To be honest I don't think we have many players that would make the grade at PL level. Potential with Buckley and BBD. Kaminski might make a decent lower-mid table PL keeper. From my perspective that's probably it. Rothwell too inconsistent, Nyambe doesn't contribute enough in assists or goals, too late for Dack now with his injuries I feel. Travis might be a decent squad rotation option for a lower Prem team I suppose. Anyhow, I don't think there's been much criticism aimed at Mowbray that's unfair. Out of curiousity what do you think is levelled at him regularly that isn't fair? The death spiral stuff has genuine stats behind it, particularly regarding poor performances in the second halves of seasons. He definitely plays people out of position unnecessarily, particularly with the strikers on the wing nonsense. His transfer business has been pretty hit or miss, although generally speaking he does okay in the loan market. He does say some genuinely baffling and at times aggravating things in the press, although I only see what he says if it's posted on here. The only time I feel comments are unnecessary is when personal insults are aimed at him. Regardless of his bizarre team selections, general demeanour and at times nonsense comments in the media, I don't think he deserves to be called some of the names I've seen on here and elsewhere. He's just a bang average manager who has outstayed his welcome, for the most part. There will always be that black cloud surrounding the Brockhall incident, and how involved he, Venus and Waggott were in that (especially considering a similar trick was tried at Coventry), but I don't see it brought up very often nowadays.

It's difficult to tell from a single game, especially against such poor opposition. He does seem to like to get forward and he's got a decent cross on him, but as somebody mentioned earlier in the thread, Tyrone maybe?, there were a few occasions when his natural inclination to play CB caused him to drift too far into the centre and leave his flank exposed. Against a better team we may have been punished for that. I think he could be retrained to play in that position and has the attributes to be a decent enough attritional Championship RB, but I don't think that will ultimately happen.

Elliott was a good player before he arrived here - very highly regarded and a bit of a coup from us. With a better manager his presence may have propelled us into genuine playoff contention, rather than mid-table. As far as 'will a new manager get us relegated?' - by that logic a change would never be made as fear of the worst happening would always stop a decision being made. We know exactly what Mowbray is about by now. Periods of good form, death spirals, terrible second halves of the season and a recovery when the pressure is off. If we're happy to tread water in the Championship forever then Mowbray is the man for the job, but is that the limit of our ambition as a club? This season has shown there is little to be feared in this league. With the right manager we could be in the same position as the likes of Luton this season, or Barnsley last season. It's ridiculous that a club of our stature hasn't even gotten into the Championship playoffs once since relegaton in 2012. I completely understand the fear of change with Venky's in charge of the club, but keeping TM on would just prove that we lack any real ambition and have no genuine intention of challenging for promotion. I'll be more than happy to eat my words if we somehow sneak into 6th, but from where we were in January we should not be in a position where that's the best we can hope for now. It's been a collapse of almighty proportions, and you can't blame refs and injuries for 4 months of shocking performances. Injuries, squad rotation and proper squad depth are where top managers in this league really earn their corn. We have a manager who can only ride waves of momentum and is incapable of stopping the team from falling apart when that momentum falters and poor results occur.

That was the 4-3 in September 2011 I believe -at the time there were strong rumours of Kean potentially getting the sack (all BS as we know now - if he hadn't walked who knows if the clowns in charge of the club would ever (or could ever) have removed him). One of the flukiest games you'll ever see - Arsenal scored two own goals to help us out. We followed it up by going on an 8 game winless streak, losing 5 of them.

Love smashing Preston, but can't help but wonder where this kind of performance has been for the vast majority of 2022 - from both management and the players.

Yep. Steele (26) Raya (21) Henley (22) Greer (36) Hoban (23) Williams (24) Lowe (25) Mulgrew (31) Ward (32) Hendrie (22) Nyambe (19) Brown (37) Wharton (19) Doyle (20) Feeney (30) Akpan (25) Guthrie (30) Lenihan (23) Tomlinson (19) Mahoney (20) Evans (26) Bennett (28) Conway (31) Stokes (28) Graham (31) Emnes (28) Joao (22) Gallagher (21) Chatting shit as usual in order to try and make himself look better. Brown also only played 5 games for us that season and was leaving at the end of it anyway - as was Greer. Oh, and who was it that gave contract extensions to old boys Graham and Mulgrew two years later? The latter of which in particular bit us on the arse when Mulgrew declined massively and we couldn't shift his hefty wages off the books.

I mean, considering we've had a grand total of 4 points out of a possible 18 I think Johnson would have struggled to do much worse. We've basically been in relegation form since the new year started.

Incredulous comments from a man who never takes responsibility for anything. I'd have a lot more respect for him if he had held his hands up at various points during his tenure and admitted he got some things wrong, but I don't think he ever has.

I may be misremembering, but regarding budgets, didn't Mowbray say in our first season back in the Championship that he encouaged the owners to spend less? I remember thinking it was a bonkers statement at the time, and I can't help but wonder what the motivation behind that was. Can't say I'm convinced it was for the good of the club when you factor in the wages wasted on the likes of Smallwood, Hart, Mulgrew, etc when there was no need to do so.

Should be reposted every time someone starts a thread attempting to praise the charlatans in charge of the club.

"In hindsight, maybe we should have played how we did in the second half from the start." Yeah that might have helped Tony 🤔

If he had any dignity or respect for this club he would resign tonight. He's not going to miss out on much in terms of payoff at this point.

Hopefully just 3 more games until this idiot leaves the club, to be replaced by the next idiot off the scrapheap. As much as I want Mowbray to be gone, never forget who has had us in the Championship for 8 seasons (L1 season excepted) and never once been able to even sneak a 6th placed finish.

Bell will be competing in the playoffs this season. Am sure he's thankful every day that he isn't taking instructions from Mowbray anymore.

False position, simply put. I genuinely think at the present time we are the worst team in the division.

Hopefully. We've been the second worst team in the entire division since Christmas, and we just lost to the only team who are below us in the form table. That's a fact the manager can't hide from - not that any journalist will dare confront St Tony with such blasphemous facts.

Hopefully the spark needed for the crowd to really get on Mowbray's back. Not expecting it but let's see.

Dyche clearly didn't lose the players 3 years ago and the article doesn't even say that specifically. Extremely clickbaity headline. That aside, I've been seeing all the same nonsense as we got here when Allardyce was sacked. Same old story of owners wanting champagne football on a beer budget. It rarely ends well.

The clown in the dugout needs to be sacked tonight. He doesn't deserve to see the season out.

That or the model they have simply doesn't work in the second tier, so they're panicking now in a desperate attempt to survive.

Actually saw a comment on their forum calling it a Venky-esque decision.

Very strange timing. Have to assume they have someone lined up - a shock return to football for Allardyce?

That or we would have chased an injury prone player, who'd fail his medical at the last minute. Tony fans would say "well how could the manager possibly forsee that recently injured/regularly injured player could possibly fail a medical?" whilst Mowbray and club would act like this player was the only possible option, therefore we did our best and let's crack on with that standard February death spiral and mid table finish.

I agree with you that such an appointment at this stage would require a level of foresight Venky's and those working for them do not possess. People at the club would need to have seen and understood that things were going badly wrong at least a couple of months ago and began sounding out potential options should Mowbray completely fuck things up (as has come to pass). We can be sure that nothing like this has happened, and if TM was removed at best you'd get Johnson possibly leading the team for the remaining games. With that said, not sure Johnson would be a worse option? He'd presumably at least play everybody in their correct positions and we probably wouldn't have to worry about Gallagher on the wing or Bradley Johnson or Bucko playing as a false 9. Pointless to even bother speculating though, as we know Mowbray isn't going anywhere.

The season is over anyway as long as Mowbray is in charge. Even if a new appointment didn't have any noticeable immediate impact, at least they'd have a handful of games to assess the squad before the summer began. It doesn't matter anyway though. Venky's won't be removing Mowbray until the summer - if he's removed at all - so the season will draw to a slow, painful conclusion with the manager taking us right back to where we normally sit - mid-table. Whilst I agree with others that this is a bang average league this year, I don't think we're above average in any way. Brereton was for half a season, and that was the difference. Without BBD banging in the goals we showed ourselves to be a relegation calibre team, as was predicted at the beginning of the season. Just fortunate we had Diaz in form for as long as we did.