The current situation has got a lot of parallels with when Bowyer left. Manager did okay - not brilliant, not terrible. Brought a lot of decent players in and a lot of rubbish. General feeling was the squad was good enough to make playoffs so fanbase got frustrated with always just being outside. General feeling (that I shared then and share now) to see him go so we can "kick on". Two terrible appointments by Venkys in Lambert and Coyle, a relegation and then Mowbray getting us eventually back to where Bowyer had us. That cycle to return to Championship playoff perennial hopefuls took us 6/7 years. History is more likely to repeat itself than not imo.

Yes he's an unusual player. Absolutely outstanding in some areas (pace, physicality, winning one on ones, getting to the by line) but quite poor in other areas (crossing, heading, getting his head up and picking the right passes in build up play). Overall his strengths outweigh his weaknesses, but I do come out of games thinking we could do so much more down the right if we had the quality of delivery. That said, talking about improving on him does seem a bit rich. If we were really pushing to be a Premier League team you could see the argument to get better. But we have many other positions that need more improvement than right back, and realistically it is very likely whoever we get in to replace him will actually be significantly worse (need we say more than "Zeefuik"?). For Nyambe personally if he could improve his crossing significantly he will be a premier League player. But until he does I doubt he will do much better than where he is with Rovers. If I was him I would spend all day on the training ground trying to whip it in from all angles. It's career defining for him

Think that's a bit harsh. Much better imo than Bell or Douglas. Happy enough with Pickering. Problem positions for us next season are going to be CB, RB, ST, CM.

I think they might if they cared. But I don't think they have anything more than a very passing interest. Has to be one of the oddest situations a football club has faced. Bankrolled to a modest degree, but absolutely without any leadership from the owners. As it stands I would say our odds of finding and convincing a manager better than Mowbray to join is about 1 in 5. I'm bracing myself for a really poor appointing.

Have to agree with this. If the direction (or even interest) is not being shown from the top even a good manager will struggle. The Championship is hard enough without the added difficulty of navigating our bizarre owner engagement. I'd rather have half the budget but an owner who is fully engaged and has a clear plan.

Cardiff are awful. Boro not much better. Really poor game.

Without wishing to sound like a twat we've played 343, 352, 433, 4231 this season and they've all worked well sometimes and worked poorly at others. We started the season in 433 and started poorly. That we go on these long winning and then even longer losing runs goes beyond systems. Its something that has characterised Mowbrays teams at Rovers and elsewhere. Psychological or motivational imo, something in that area.

Should have been an absolutely critical exciting local derby this. Really hard to get together any enthusiasm at all. We really should let Mowbray go and give Damian Johnson the last few games to try something different. Just for a hopeful bounce as much as anything.

I'd say okay is reasonable. Not good, not bad. Just mid table.

My view is he's done okay but not good enough every area - some decent signings, decent youth development, some decent tactics. But the pattern of a good two months followed by a poor two months petering out into mid table finish is very well established now and I (and I think virtually all supporters) have zero confidence we will be able to improve on it. It's got to the point where we need to try someone new.

I think that's got to be Mowbray finished at Rovers now I think?

I think it's a bit early for this. Should wait until it is clearer where we will finish.

All true, but you can see if he improves his decisions he can consistently hurt teams. He's only 19 so has a lot of improvement in him. He will get better and better I am sure. Next season can see him growing into a top player at Championship level.

He's been absolutely awful. The one saving grace for me is that he looks almost exactly as bad as Brereton did when he first joined, and seems a similar sort of player, so maybe he will improve in a similar sort of way. Real grasping at straws though. And even in the Brereton example it took him 18 months to get going.

Dolan is a quality young player. He is scoring and assisting quite frequently if you look at his minute breakdown. Only Brereton and (surprisingly maybe) Gallagher ahead of him in terms of mins per goal involvement. He's quick, tricky, physical, got a knack to get into the box. As a team we've got to figure out how to make the most of him. On Saturday it was really striking how when he went off and we had Hedges on we offered absolutely nothing down the right.

The error today for me was bringing Hedges on, he's offered nothing. Doesn't press enough, doesn't beat a man, doesn't provide quality crosses, doesn't offer a goal threat. The whole right side became totally ineffective once he came on. I feel if Dolan had stayed on we would have had more of a chance. Maybe Hedges will be a Brereton and after a year or so turns into a good player, but today he was a total passenger. What's worrying is really on balance of chances Reading should have won this by three or four. Our strong area has been defence, if that reverts to last seasons form we are going to end up well outside the playoffs.

Since Khadra has gone off we have looked all over the place. Giles as RWB not working at all. Kaminski has been tremendous. On the positive side introduction of Dack should allow us to reshuffle into a 4231 that suits the players on the pitch better. Kaminski Lenihan Van Hecke Wharton Pickering Travis Rothwell Dolan Dack Giles Gallagher

Why would we switch to yet another formation? We have struggled with 433 since halfway through last season. I can see Mowbray going back to 343 but it will be serious dispiriting for all the attacking lads who have struggle hugely for 10 games, find a way to score goals, and then go back to the way we played when we couldn't score.

I don't see why we couldn't stick with 4231 when BBD is back. He'd just play on the left I think.

Only two days away... Reading generally poor but got a good draw at Bournemouth Obviously after the Tuesday we should (!) stick with the 4231 that was so effective in the second half. The main question will be whether Mowbray risks Dack from the start or he puts Buckley in and then brings Dack on second half. Probably the latter. For all of how good we looked throwing people forward on Tuesday I do wonder if it will open up our defence again. Hopefully playing Lenihan at right back will help a bit to maintain the defensive solidarity we've had. One of those games it's very hard to know what to expect. Team likely to play imo : Kaminski Lenihan Van Hecke WHarton Pickering Travis Rothwell Dolan Buckley Khadra Gallagher Subs : Pears, Rankin Costello, Davenport, Hedges, Giles, Johnson, Dack

Gallaghers good when he can out compete the defence he's up against. Derby he was all over them, but most games he gets marginalised pretty easily whether playing through the middle or out wide I wonder if part of the difference on Tuesday was that we committed a lot of players forward second half - 4 pure attackers in Dack, Dolan, Khadra/Giles and Gallagher plus Rothwell getting forward - and that gave Gallagher the support and space to play more effectively.

I agree with the general point. In the horrendous recent run we generally created a decent amount of chances and should have picked up a lot more point. Our finishing was terrible. That said second half against Derby we were definitely getting more people forward and in the box than we have done for a long time. Regularly getting four or five bodies in, whereas before maybe only two or three. We obviously were taking a lot more risks, and it paid off.

That's pretty punchy if true!

We should never sign players with a really significant injury record like Ayala. Way too risky.

I wouldn't really agree with that. In our recent great run in November-December we looked pretty much invincible. With Mowbray I would characterise it more as we go through periods of looking really really good (start of 20/21 season being very much like that as another example) for around 10 games, then the wheels fall off, till we put them back on again around 10 games later. It's been such a feature of Mowbray's teams, not just at Rovers but elsewhere also (Celtic, West Brom etc).