BlackburnEnd75

Yep. Wasn’t deemed able to play his position as well as our now 6th choice centre mid Richie Smallwood. Reed now starts for Fulham, good call that one.

Good comment made earlier by one poster. After all the effort we made to get rid of a bloated uneven squad we seem to have ended up with the same issue but this time it’s arguable worse. we can’t use the under 23’s to replace some of those players suggested earlier because simply the under 23’s that are ready to step up don’t play in those positions. Tony has blocked the path of the players most likely to break through. He’s now settled on a defence which has at right back a jobbing midfielder, at centre half we have a right back and a potentially good cb who isn’t ours, and at left back we have a backup centre half. He seemed to realise what the problem is at the end of last season with the 'defenders are coming' but they didn’t really. He moans about Lenihan being injured but anyone building a defence around Lenihan knows he is going to miss between 10-20 games a season through injury as he has the last 2 seasons Tony has been in charge!!! Forget the transfer fees for a minute (lucky for Mr £5million & 1 goal in16 games) but the money he’s spending on wages means that we can’t just finish 17th again, he has to justify that with at least a top 10 finish. If your splurging money on Downing, Johnson, Tosin, Holtby and Cunningham then you also can’t argue that we are a work in progress or a side for the future as those are players for now. Throw in the frequent tactical head scratchers and selection issues and my point is he doesn’t know how he’s going to get us up the league and for my money there isn’t much point hanging onto someone who is only going to waste more resources and not improve us.

Blue team: Walton JRC. Lenihan. Tosin. Bell Chapman Travis. Davenport Downing Dack Gallagher White team: Leutwiler Bennett Nyambe Williams Cunningham Evans Johnson Armstrong. Holtby Rothwell Graham subs: Hart, Butterworth, Buckley, Brereton, Smallwood, Samuel. Other than the keeper you could pick either side and not really get much difference. Right back is an issue for both sides.

I’m sure he’ll defend himself by saying he wasn’t being defensive because bla bla bla. Embarrasingnly negative from the manager

Sorry that’s not ambitious that’s just mad

At 2-1 down with 20 mins to go Tony brought on Evans for Holtby and Buckey for Gallagher. He made us more cautious when we were chasing the game. We didn’t create anything in that last 20 mins either. Completely baffling.

Armstrong is a very good example. My view on him is he’s a useful player who is often wrongly deployed by Mowbray who sees him as a man for all seasons. He calls Rothwell out for poor defensive work but Armstrong although he may appear to work harder is defensively out of position a lot. His shooting and final ball is often wasteful. I’ve seen him in some games this season where he’s been technically very poor (eg Fulham away where he kept running the ball out of play). He has a good game what 1 in 5? But he never criticises him in the press or leaves him out.

The logic is confusing. If Travis has a below par game despite being our best centre mid he gets dropped. If for example Bennett has a poor game at right back he didn’t get dropped despite having Nyambe waiting in the wings. With the young players, he’s made a mess of the current squad and he’s not got it in him to give one a run of games ahead of the array of attacking players he has expensively assembled.

Just read this from the lancs evening telegraph yesterday I’ve left him out for a few games, because he’s been poor with his distribution and was getting caught on the ball,” Mowbray said. “He was really good (against Wednesday), he was aggressive and on the front foot. “These lads are learning the game and I’m sure that somewhere down the line, they’ll be good footballers for this club, but they have to learn from these mistakes and develop. Yet again Mowbray is calling a player out for something that he hasn’t called a senior player out for.

Have thought that Darragh ‘hoof’ Lenihan is overrated for a while. He’s not a bad player he’s willing to put his head on it and is fairly mobile but he’s not got the potential to play in the premier league as the management have claimed. personally I really like Tosin, he’ll end up in the prem in a year or two. Tall, mobile, good technically and composed in possession

Hasn’t Charlie Austin only scored 1 goal this season?

I’m not holding out any hope of any of these coming through this season. Not because I don’t rate them I just don’t see where they fit into our squad. We could give them a go but TM is unlikely to open himself up to criticism by for example leaving out Brereton to play Butterworth, as he’s paid a high transfer fee for him and in a lot cases this year wages. It must be hard for him to justify it. When Raya, Nyambe and Travis came through you could see the pathway for them as they were say one of 2 players in their respective positions but Butterworth for example as second striker or a 10 has about 4 or 5 players in front of him. weve got Chapman, Davenport, Buckley, Rankin-Costello, Butterworth who all need game time in the football league.

Tbh I was critical of TM for not bringing either Johnson or Evans on 10 mins sooner as I felt we were getting to stretched in midfield. I felt their goal was coming. Even if with Evans on we would’ve had enough attacking players on the pitch.

Weird one thought with our second half performance a defeat would’ve been harsh but in the end the win was very fortunous but I’ll take it even if I doubt it leads to a revival. I was highly critical of Mowbray after they took the lead as I felt he hadn’t really read the game right we tired and stretched in midfield especially down our right so I suppose I have to give credit for him bringing Buckley on. Tosin had a very good game and got the club man of the match but the stand out for me was Travis, thought his energy and drive was incredible. Can’t believe he was dropped for the PNE, it really baffles me

I thought the idea in the summer was to bring in Walton and an older experienced keeper to compete. we clearly made a mess of that so now we are in a situation where Walton (who isn’t as bad as some are making out) needs dropping and we have nobody to replace him with.

I think we have some good players here that shouldn’t be involved at the wrong end of the table but like you say we’ve got some areas where we are nowhere near the top 6. I think Lenihan is overrated by the management and most of the fanbase, I think Tosin looks very classy problem is he isn’t our player.

Can’t absolve him of the penalty yesterday, it was a brainless decision from him after he’d done well to track the run

I noticed this too. Travis was warming up for a bit after they decided not to bring him on but I didn’t see a single other rovers player warming up not even graham who came on as a sub

It’s double standards

Thought rothwell was quite until the 10mins before he went off. To be fair to Tosin it was clearly Williams that got bullied, he twigged after half time and moved onto Williams and it gave them a lot of joy. I still think that those two today are our best cb partnership on the books.

Funny thing is when Chapman scored 2 and got an assist in one game (I think it was Leicester away) he was in the under 23’s the next week. When Samuel scored 2 he was straight on the bench for the next first team game and I think came on. That in particular struck me as odd.

Personally think rothwell has looked good in some of cameo appearances and is worthy of a run of games. His problem is when he makes a good cameo off the bench it is rarely followed with a start so he can’t build any momentum and then his next cameo he may not touch the ball much and then the manager has a stick to beat him with. the last two games for example he got about 60 mins total, in both games his main contribution was a great run from deep in his own half in which the defender cynically fouled him when he’d got away from them. His form back end of last season and some of his cameos warrants a run of starts especially when we have a side that DOESN’T CREATE ANY CHANCES!!!

I just think we need to have a new man come in with a fresh pair of eyes and no fixed judgements or loyalties to particular players and work out what we need for January because in my opinion we can’t afford to let Tony spend any more money. The squad feels unbalanced again, but there is some players that a new man could work with. The other issue is Venkys and the whole structure of the club, but I’d rather have the cheap option of Johnson with a fresh pair of eyes than what we’re seeing atm.

I do. He limping around after the game on Saturday, and wasn’t moving well when he came off.

My guess for team will be: Walton Nyambe. Tosin. Williams. Bennett Downing. Travis. Evans. Armstrong Dack Gallagher I think Bell won’t be risked if he’s 50/50, he’ll be needed for the rest of the season. Holtby was limping around after the game on Saturday so I think he might save him for PNE. He’ll give Gallagher another go uptop because he desperately needs him to come good.