Problem is I looked back at the goals Mulgrew scored last season a while ago and I don't think we won any game he scored in. Possibly one - but generally speaking his goals counted for nothing other than a slight improvement on our goal difference. I'm not sure Mulgrew coming back under Mowbray is realistic anyway. His sudden departure was very strange and it feels like something happened between them which might not be reconcilable.

Frankly we'd still have overpaid.

All managers eventually get to the point where things begin to get stale, typically nowadays after 2 or 3 seasons max. We're even seeing it with Pep at City this season. Eventually a change is needed. Obviously the risk of Venky's appointing a total dunce is high, but equally how long can we realistically sustain these types of losses plodding around in mid-table Championship purgatory? Nobody knows for sure but the only way I see us becoming a genuinely sellable asset is by gaining promotion to the PL and I think almost everybody is in agreement that Mowbray isn't the man to achieve that. Even with FFP in mind it's a case of ambition - keeping Mowbray is at best guaranteeing us lower mid-table finishes every season, at worst relegation if the squad begins to get sold off and the manager makes even more poor signings. Dack aside our best and most consistent players, by and large, have been the ones Mowbray inherited as opposed to the ones he's brought to the club. Raya, Lenihan, Travis, Evans (on and off), Graham... once these players are gone, and if they have any ambition they will be gone sooner rather than later, I really fear for us if Mowbray is still in charge. His attempts at replacing Graham have frankly been appalling and thus far we've had Walton on loan as replacement for Raya. I dread to think how he'd replace Lenihan (who isn't even that good, but we can certainly bring in worse), Travis or Dack (as and when he moves on). Our youngsters may fill some of those holes but Travis aside we haven't seen many of our youth players truly elevated to become legitimate first teamers. Raya was sold after inconsistent form and public criticism from the manager, Nyambe has been in and out of the team - often behind Bennett, Buckley has had a few starts but doesn't look ready yet, and... well, that's about it isn't it? Lenihan was 22 or 23 when Mowbray arrived and already a first teamer so can't really be counted in the same bracket. We need a manager who can genuinely develop our younger players whilst finding bargains in the transfer market and I'm not confident at all that Mowbray is the man to do that.

Mowbray himself has said he was resposible for signing Brereton so unless we're calling him an outright liar we have to put the blame for that at his door. I actually see a lot of similarities between Mowbray and Bowyer in how they deal with Venky's and how their teams perform. Two outwardly affable blokes who don't rock the boat, get on with the job and have the majority of players and supporters on their side. Both have issues with tactics, substitutions and motivating their players to go beyond merely acceptable long-term performance.

We're still scoring goals, we're just back to conceding 2+ a match which Mulgrew isn't going to help with.

Tony's target was 70 points minimum. As it stands we're at 36 with just under half the season gone, so theroetically we're still on target. We're going to need another very good run of form between now and the end of the season though, and we'll need to do it without our best player... so I don't rate our chances. Think we'll do well at this point to match the 60 points we got last season - which would likely once again put us around 15th/16th. Considering Mowbray hasn't had to sell any of our best players (not that there's many mind, basically just Dack. Raya was a sale Mowbray engineered himself) and has had decent investment a failure to improve on last season will be very disappointing. Am sure it'll be blamed on Dack being injured though.

It was weird at the time and seems downright insane now. If they were thinking they were going to develop the lad and sell him for £20m+ then that plan is truly up in smoke. We'd be lucky to get £700k for him right now.

If I was Mowbray I'd be getting our team back to what it was during our winning run, as close as possible at least with injuries/suspensions, and stick with it even if results don't come immediately. If Tosin leaves then we're probably screwed anyway but this insane chopping and changing has to stop.

I feel some sympathy for the lad in that he didn't dictate his ridiculous fee and I don't feel he's been managed well by Mowbray at all since he arrived, but he needs to be gone from here for a while. Get him loaned out, hopefully he'll start regularly elsewhere, score a few goals, clear his head and come back next season with a point to prove. Ideally under a new manager but most likely not. Instead I imagine he'll hang around here making random starts and appearances off the bench - most likely on the wing.

All because Millwall's manager did the genuinely honest thing of admitting he wasn't good enough to get them any further and let somebody else come in and sort them out.

Ship Walton back to Brighton with a defective sticker, stick Leutwiler in goal for the time being and pray we can find a half decent goalie in the next month.

I don't necessarily think Mowbray is below Championship standard but he's way, way below playoff standard. Lower mid-table in this division is his ceiling and will be our ceiling for as long as he's here. Could get a lot worse if the taps are turned off and we start selling as we did during Bowyer's final days.

We'll be lucky to see him score 2 goals this season let alone 20. Isn't it something like 1 goal in 30 league apps or something now? Makes Gallagher look prolific.

He ain't being sacked so it's just a question of what it takes for him to walk. It wasn't 9 losses in 11 last season, so... who knows. He seemed close before we went on our usual 'save the manager' run of form at the beginning of the month. With the pressure on Mowbray gone the players and manager have now reverted to type.

Because we never, ever come back from being behind against remotely decent opposition. Soft lads, soft manager. Take the lead against Rovers and at worst you're leaving with a point.

QPR 6-0 Cardiff, wtf

Fortunately I don't have Sky - and I'm not at home, so I'll just walk some dogs and chill.

Considering we literally never come back from going behind I think we can forget about today. Onto the next match.

We're already on one. 2 points from 9 is about to become 2 points out of 12.

That was my initial thought too. If there's any game for BB to be motivated you'd think it would be this one.

The Cunningham purchase agreement is just a rumour at the moment I think, although I wouldn't be surprised if it does happen. As for Mulgrew, I'm not sure Wigan could afford his wages if they got relegated. In fact I don't know if they can even afford his wages now, as we aren't sure how much they are contributing at the moment.

Mowbray himself said 70 points is the minimum target in September: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/17930673.where-aiming-year--mowbray-outlines-rovers-target/ In that article he also talks about getting funding in January (which now appears to be backtracked on, a common theme this season sadly with the 'defenders are coming' fiasco from the summer).

Even though it's only one defeat in terms of points it's actually worse than if we'd won one of those matches and lost the other two. If the draws had been decent performances I think the feeling would be a bit different, but they were abject enough to feel like a defeat even though they weren't. At the very least we need a good performance today to get the wind back in our sails, even if we only manage a draw.

Fixed that for you.

Smallwood is proven in League 1 so I honestly don't think an extra six months of not playing is going to have any major impact. I reckon he'd have a fair few suitors in League 1, maybe even a couple of teams just promoted to the Championship if he's lucky. He could go on a free in January but depending on how much we're paying him that could still be a significant amount in lost earnings for him. This is probably going to be the highest paid contract of his career so it might not be easy to walk away from financially.