But as usual no goals. I wouldn't care if we only had two shots on target the entire game if they both went in and our opponents scored less.

To be honest I find it hard to put much effort into dissecting Armstrong, or any of our other players, so long as the manager remains in situ. Venky's aside he is the biggest problem the club has right now and eclipses any individual player's pros or cons insofar as our team's performances are concerned.

I very much disagree on embracing Armstrong's selfishness. I don't think we should be encouraging any one player to shoot as often as Armstrong does, nor should we accept the burden of goalscoring being placed on his shoulders. In order to spread that duty around we need a better team game and that includes AA. I do agree he has a poor supporting cast and our tactics/style of play are shit. New manager needed before that can be solved though. Personally I thought AA had some excellent performances out wide. His pace and cutting in could be lethal and gave defenders a headache. He also scored some absolute belters from outside the box. I think he could have been and still could be trained to be hugely effective out wide, although admittedly not by Mowbray and his coaching staff. Again, new manager and new coaches needed. What I like about Arma is that he can add value out wide and down the middle, depending on what shape we need to play. He gives us flexibility and the ability to be dynamic during the match. All we need is a manager who can utilise that effectively.

It's nice that Armstrong has scored 19 goals this season but we're 15th, so whatever we're doing as a team isn't working irrespective of his personal stats. If we had a better manager at the helm I believe AA would score less but be more productive for the team overall, which is what we should be aiming for. He only scored 5 goals in 18/19 when we finished 15th, so I don't think his goal stats are the be all and end all of our hopes.

Yeah, I think it'll see NXT's ratings go up and take the pressure off to try and compete by hot-shotting Raw/Smackdown wrestlers onto the show for no reason other than to grab a bigger slice of the audience.

It'll be very interesting to see how the numbers pan out. Unopposed shows suggests both audiences are loyal to their respective brands, with AEW viewers more likely to tune into NXT than the other way around. I think there's a good chance for AEW to regularly get over the 1m a week mark, but I think NXT is likely to benefit more from the schedule change.

As an aside, NXT is apparently moving to Tuesdays after WrestleMania. Great news for them.

In fairness the only reason WWE is making money at present is because they lucked into a TV landscape absolutely desperate for live events that a decent amount of people will watch. The vast majority of their other metrics (attendence, audience engagement, ratings) have been trending downwards for years and continue to do so. The big thing wrestling has going for it is the fact it's cheap programming. It doesn't cost much for a network to have wrestling on the roster, and historically it's always pulled in a core audience of loyal fans. Even TNA in its better years was averaging a million viewers a week. Traditionally wrestling's biggest hurdle, as far as TV is concerned, is that it's considered low-brow entertainment with a largely poor, working class viewing audience. This makes it less attractive to advertisers, as even though wrestling pulls in a solid audience, it isn't the type of audience major companies have much interest in. I'm not sure how true that perception is in modern times, but it's definitely still there. Up until the past few years it's been virtually impossible for any company other than WWE to get a remotely decent TV deal. When TNA left Spike they were in the wilderness for a long time, landing on barely known channels despite having a track record of pulling in over 500k viewers a week, even during their down periods. ROH only got on TV because they were literally owned by a TV company (Sinclair). The sudden demand for live entertainment that people will tune in to watch means there's been a sudden interest in getting wrasslin' onto network television again, allowing the likes of AEW, MLW, Impact and NJPW to get TV timeslots. In terms of audience wrestling has not really recovered compared to past peaks - WWE only manages just over 2m on prime time FOX, whilst Raw is trending down to 1.6-1.8m a week on average. AEW tends to be just under a million viewers on TNT (TNA got more viewers on Spike in the late 2000s), whilst NXT manages between 500-700k. The other companies are in the 100-200k range weekly. Obviously there are some caveats, particularly the fact TV viewing habits have changed dramatically in the last decade. Streaming and TiVo are eating into regular TV viewing metrics, so it isn't really fair to judge shows based on ratings from over a decade ago. With that said there's definitely a difference between the profits being made during the Attitude Era, for example, and the profits WWE makes now. In the 90s they made money because the product was hot as hell and managed to perfectly tap into the cultural mindset of the time. Nowadays WWE make money because they are a niche form of programming with a very loyal fanbase that will watch the show live, and TV execs want that more than anything right now. IMV they make money in spite of the product they put out, rather than because of it. Smackdown is decent for the most part, but Raw is fucking tragic.

Honestly I don't think any amount of protesting would have changed our trajectory. Venky's are so far removed from us in terms of location, let alone values, that protests only constitute a headache for those running the club locally. I genuinely think we could have had 30k protesting every week back in 2011 and Kean would still have been standing on the touchline every game at an empty Ewood Park until we were relegated. From recollection our deputy CEO sent a letter to Venky's during the middle of our PL relegation season asking them to sack Kean, and he ended up getting the boot before Kean finally resigned. The worst part about Venky's ownership is the feeling of utter helplessness at not being able to do anything to affect how they are running the club.

With or without Dack we go through the same cycles of good and bad runs of form. There's one common denominator and it isn't any of the players!

You could literally apply kayfabe to anything by that logic, including movies and TV shows. Kayfabe is at its core 'protecting the business' by making it seem real to everybody outside the business. Beyond children there is no kayfabe anymore*, wrestlers are more akin to incredibly athletic soap opera actors nowadays and the vast majority of people watching it know that. The only 'real' part of the business has always been backstage politics, which have often been more fascinating than the show itself. As for peaks, wrestling has had two. The Wrestlemania/Hogan years in the 80s and the Monday Night Wars boom in the mid-to-late 90s. I doubt we'll ever see it become that popular again. *Exceptions for places like India where a significant amount of people are still wrapped in the innocence of kayfabe.

Sadly I feel like this has been the sentiment almost every season around this time since Venky's took over.

There's definitely a large element of comedy to Omega's heel persona. The big difference between him and comedy heels in other companies, particularly WWE, is that he actually has credibility and is presented as a genuine threat as well as being a comedy heel. By comparison Miz, for example, is not presented as a serious threat and is just a comedic heel who you would fully expect to lose handily against any decent opponent.

Kayfabe has been dead for years. Everyone's in on the act nowadays. Most adults watch it because it's simple, fun, doesn't take itself seriously and has some amazing feats of athleticism. It's no different to asking why people watch movies or TV shows. It makes as much sense to ask the "don't you know it's fake?" question about those these days as wrestling.

Terrible news for Dack. Gutted for him

I'm not sure we ever really came out of the last one. Not like we have in previous seasons, anyway.

Penalty controversies gives Tony the usual excuse as to why this one didn't go our way. "On another night" and so on. Meanwhile our death by a million cuts under TM continues unabated. Dack's injury meanwhile is a horrible end to a miserable night. I really hope it isn't as bad as it seems, as his career could effectively be over. At the very least another serious injury would be psychologically very difficult for him to recover from. Praying desperately that it's not as serious as it looked.

Regardless of whether it was a soft penalty or not, we're lucky to only be going in one behind considering the level of performance. Fotunately Brentford haven't been able to seriously threaten us despite our inept attempts at playing football. I feel like a broken record as I've said this so many times this season, but even though that was a terrible half we can still come out of this match with at least a point as the overall quality of the league is poor and inconsistent teams like us are rarely punished as we would be in a higher division for playing so badly in large portions of games. We have the individual talent to equalise even if the performance doesn't improve a great deal. We've seen it countless times over the years, especially under the current manager. The simple fact remains, though, that even if we go on to draw or by some miracle win this one there is little hope of long-term progression as long as these fundemental flaws in our mentality and overall game remain.

Pretty much. I think we have a very weak mentality and a soft underbelly. When things are going our way we can play like a top team, but when things are going against us we retreat into our shells all too often and struggle to get back into games. You only have to look at how infrequently we come from behind to win as proof of that.

Yeah, but even good teams have off days, and we still failed to win that one! I just don't think we're a team that can produce consistently good performances under TM. We'll get the odd good run when playing poor or underperforming teams, but in the long run we just aren't very good which is why we are where we are.

The cynic in me would suggest that it's not so much regression and more that Brentford are just playing a lot better than our last two opponents.

Just finished Revolution, spoilers ahoy... Maki Itoh/Britt Baker Vs Thunder Rosa/Riho - fine as a pre-show match. The tiny Japanese female wrestler gimmick does nothing for me so Itoh and Riho don't hold my interest. Rosa is fantastic but should be in a program with Shida already. Britt Baker is a great heel. Young Bucks Vs Jericho/MJF - I've been cold on this feud since the beginning due to AEW's bizarre booking of the Bucks. I have no idea what their motivations are or whether the audience is supposed to like them or not. They had a period of beating up/superkicking announcers and other face characters before they won the titles and since then have had an on again off again thing going with Omega which has been pretty confusing. They've been booked in storylines that are meant to get the audience to sympathise with them whilst ignoring their past and recent actions... I just don't get it. I'm also soured on Jericho due to him being a douche outside of wrestling. MJF is still great. The match itself was OK. Casino Tag Team Battle Royale - a bit of a cluster, but entertaining enough with the right team going over. Shida Vs Mizunami - I know little to nothing about Mizunami, so I wasn't really invested as it was obvious Shida would win. AEW has an over-reliance on Japanese women when it comes to their women's division which leaves anybody lacking knowledge in Japanese women's wrestling feeling a bit left out. I didn't understand why all the heels ran away when Thunder Rosa appeared. She's not exactly a colossus so it's difficult to conjure a logical reason for their sudden panic. Miro & Kip Vs Orange Cassidy & Chuck - Miro is really being wasted in this feud. His pushing Orange into Penelope is hopefully signalling the end of this storyline though. I couldn't care less about Chuck or Kip in all honesty, but Miro and Orange should both be doing better things. Adam Page Vs Matt Hardy - A solid mid-card match which didn't overstay its welcome and had the right person going over. They need to move the Page/Dark Order story on a bit as it is going nowhere at present. Face of the Revolution Ladder Match - I don't watch Impact, so the reveal of Ethan Page did little for me as I had no idea who he was. The match itself was fun with some great spots, although I was surprised to see Scorpio Sky going over. Christian Cage reveal Hugely mixed feelings about this. Don't get me wrong, Christian is a very talented performer who has a good look, can still work and is excellent on the mic. He's a good get for AEW and will enhance their product. With that said... he simply doesn't live up to the hype. He is not a "game changer" and nobody is going to see this and say "wow, Christian is in AEW? I gotta check that out!". This kind of hype should be reserved for people who can genuinely move the needle - the likes of Jericho, Sting and Moxley fall into that kind of category. Christian falls into the Matt Hardy, Jake Hager, Miro, Brodie Lee, Pac category of "former WWE mid-carders who should have been used better". Worthy of a surprise reveal, sure, but not with this level of hype. Personally I was pretty disappointed and I'll take what AEW say in future a lot less seriously as a result. Sting/Darby Allin Vs Brian Cage/Ricky Starks - I think the cinematic format works sometimes and not so much other times. For me this was more the latter. A lot of this could have been done in a non-cinematic match. The camerawork was more distracting than interesting to me, and the announcers playing it off like it was live when it was very obviously taped was weird. Darby being painted up like mini-Sting did nothing for him either. I don't really know how to rate something like this but it's not something I'd go back to watch again. Moxley Vs Omega - the match itself was solid, although I find the "exploding" gimmick pretty laughable. Parts of this came off more like a comedy match to me, whilst other parts were more hardcore and gory. The pacing and flow of the match in general was good. The idea of the ring "exploding" after a certain amount of time was strange to me. Why would both wrestlers not just leave the ring before that happened? Why stay inside it at all when there were no count outs anyway? As for the ring "exploding" at the end... wow, they didn't half screw that up. I genuinely thought in the immediate aftermath that in storyline Omega had purposefully made the final explosion weak and silly to either cover himself in the event he was for some reason still in the ring, or just to troll everybody thinking there would be a huge explosion only to be greeted by sparklers and a couple of bangs. But no, it was played off as being something crazy when it very obviously wasn't. I liked Kingston coming out at the end to protect Moxley, but obviously it made no sense for him to appear KO'd due to a few sparklers going off at ringside which weren't even a tenth as powerful as Kane's usual in-ring pyro. I also thought it made the rest of the babyfaces look bad for not coming out to help. Granted this is a common problem dating back decades in wrestling, where babyfaces are suddenly nowhere to be found when a fellow face is taking a beating, but Kingston of all people being the only person to come out to try and help isn't a good look for the rest of the locker room. Some can be excused due to being involved in previous matches, but for the rest we're just expected to not think about it. That's the kind of lazy booking I hate about WWE, so I'm going to criticise AEW for it as well. Overall the show was alright, but AEW could and should be doing much more with the talent they have. Ideally they should stop bringing in new face after new face and focus on the talent they do have, as too many are getting lost in the shuffle making it hard to care about anybody.

I'm watching through Revolution at the moment, apologies to @Dreyski, I was expecting a much bigger announcement from the way AEW hyped it. I'm enjoying Revolution so far but this was a TNA-esque disappointing reveal. In fact, keeping in mind Christian was one of TNA's first major ex-WWE signings it's a bit like history repeating itself.

Mowbray wasn't leaving before the end of the season anyway, so I'm thankful for any wins that drag us closer to the 50 point line. Fairly sure he'll still be here at the start of next season as well, regardless of where we finish. He's surely one of the safest managers in any league, able to openly discuss how he is immune from results that would get any other manager sacked.

A much needed result. Difficult to read too much into the impact of Armstrong's absence as it was only one game against poor opposition. We'll see over the coming matches whether we really miss him or whether his selfish tendencies are genuinely having an impact on our team play.