The problem is people have been saying this for a while, especially about the three home games we're nearly done with. So far one point out of a possible six. Games are only winnable if we can score goals, and we simply can't. At some point we have to accept this isn't bad luck, we just have a team who are absolutely useless at scoring goals without BBD in the side. Dack coming back is a welcome boost but we can't expect great things from him considering the amount of time he's been out and the two serious injuries he's had to recover from.

The fact we have nobody else capable of scoring from 12 yards with a free shot is frankly an absolute disgrace. Dack having to step up 10 or so minutes into his return to the first team is a pathetic reflection on the rest of the team. He duly missed with a terrible penalty because he simply wasn't ready.

You gotta be confident in your technique to pull off those kinds of suplexes. The likes of the Steiners, Taz, etc all had incredible technique to go alongside their strength. Holland maybe needs to leave moves like that alone until he's sure he can pull them off without injuring a colleague. Thankfully it sounds like Big E is going to be alright.

Not scoring from open play in 810 minutes? Yeah that's a pretty fucking glaring sign of something being seriously wrong.

The fact Dack was the one to take it says it all about the rest of the team on the pitch today, and the levels of trust management has in them.

Remember when the three home games were when the season was getting back on track? Players were gonna "step up"? 🤣

We are fucking cursed.

Again...

Another 45 minutes, another zero on the scoreboard. Mowbray has somehow managed to field what must be one of if not the least potent attacking unit in the club's entire history. Bravo.

Meanwhile Big E suffered a broken neck on Smackdown after a botched belly-to-belly suplex. Fortunately he's tweeted from hospital that he can move his digits, etc.... so fingers crossed a speedy recovery.

I think Regal is one of those wrestlers you appreciate much more when you're older and smarter to the business. As a kid, in WCW I always saw him as the British fella who worked slow matches that looked a lot more real than the other bouts, whilst in WWE he was just the comedy commissioner. That was about it. It's only now, much later, that I recognise how talented and underrated he was. Yeah this was seemingly just Meltzer's poor grasp of the English language causing confusion again - thankfully. Although Regal's fatalistic promo certainly added fuel to the fire. I think Regal is in the same bracket as Scott Hall - an insanely talented and smart wrestler who was held back by his demons.

Fantastic news. Travis' grit and fire is something we don't have in many areas of the squad, so it's great that he's signed on long-term.

According to the Observer Austin has not agreed to a match with Kevin Owens, and it will basically just be a fight/brawl type segment. Probably for the best. William Regal's debut interview from Dynamite is worth a watch: Apparently his comments about 'not being long for this world' were legit, the Observer says that his health is much worse than is generally known 😞 hopefully he's still got a decent amount of time left. I first watched Regal way back in 1996 when he was with the Blue Bloods. I was a kid at the time so I wasn't looking out for workrate or promo skills, but obviously as he was a Brit it made his appearances more memorable to me anyway. His brawls with Fit Finlay around that time period were ridiculous, just straight up beatings delivered by both men to each other. He really came into his own in the WWE in the 2000s though, playing the commissioner role to perfection on Raw and later NXT. Never afraid to adapt and make a fool out of himself to entertain people. I have every confidence that AEW will give him an awesome final run.

Just needed the 'beady little eyes' to hit all the bases! I don't think he'll wrestle a match. Not a proper one, anyway. At best it'll be a talking segment ending with a stunner and beers, imo.

Only taking into account players that actually belong to us... Whilst he has had made some poor mistakes lately, I think Kaminski would be a reasonable lower-PL goalkeeper. Nyambe is a solid defender but his attacking ability and injury proneness would need to improve at a higher level. Hard to say with the likes of Dack and Brereton, the former due to two severe injuries and lack of pace, whilst the latter still has a lot to prove despite a scorching first half of this season. Buckley has the potential to develop into a PL player if coached correctly and played in a position that plays to his strengths. I think some bulking up would be required. Don't think Rothwell is first team Prem quality personally. Realistically we'd be looking at close to an entire squad overhaul if we were to somehow get promoted with the current team and actually wanted to make a go of staying up. The likes of Pickering, Wharton, Lenihan, Buckley, Rothwell and Travis could be solid squad options at a higher level but hard to imagine any of them coping week-in week-out in the PL as part of the first team. In terms of quality we are currently nowhere close to a level where we could even slightly hope to avoid the drop if we did go up.

Mainly because it's a league where 90% of the teams are of roughly the same relatively poor quality, and any team with some momentum behind them can suddenly go on a good run out of nowhere. We went on our own run from November to the start of January on the back of our heaviest ever home defeat. This really does feel like the best opportunity we'll ever have to go up under the current owners, and it's painful to watch that opportunity being so brutally squandered.

Whilst I do agree in general, certain players have to shoulder some of the blame here. The likes of Buckley and Lenihan have now missed multiple easy chances in this awful, barren run. Khadra too, although he was the source of our single goal in the past eight matches. Gallagher doesn't look like he's ever been coached on how to play as a striker, or a footballer in general really. Our attempts at set pieces are laughable, although I concede that will at some level be down to bad or non-existent set piece coaching. We've had enough chances to win a fair few of the matches we've drawn and lost recently. The manager shoulders a lot of the blame for what happened in January, but a fair few of the players have let themselves and us down as well.

I love how we signed Giles to sling crosses in to Dolan & Buckley as well as the useless donkey that is Sam Gallagher. Brilliant idea there Tony.

Just embarrassing at this point. Footballers in the second tier of the professional game, utterly incapable of scoring a goal from open play. Barely capable of scoring a goal at all. It's some achievement gathering a group of players so collectively poor at sticking the ball in the net. The saddest part is that if someone, anyone, in this team could score we'd be doing fine. Still not playing great, but winning matches like tonight. Millwall had 0 shots on goal. None - and they still took a point from us because we don't have a single player in this team with the confidence and/or ability to score a goal. This isn't just a bad phase or a poor run of form. This is genuinely all we have until BBD or Dack returns.

Certainly wouldn't trust him post-Bournemouth. Also accoding to Transfermarkt he's never taken a penalty before!

If we were given a penalty we'd probably miss anyway. Who in this team would be taking it? I don't think there's a single player on the pitch I'd feel confident in stepping up and dispatching.

Another 45 minutes where we fail to score. Must be close to 700 minutes since we last scored from open play?

I watched AEW's Revolution PPV last night. Fantastic show, as usual, only let down by running a little long. They could definitely have trimmed some matches from this one. If you include the Buy In (which I didn't watch) it was roughly 5 hours which is a bit much. Still, the overall event was very good. You can't help but notice how over almost every wrestler is with the audience. Compare to WWE where a lot of the wrestlers come out to a mild reaction at best, all of AEW's performers have a strong connection with the audience who react to them exactly as you'd hope. It really adds to the overall presentation when the audience is fully on board with the wrestlers and their storylines. Spoilers ahoy, for anyone yet to watch... Chris Jericho Vs Eddie Kingston - I wasn't sure what to expect from this one going in, but it was arguably the match of the night. Such a simple story, with one wrestler not having respect for the other, but that's all you really need. Triple H's NXT did this kind of simple storyline very well, and AEW often does this basic stories very well too. Jericho is in the best shape he's been in for years, certainly since AEW started, and looks great. Kingston will never have a modern day wrestler's body but makes up for that with sheer charisma and talent. He's ridiculously over with the crowd and connects with them in the same kind of way the likes of Stone Cold did. Not that Kingston is on that level or even close, but it's the same vibe. The match itself was very, very hard-hitting. Even at this stage Jericho is not phoning anything in, he's putting his all into his matches and put Kingston over in a big way here. I really, really enjoyed this match. Jungle Boy and Luchasaurus vs. reDragon vs. The Young Bucks - One of those matches where rules are thrown out the window. A fast paced spotfest but one that I was engaged with throughout. I thought these three teams put on a great match, but I can see traditionalists being frustrated with the lack of rules being applied at various points. It can get difficult at times to work out who is legal and who isn't in matches like this. Personally I was entertained throughout. Keith Lee vs. Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Wardlow vs. Ricky Starks vs. Orange Cassidy vs. Christian Cage - This one was a bit of a mixed bag. Some crazy spots as always in these kinds of matches. There was some sloppy stuff and some really good stuff. It was another match I was very much entertained by and it should have been either Wardlow or Keith Lee going over, so Wardlow was a good choice. This guy is potentially the next face of the company, he's over absolutely huge at the moment. Jade Cargill vs. Tay Conti - Cargill is green but an absolute star, it's written all over her. She has the look and the swagger to make up for the fact she's still learning on the job. I also love her theme song, it reminds me of an old school WCW track like the Horsemen's theme or Brad Armstrong. Tay Conti was rising fast but seems to have plateaued a bit. I'm not sure this match did her many favours, and honestly I find her current presentation a little bland. Much like her boyfriend Sammy Guevara she doesn't really have much of a personality beyond 'plucky babyface'. They reference her martial arts background but it still doesn't provide much depth. I actually think her and Sammy would benefit switching to a heel duo. I could see that working well, although I don't think it's in AEW's plans. I don't think they've mentioned Sammy and Tay's relationship on screen at all. CM Punk vs. MJF - I've never watched ROH, so Punk coming out to his ROH theme with throwback gear didn't really do anything for me, but it was still a cool idea and the crowd seemed to appreciate it. The match itself was really good, as expected, and told a solid story. Wardlow's soft-turn at the end went over big, and should make for interesting storylines going forward. I assume this was the end of Punk and MJF's feud, which for me has been excellent and a consistent highlight in AEW. Anyone who thought Punk was coming in to smile, cut a few promos and present his best hits has to accept that this isn't the case at all. Much like Jericho, Punk is giving as much now as he did at his peak. I hope he goes onto something equally intense going forward, and it's highly likely anything MJF does next will be great. Britt Baker Vs Thunder Rosa - This couldn't really live up to their 'lights out' match last year, and it was tough to follow the Punk/MJF match. This was still good, but the outside interference and Britt retaining is getting old now. JR stated flat out on commentary "is all this outside interference really needed?" and I think that was some legit frustration from him. I agree. Chances are they will switch the title to Thunder Rosa in her hometown on Dynamite in a couple of weeks, but it begs the question of whether this match was necessary if that's the plan anyway. Jon Moxley vs. Bryan Danielson - Funny to think that when these guys were in WWE Smackdown was ending with Moxley calling Danielson a "turd" as WWE tried to get that trending. What a difference a change in company makes. I think the crowd was getting burned out at this point, as they weren't as hot for the match as you'd expect. It was an excellent, brutal brawl with a slightly anticlimactic ending. Regal's surprise appearance was fun, and what a huge pop! He should be a huge asset to AEW, and it'll be interesting to see how he fits into the Moxley/Danielson story. Darby Allin, Sting, and Sammy Guevara vs. Andrade El Idolo, Matt Hardy, and Isiah Kassidy - A Dynamite/Rampage match that shouldn't have been on the PPV, considering how long the event went. With that said all of these guys worked hard, and Sting's balcony dive onto the tables... just wow. 62 years old and still putting his body on the line. Nobody in AEW phones it in. Adam Page vs. Adam Cole - I felt bad for these guys, because they were following so many great preceding matches. Very difficult to produce anything new or exciting by this point in the evening. They had a good match, but as a viewer I was getting fatigued by this point. The match probably didn't feel as big as it should have, and maybe shouldn't have been the main event, but at the same time the world title should really always be the main event, so... I dunno. It was a nice way to end the show, I was just burned out by this point.

In general I'm the same, but not when it comes to things like inciting fans to confront each other in the stands. Personally that crosses a line for me, and I can't just ignore those kinds of comments. Other stuff is generally just a roll of the eyes. I have to say I'm also uneasy regarding the whole Brockhall sale saga, particularly as we know the same thing was tried at Coventry with the same protagonists in place. I don't know how much or how little Mowbray himself had to do with that whole thing, but I can't shake my discomfort there. The rest of your post I agree with. Results are results and we have to give credit where it is due. It may be a freak season in terms of BBD's form and the division being arguably at its worst quality-wise since we returned to it in 2013, but you still have to get the results and there are plenty of other teams who haven't. Still, I can see why Mowbray rubs people the wrong way and assuming we don't get promoted I'm really hoping he departs at the end of the season. Even if we finish in the top six, I truly believe this is just a one-off season and it'll be very much back to the norm next season if Tony remains at the helm. Possibly worse considering how many players will be out the door.

We caught lightning in a bottle with Diaz in the first half of the season. With that gone our form has disappeared along with it. We're now seeing what many were predicting at the start of the season after the Armstrong sale - a team who barely look able to score a single goal in any given match. As far as Mowbray is concerned, he is what he is. An average manager having a better-than-average season so far thanks to an in-form striker and a desperately poor quality of league. Even Coyle got a team promoted, so the stars can align every so often for things like this to happen. As far as Mowbray being benign... when the fans aren't on his back, sure. Different side of him comes out at the slightest hint of criticism from the stands though. He's pretty thin-skinned in that regard and has made some truly abysmal comments, such as inciting fans to argue with each other and accusing the fans of thinking it's still 1995. Also just ridiculous, troll-like comments such as "I don't look at the league table". Nobody can take away where we are in the table right now, and relative to our budget we're doing well this season. Won't count for much if we end up out of the playoffs when all is said and done though, particularly from the position we were in at the start of the year.