage or why it matters.

Armstrong fee £1.71m (value now £14.4m) So it ‘could’ be argued Mowbray has some credit in the tank. Gallagher transfer fee £5m (value now £2.25m) 29 app 5 goals Brereton transfer fee £7m (value now £3.6m) 31 app 5 goals (Goal stats current season in Championship) Sackable dealing imo. Ivan Toney transfer fee 5m (value now £16.2m) 34 app 26 goals Armstrong will surely go to cash in. Will the money be used to sure up debts or buy players? And if the latter, do you trust Mowbray to select well? I don’t.

Dolly blue. Sounds about right. You can hear the narrative being tweaked and massaged and that we will have to endure from now through the close season. Uncle or Father Tony will steer us through, not his fault, circumstances beyond his control, bad luck, no money, the Venkys. Yuk. Stuck with him sadly. Funny how that 'bad luck' has followed him from Celtic to Coventry and now here. And curiously, top sides seem to make their own luck which is often good. Or is that a grand conspiracy of refs, linos and big money? 😉

Rovers under Mowbray - a masochist’s paradise. ?

A perfect Rovers post - it’s the hope that kills you.?

A word on Rothwell. When I first saw him, thought class was clear - first touch, quick, keen to go forward, ok without the ball at closing down. Thought some initial comments on here a while ago seemed harsh . Then he had that outstandIng game at home (standing ovation, mom) and I thought we were in business. With regret, I have joined the ‘flatter to deceive’ brigade. Still think that a good manager could get inside his head but who knows. Shame.

bazza/benhben Agreed. Any sane Rovers fan knows we have long-standing off field ‘issues’, are not the richest ( but really don’t think we can complain at this level) and so on. But all known excuses aside, I fail to accept that Mowbray has done anything other than underachieve - certainly in the Chumpionship. Cook, with our players, would not have lost that game. Mind you, he would not have squandered £12? mill on two strikers who don’t score. Incidentally, I’m sure I saw on TV, in the last 10 mins I think, Mowbray in a shot in the background on the bench with hands on head, rather like one of those chimps in the old tea advert as they move the piano (tea Mr Shifter?)

This result tells you all you need to know about the Rovers team and Mowbray. Third time in a row I’ve seen us lose to an inferior Wigan side. Told the missus during the second half as we were playing some reasonable stuff that Wigan would win.

The trolls on this thread are as boring and unimaginative as Mowbray. ?

Looked to me like Gallagher in his usual clumsy fashion fouled the defender. A trier though.

Mowbray transfer dealings sackable alone. Five year’s worth of cash for any other team wasted. Could live with that if it were producing/improving. Work out the cash/goal ratio for those strikers. Abysmal.

Dack injury, watch carefully. Morsy’s hip smashes into knee as he bundled Dack out of play. Not obvious. Rovers too polite. What is that chimp thing Mowbray does on the touch line?

Morsy has form. Lucky not to get a second yellow for off the ball kick on Travis. Then he was responsible for nobbling Dack. Tried to apologise but Dack having none of it. They’ve been here and bullied us before. Spineless and woefully undercooked. Came alive a little when aggrieved by the Dack injury.