Surely it’s the other way round? He would have to be sure that the defender wouldn’t get round in order to produce the red card. If there’s any doubt - and your debate with Stuart shows that there is - then surely he can’t send him off. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that Williams would have got back, but I do think that his position puts enough doubt into the refs mind to stop the red card

I missed it too. Was a kid at the time and we didn’t have season tickets, so my dad would just take me to the games that I asked to go to. Usually I would look in midweek and see who we were playing and make a decision then. For some reason that week I forgot to look. I eventually saw the fixtures in the Saturday morning paper and asked if we could go, but my dad had already made other plans and so we missed it. I was almost in tears listening to it on Radio Lancs as I heard what I was missing out on! The year after we got season tickets (and have had them ever since), I’m sure mainly because of my moaning about missing this game - which I’m still doing now nearly 30 years later!!

All clubs seem to do it nowadays - for instance Man Utd were playing in their pink kit at Everton on Sunday and I’ve seen Derby wear their light grey 3rd kit on occasions when surely if they can wear that then they could have played in white, no? You’re probably right that it’s something in the kit manufacturing deal that it has to be worn so many times or something

First 15 seconds ?

Fair point. Amend it to before the Preston game then!!

I don't know - but then if you'd told me at the end of November that we would currently be on the run that we are I wouldn't have believed you and would have asked what was going to change to make us fall down the league so spectacularly.

Maybe - but we've generally been on a downward trajectory ever since they arrived. At some point I believe we need some stability, some long-term planning, rather than just jumping from one manager to the next. Like I say, I'm not 100% convinced that Mowbray is the man to take us forward, but I kind of hope he is, and I can at least see some kind of long term plan, some forward planning - the players we signed, on the whole, have been young, hungry, youth internationals - mixed with the young players already in the u23's, hopefully we have a bright future over the next few years. I like Mowbray and I want him to succeed, but more importantly I don't want to see us become the basket-case of a club that we were under Kean, Berg, Appleton, Lambert & Coyle. That's why I'm prepared to give him time. And why, if he does go, I'd want to see D Johnson get the gig.

I disagree. We won’t get relegated this season (because of the points that Mowbray and the team garnered earlier in the season). If we start next season in the same form as we are ending this one then I’ll be right there with you in calling for his head

I also should add that part of the reason for being prepared to give him time is the realisation that a new manager would not necessarily be an upgrade and so, to some extent, it’s a case of better the devil you know

I don’t think it’s fair to say that our successes (last season & first half of this) are down to the players, but our struggles are down to the manager. Just as it wouldn’t be right to suggest the opposite. I’m not so blinded to Mowbray’s faults that I can’t see that he has made mistakes. Certainly he has, and our poor form ultimately must be laid at his door, but that shouldn’t detract from the good that he did prior to that, and our current run doesn’t just erase our good form earlier in the season - for which he deserves credit. I can understand your position and I am not a million miles from feeling the same (although I do think some on here got there far too quickly), but for the time being at least I’m prepared to give him more time.

I agree to an extent, I’d love to see D Johnson given a chance, especially with the raft of exciting youngsters we have coming through. But, where we differ, is that I think Mowbray deserves an opportunity to see if he can turn things around. I’m not sure that he can, but last season and the first half of this one tells me he can get more out of the players than he is currently getting and I think he’s earnt some patience. I’m also not convinced that our current style of play is Mowbray’s preferred style. I think he adopted something of a horses for courses approach last season and then decided to stick with it at the start of this rather than risk upsetting the balance of the squad by trying to change it too much. I’m interested to see if, given a full pre-season and the opportunity to bring players in over the summer, he can change it. Personally, I’d give him the summer and then review things at the end of September.

I’m not saying that it is an identical situation, just countering the often made argument that no other manager has ever kept their job in the midst of a similar bad run and also giving an example to show that this run doesn’t automatically have to lead to a struggle next season. I’m not saying that we will definitely improve ala Bristol City because there are no guarantees. Just as it is not certain that your prediction that we would find ourselves in league one under Mowbray is accurate. Football is unpredictable - if it wasn’t then I’d currently be counting my winnings from my treble on Bristol City, West Brom & Luton!!

Lee Johnson at Bristol City 2 years ago - a very similar situation to us, newly promoted, started the season very well and then went on a horrible run over about 15 games, only just staying up (at our expense) after looking like playoff contenders at one point. Lots of calls for him to be sacked by their fans, but the club stuck with him and they’ve improved each season and I imagine their fans are now glad they didn’t get what they were calling for. Let’s hope that in a couple of years we’re looking back on this current run in a similar way

The guy can't win. Get's asked a question about Raya in an interview - if he says that he's not concerned, that Raya is doing just fine, that everything will carry on as normal, then he'd be accused of being a clown who can't see what is obvious to everyone else. But if, as he has done, he's honest and says that, yes we expect a better level of performance and that Raya's place is under pressure, then he is accused of publicly shaming a player to deflect from his own mistakes (which he admits to making in the interview btw, so a pretty lousy job of deflecting and hiding them). You can start to understand why Mourinho would just sit and refuse to answer questions in his press conferences - we all want answers to questions, but whatever answer is given we want different ones.

That isn't what he said happened though. The players voiced an opinion (pre-game) on tactics that they thought would give them a better chance of being solid and competing. Mowbray listened and agreed to give them a go. When he saw that they weren't working, after about 20mins, he told the players to revert back to the gameplan and tactics that he has been coaching them in for the past 18 months. Seems like decent man-management to me - suppose he had not listened to the players and just insisted that he was right and they had to play his way. Particularly given that we are not a great run of form at the moment, I'm not sure the players would have fully bought into that - plus if we had then ended getting beat, it perhaps further undermines Mowbray in the dressing room. Better this way, that the players can see that a) they are allowed some input and b) that the managers tactics actually do give them the best chance to compete. And for those saying that no other manager allows this kind of thing - I seem to remember a documentary about Italia 90 where it was said that Lineker and some other senior players went to Bobby Robson after the first game against Ireland, and asked him to let them play the sweeper system, which allowed them to give Gazza a more free-role in the midfield. It worked out pretty well for them (that semi-final is still one of my most upsetting football memories) and Robson didn't do too bad in football management either - when you hear ex-players, like Lineker, Shearer, Gascoigne etc talk about him, it is obvious how much they liked, respected and wanted to work for him - perhaps that wouldn't have been the case if he had had a more dictatorial approach, who know

He said it’s not really a full English, just sausage and beans and a bit of toast. I seem to remember a former Rovers player saying he had chicken and beans before a game, which isn’t too dissimilar, and I think he did ok

I had this argument once with Robbie Savage via Twitter. I get that for players and clubs playing at the highest level possible is the be all and end all, however for fans surely winning (and maybe even playing well) is just as, if not more, important. For example, I enjoyed our trips to Rochdale, Bury & Fleetwood last season far more than my last visit to Old Trafford under Big Sam when we got tonked 7-2. As another example, does anyone truly believe that Fulham fans are enjoying this season more than last season?

Always interesting to see how people see the game differently. Personally I’d have taken Travis off at halftime, and not because he was on a yellow card. I thought he had a poor game, wanted too much time on the ball and gave the ball away cheaply time and again - I think potentially it showed just how important Evans is in there alongside him. He wasn’t alone though. Reed also was below his usual standard and Dack looked off the pace. And the less said about Williams the better. As someone else has said, unfortunately we’re not a good enough team to win if we’re not all on our game and it showed today

Or 3) The right player wasn't available at the right deal - fee + wages And whilst some of the money that may go toward a fee went on Brereton, I suspect it is the wages that is the actual stumbling block for us in regard to BA and Austin and there is no way that Brereton is earning anything like what we would need to spend on those players

By the way - can you imagine the uproar on here if the striker we brought in in this window was some unheard of lad from the non-leagues??

Plus a 21 year old Irish lad who seems to be holding his own so far on loan in the Scottish Premiership. Before that we picked up a young striker called Joe Nuttall who had been released from Aberdeen and seems to have a decent future ahead of him. And before him there was a young lad by the name of Lewis Travis who we picked up from Liverpool's academy (maybe you've heard of him?) But, no, of course it's right to say that our recruitment is flawed and we don't ever pick up bargains or potential stars of the future. We only ever pay over the odds for flops don't you know??

Not saying he will definitely come good, rather that, at 19, he has the time and opportunity to develop and so it’s worth baring that in mind when making a judgment on him. I’d wager that most professional players, outside of the very top ones, would have looked out of place in the first team at 19 - even Fergie’s ‘kids’ at Utd were around 21 when they became regulars. So - yes to an extent - maybe it is just blind hope - but going off last nights game - if you watched that in isolation, you’d say that Brereton had more going for him than Conway (and probably Bennett). Plus Mowbray must presumably see some potential in him, and I assume he’s a) seen more of Brereton than I have and b) knows more about what makes a good footballer than I do

Grayson had played for the U23's on Monday evening. I'm sure if Mowbray had known that Rodwell was going to be ill and unable to play, he wouldn't have played on Monday and may have featured last night. However, expecting the lad, no matter how young and fit he may be, to play 2 games in 24 hours probably isn't realistic. Not saying that Brereton played well, but I don't think he was the worst player on the pitch for Rover last night. In fact, we looked much better with him on than Conway, who did very little. Now that may not be particularly high praise, but if you try and forget the fact the price tag and remember that he is only 19, it gives me some hope, as rovers11 said, that he will come good given time. How many players currently in the championship (or even the Premier League) were the finished article, or even featuring in the first team regularly, when they were 19? I think (and hope) that Ben will continue to develop and we will see some real improvement over the next 2 or 3 years. Now, obviously that still raises the question, why pay the money that we reportedly have on him now, if he's not really ready, but Mowbray obviously sees some promise in him and believes he will flourish. If that's true, then £7m may eventually be a bargain considering how much even half-decent English strikers go for in the current transfer market. For us fans I think the best thing is to, like I say, try and forget the price tag and view him almost as one of our home grown youth players. For example Lewis Travis is getting a lot of credit for how he's playing at the moment, but I dare say that 2 years ago, when he was 19, he probably wouldn't have done quite so well. My only hope is that his confidence doesn't get knocked so much at the moment that it stunts his progress going forward.

I thought Nuttall did well, especially in the first 20 minutes or so. Faded a bit as the game went on and I was surprised that he wasn’t one of those who went off, but then he did really well to get himself into the right position to score - albeit a bit luckily. But I remember in games against Rotherham and Norwich, Armstrong getting into similar positions, putting those kind of balls across the box and there being no one gambling on getting in there, so it was nice to see Nuttall doing that, especially from the wide forward position. By no means a perfect performance, or even a brilliant one, but certainly one that showed promise and gives me hope that there’s a decent player in there that can be developed

Can't get into the team? Rather than buckling down, working hard and impressing when you get your chance, just call your club's loan manager and he'll sort you a move out to another club. Seems wrong to me, and surely can't be good for the players longterm development. No wonder players such as Palmer, Izzy Brown & Todd Kane are still being shunted out on loan to clubs rather than having made it into the Chelsea first team (or that of another Prem team) - compare the situation of these loan players with that of someone like Dele Ali, who had to actually impress the manager in order to get himself some game time at MK Dons, and you can see why they don't develop the mental fortitude and determination needed to succeed at the highest level.