DE.

WM night 1 - mixed bag. The Usos Vs Nakamura & Boogs - Didn't really feel like a WM worthy match. Boogs getting injured obviously screwed up the finish and they had to come up with a new one on the fly, so who knows if the Usos were going to win anyway or if Nakamura & Boogs were scheduled to win. Bad luck for Boogs. Drew McIntyre Vs Happy Corbin - This one definitely wasn't a WM worthy match. Pointless. McIntyre deserves much better than this. The Mysterios Vs The Miz & Logan Paul - The recently traditional celeb match. Logan Paul did really well. Can't say I cared a great deal about the match itself, and I'm not sure what they were going for with Miz turning on Logan Paul at the end. If the idea is that Paul will be the babyface... WWE may have to think again. Becky Lynch Vs Bianca Belair - The first match of the night that really felt like it deserved its place on the show. Belair's character needs to evolve at some point from 'smiley, dancing babyface' though. It's the default position for WWE face characters and it's boring and leads to crowd apathy pretty fast. Cody Rhodes Vs Seth Rollins - Wrestling's worst kept secret was finally unveiled. I find it really funny that Cody was able to keep his entire AEW entrance, including his theme song which is literally a direct swipe at WWE. He even had the codyvator. The commentators obviously pretended like AEW doesn't exist, because WWE. They'll only mention AEW when it's dead, owned by them or irrelevent. Maybe all three. The match itself was solid, and considering how little prep time these guys had I thought they did a great job. Now let's see how long it is before the crowd begins turning on Cody. Charlotte Flair Vs Ronda Rousey - Apparently Rousey threw a temper tantrum on Friday after being told her and Flair wouldn't be main eventing. Seemingly she thought she should main event over Stone Cold Steve Austin in Texas. Quite the ego she has. Match itself was fine but I don't care much for either Flair or Rousey, so I wasn't particularly invested. A little surprising to see Ronda lose though. Kevin Owens Vs Steve Austin - So, turns out old Stone Cold had one more match in him after all! They kept it simple and didn't have Austin take any major risks. The crowd went home happy and it was a nice way to end the show. No complaints here. Overall the show didn't really get going until the Lynch Vs Belair match. This event does not need two nights. All that happens is that Raw/Smackdown/secondary PPV calibre matches end up on the WM card, giving the entire event lipstick-on-a-pig vibes. As for tomorrow's card... Lashley/Omos I am expecting to be really shit. Raw Tag Team Triple Threat should be decent. Zayn/Knoxville should be entertaining. McAfee/Theory could be anything, Smackdown Women's Tag means nothing. Edge/AJ should steal the night. Roman/Brock is either going to be really good or really bad.

Chelsea 1-4 Brentford - signing Eriksen turning out to be a masterstroke for Brentford. Has turned what was looking like a perilous situation completely around.

"Just one win in six"... between 29th Jan - 12th March we won 1 in 9. Even today we're still sitting at just 2 wins in 12.

Sad how poor JRC has proven himself to be. I don't think this is a temporary thing. Either injuries have knackered him, or he was never that good to begin with, and we're only seeing now how far below the required standard he is.

If we're being honest we were lucky to go in at half time only one down. Probably should have been two or three. So, whilst you could consider a 99th min equaliser unlucky, on balance, as you say, probably fair. I'm not feeling hugely angry as I fully expected something like this to happen, even when we were riding high. When ridiculous comments about erecting statues in Mowbray's honour were being made, there were a fair few ("negative") counter comments noting that the season doesn't end in December and we should wait and see. I was very much in that pessimistic camp, and in this instance I'm glad, as it limits the disappointment somewhat. I never had faith in TM and always expected him to screw this up. Not quite this bad - I at least thought it'd be the playoffs we crashed out in - but in a way this might be better as a playoff finish would have made for an argument for him to stay, irrespective of how we performed in the playoffs themselves. Finishing outside the top six after getting ourselves to second and something like 10 points clear of 7th can only be seen as an abject failure.

Should have seen it coming really. How often do we come from behind to win under this manager? Home and away you could count it on one hand. A spineless mentality that needs to be erased.

Me either, but it's the only positive I have right now, even if it's just a hope .

Only 6 more games under Mowbray. Hopefully.

Genuinely don't think Pickering is better than Bell in any respect. He's been pathetic today.

I wonder where we'll finish in the end? 10th - 12th? To finish mid table after being 2nd at the turn of the year will surely be one of the biggest collapses, if not the biggest, in Championship history? Surely even Mowbray's staunchest defenders, on here at least, will have to stop deflecting to the owners and admit the second half of this season has simply been rank bad management at every conceivable level?

Game over. That was the third time in about 4 minutes they'd sliced through the middle of us.

Fortunately we're in a league where even a stupid team selection like today's has a chance of winning. We shouldn't be left hoping the opposition has an off day every week, but that's how I feel every time I see Mowbray's team selections.

You know it. Have to hope the defence are up to it and we scrape a 1-0. Can't see us getting anything more than that. If we concede first we will lose.

So as it turns out AEW have gone the route of pairing Sammy and Tay up, but somewhat inexplicably have put them into a babyface position. It's a very WWE-esque monkey's paw version of doing the right thing the wrong way. I'm not sure why AEW thinks 'beautiful people on national TV talking about how much sex they have' is conducive to a babyface reaction. Tony Khan isn't usually that tone deaf. They're now feuding with America's Top Team who are categorically heels, so until that feud is done Sammy and Tay will have to remain faces, even though it does them no favours. I can see a WWE style reaction from the audience where they end up cheering the heels over the faces in this one, however, as the heels are more likeable and interesting than the babyfaces.

Objectively around 6 is probably right. Personally I'm closer to a 3 or a 4 though. Aside from the second half of our L1 campaign and the odd month or two here and there per season I've found Mowbray's tenure to be dull, frustrating and baffling in equal measures. Defenders are coming, Brockhall, accusing the fans of thinking it's 1995, encouraging arguments on the terraces, making every opponent out to be superior, death spirals, players out of position (in particular strikers on the f'ing wing), throwing players under the bus unfairly, admitting to letting the dressing room police itself, stupid quotes such as not looking at the league table, refusing to ever take responsibility for anything bad, record bad runs, a record home defeat... well anyway, I've said many times that I look forward to him leaving and I stand by that. I don't find Mowbray's Rovers very enjoyable to follow. Appreciate others seemingly do, but I just don't believe that this manager will ever achieve anything for us in the Championship beyond mid-table. We've seen smaller clubs on smaller budgets get playoff shots in the time we've been in this division, so why should we accept mid table as our ceiling? I want a manager at the helm that I have some faith in. Mowbray simply doesn't learn from his mistakes and it's obvious at this point he is too stubborn to change. Does that mean I trust Venky's to find a better manager? No. It's Venky's. It still wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if TM is offered a new contract even if we drop out of the playoff spots. In fact that is exactly what I expect to happen.

Taking full seasons into account Mowbray has never come close to relegating us, regardless of the death spirals and terrible runs of form and numerous negative records set during his tenure. Poor manager, yes, but not on the level of Kean and Coyle, both of whom effectively doomed us to relegation with their decisions and results. Kean moreso than Coyle obviously, but I'm absolutely sure we would have gone down under Coyle's "leadership" if he'd been allowed to continue wrecking the club. Frustration towards Mowbray is completely understandable in light of recent events, but equating him with Kean or Coyle is nonsense. He's more on the Bowyer level of not good enough, but not a total disaster either. Mowbray's place in Rovers history is complicated. Got us out of League 1 at the first time of asking and signed some very good players for us. Achieved some excellent results and during certain periods we've played some good stuff. However was also unable to save us in 16/17, set a number of terrible records including our heaviest ever home defeat, has almost surely blown our best chance of promotion in a decade and is likely to leave us with an emancipated squad in need of a hefty rebuild. The Brockhall saga is also a black cloud over his reign which I won't forget. A lot more detail could be added but I suppose my view is that Mowbray's tenure is ultimately a mixed bag, whereas Kean and Coyle's tenures brought nothing but negative, severe consequences which set the club back immeasurably.

I can see us and QPR both missing out at this point.

We collapse like this every season, and every season Mowbray lays the blame at the players' door. The fact he can't recognise that he is the one constant, and the main problem, says it all. Or maybe he does know and is just deflecting. Depends on how much you buy into the 'nice guy Mowbray' narrative I suppose. At the very least I assume the statue is now on hold.

Mowbray is a poor manager who never learns from his mistakes due to his arrogance and obtuse nature, but nowhere near Steve Kean in terms of damaging the club. It's hard to imagine any manager will ever surpass Kean as our worst and most destructive managerial appointment. We're owned by Venky's though, so you never know. Seeing Luton in 3rd now is pretty sad. This isn't a case of us not being able to compete and slipping down to our 'natural position', this is simply gross managerial incompetence.

"So young" Kaminski (29) Lenihan (28) Van Hecke (21) Wharton (24) Khadra (20) Travis (24) Rothwell (27) Giles (22) Buckley (22) Gallagher (26) Dolan (20) Pickering (23) Dack (28) Is that really a team so young they can't handle Paul Ince's Reading? Give me a break. If anything I'd say that's almost a perfect blend of ages.

It's obvious now we were a one man team. As soon as Brereton stopped being available we crumbled, and in most games we fail to score, even against terrible opposition.

The league table makes for grim reading now. Amazing how swiftly we have thrown away everything gained during the first half of the season.

I would say "imagine that" but as we've just seen it happen... yeah. Embarrassing doesn't even cover it. Shame on the manager and the players (Kaminski aside). The only minor positive I can take is that maybe this puts us one step closer to Mowbray being out the door. He's ruined yet another season with his bullshit and I don't think I can stand another season with him at the helm.

Dismal first half, again. Turns out beating a rubbish Derby team wasn't a sign of the corner being turned after all. Reading are poor too so we still have a chance to take the three points in the second half. A shame that we seem to be back to square one performance wise though.

Called that a few days back! This manager never learns. It's a miracle we are where we are in the league. Or a massive indictment on the standard of the division in general as far as managers are concerned.