Hasta

My gripe isn't necessarily that he brought in two expensive flops. It's that rather than cut his losses he has persevered with them, often out of position, to the detriment of the team. Chapman has not performed for the club so has been bombed out of the squad. Other younger players get a little bit of game time, have a poor game, and are bombed out of the squad. Easy to do when they haven't cost the club a lot of money. As he has spent so much money on these two, he has to persist in weakening us by trying to fit them into a formation somewhere rather than accept what has happened (expensive mistakes) and resort to playing either superior players (Graham) and youth players (JRC). Whatever is the reason why he has kept going with them, it's bad management. I'm not one of these people who blame Mowbray for relegation back in 2017. He came in with a job to do and nearly did it. It was almost a freakish points total that saw us relegated, and his haul of 1.47 points per game (over 15 games) was a very good return. The problem was being too slow bulletins Coyle rather than who we brought in that season. However 1.47 points per game would have garnered us 67 points in a season. Over a 15 game stretch in 2017, Mowbray got that squad performing at a higher PPG ratio than we did last season and probably will do this season. Getting promoted the following season wasn't a gimme, and Mowbray did well to bring in Dack and Armstrong and get us back at the first time of asking. But the side that came back up should have been better than the side that Mowbray unluckily went down with. It was hardly a team of lower league journey-men facing the might of the championship for the first time. I don't buy the 'but it was our first season back in the Championship" nonsense. Thats why last season I thought we under-performed and this season 60+ points is the absolute minimum I would expect.

Walton is a mediocre goalkeeper. He's probably better than Steele but still makes too many unforced mistakes, and also concedes goals which, whilst he can't be blamed for, a better keeper would keep out. This last part is what makes a good keeper in my opinion. He obviously wasn't the plan when we sold Raya, but the original targets must have fallen through and he was a desperate move towards the end of the transfer window. The fact we sold our goalkeeper, and ended up loaning a goalkeeper who was inferior, is poor management. To balance it up, the reason our defensive record is improved is that Tosin / Lenihan has been a better partnership than previous seasons. Great loan signing by Mowbray. If we had signed Tosin then then that would be superb, but Mowbray needs to pull that quality of signing again for next season (and sort the keeper situation out)

To balance the books? If the answer can't be Brereton and Gallagher, then that tells us the problem.

This. Good players don't always need a fancy YouTube video reel.

With West Brom, Brentford, Cardiff and Leeds left to play, Derby will have to play very well to make the top 6. Sickening isn't it.

People said that last season. People will say it next season. You can't choose when is the ideal time to get promoted. This season is an opportunity wasted. Look at Cardiff tonight. Just moved into 6th spot on a good run and they were dross.

Well. Well. Danny Graham and Adam Armstrong > Brereton and Gallagher. Who'd have thought it? Graham has been criminally written off and underused this season.

Been very good second half. I wouldnt have made any subs here.

I think he's got a tattoo and some ripped jeans since he joined.

I thought Nyambe was on Murphy and it was the midfield / Samuel let the full back overlap. Great play by Murphy.

Brereton or gally would have been heading back out to the wing when that header hit the post for our goal.

Give over. If we pay £7million for an attacker and he scores 1 league goal in 2 seasons,whilst looking generally very poor, i dont think people are judging him harshly by beimg compared to Dack. It's difficult to think of many worse strikers for Rovers in 30 years who have started more than 10 league games for us. Chris Brown, but then Im struggling. The £12mill outlay is lookimg a massive failure by Mowbray which has hampered us this season and with FFP probably for seasons to come.

That 12million, the shambles in selling our keeper and ending up with Walton, and the inability to bring in a decent centre half in 6 transfer windows are the big failings. The latter was plugged by loaning Tosin, but the £12 mill will really be the defining factor. In an effort to try and make it not look like the disaster it is, the two players in question have been shoehorned into the side out wide, whilst superior players have been dropped. The first mistake was spending the money on duds, the second was constantly weakening the side to play them. We got told last summer to give Mowbray another year and next season will be better for Brereton. The same suspects will now give the same spiel once again.

True, but when i posted that he was fairly central. As he is apparently the quickest player in the team, he could have knocked it outside and run rather than turn inside and into a second defender. He's certainly a player who lacks in nouse.

Rothwell, just for once go outside your man instead of inside him every time.

It is. And Hughes / Souness etc would be letting the ref know he's made an almighty cock up which has cost us. I know people don't like managers moaning, but it's very rare Mowbray speaks up on things like that. It's an easy decision for the ref, but he's tried to be 'brave' and instead has just been shit.

As much as I expected us to cave in, that's a free kick all day long.

How do you know? From the 15 minutes he gets every fortnight when we are either in trouble or shutting up shop? He had a run in the side before Christmas (around the time of the win over Brentford) and it coincided with one of our good runs. It still looked like last years plan A, that Mowbray was desperate to move away from, was still our best style of play.

But the fact is the chances were not converted by a group of strikers that he has either brought or kept at the club at a significant cost. As much as I thought that Samuel might have more to his game (probably cos he is actually quite quick and mobile) he has always flattered to deceive. Gallagher we had already seen and knew what we were buying. To be fair he probably would have bagged a few more had he played up top, but he has been ruined by playing out wide. Brereton was a stupid amount of money for a nobody outside of Nottingham and that one Arsenal game. There's nothing in the lad that makes me think he will be a goalscorer. Mowbray was obviously unlucky with losing the goals that Dack provides, but we had the chance to address that in January and once again didn't act. Therefore the lack of goals in games which we created chances and had most of the possession isn't down to bad luck. Its down to bad recruitment. And that's been a problem all season. The keeper situation has swung a bit but ultimately has also been costly. It looked a disaster waiting to happen when we didn't replace Raya with anything other than a 3rd choice Prem keeper who Wigan fans were not sorry to see not return. He has had some decent spells but has been at fault (either by mistakes or by just not being good enough) for too many goals. I think we would have coped with the defence and midfield that we have been playing had we sorted the goalkeeper and striker situation out, but that is where we have failed.

In a parallel dimension in 1992:- "Sorry Alan. I know you're a good player and all, but the boys are really fond of David and, as we just got promoted, we want to keep the team morale intact"

Exactly. Someone said on the match day thread he is starting to look 'value' at £7 million. To look even close to being worth that amount he needs to perform like he did last week (which was very good) more often than not. To be 'value' then he needs to be performing and scoring. At the moment you can't even say he needs to show more consistency, because hasn't shown enough good form to even suggest he is inconsistent. However, as JoeH points out, you have to also judge each performance on its own merits and he was very good on Saturday. Hopefully he takes that on to the next game.

At least Boro have replaced their failing manager before they drop back into the relegation zone just like we d ..... Oh.

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