What's worse is that Pulis would likely be the most sensible and suitable appointment the owners had ever made during their time here - at the very least on par with Lambert.

Depends - wouldn't surprise me if Joe wanted to continue wrestling but WWE just wanted him to do commentary going forward. Not too dissimilar to the Macho Man situation back in the 90s. I guess we'll have to see where Joe lands and what his next role is. Generally speaking yeah, NXT stars tend to be heavily misused on the main roster. Vince doesn't seem to get what makes these wrestlers work in NXT and either waters down or flat out changes a character to suit his increasingly questionable personal taste. In regards to Ricochet, his biggest issue is his mic work. He's just not a good talker - combine that with not being a big, beefy dude and you're 0/2 as far as Vince is concerned.

It's possible he's been given a very agreeable severence package based on continuing on as normal until the end of the season. I mean, he's under contract so why wouldn't he continue doing at the very least the bare minimum to ensure he gets a payoff when sacked? And let's face it, based on his evident boredom during matches these days he really is just doing the bare minimum. The alternative is not working, breaching his contract and getting no payout at all. Entirely possible he hasn't been told directly, anyway, but knows what's coming regardless.

Probably, but isn't it supposedly Pasha's job to communicate and explain this to them? If not then what is his purpose? To pretend everything is okay and not rock the boat? I'm just curious as to what his motivation would be for not telling his bosses the truth about what is going on, if indeed that is the case. It's not like he hasn't recommended sackings before, after all...

Either the owners literally have the intelligence of children or there is something else going on here. This is now the second manager during their ten year tenure who appears to be bulletproof and whose job is not threatened by league position, results or fan opinion. I can't think of a single club where that has been the case for two managers under the same owner.

Yeah, but you have to factor in the fact that we are (apparently) the only team affected by COVID this season. Or at least that's the nonsensical line seemingly being fed to the owners - but I'm really sceptical of this being true. How utterly thick would you have to be to accept that as true? Even a child would point out that it's the same for all teams.

The only difference IMO is that there was something stopping Venky's from sacking Kean - hence Shebby's parachuting in to effectively force him to resign - but I don't think there's anything stopping them from sacking TM. They just don't care enough about the club to do so. Who's to say they are even aware of what's going on? Any owner with the tiniest amount of basic sense would have sacked this manager a long time ago.

21st would be ideal. Make it as embarrassing as possible for Mowbray without us actually going down.

Please no, once he finally leaves here I never want to see or hear from him again.

All English clubs set to officially withdraw from the ESL.

Never has, never will. His arrogance is astounding considering how little he's achieved as a manager.

Looking like the failure of the ESL may prompt the Glazers to sell Man Utd.

City and Chelsea were the clubs who benefited least from the ESL. Neither are in financial trouble and both have been regularly relevant as far as the PL title and Champions League are concerned in recent years. None of the other clubs can tick both boxes as far as criteria is concerned, so it's no wonder they were the first two to pull out. Their FOMO disappeared when they realised the sheer weight of opposition was about to crush the ESL before it ever got off the ground The pair of them along with every other club involved should still be heavily sanctioned, though.

Mowbray seems to have lost his ability to get the team going again in terms of results after a death spiral. We win or draw a couple then go straight back to losing. His race is completely run now. He has absolutely no redeeming qualities left. Which means he'll probably still be here for the first game of the 21/22 season.

Sounds like for some of these clubs the proposal might be coming from a place of desperation rather than greed. Some pretty big debts built up with no way to repay them based on the current economic model. For others it will just be pure greed, however. The regular leagues have little choice but to impose some pretty harsh sanctions if they want any semblance of their authority to remain. Allowing the so-called 'big' clubs to walk all over them would completely destroy credibility and make it obvious the leagues have essentially been usurped by a collection of rich foreign owners. In my view these clubs simply can't be allowed to join the ESL and remain in their domestic competitions, as it makes a total mockery of the latter. It's one or the other. Entertain both and what still remains of the integrity of the domestic leagues is shot to pieces.

Says a lot about Derby that they not only lost to us, but let us come from a goal behind to do so. They join a pretty pathetic club there! It's happened like, 2 or 3 times at most during Mowbray's tenure? Certainly doesn't bode well for them and suggests theres a good chance they'll be one of the three teams dropping out of the division this season. I've never been worried about us going down as the teams below us are awful as well, but it's nice to inch closer to almost certain safety. The sooner this season is over with the better. Up to the lofty heights of 14th. Mowbray might even dare look at the table briefly tonight. 2 wins in 16, the xG King is back in business.

My only thought is how long will it take them to go back ahead in the second half?

First goal conceded... A point at most now. 1 win in 16.

Dolan is the only one there who isn't a massive disappointment to me. Maybe Buckeroo and Rothwell to some degree as well. The rest I'd be happy to never see in a Rovers shirt again - especially Evans. Stolen a wage from us for years and NI are the only side that have ever seen him regularly fit or useful.

There are plenty of epithets that could be etched on Mowbray's hypothetical club tombstone, but "defenders are coming" has to be near the top of the list.

We really do have a poor team. Look at that bench, and as for the defence... eugh. Still, Derby aren't much good either so let's just hope we get the first goal - as that's the only way we ever win under the current manager.

Lambert was theoretically a good appointment at the time. After leaving us he did alright at Wolves (pre-mega investment, remember), was only at Stoke for 4 months and didn't improve them, and admittedly did an awful job at Ipswich. I'm not convinced he would have done much more for us than GB, based on his track record post-Rovers. It is curious that he evoked such a strong reaction on here, considering he's one of the few managers to actually speak some truth about the club and the owners in the past decade. Any half-decent manager would have kept the squad he left us with in the Championship in 16/17. Even Mowbray nearly managed it.

We won't drop, but so far in 2021 we've had all the hallmarks of a team destined for the drop. Lucky we got the points we did during the first half of the season. If Mowbray stays on for next season I think there's a very good chance he'll take us down, or be heavily responsible for doing so if he's sacked part way through the campaign and the new appointment can't keep us up.

Just Vince being Vince. He's always tried to snuff competition out before they even get going, whether that's by signing up talent or pivoting shows in certain TV slots. He wanted to hurt AEW and cut their momentum by eating into some of their audience - and it's clear that to some degree this worked. In the end though all it did was hurt both companies, and particularly NXT. Maybe he's finally realised AEW isn't a threat to WWE. I mean, he just let Jericho onto Stone Cold's Broken Skull Sessions, where he specifically discussed AEW multiple times. Very unusual behaviour for Vince. Can't believe WWE have cut Samoa Joe. I know he's had a lot of injuries, but they dropped the ball with him even when he was active. Hope he goes to NJPW or AEW and reminds everyone just how good he is.

Wow, 1.2m audience for the first unopposed Dynamite! I genuinely thought it'd shift to 900k at best. Amazing figure. NXT got 805k for their Tuesday show which is also up from where they have been lately. Looks like this move will work out well for both companies.