DE.

Ultimately we only have ourselves to blame. 10 points clear of 7th in January to where we are now is on the manager and the players and nobody else. I suppose Mowbray had to give us one more masterclass in death spiralling before leaving, and this one may have been the most spectacular of all of them considering the amount of hopes and dreams it destroyed.

Let's face it, he knew what he was getting himself into the moment he signed on as manager of this club. We'd already been a basket case for six years by that point. Whilst the way he's being treated now is pretty shoddy, he's also benefitted from working for 5 years under the same largely disinterested owners who have allowed him to stay on despite the club enduring some absolute horror-runs of form that would have seen any other manager at any other club sacked. He's admitted as much in the past. Unfortunate to be treated like this at the end, perhaps, but very fortunate to have been able to continue despite repeated runs of poor form. He really can't complain that much, considering he was picked up from the managerial scrapheap at the beginning.

As we've seen from previous comments Mowbray's perception of a 'young' player is somewhat odd, as he's referred to the likes of Gallagher (26), Rothwell (27) and Lenihan (28) as young in recent times despite them all being well past the point where the average punter would classify them as young players. Not sure when a player becomes old for Tony - 30s maybe? His comments regarding our young team are still quite disingenuous though as I highly doubt our average is significantly skewered lower in comparison to the rest of the division, so in that sense it doesn't really matter. Not sure what Bournemouth's history in lower leagues has to do with what they deserve now tbh. If we're working on that logic we might as well just create regional divisions where nobody ever gets promoted or relegated, irrespective of club structure, stadium, etc. Just seems like a criticism borne out of bitterness. They certainly have a lot of high paid players at this point thanks to time in the PL and parachute payments, but comparatively so did we when we got relegated and look at what a total fucking mess we made out of that. Now, disliking Bournemouth for how they acted in January with Rothwell? That I can understand.

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?