DE.

It's worth remembering that AEW makes more money from TV than PPV. The idea of hot-shotting on TV, as per the Monday Night Wars era, is a bit outdated. They only have PPVs every 3 months (another huge improvement on WWE's once a month formula), so there's plenty of time between PPVs to have big matches. I do agree that some of the booking is wonky, but no promotion gets it right all of the time. The EVPs being on a power trip comment I don't understand as Omega and the Bucks especially spent most of the first year putting over multiple talents, and only started putting themselves over when a significant amount of fans complained that they weren't presenting themselves seriously enough as 'The Elite'. Cody has been booked strong, sure, but that makes sense considering his position. He's one of the best wrestlers and promos in the company. Also I believe AEW is on course to make profit, so they definitely aren't overspending. TNT is extremely happy with their performance (massively over expectations of a 500k average audience) and are paying them enough to cover expenses. I think any suggestion that Khan is being wasteful with money is quite wide of the mark. As for JR's comments - a person in his position shouldn't be burying AEW wrestlers in public. His comments are something that should be discussed in private. I can completely understand people in AEW being upset with him making those remarks in public, even if they were valid.

100% yes. The long-term storytelling of AEW is such a welcome relief after years of abysmal WWE storylines which are lucky to last more than a few weeks. Everything that happens in AEW has a purpose, and ties in to feuds happening between various people months down the line. Things aren't just forgotten about or abruptly dropped as often happens with WWE's chaotic style of booking. When AEW commits to something they make sure there is a pay off. What's also great is that they actually listen to their fans. If there is widespread dissatisfaction with a storyline or a group then they absorb that feedback and tweak things to improve the product. Good examples are the Dark Order, who started off as weak but became a solid part of the show, and Brandi's Nightmare Collective bullshit which was hugely criticised and subsequently pulled when it clearly wasn't getting over or appreciated. If AEW can salvage something they will, but unlike WWE they won't beat a dead horse if it is simply not ever going to work (-cough- retribution -cough-).

For me it's got a very mid-90s WCW feel. Some technical stuff, some goofy stuff, some traditional stuff, a solid mixture of younger and veteran talent and obviously the fact it's on TNT and Tony Schiavone is commentating! Having the likes of Arn Anderson, Sting, Tully Blanchard, Dustin Rhodes, etc on the show obviously adds to that perception as well. With that said it's definitely not a WCW clone. Plenty of modern wrestling too which nods to the likes of ROH, PWG and NJPW - but the main thing for me is that it isn't trying to be WWE in any way, shape or form. As fun as TNA was at times, it was always trying to be a combination of WCW and WWE-lite. AEW still feels like its own company, WCW vibe or not. You can just tell everyone in AEW is having fun. They aren't bound by catchphrases, sponsors, slogans, a specific style, banned words, and so on. Everything I've come to hate about modern WWE is nowhere to be seen in AEW, and that's a huge relief. Meanwhile, for the stuff WWE does well that I enjoy watching - I can still catch the highlights.

They're also five points ahead of us in the table.

Honestly I don't think a team of cowards could finish 6th over a full season (has any team finished in the playoffs having never beaten a team in the top half?) - and even if they did somehow finish sixth they would surely buckle under the pressure of the playoffs. In fact I would practically guarantee that a Tony Mowbray Rovers side would fall at the first hurdle and get nowhere near the final.

I would love to see the correlation between people complaining about football being a business, but also demanding entertainment. Sport is about winning, regardless of the tactics employed. I'd bet there aren't that many Stoke fans crying into their beers right now over playing attritional football - considering where they were a season ago, and where they are now.

How can it not be over if we have a team of cowards who can't be motivated when under the cosh?

Only 5 points off the playoffs lads. Can't beat a team above us or sustain a consistent run of form, but it's only 5 points. Once Dack comes back from over a year out with a serious injury and Trav returns from months out we'll be unstoppable.

Anoher game where we come racing out of the blocks, looking motivated and ready to compete. 😏

I'm sure he does want to be top scorer as well, but if that was his sole motivation then I'd have expected this selfish streak to have been present throughout his time here. With that said he has never been prolific as far as assists are concerned. 6 last season and only 3 in the year before that. Definitely far more of a goal scorer than a creator of chances.

Arma's selfishness seems to have increased lately. He may be feeling the pressure of being top scorer and being expected to hit the back of the net in every match. It isn't healthy for us to have such a huge reliance on one player to score, so it would be worthwhile for TM and the coaching staff to work with Armstrong on his team game. Getting more players in the goal mix lessens the pressure on Armstrong and benefits the team long-term.

I wouldn't disagree that he's done a good job overall in the circumstances. I just don't think he's the man to push us further than mid-table. He'd go with my thanks and no hard feelings, but we need a manager with a bit more tactical nous and ruthlessness. My main concern in regards to waiting until the end of the season is that I think we may be coming to the end of a Venky cycle, meaning next summer will be all about sales and cost-cutting. I think this may be the last season we have in the current cycle to go up, and I don't think TM is going to get us there based on the season so far. Obviously it's Venky's so spinning the wheel is a risk, but excluding Coyle their managerial appointments since the end of the Kean/Berg/Appleton era have been OK. I don't think we're guaranteed to get a total dud. The main issue is that whoever comes in effectively starts from scratch, as the club is repeatedly rebuilt in the image of whatever manager is at the helm. The owners refuse to implment a sensible infrastructure which makes removing the manager a much more difficult process than it should be.

We look knackered and aren't playing well at all. We can get away with it against teams like Rotherham and Millwall, but O'Neill's Stoke will punish us if we once again turn up looking like we've just staggered out of the nearest pub. Heart says we reverse our performance level and mental block versus teams above us and grab a 2-1 win (little chance of a clean sheet) but head says 2-0 loss and an easy afternoon for Stoke.

We haven't played consistently well at any point during TM's tenure, and I include our promotion season in that. We've had spells of looking decent, but it always ends up reverting to what we're seeing now. Results matter, but I've seen nothing this season to suggest we're going anywhere other than mid-table under the current manager. I'm personally not happy with mid-table, so it would make no sense for me to want Mowbray to stay. It's a long-term view for me rather than short-term. Obviously if people feel we are going in the right direction under TM then fair enough, you'll want him to stick around. Just because I don't see it doesn't mean others can't. We all have different views. Just wish it didn't have to constantly devolve to name-calling on both sides.

This is disgraceful. Mowbray's time is up.

To be honest I stopped watching NXT fairly soon after it moved to TV. It was clear that Vince was getting involved and infecting it with the modern WWE virus, and at that point it was game over for me. If it wasn't for AEW I probably wouldn't be watching any wrestling at all right now.

I can't see Venky's/Suhail and Keane working together for long. Also I am guessing Keane isn't part of the agency they seem to hire all of our managers from?

Fair point, acknowledged.

Can you see/post in the Ask a Question forum? https://www.brfcs.com/mb/index.php?/forums/forum/107-ask-a-question/ This would be the best place to get attention from admin/mods on technical issues affecting the site post-upgrade. Appreciate the 'like' button being invisible is an issue and will hopefully be fixed soon. If there are any other issues then I would definitely suggest posting it in 'Ask a Question' as it will get our attention and also allow people with the same question a chance to potentially see the answer.

If you tap where the 'like' button would normally be it should appear. It does on my phone anyway!

We came close to appointing Warnock once upon a time, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility we could strike lucky at some point. I can't say I'm optimistic, but I have to retain some hope or I might as well completely give up on Rovers until Venky's leave.

Do Venky's really have an appalling recent track record though? Take the first couple of years out of the equation and the only terrible appointment they've made since the 12/13 season was Coyle. Bowyer, Lambert and Mowbray have all been middle-of-the-road steady eddies. Any club can hire a dud (Ipswich basically sealed their doom by hiring Paul Hurst), but I don't think Venky's are worse than most other owners when it comes to appointing managers, so it's not as big of a risk as some make out imo. For the record this is not me defending Venky's in any way and I wouldn't expect them to appoint anyone better than TM. I just don't think it's nailed on that they would appoint somebody so much worse that we'd plummet into oblivion as a result.

We aren't really comparable as they actually did get into the playoffs and had a lot less money available to spend. But that's the benefit of having a manager who can get the best out of a squad and builds from the back. The football may not be pretty but the team as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Similar to how we were under Allardyce back in the PL days. I think Mick McCarthy would have a very good shot of getting this team promoted - not that we'll ever get to see it.

Genuinely despise this disingenous nonsense, even worse when it's spouted by the manager. "But it's true" - yeah, but stripped of all context. We went down with 51 points which was frankly ridiculous and would have seen us safe almost any other season. We didn't have to sell a single player. Instead we bought the best player in League 1 and added to the squad. As a result we romped the league despite not playing very well at any point during the campaign. So, since we got relegated 8 years ago we've spent one solitary season in League 1 - which was a blip caused by the stupidity of our owners hiring a useless manager and waiting until February to sack him. That aside we've finished between 7th - 15th every season, barring the chaotic 12/13 season. To talk us down like we're Luton or Wycombe trying to find our way is insulting. It's embarrassing enough to hear it from our own fans, let alone the manager. No wonder we don't have the mentality to beat the top teams when the manager himself regards us in such a lowly fashion. I can only repeat, we need a winner who understands and embraces what this club should be.

Indeed, like the kind of comments you hear when a plucky underdog gives a top team a good game in one of the cups. "Improvement year on year" is a blatant lie and proves he has no idea what he's talking about, as a post in this very thread has shown.