Even with his contract winding down, I can't see Mowbray leaving us to go to Ipswich at this point in time. Unless he believes this is the peak and and doesn't have faith in the team making the playoffs, it would be a very strange move to leave a team 4th in the Championship to take over a team in turmoil in the middle of League 1. Even if we finish top half and Mowbray's contract isn't renewed, he's probably done enough in the past few years to convince another Championship team to give him a shot. He's had opportunities to join Ipswich in the past when they were in a much better position and turned them down, so unless they're offering silly money for him to take the job it seems very unlikely to me that he'll be going there.

As far as Ipswich is concerned, this is the same fanbase that hounded Mick McCarthy out of their club and have been deluding themselves into thinking it was the right thing to do ever since despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Managerial judgement isn't really their strong suit.

WWE have apparently released Jeff Hardy. On Saturday at a house show there was a strange moment during a multi-man tag where Jeff rolled out of the ring and went into the crowd, and never returned. WWE pulled him from the road after that. Reportedly they offered him the chance to go to rehab and he turned it down, hence the release.

It's specifically called 'NHS app'. When you log in it shows your name, DOB and NHS number, then has options for the NHS Covid Pass, View your Messages, Linked Profiles, View your GP health Record and Order a Prescription. Along the bottom there are options for 'Advice', 'Appointments', 'Prescriptions', 'Your Health' and 'Messages'. This is on Android but I assume it's essentially the same on iPhone as well.

Yeah you can download the pass or print it out. I went abroad recently and had a printed copy, a downloaded copy and the app to cover all eventualities!

Roy's forte has generally been smaller, underdog teams throughout his career. He did well at Inter but they were very much in a rebuilding phase at the time with few real stars or big egos. None of Roy's jobs with bigger teams (us at the time, Liverpool, England) ended well. He was a very good manager for a certain type of country/club.

Yep, two sides to every story but he does say the first three seasons at Rovers were three of his happiest. It just sadly went downhill pretty rapidly after 94-95.

His book is well worth reading if you get the chance. Has some great details on his time at Rovers.

Yes, should read 'against Boro' rather than 'at Boro'... but if that's the only mistake I made typing that block of text I'll take it!

I read Le Saux's book recently, from the chapter on his departure: Was disappointed that Kenny moved upstairs and Harford was taking over. Le Saux liked Harford but didn't see the need to change a winning formula. Harford was a lovely bloke but too nice to be boss. Robert Coar upset the squad by saying we'd won the league a season too early, which Le Saux perceived as showing a lack of ambition and gratitude. He took it as an admission Rovers couldn't deal with the success of 94-95 and were unprepared for a title defence. He says the club had no ambition beyond what had already been achieved - proven by the decision not to improve or strengthen the squad. Says that the club felt like it had lost ambition and it filtered down to some of the players as well. He says it became a less hard-working, less driven place without leadership. He also says the players didn't believe Rovers could sustain the success they'd achieved and some had their heads turned by offers from clubs they felt had more potential. After a couple of months things started to get 'niggly' between players and cliques started to form. Players who pushed the boundaries (he names Sherwood, Batty, Sutton and Newell) got away with more than they would have under Kenny. Colin Hendy and Kevin Gallacher had a rough time with the other players. Hendry and Newell 'had a ruck' in training. The unity of the team broke down and the players began turning on each other. Le Saux says after three incredible years at Rovers everything had now changed. He had argued with Batty previously about passing to each other, and Le Saux says after he nutmegged Batty in training Batty had 'come after him' for the rest of the session. The next game Batty accused Le Saux of being selfish and they argued at half time. Finally, in Russia against Spartak, Batty and Le Saux ran into each other trying to get a ball, and the infamous scuffle occured. Le Saux broke his hand punching Batty. Harford had a go at them at half time and said he was ashamed of them. Meanwhile Sutton and Fazakerley began arguing over how poorly we were playing. Blames our pathetic showing in Europe on the club for not bringing in international class players who had performed at the highest levels. Felt the team were too young and too inexperienced to handle the Champions League. When Le Saux suffered his horrific injury at Boro at the end of '95, he says Rovers' physio Steve Foster didn't know what to do and 'panicked'. Says the Boro physio took over completely in that situation. Le Saux nearly fell off the stretcher on the way off the pitch because they hadn't strapped him in. Le Saux was devastated about missing out on Euro '96 and the overall seriousness of his injury, but says Rovers didn't offer much support. Says that the club's attitude towards him "beggared belief". Says the Rovers physio made no attempt to contact Le Saux after the injury. He says he never heard from the club either. Most of the players came to see him, but nothing from the chairman or any Rovers officials. Bryan Robson & the Boro staff sent Le Saux a gift basket, which to him made Rovers' lack of compassion more hurtful. Does say that Kenny and Ray phoned, but nobody else from the non-playing side. The club didn't even ask him how he was going to get home from hospital. Says that after this experience he was 'emotionally' finished with Rovers. He refused to work with Rovers' physio when returning from injury. Says Rovers 'knew what they had done' and were 'shame faced about the way they had abandoned me'. Knew he didn't want to be at the club from his first reserve game back. Le Saux makes it clear he doesn't like Tony Parkes. Says he felt that Parkes was 'on a power trip' and felt like Parkes disliked him because he had stated he was unhappy with the club over how he had been treated after his injury. Says Parkes saw him as 'disloyal'. The lads' nickname for Parkes was 'BBC' - Balls, Bibs, Cones - 'because that's all he used to do'. After telling Parkes he no longer wanted to be at the club, Parkes told Le Saux that if he was permanent manager he'd let him rot in the reserves. At one point Parkes and Le Saux supposedly nearly came to blows before the players intervened. Jack tried to convince Le Saux to stay and flew over from jersey specifically to talk to him. By this time Le Saux had already handed in a transfer request. Jack was upset and took it personally, because he considered Le Saux 'one of his boys'. Le Saux was offered a lot of money to stay but told Jack it wasn't about the money. Says Jack 'took it quite hard'. He says the club wouldn't accept he wanted to leave which made things difficult. When Hodgson arrived Le Saux made it clear he was going to be leaving, and that with his negative attitude towards the club Roy wouldn't want him around. Believes at that point Roy told the board to let Le Saux leave. Rovers originally priced Le Saux at £7.5m. He claims Arsenal, Chelsea, Juventus, Atletico Madrid and Inter Milan were all interested, but that the interest faded after Rovers attached such a lofty price tag. Le Saux initially refused to be in the team photo for the 97-98 season, then eventually agreed to be on the end 'so that they could crop me out once I'd moved'. He says he has 'no regrets' about leaving Rovers as he'd fallen out of love with the club. Although he always felt valued he couldn't forgive how he'd been treated after his injury. He says he may just be naive, but it genuinely shocked him how little the club seemed to care about him as a person. Obviously the above is all from Le Saux's perspective, but gives an insight as to why he ended up with a chip on his shoulder in regards to the club.

He and his agent are also likely to get a bigger piece of the pie in terms of signing on fees due to there being no transfer fee, so there is an incentive for the player and the agent to run down the contract if they so desire.

If we do somehow get promoted there's no way Mowbray would be sacked. I wouldn't go as far as to say it would be unjustifiable if somebody with a better track record at PL level was brought in, but it would be very, very harsh.

Having seen first hand how much hard work goes into keeping this place going, thanks to all of the guys who work behind the scenes. Also a shout out to anyone else who volunteers or has voluntereed for any worthwhile cause.

Ayala tends to take the winter off so probably not something Mowbray will have to worry about until February at least.

Which is fine but there was zero evidence to suggest that was possible under Mowbray based on his Championship finishes with us (22nd, 15th, 11th, 15th) which combined with regular death spirals and baffling squad selections made the idea of Mowbray being best for Rovers' ambition quite bizarre. There are very few people who were predicting we'd do well this season. There may have been a few but most were accepting we'd do well to get a top half finish. The emergence of Diaz as a goalscoring machine, one of the primary drivers for our success, was simply unfathomable before this season started. We're also only in December and there is a lot riding on what happens during the January window - mainly in terms of potentially selling players who haven't committed to new contracts. So there's little point anybody declaring themselves sages who knew that they were right all along just yet. If we end the season in the playoffs then fair enough, I think everybody would have to hold their hands up and say Mowbray did a great job this season whether we got promoted or not.

You could tell Cook was losing the plot once he started going after journalists and fans. It rarely ends well, unless you work at Rovers!

https://www.twtd.co.uk/forum/524076/it-won’t-happen-but-would-be-happy-with-tony-mowbray/

Cook given the boot after Ipswich drew 0-0 with Barrow today. https://www.itfc.co.uk/news/2021/december/paul-cook-relieved-of-duties-at-ipswich-town/

Great result. As it stands we're 5 points clear of Stoke in 7th. Joint 4th best GD in the division despite that 7-0 drubbing, otherwise we'd be 3rd best behind only Fulham and Bournemouth.

I don't necessarily have major concern over replacing Nyambe. Whilst I don't think it would be as easy or as cheap as some make out, Mowbray generally knows how to bring in a player that is suitable for the league we're in (keeping in mind the likes of Bell and Smallwood arrived when we were in League 1). His ability to deploy said players correctly is another story, and the obvious concern is that the owners never seem very keen on spending much money on defence. Certainly in terms of transfer fees. Overall though when you look at the replacements for Walton (Kaminski), Mulgrew/Williams (Ayala) and Bell (Pickering) there hasn't been any downgrade in those positions. Granted in the cases of Walton and Bell it would have been difficult to downgrade, but still. What's disappointing for me is that the weaknesses we're talking about in Nyambe's game are basically the exact same ones we were talking about when he first broke into the team. There doesn't seem to have been any signficant improvement in those areas over the years, and whether you blame coaching or the player himself for that it's still a shame as Nyambe has all the physical attributes to be an excellent RB/RWB.

Yeah it was Champ Manager until around 2004, then there was a split between the publishing company (Eidos) and Sports Interactive. The publishing company kept producing Champ Manager for a few years using a new engine, whilst Sports Interactive renamed their game to Football Manager using the original engine and have stayed strong ever since.

QPR being 3rd in the division says it all. Nothing to fear!

I've found that, as far as information on the screens is concerned, over time you adapt to what is useful and what isn't. Eventually you just automatically ignore the stuff that isn't important and can just go straight to the parts that actually matter. Particularly when it comes to stuff like player attributes.

To be fair just because it's said every season doesn't mean it wasn't true each of those years. I'd say there's a really good argument for it this year though. As for being a damning indictment of the other managers, as always it's dependent on a variety of factors including budget, injuries, etc. For some probably yes, for others probably not. Although I'd judge that more in terms of a top six finish than promotion. Top two spots are being increasingly monopolised by the parachute clubs and the playoffs is a lottery.

It'll be interesting to see how Dack is slotted back into the team. We're currently doing pretty well without him. I suppose if Rothwell goes in January there's a place for him there, but he and Rothwell are quite different players so it'd probably require some rejigging of our shape which would make me nervous under the current manager.