DE.

Lots of excuses can be made for not winning tonight. The simple fact is successful teams get the job done in circumstances like this. Let's see how far we've really come.

Unfortunately yes that's pretty much the case and has been for a while.

I think most of us did to be fair. As you say he looked totally ineffective for long periods, but since Dack has been injured Arma has really stepped up.

I remember very few people complaining about Armstrong's fee in all honesty. Gripes about his performances were purely based on his perceived value to the team at the time and other options which weren't being explored. Armstrong did go through a period of repeated poor performances and kept getting selected. Any player and manager would come under some criticism for that. His fee, as far as I remember, was rarely brought up in a negative sense or to compound the issue in any way. Armstrong just wasn't performing at the level we needed. Obviously that's changed and long may it continue.

In fairness I don't think this is entirely true. Whilst you're right that people have complained about Armstrong, it was usually tempered with "but at least he only cost us £1.75m" rather than also being angry at the fee. That was generally considered the saving grace for giving him time to come good (and on current form that is now happening). With Brereton and Gallagher it's somewhat the opposite as the feeling is that we've significantly overpaid rather than underpaid or paid the going rate.

Just to note even though Blue Blood is showing as being quoted for this post it was actually Paul Mani's words...

Bowyer had a lower transfer budget and higher wage bill, with the opposite being the case for Mowbray. The ultimate difference in budgets probably isn't that big overall. As far as the stability of the club both walked into chaos, but Mowbray has benefited from being able to build a more stable behind-the-scenes structure than Bowyer ever experienced. Although that may be down to TM's desire to do so and Bowyer's lack of experience in understanding the necessity of doing so. Until TM betters Bowyer's league finishes I don't think it can conclusively be said he's doing better, but it's a pointless comparison to me anyway. The aim is top six and so far neither Bowyer nor Mowbray has achieved it. It doesn't really matter to me who finished 8th or 10th or 15th or whatever. All finishes that achieved nothing ultimately so much of the same.

Yeah, this is exactly right. It's alright putting in good performances against the clubs around us, but you have to put the poorer clubs to the sword too if you want to seriously challenge for promotion. We've gotten ourselves into a great position over the past couple of months and back-to-back home wins would really set the cat amongst the pigeons as far as the run in is concerned, and announce us as genuine contenders for a playoff spot. I think this game and the following Swansea match will be huge in determining where our season goes from here.

I've decided to re-open the poll as I have a feeling a few people may want to change their vote. I've amended mine from a 'no' to a 'maybe', which it probably should have been from the start anyway but in light of recent performances I'm definitely not in the absolute 'no' camp at this point.

Just had to hide a lot of ridiculous bickering stemming largely from one inflammatory comment. Firstly, please stop it. Secondly, apologies to anyone caught up in the collateral damage with posts hidden. It is what it is.

I think 4th choice is a bit misleading. Whilst it's technically true the fact is Steele is there as a token English player to bolster the quota, much like Grant at Man Utd and various others. They are in name "3rd choice" but in reality are just training dummies that will never see first team action. Walton on the other hand potentially has a future so is being loaned out accordingly to ensure he continues to progress and get experience.

Was just looking at Imbula's wikipedia page and couldn't help but laugh at this

Strange one as frankly Newcastle under Ashley will never be absolute top level, they'll do well to remain a mid-table PL side. Arma would definitely be an asset for them right now if they'd kept hold of him imo, whether that be this season or next season if they were still loaning him out.

To be honest there's a hint of delusions of grandeur going on as far as Ipswich are concerned. A lot of their fans still fancy them as a big club based on winning the FA & UEFA Cups in the late 70s and early 80s. Never mind that they've barely achieved anything of note since then, other than a couple of good years in the late 90's and early 00's when they got promoted back to the PL and finished 5th during the first of their last two seasons in the top flight. Fact is most people remember them more for getting drubbed 9-0 by Man Utd in 1995. It has its own wikipedia page ffs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_United_F.C._9–0_Ipswich_Town_F.C. With their budget they are nothing more than a lower to mid-table Championship club at best. It's a reality many of their fans still can't accept.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51599290 - Stoke cancel Imbula's contract, an £18m signing with 18 months left to run on his contract. Talk about throwing money down the drain.

I can't remember the reason TM wanted to stay at Hibs off the top of my head, but to be honest I never thought he'd leave here for Ipswich. There was no good reason to. They had a smaller budget than us, worse players and a fanbase who had just hounded their previous manager out by chanting all sorts of disgusting slurs at him. Frankly I'd have been stunned if TM even gave the Ipswich offer a second thought and I doubt he did.

Despite the perception of improvement Stoke have lost 3 of their last 5 including defeats to QPR, Preston and Derby. QPR and Derby both put 4 past them as well, so I don't think we have anything to fear from them. They are capable of good results (they beat WBA and Swansea last month) but overall if we play as well as we have been recently we should be able to handle them comfortably.

One thing I think everyone can agree on is that ours was much more a penalty than theirs was! Still, on balance of play I can't begrudge Brentford a point. Walton proved his worth more than once this afternoon, another who has really improved in the past couple of months. Not sure what's been introduced to the diet at Ewood since Christmas but it's certainly working.

Raya's momentum took him into Buckley, but choosing to drag Buckley down was where the decision became clear. Perhaps Raya didn't mean to do it and it was a natural reaction to falling into somebody, but it is what it is. I thought it was pretty clear cut and on Quest there didn't seem to be any suggestion from the commentator or from Colin Murray/Nathan Jones that it was anything other than a foul.

Mowbray has shown in the past he doesn't let emotional connections get in the way of making decisions for his career - he refused to talk to Ipswich when we got promoted from League 1, despite his history there, and I believe he did the same when he was at Hibs many years ago. If he left us for Boro I would be very concerned about the future is it would, imo, point to severe cutbacks incoming.

As ever was I suppose, we all do it.

He had no comment to make on the blatant dive from his own player that gave them their equaliser I assume?

Seeing the goals again on Quest - our penalty was pretty clear imo, whilst theirs was clearly soft and a dive. Not much to argue about either of them IMV. Watkins' strike was an absolute peach but poor defending to let him get into that position. Still had it all to do from that position and absolutely no blame attached to Walton, but we should have had him closed down long before he got a shot away and arguably could have stopped the ball from getting to Watkins before he even had the chance to shoot.

Hurst's position at Ipswich was already completely untenable by the time he was sacked, however if he had been hired at the start of this season I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be doing worse than Lambert is at the moment.

Generally speaking you're right, these clubs are always a huge risk for relatively unproven managers. You can see the appeal - a big wage, the prestiege of a 'big' club (although not sure Huddersfield really fall into that category on the back of a couple of PL seasons, one of which was totally embarrassing), a selection of theoretically good players to use and a platform of fairly low expectations. However failure can come at a heavy price, as the likes of Paul Hurst, Chris Coleman and others have found out over the past few years. The reality is that these clubs are often cutting back on costs, have players on big wages who don't really want to be there and may not respect managers from lower levels, an already irritated fanbase with little patience and owners who may already be in a state of panic and quick to push the panic button if things don't pick up quickly. The Cowleys will have to hope they can keep Huddersfield up this season and are then given a genuine chance to have a clear out and rebuild from a sturdier foundation. Moving poor players on big contracts on can be painfully difficult though, as we've found out a number of times over the past decade or so.