DE.

Yep, normally if there's one part of the year to rely on for WWE to have decent shows it's the period between January - April. Not necessarily all great but some interesting stuff happening at some levels at least. Raw has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that interests me. Not one thing. If people enjoy the whole Fiend/Bliss nonsense then I guess they can latch onto that, but I do not. What makes it worse is that this has been happening for years now. Anybody brought up from NXT is instantly devalued within the space of a few weeks and made to feel like just another guy on the roster. They've even achieved that with Keith Lee. It's amazing - like getting over is not the objective at all, and instead trying to bury every NXT callup in the goal. In the right storyline the Hurt Business could be a very cool faction. Retribution were DOA, pretty much. The stupid masks and promos, the child-level idea of 'anarchy', the nonsensical decision of WWE signing them to contracts, their lack of storyline direction or purpose... it just sucks on any and all metrics. Every member of that group is talented, they deserve much better than this. I found it weird when Goldberg stormed out to confront Drew and ranted about him disrespecting legends when nothing of the sort had been shown. It made no sense. Turns out they ran out of time and McIntyre never got to the part of the promo Goldberg was meant to be responding to. But Goldberg talked about it as if Drew had delivered the missing part of his promo. Amateur hour and sets the tone for everything else. Goldberg still has a great look and still works as a destroyer, but that's all he should be. A guy who shows up every so often to spear and jackhammer annoying heels like Miz and Morrison to put them in their place. He has no business being in title matches, and jobbing the Fiend out to him in early 2020 was one of the worst booking decisions I've ever seen. I think McIntyre will beat Goldberg, but it's not been much of a buildup considering Goldberg hasn't been around due to his part-time schedule. Even if Drew hadn't been out with COVID I don't think Goldberg would have shown up until next week anyway. Just a huge indictment on the company's inability to build new superstars. Encapsulated this week by having the modern version of AJ Styles in Ricochet be defeated by the 43 year old original who has said he's planning to retire in a couple of years anyway!

Smackdown is a decent show at the moment - helped by Roman Reigns' excellent heel turn and general storyline. I think it helps that it's only two hours. Raw's three hour run time makes it feel like a drag. With that said, even if you cut Raw to two hours it would still mostly be shit based on current storylines.If you look at this week's Raw... Orton begins the show with a ten minute promo that felt like ten hours. Should have been three of four minutes maximum. Also claims the Fiend and Bliss burned him to try and stop him winning the Rumble... right. Nothing to do with setting the Fiend on fire a few weeks back. Some strange logic going on there. Charlotte Vs Royce and the whole Lacey Evans/Ric Flair storyline... eh, it's fine I guess. I can't say I particularly care but it isn't horrible. Matt Riddle - for some reason turned into an insufferable douche. Woods Vs Mace - anything with Retribution involved instantly sucks. Awful group that should have been dissolved weeks ago. Actually, should have been dissolved at the creative meetings before the angle even started. Also Mace's finisher looked like shit. I assume he botched it. Alexa Bliss/Asuka stuff - painful to watch. Asuka comes out of this looking like a joke, and as I mentioned before the hokey nonsense surrounding Bliss is just stupid. So we're supposed to believe the Fiend is now possessing Bliss, assumedly from beyond the grave, and she becomes invincible when she's possessed. I mean... it's not really any worse than what we've seen previously from the Fiend, but I find all of that ridiculous too. Baszler/Jax/Mandy Rose/Dana Brooke stuff - who cares? How difficult is it to book Shana Baszler well? Why is she stuck in this boring odd-couple pairing with Nia Jax? AJ Styles Vs Ricochet - a good match, but WWE have buried Ricochet to the point of total irrelevency. The Dirt Sheet w/Miz, Morrison, Gillberg and fake McIntyre - Miz and Morrison are annoying. The bait and switch with Goldberg/Gillberg is a shitty move. Fake McIntyre wasn't funny. None of this was entertaining. Hurt Business/Riddle & Lucha House Party - The Hurt Business are a good faction but have nothing worthwhile going on storyline wise. I don't care about Lucha House Party and Riddle has been made into just another guy, albeit also a total bellend backstage. Seems way too early to be teasing friction and problems in the Hurt Business. Cedric hasn't even been in the group that long. Jeff Hardy/Elias/Jaxson Ryker... BORING. Terrible use of Hardy. So basically 13 minutes or so of good stuff with Styles & Ricochet, and that's it. I can understand not being able to hit a home run with every segment, but barely being able to produce anything entertaining in three hours in some achievement.

I think that's the key. We need a manager who can not only make the team better than the sum of its parts, but also somebody who can get these inconsistent players performing with a level of consistency. I think the raw talent exists in the team for a top six push, even with the defence as it is, but without a proper winner in the dugout demanding 100% week-in week-out we aren't going to get anywhere close. Not too dissimilar to how it was under Bowyer.

I tried to sit through Raw this week but it was really tough. How have they made it even worse than it was a couple of months ago? The Alexa Bliss stuff is so hokey and stupid. It's like the writers from Lucha Underground are in charge.

I don't have any issue with Mowbray's performance in his first two and a half seasons. I never blamed him for us being relegated, he got us up at the first attempt from L1 and we consolidated in mid-table the season after that. The last season and a half have been pretty shit though. Long stretches of really poor football, the famed death spirals, questionable transfers and refusal to address our obvious defensive problems, increasingly stupid quotes in the media and no sense of real direction or purpose. TM did a decent job for us initially - better than I would have expected. He's tried to give the club some structure with the scouting network. He's achieved a trust with the owners which has allowed him to keep our better players and have some money to spend on building the squad. There have been positives under his tenure. Unfortunately as with most managers he's reached the point where he's taken us as far as he can. His limitations as a tactician and a motivator are holding us back. I think some of the comments and criticism towards him are too harsh, but a significant amount of them are completely legitimate and make a very strong case for change.

Can't lose any momentum if you never have any.

Yep, I think the players get on just fine but there isn't enough (any?) players in the team really willing to pull the rest of the team up by their collars when things are going against us. We don't have a Roy Keane in there to demand 100% from every player on the pitch consistently. Now granted players with Keane's intensity and will to win aren't easy to find, let alone combined with the talent he had, but even looking back to previous Rovers squads we had players like Batty, Sherwood, Short, Savage, Nelsen, etc who would make their feelings known if they didn't like they way things were going. This is a team in the manager's image, unfortunately. Meek, unassuming and only able to perform when things are going our way. We have an incredibly soft underbelly and that's proven time and time again by our inability to come back from being behind to win matches under this manager. It happens from time to time but is very rare. If we concede first then it's a good bet we come away with a point at best. We need a winner in the dugout and at least a couple of proper winners on the pitch, too. It's something we've increasingly seen disappear as Venky's tenure has dragged on.

The only thing that saved Bowyer from more flack in his last full season here was our cup run, which if I recall correctly ended with a spirited defeat to Liverpool after gaining a replay. However that cup run was also proof certain players would perform if motivated - Bowyer just couldn't motivate them for the grind of the league. In fairness most managers come out with total nonsense towards the end of their tenures when they run out of ideas. The main difference with Kean and Coyle was that the pair of them never had any clue to begin with.

If our rich owners cared we could compete. Proper infrastructure in place, a modern manager, a well thought out transfer strategy and people above the manager accurately assessing performance. We have none of that because the owners are happy to simply keep the lights on and let the club drown in mediocrity. Mowbray is the symptom rather than a cause, but our issues go far deeper than clubs having more money than us.

We're only three points behind Stoke, and finished 4 places and 7 points clear of them last season. We can hardly say they're out of our league in any respect. They've got a lot of invested money sloshing around the club but it was mostly spent on dross. Much like when we were paying out the arse for the likes of Murphy, Best, Etuhu, Orr, Robinson, Duffy, Hanley, Lowe, etc. It didn't get us very far. The reason they've pulled ahead of us this season isn't because they're loaded and bringing in top players at top prices. They just have a better manager than we do. It's pretty simple.

If Mowbray has a problem with the pitch has he raised it with Suhail or the owners? Or is he just passing the buck again? Also regarding his comments about Stoke... "It’s a football club with aspirations." Is he saying we aren't? Am sure the owners would appreciate his quotes after allowing him to chuck £12m on Gallagher & Brereton down the drain.

Ty and Claude's arguments used to be hilarious. Think Claude was booted for a racist comment though.

Generally it's the same people who told us to support Kean and Coyle as well. More supporters of whichever manager is in situ than Mowbray himself. We've well and truly stagnated under TM and the rot has set in. The longer he stays the worse it's going to get.

My understanding is that he fell out with the owners at some point before the beginning of that season. Effectively refused to communicate with them. If you remember there was that strange leak where a newspaper printed that he had been sacked, only for them to retract the story a few hours later. Undoubtedly leaked by someone at Ewood who knew his time was up. Even then it took Venky's until November to actually remove him.

I only know what TM says because I read it quoted on here. I certainly never go looking for his views as they have for a very long time been very much opposed to my own.

Btw, did anyone genuinely expect us to go on and get the winner after we equalised, or after Stoke had a player sent off? Honestly I was expecting them to score.

Bowyer was sacked after a 1-1 draw, so who knows. I wouldn't bet on anything happening though.

Not going to celebrate a 1-1 draw at home with Stoke, especially with the performance being so, so bad for the majority of the match. The team needs fresh eyes and fresh ideas. The sooner the manager leaves the better at this point. I don't expect it, and I'm certainly not saying I trust the owners to bring in the right person, but it's what we need to progress.

Managers with winning mentalities almost always set their teams up to first and foremost be very difficult to score against. It's the first and most important piece of the puzzle. Mowbray has never and will never put that piece in place. His entire managerial career is proof of that.

I'd say simply because he's not very good - but it's not like we're spoilt for choice as far as CB options go.

At the very least top six is easily achievable with this team. If we had a manager who knew how to sort out a defence we'd be a real force. Venky's have always neglected the position of manager, though, which is why we've only had one season where we've ever looked like cracking the top six. That and the refusal to shell out proper money on the defence. Whether that's a decision from the top or just the decision of every manager the club has employed remains up for debate, though.

I can't say I'm surprised as I called this as a possibility at half time. It's a shit league with shit teams in it, and we have enough individual quality to make up for repeated, shockingly bad performances. Any decent team would have been out of sight by now. Stoke are nothing special. With a decent manager we'd be right up there challenging this season - the quality of the divison is so poor. Feels like we've wasted yet another chance to make a real stab at getting back up with a squad that could and should be doing so much better.

Everything about this match feels like a manager at the very end of his tenure, and a team who has lost faith in his abilities.

Have we literally had a single shot on goal since the break?

I'd agree, it feels different this time. Even after beating Birmingham at the start of the month we've gone right back to playing like total shit. Normally that result would have spurred on a few decent performances and results.