DE.

Can't say they don't deserve it. We've been largely poor, again.

Exactly the kind of magic you need to get you ahead in games like this. Class.

Considering they finished 11th last season after a spectacular post-November implosion, Lambert should be thankful he's in a job at all. Never mind that he was instead rewarded with a 5 year contract, Kean style. Little wonder the fans are upset - although I imagine some of them are feeling a little foolish about forcing McCarthy out right about now. Granted most I speak to still bury their heads in the sand in regards to that and insist "his time was up" for vague, unspecified reasons.

So many bizarre quotes from Lambert in that article. He's completely lost it. What's funny is that the journalists he's having a go at for being negative are no worse than what you see printed from the likes of Sharpe. They're known for being too soft, rather than too harsh! Lambert and the General Manager (Lee O'Neill) have also put the blame on the TWTD forum (Ipswich's BRFCS, essentially) for increasing negativity. They've also banned the local journo (25 years covering Ipswich) who runs the site. Would be like Rovers blaming BRFCS for bad runs of form (surprised they didn't during the Kean era tbf) and banning J*B from attending press conferences, should he be inclined to do so.

I worry when Pears is in goal, but I've been pleasantly surprised with Wharton's contributions so far. A lot more solid than I expected. I think Kaminski is hugely important to us, and if he stays fit then we should be okay rotating between Lenihan, Del, Wharton and Ayala at CB (could also have Nyambe in there at a push). JRC/Nyambe is a solid enough RB contingent, with Douglas/Bell being a bit more of a concern for me personally at LB due to fitness issues with Douglas and ability issues with Bell. Overall though, even with the above taken into account, I think we have a squad fully capable of challenging at the very top of the division.

Goalkeeper, midfield & attack Rovers starting 11 are up there with the better teams in this division for sure. Defensively I would say we're closer to mid-table, and pretty much our entire first choice back line are horrendously injury prone, so... that will probably be our Achilles heel as the season goes on. Just have to hope the footballing gods are on our side as far as defensive injuries are concerned, and that Lenihan improves over the course of the season as thus far he has been a noticeable weak link at the heart of the defence.

Starting to fall apart again for Lambert at Ipswich: https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/sport/ipswich-town/lambert-hits-out-at-negativity-surrounding-ipswich-town-1-6949892 https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/sport/ipswich-town/mike-bacon-negativity-or-reality-at-portman-road-1-6950212

Watched Shockwave and... eh. Hasn't got the unique charm of Powerrr and is basically just a bunch of canned indy matches. I think I'll pass until Powerrr returns.

I'd love if they just updated it in a more modern Visual Novel style to be honest. It's not a genre that's huge in the West, but I'm sure it'd do good numbers in Japan and a respectable number outside of Japan through its name value in retro gaming circles alone. I have Symphony of the Night, but yet to play it. Never been big on the Castlevania games but I do want to get round to it at some point as it is universally acclaimed. PC Engine is amazing for anybody into shooters and has some solid platformers as well. It's a bit lacklustre as far as other genres are concerned, though, so for me it's still behind the NES & Master System as far as 8-bit consoles are concerned. With that said I probably have a bit of nostalgia bias towards the Master System!

It's on the PC Engine mini I own... but unfortunately they didn't translate it and so it's all in Japanese ? I have a ROM of the Sega/Mega CD version but haven't played it yet. Supposed to be a cool game and would be a good candidate for a modern remake imo.

Can remember media outlets printing similar stuff during the era of 'stability'. They'll have gotten it right when we improve from being the mid-table Championship club they made us.

Very Trump-esque quote that, Phil! It's not unreasonable to ask for evidence. Going down the 'I heard it from a source' route is fine, but it's not real proof of anything. All I can remember reading from Mowbray is the quote on the £7m burning a hole in his pocket and needing to be spent, and taking full credit for Brereton's signing and saying all responsibility, good or bad, was on him. That's not to say the suggestion that the money was ear-marked for a specific type of player isn't true, as circumstantial evidence points to the owners being more likely to sanction much more money for attackers than defenders, but I just can't recall any specific quotes from TM confirming this. If anything he's inferred the opposite.

Yeah, I really miss Powerrr on a Tuesday and I hope they bring it back one day - even though it'd have to be a lot different considering how much the roster has changed. Pretty much all the storylines they had going would probably not be continued. I'm not sure exactly what Shockwave is meant to be, but I'll check it out anyway.

Brereton wasn't used as a scapegoat, he was simply pointed out as being a huge waste of money when other areas of the team - goalkeeper and defence primarily - were being criminally overlooked. Arguably our defence still has been. Even when taking into account how Brereton played this season, there's no doubt in my mind that such a significant amount of money could have been spent far more wisely than on a single player who was not ready for the first team at the time of signing. Whilst we are looking okay at the moment, let's not get ahead of ourselves with talk of how we've been saved. As it stands we remain a mid-table Championship team - the same as we have been for the vast majority of time under Venky's reign. Mowbray has done a good job of getting us out of League 1 and stabilising us back into the position we were in 5 years ago, but let's also remember he hasn't had to sell a single player and has been given plenty of money to spend in order to do so. To claim success we require a top six finish at the very least - as it stands we are still in a position where as soon as we get within touching distance we seem to mentally implode. We are yet to beat any of the better teams in the league yet this season. There are still barriers we need to break down before we can truly say we are going in the right direction, rather than seeing a rerun of the Bowyer years. I would love for Mowbray to be the man to finally give us something to look forward to after a decade of nothingness, but for me at least the jury is still out for as long as we continue our aversion to being in the top six of the division for any significant amount of time.

It's a shame words like 'scapegoats' are so often used completely incorrectly. To call either BB or SG scapegoats is a complete rewriting of history and laughable in any context. Both players were bought for significant sums and until this season produced little to nothing to justify those fees. They were quite rightly identified as weak links in the team because until this season (and the last two games in Gallagher's case) that's exactly what they were. It's great that the pair of them are finally finding their feet and that is being recognised across the board.

Credit to Barnsley, came here and gave us a major test. Play like that every week and they won't have to worry about a relegation battle this season. Winning whilst not playing well is a skill we have rarely exhibited during the Venky era, so it's nice to see we have that in our locker. Kaminski immense today - the difference between a win and at the very least a draw, maybe even a loss. With Walton in goal we definitely don't win this one.

Really poor first half, but we're winning, and I'll take that over playing well and losing any day. I expect we'll improve in the second half, and hopefully add a couple more to make it a comfortable afternoon.

The Taker/Cena match made no sense to me at the time and it still doesn't. I can't get my head around what the point of it was. On paper it's a great match, but the execution was absolutely baffling. I didn't even think the build up was good as it was completely one-sided with Cena repeatedly calling out Taker and increasingly falling out of "kayfabe", whilst Taker continued to ignore him. Then the match was treated like a bonus on the show, not even properly advertised. What the hell was going on? I can only assume they genuinely didn't know if Taker was going to be able to do the show up until the day itself. I can't make sense of the booking otherwise. It may have initially built some suspense but it only works if the match is eventually made, and it wasn't (until during the event itself) and I guess Cena was meant to be drunk or something? So he got squashed, and everything about the storyline and match was pointless. I mean it's vintage modern WWE (© Michael Cole) but still... what a shitload of fuck (© AVGN). Taker will always be a legend, but in my view his relevency ended at WrestleMania 28. End of an era should have seen Taker, HHH and HBK all retire in a blaze of glory.

Possibly, but I'd be surprised if it led to a huge uptick in WWE Network subscribers - and that's the only metric that really matters with their decision to effectively abandon traditional PPV. It for sure hasn't had any effect on the Raw/SD ratings, although that's probably because Undertaker has never been advertised as showing up on either of those shows. I always felt like it's a shame the ABA gimmick didn't get a final run out. I know it was mixed into the AJ WM36 match somewhat, but it would have been cool for Taker to do one more match as full on biker Taker. The match against Cena would have been ideal, as it was basically just a squash anyway.

Honestly one of the things that bothers me about Taker's retirement is that he isn't going out looking up at the lights. It's a time-honoured tradition that you'd expect a veteran like Taker to insist on. Obviously they wasted the streak by ending it with Lesnar, who didn't even need it, but as you say the right storyline could have been built to have someone go over and be legitimised in a big way by beating Taker and retiring him for good. The most obvious choice would have been Bray Wyatt - whilst he doesn't technically need it either, it would have been a huge boost to his fiend character and in a lot of ways make sense as he is in many respects the Undertaker's successor as far as dark characters are concerned. Something about the way they've retired Taker just doesn't sit right with me. He's retiring long past when he should have anyway, but there were plenty of better ways to do it than this. It just seems really anticlimactic and boring.

@Bigdoggsteel have you been watching AEW recently? Quite a few NWA Powerrr alumi on there as of late, which is nice to see.

I was thinking more the way the match ended with Taker laying down his hat/coat and descending down into the ramp. I thought that was a very cool image and would have been a good final image for Taker. I don't remember much about the storyline or the match itself to be honest with you. His last great match was probably WM28, the 'end of an era' match with Triple H & Shawn Michaels. If we're talking the best way to bow out with a solid storyline build, great match and great ending, then that was it. Taker obviously wasn't ready to retire at that point, though. I'm not convinced this retirement will stick either. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Taker came back at some point in the future for another match, especially if crazy Saudi money is being waved in his direction. Even Shawn Michaels ended up coming out of retirement for some Saudi blood money.

People exaggerating points, especially on football forums, is nothing out of the ordinary. I'd hope nobody writing or reading comments like "we'd find better down at pleasy" would be taking it seriously. Whilst we still overpaid hugely for Brereton, the fact he's now beginning to contribute something makes it a little easier to accept. Fingers crossed he continues to improve and perform well.

Easy to have a good game against a team that bad in fairness. We could have brought Keith Andrews out of retirement and played him on the wing and he would have looked decent last night. SG on the wing remains tactical idiocy on Mowbray's part.

Lol. Won't get a game much easier than that at this level. Cheers PNE. Dolan getting on the scoresheet is the cherry on top.