Much more chance of Watford getting a third pretty quickly in the second half after a Mowbray half time team talk special puts the lads to sleep and kills any momentum.

Fortunately I don't have Sky so don't have the ability to watch even if I was tempted - how's Corry "the engine" Evans getting on? Done anything of note other than not get injured? 5 losses in a row... Mowbray should be potted at half time, let alone any later.

I expect Keane would be out the door in even less time than Lambert was.

Amazing that Wayne Rooney's Derby® are now only 2 points behind us. And by amazing I mean embarrassing.

Strange goings on there. Appointing a rookie at the beginning of the season, then going for another rookie after sacking the first rookie (seriously, what has Henry achieved to even be on a shortlist for a club looking to get out of the Championship at the first attempt?) and now putting Woodgate in charge until the end of the season - which considering his last stint as a manager seems like the equivilent of throwing in the towel for this season entirely. I can only assume cashflow problems as otherwise I see no logic in their thinking at all.

Until they appoint a genuinely decent manager - whether that be one with obvious upside or an experienced pro who has recent success - I completely disregard the suggestion they have learnt anything significant from their decade of owning the club. It's not like the options haven't been there in the past - Warnock in 2016, McCarthy in more recent times, and plenty of up-and-comers who may be ready to make the step up. Instead they always go cheap on the managerial position, and not learning the importance of having a solid manager at the helm has been one of their biggest mistakes and the reason we have never gotten anywhere under their ownership. The other huge omission from their plans for the club is the implementation of a structure at Ewood which allows the manager to focus on managing and other departments set up to focus on scouting, long-term vision, etc. I've said for a long time the manager should not be dictating our long-term vision, that should be something decided at a higher level and given to the manager as a remit.

This is pretty much my view as well. It's really difficult to judge our players at the moment, as they are under the instruction of a manager who is at what would traditionally be the end of the road for most clubs. Mowbray's selections, tactics, subs and interviews are becoming increasingly bizarre and desperate, making it difficult to judge how the players would fare under a more stable, organised manager. I don't think we have a squad significantly worse than a lot of the clubs going for a top six finish. With the right manager, able to make a team greater than the sum of its parts, I believe we would have a decent shot at the playoffs. Our weakest area is defence, due to how injury-prone most of our first team defenders are, but a better manager would likely have addressed this some time ago. Certainly if they were given four years to complete that task.

9 losses from 11 back in the 18/19 season, with a draw in the 5th game and a win in the 8th game. A horrific run nonetheless which ruined that season entirely. Notched 4 wins in a row once the pressure was off though, unsurprisingly. I've never really felt serious resentment towards Mowbray despite his obvious limitations as a manager, but his recent comments are turning me against him and I imagine if fans were at the ground there would be a turning of the tide at this point. He comes out with excuse after excuse, and his attempt to blame the fans for Nyambe's injury is disgraceful.

Holtby is a talented player but his body just can't handle the regular demands of professional football. It's always difficult to maintain any kind of consistency when you're in and out of fitness. Fact is if he could stay fit he wouldn't be here. I think we'd be better off letting him go as he isn't available regularly enough to have any kind of lasting impact on our form, but it's a shame.

I tend to agree. There's a possibility for a small initial uptick with a new manager bounce and players performing above their usual level to try and impress, but I get the feeling that would fade fairly quickly and we'd be right back where we are now. If we want to go up the next appointment simply has to be ambitious and a little risky - and I'm not talking Henning Berg or Owen Coyle risky, but rather a manager who doesn't necessarily conform to the Bowyer/Mowbray 'nice guy' standard. I wouldn't necessarily be in favour of a John Terry style appointment either as I don't think this job is suited for a novice manager due to our unorthodox structure which sees the manager oversee practically everything at the club, but I do feel we need somebody who could come in with a serious plan to shake the club out of its slumber. It was briefly attempted with Lambert but ended quickly as he was clearly unable or unwilling to work under the Venky structure - although perhaps that was for the best considering how he fared after leaving us.

I actually think Pulis could do a solid job with us, basically a budget Big Sam for what has become a budget Blackburn Rovers. No doubt he would cause some major fan divide in the same way Allardyce did, though, so whether that's really what we need is debatable. Question marks over whether he could get us into promotion contention but I think he'd improve on Mowbray somewhat in terms of results, if not playing style. Adkins did a solid enough job at Hull but has been out of the game for nearly two years and hasn't had any serious success in some time. Not convinced he'd be able to get us any further than Mowbray. Definitely wouldn't be an ambitious appointment by any stretch of the imagination and would signal we are looking to stay where we are rather than climb out of this league.

If Mowbray had truly lost the dressing room or the players wanted him out we'd be getting hammered regularly. We may play some dire stuff but we aren't getting battered results-wise on a weekly basis. The players just look confused and massively lacking motivation. I think they've lost faith in TM being the man to get us up, but have enough respect for him not to down tools and give up entirely. This makes the decline extremely slow and tedious. If we were getting smashed each week the pressure would pile on far quicker, but because our defeats are generally narrow and we pick up wins here and there it never looks that bad - even though as supporters most of us know this "journey" should have ended some time ago.

Yep, quite a few performances this season where it's been obvious that Mowbray has lost the players mentally even if it isn't a full-on "lost the dressing room" mutiny. The lads aren't putting in the extra graft for the gaffer and looking at how he sets them up each match who can blame them at this point? They are likely as confused as we are by what the "philosophy" is, whilst our "journey" seems to be taking us off a cliff edge into the abyss of Championship mediocrity (and soon we may consider that a fortunate fate). At most clubs Mowbray would have had his bags packed some time ago. Probably during that period where we lost 9 out of 11 games. Instead the manager and players carry on like zombies, a lifeless husk of a club in desperate need of change from the very top, let alone the manager's position.

Every time we get a sniff of the playoffs this happens - every single time, without fail. It's so pathetic. The entire non-playing side of the club needs a clear out, the mentality needs to change. Certain players need to go too, but with a team of winners in the dugout I genuinely believe a fair few of our current squad would thrive, whilst the rest would be quickly weeded out and moved on. Never going to happen under Venky's though. That kind of transformation can only come through owners who actually give a shit.

I'm not sure if Christian returning was a one time thing or whether he'll be a recurring character again. My only concern with him challenging for any title (24/7 aside) is that it's once again going back to older stars to carry the load, and if Christian ends up in a WM program that's taking a spot from a regular roster member who could have used that match to elevate themselves. For me I'd much rather see people from the current roster being put in good storylines and positions higher up the card, as WWE desperately needs to build their current crop of talent, rather than keep going back to the Attitude Era/Ruthless Aggression well. I feel somewhat the same about Edge winning the Rumble, but slightly less so as dude is clearly still in very good shape and after so long out over the past decade is in a lot of ways a fresh face. I think it was "The Death of WCW" book that said "TV age" is more relevant than actual age. If a 35 year old has been on TV consistently for 10 years then their "TV age" is older than a 45 year old who hasn't been on TV during that time. As long as the returning wrestler has been away from long enough, looks decent and can still go they have value, albeit not necessarily one you're going to build on long-term. They just have to be used in the right way.

Going off past history I wouldn't be relying on him to see a full season out, but if he mostly does this season then that's a step in the right direction.

Overall I thought it was a solid PPV. Drew/Goldberg was booked pretty much perfectly. The match was short enough to hide Goldberg's weaknesses, but he still looked fairly strong in defeat which made McIntyre's win seem impressive. Banks/Carmella was good - not quite as good as their last match but still solid. Carmella has improved a lot in the past couple of years, and I think Reginald is an entertaining addition to her act. Banks going over makes sense. Nothing wrong with this one. I actually quite enjoyed the women's rumble match. There have been reports of Vince being very high on Belair, so no surprise they are strapping the rocket to her. Ripley winning would have been good as well, but as she's on NXT and Belair is on Smackdown it makes more sense to have Belair go over this year. It was cool to see Victoria again. The 24/7 nonsense during the match was poor form and unnecessary. Not even going to comment on Rosenberg winning it. Reigns/Owens was fine, I guess, but I'm burnt out on this feud. Already feels like they've had too many brutal matches so this was just another one to add to the list. I never felt like Owens had a chance of winning and the botched ending was dumb. Time for both to move on to something else. The men's rumble was OK, but nothing special. It was great to see Carlito, who is in amazing shape. He has been talking about doing another WWE run for a while, so hopefully this is more than just a one off. He was one of my favourites back in the mid-2000s. Christian showing up was a welcome surprise too. Edge winning is a great story, and I don't have a problem with it, but it does still point to WWE being unable to create new stars to carry the company. I'd rather Edge win it than Rollins, Strowman and Orton though, so it worked for me. I'm wondering if Sheamus and/or Keith Lee somehow get added to the title mix to set up a three or four-way match at Wrestlemania. Edge Vs McIntyre would be fine, but I just don't know if it's big enough to feel Wrestlemania special. I guess they have a few months to get there.

The problem with Douglas is that one of his supposedly major attributes, crossing, is wasted here as we rarely play with a target man. Would have been a lot more useful when we had Graham up front, not so much with Arma. He's also slow which causes problems in our current formation. I'm an advocate of moving away from 4-3-3 anyway, and think we absolutely have to do so for Douglas to be useful for the second half of the season. Our CB issue will be a big one in the summer, again. Lenihan an average Championship defender who spends a fair amount of time suspended or in the treatment room. Ayala doesn't like to play during the winter. Nyambe also struggles with fitness and is our primary RB. Williams out of contract and presumably leaving. Wharton had a good start before getting injured, but we can't get too carried away with that. He still has plenty to prove. CB/LB have been the two areas that Mowbray has thoroughly neglected throughout his tenure here and it has caused us plenty of problems. Hopefully Pickering will be a good long-term LB option but frankly I'd never heard of him before we were linked to him, so I can't say whether he'll be any good or not. We can only hope, as I don't think we'll be spending much more than that on any defensive position.

Hulkamania had a bit of a downturn after Hulk was caught on camera admitting to being a racist in 2015. He comes back on occasion now for cameos but that's about it.

The fact the staff at the club needed to learn that lesson "the hard way" is more of a concern to me than what people on here are saying. I'm also not sure how much of a lesson was really learned as we continue to rely on injury-prone CBs and find ourselves short once again in January. Nonetheless this City lad seems to be highly-rated and hopefully won't cost too much, so for the short-term it's a good solution. Would be nice to sort it long-term as well, but as we seem to have a significant cap on transfer funds for defenders I doubt it ever will be.

I'm honestly not sure who is going to win the Rumble this year. I would have loved to see Keith Lee win it, but Mia Yim has been diagnosed with covid and Lee hasn't been on Raw for a couple of weeks... so it's possible he won't even be in the Rumble. Sheamus is a possibility, as they've been building to him potentially turning on Drew at some point. Not sure McIntyre Vs Sheamus is the big WM match they want though. As far as McIntyre Vs Goldberg, anything other than a clean win for Drew is going to be shit. Miz (along with Morrison) has been booked into total oblivion. Nobody cares about them and they are the most annoying part of Raw or Smackdown. Miz having the briefcase is a complete waste. They'd have been better off leaving it with Otis in all honestly.

Not sure why we needed to go through that to learn anything, hard way or otherwise. I seem to remember most of us on here desperately hoping for a CB as we were so short on cover, and knew Lenihan was both injury and suspension prone. If that's a lesson anybody at the club needed to learn they're in the wrong job. It was obvious long before the Brentford game and our CB shortage came to the surprise of nobody with a brain.

Same old swings in form with TM. We all know it won't be long before we're leaking like a sieve and dropping back down the table. It'll be exactly when we have a chance to get in the top six. Might as well enjoy this while we can because it ain't gonna last. Anyway, doom posting aside always nice to get a win and clean sheet, even if the game was the usual turgid Rovers affair. Kaminski is the best pound for pound signing we've made in a long time. If only the fabled European scouting network could source us a good, cheap left back.

Also won damages from Kean back in 2013 and had the club publicly apologise to him, so I think he had his last laugh as far as we are concerned some time ago.

Lambert has done plenty of things in the last year or so which haven't been great for the image of the club. He's even aimed a few barbs at Evans himself. I don't see the newspaper piece doing much. Evans did an interview a couple of months back where he took a veiled dig at the fans with the old "be careful with what you wish for" line - going on to suggest that he shouldn't have caved to fan pressure to sack McCarthy. Remember that Lambo only got handed a new 5 year contract a year ago, despite doing a pretty poor job at the time, so there's obviously something there that Evans likes. He sees Lambert as a long term project, although if they miss out on the playoffs by a wide margin again this season I think he may be left with little choice but to admit defeat and make a change.