DE.

Man Utd wanted him for something like £30m but Bournemouth rejected their offer. Obviously United were pretty desperate as their eventual signing of Ighalo showed, but even so we definitely wasted King's talent whilst he was here. From recollection he was behind Rhodes and Gestede as far as striking positions were concerned, and Bowyer preferred players who could cross the ball out wide as opposed to players who would cut in and run at defenders, so the likes of Conway, Marshall and Cairney were preferred in those positions. With that said I seem to remember King playing quite a lot in the first half of the 13/14 season then not so much the second half. Can't remember if he got injured or whether he just wasn't the preferred option. From recollection he did have quite frequent injury problems during his time here as well.

He's had more impact than King, absolutely, but that's more down to Bowyer's ineffective use of King than a reflection on his ability imo. The fact Bournemouth signed him and he went on to have a very solid impact there pretty much from the get go proves he was ready, he just didn't fit into Bowyer's sludgy style of play because he had pace and creativity, which weren't exactly welcomed at the time.

The interesting thing about Armstrong is that often even when he wasn't playing well he'd still chip in with a decent amount of goals and a few assists. That's a very good trait to have as a player. He isn't the finished article yet but I don't think he's too far away from the level King, for example, was at when he left us. He'd definitely be one of the first to go if Venky's decided to pull the plug again and I reckon he'd likely end up at a PL club - even if only as a squad player to begin with.

Tbf if Arma added that to his arsenal then he would 100% be gone to a PL club in the summer. The lad isn't far away from being a top level player based on current form. Honestly I think he may have some serious interest in the summer anyway, as much like Josh King he has that critical ingredient of pace which will intrigue top tier clubs even with his weaknesses taken into account. Newcastle must be kicking themselves for selling him for such a relative pittance. I wonder if there's a sell-on clause in there?

Bolton are gone. No way they're getting out of it now. 20 points away from safety with only 16 matches left to play. Sunderland with 4 wins on the spin are looking like they might be awakened from their stupor. Wouldn't surprise me to see them and Rotherham take the automatic spots. Coventry also in good form at the moment but think they'll end up in the playoffs along with Wycombe.

Boro and Huddersfield had both started picking up a bit of momentum but seems to have stalled for both and with Wigan winning today they are now looking over their shoulders nervously again.

It was ten days ago so a bit early to be having another poll!

He must have spent the week watching those finishing videos Jason Roberts did for the BBC.

Ipswich go down 1-0 to Oxford at home. Lambo really has fucked it up there.

Fortunately I got a screen shot to save that moment forever.

Next two games are season defining imo. At least 4 out of 6 would set us up very nicely going into the final stretch.

Yeah I'll take that thanks!

To keep improving you need to look at what led to the opportunities in the first place I suppose. Either way I'd take a draw here, but a loss would be very hard to accept.

According to the stats we haven't had a single corner today!

Need to hold on until HT and then regroup. Been a difficult half and I don't think we'll survive another 45 playing like this.

Drink it in lads, this is a rare event!

Super Card needs to be a NJPW Wrestle Kingdom style two-nighter imo.

These have all been good signings in general (although in Holtby's case limited due to fitness) but also worth noting all three are short-term. I expect Downing will get extended for another season and I believe Holtby is contracted to 2021, but sadly I expect Tosin will be playing a league higher next season unless we manage to go up ourselves. I think our 'build for the future' signings are still very debatable as to whether they are good signings or not at present. Bell, Davenport, Samuel, Chapman, Brereton, Gallagher, Rothwell... all either failed to impress, barely featured due to injury/not good enough or only had purple patches of good form. So far Arma is the only younger signing I'd say has really come through for us and looks like he could really push on. The rest of our younger players (Travis, Nyambe, Lenihan (not young anymore though), Buckley, Rankin-Costello) have come from within so not applicable in this instance.

No Undertaker v Sting? You lads disappoint me.

Tbf I can remember almost everyone being stunned at how little Cairney was sold for. Absolutely disgraceful that imo, total panic upon realising we were in serious trouble FFP-wise. Evidently nobody was keeping an eye on it until it was too late. Also I would argue the reason Cairney was so ineffective for us was because Bowyer kept playing him on LW where he was nowhere near as useful as when he played through the middle. Problem is at that point in time we didn't really play with an 'in the hole' Dack-type of forward. It was more about putting in crosses than playing through the middle, so for Cairney to get in the middle Bowyer would have had to sacrifice one of Lowe/Evans/Williamson and that was not going to happen.

To be fair to Tony it's been some turnaround in the past couple of months. On October 22 when a BRFCS poll was put up for him to stay or go it was 203/21 (90%/10%) in favour of him leaving. I imagine if we redid the poll now it would be drastically different. Not saying anybody was wrong to want TM out at the time (I was one of them!) but it's quite remarkable to see the turnaround since then. Not that he's achieved anything yet and we could still end up finishing in mid-table obscurity, but I don't think many of us would have believed at that time we would be in genuine playoff contention by the end of February. Have to admit I'm not sure exactly how he's done it, but Mowbray has come back from an abyss that many managers never escape from in terms of fan perception and team performance. I think a lot of it comes down to the players genuinely liking him and wanting to play for him, despite some of the odd decisions he makes.

Just a quick reminder that robust debate is fine, but throwing insults into the mix not so much. Play nice please.

I have no idea regarding the Dack story. Seems like it's just speculation but certainly wouldn't surprise me. IMV Tony has been quite lucky to be in a position where he hasn't had to sell any of his star players. We kept all of our decent Championship players when we got relegated which gave us by far the best squad in L1, and since getting promoted we have exclusively added to the squad to the tune of £14-15m without the requirement to sell anybody. Most managers would be very happy with that arrangement so you can't really criticise Venky's for that. With that said we saw with Bowyer how the taps can be turned off in an instant, so I'm expecting the worst at some point. We're never far away from falling off a cliff edge with the current owners at the helm. They can't help but push the self-destruct button every few years just to remind us how incompetent they are.

It's been a while since we've had to sell a 'crown jewel'. I don't really count Raya as by all accounts that was the manager's decision, not something forced upon us. In fact since Mowbray arrived have we had to sell any star players at all? I can't remember any off the top of my head although I may just be forgetful. As far as Brentford are concerned unless they get promoted their model is only successful from a financial standpoint. If the goal is to get promoted they haven't gotten there yet.

I think it's completely fair to say we are progessing under Mowbray compared to where we were when he arrived. The pace of that progression is up for debate but as it stands we're looking good to potentially finish higher in the table than we did last season which can't be seen as anything other than an improvement - particularly with so many top players injured. Ironically we seem to do better when we have injuries but that's another topic for discussion entirely. I'd say we're more or less back to where we were under GB at present. Probably a slightly less talented overall squad but essentially right back to playoff hopefuls who never quite break into the top six. To get back to that position from where we were at our lowest under Coyle is an achievement and it would be churlish imo to suggest otherwise, it's just a case of whether Mowbray can push us beyond that barrier into genuine playoff contenders rather than pretenders.