DE.

Exactly what happens when you sign soft, passive players. The team is a reflection of the manager's philosophy and ethos.

He should stop talking about them because the way they operate (including pinching Raya off us for relative peanuts) reflects very badly on how our club is run.

By "character" he basically means "nice lad who won't rock the boat". Good for squad harmony, bad for genuine ambition.

I think we all know what's coming then.

Completely agree!

No.

It's strange because Cody's 'inner circle' so to speak are referred to as the Nightmare Family (assumedly including Brandi) and Brandi's group is the Nightmare Collective. You would assume from the name conventions alone that they were somehow connected. The fact they are actually on completely opposite ends of the spectrum makes it even more bizarre. Tony Khan seems to pride himself on listening to the fans so I hope he reads the criticism this angle is getting and either tweaks or drops it entirely. I'm okay with Brandi being on the show, but not as a knockoff version of Stephanie McMahon, all the way down to playing heel on TV but doing loads of good stuff outside of TV. Moxley/Jericho is the best thing on Dynamite by far. If they can start creating more storylines on that level then we'll be getting somewhere. Also Sammy Guevara is really growing on me. He's such an obnoxious little twerp that you can't help but love when he gets beaten up.

I lurked from about 2003 and joined in 2004 I believe, and I can tell you that Souness and Allardyce definitely got it worse than Mowbray ever has, despite us being in a significantly better position at the time!

Ratings - AEW 947,000, NXT 721,000. A good rating for AEW despite their problems, whilst it's a decent enough audience number for NXT but their primary demo collapsed to a 0.19 (AEW got 0.36). NXT dropped out of the top 50 which is a really bad sign. Prior to this their lowest cable rank had been number 32. AEW by comparison was 6th this week. Sucks for NXT as they are putting on good shows, hopefully just an aberration.

After bouncing back with a decent edition of Dynamite last week, I feel like AEW was back in the doldrums this week. So frustrating. The Nightmare Collective stuff is just total shit. It isn't over at all. Brandi was just annoying and awkward on commentary, and the introduction of Luther was just baffling. Excaliber briefly mentioned that he's a "Japanese deathmatch legend" but I'm pretty sure 95% of the audience had absolutely no idea who he was. "Mel" meanwhile is just a bad Serena knockoff who we know absolutely nothing about. She was introduced as a fan who hopped the guardrail to join the Nightmare Collective for... reasons. Now she's a competitor. Why? They need to abandon this crap ASAP and stop wasting airtime with it. It makes no sense for Cody to be the company's top babyface and his wife a cult-leader heel - especially with their relationship established and acknowledged. It's not like they even gave a reason for Brandi's sudden turn. She was a babyface and then suddenly became a heel for no clear reason. She's like a budget version of Stephanie McMahon and it's just not working. Daniels/Guevara was okay but the Dark Order post-match nonsense was pointless. It just made the Dark Order look weak when Daniels rejected them and they got their asses kicked. They're basically just a group of jobbers that nobody really takes seriously. AEW seem to think the reveal of the "exalted one" will boost the group to legitimatacy, but I don't see it. AEW also has too many "recruitment" storylines going on at the moment. The Nightmare Collective, Dark Order, Jericho/Moxley... even JR made a comment about it. I've said it before but they really need to make an effort to streamline their storylines. Cody/Dustin Vs Pentagon/Fenix was alright, but Cody's post-match interview was a bust. He's supposed to be this super babyface, but rather than accept MJF's challenge he lets Arn Anderson not only talk for him but also refuse to give an answer. It didn't even make sense considering the previous week Cody was literally begging MJF for a match and said he'd give him anything to make it happen. Now this week he has to think about it? It wasn't a great look for Cody and the crowd booed what seemed to be a cowardly response. Arn Anderson is a legend but I'm not sure why he's been put with Cody. Cody is one of the best talkers on the roster, he doesn't need Arn Anderson speaking for him. Cody is one of the best wrestlers on the roster (in kayfabe at least), he doesn't need Arn Anderson managing him. Basically, he doesn't need Arn Anderson. Not sure what the point of the Lanny Poffo promo was. It cut out pretty abruptly and he looked confused. Speaking of Cody looking bad, the MJF segment took it to another level. He makes Cody look like a wimp for not coming out to confront him, then DDP comes out as the next old timer to talk for Cody. He then gets beaten up and Cody is still nowhere to be seen. I wouldn't mind if the commentators had given some kind of plausible reason for Cody's non-appearance, but nope. QT fucking Marshall came out to help! MJF was a great promo as usual but this did nothing for Cody at all, it just buried him. As for DDP, I love the guy but this is a lot of promo time for somebody who is a non-competitor. I'm sure that there are other wrestlers on the roster who could have done with the screen time. Darby Allin? The Bucks? Omega? Even Dustin Rhodes would have been better as at least he's an active competitor. There's so much wrong with how they're booking this. They're making Cody look like a chump and Butcher and Blade didn't look a whole lot better getting destroyed by a 60 year old. It's possible DDP is coming back for a match but again, don't they have enough actual wrestlers that need ring time without having a retired wrestler taking such a huge amout of the spotlight? Jurassic Express Vs Best friends was fine. Good match. Orange Cassidy isn't everyone's cup of tea but I think he's fine in small doses, and he's clearly over with the live audience. The final segment between the Inner Circle and Moxley was really good. Easily the best part of the show, but it involved Jericho so that's pretty much a given at this point. Jericho giving a shout out to Wrestle Kingdom was another sign that the AEW/NJPW relationship is getting better. The twist of Moxley turning on the Inner Circle straight away after pretending to join them was obvious, but still well done. They could have dragged it out a little longer but they've got plenty of mileage to work with in this storyline so I'm okay with them getting straight to it, especially as everybody would have expected Moxley to turn on the Inner Circle at some point anyway. I dread to think where AEW would be without Jericho. They're lucky to have him as the rest of the show is really struggling to click. I simply can't understand why Omega isn't being pushed as one of the focal points of this company. Another week where he barely appears. They're building to an Omega/Hangman feud by the looks of it, but I can see Hangman going over as he needs the credibllity boost, and Omega is essentially reduced to the "veteran helping the younger talent get over" role which is not where he belongs at this stage in his career. He should be at the top of the card but he's stuck in mid-card with very little character development. I don't get it at all.

I always felt Adam Henley desperately needed some time in the lower leagues to toughen up. He had talent but was too fragile and now he's in League 2 permanently with Uncle Gaz. Lowe might have benefited from some time in the lower leagues too.

My dad found our old Master System in the loft, with a cartridge (Sonic Chaos) still inserted. I brought it home and plugged it in... worked straight away. Probably the first time it's been turned on in at least 25 years. These old consoles really were built to last.

Dack does the same thing, much like Graham he's got the intelligence to compensate for his lack of speed and bulk. I think it's part of the reason they were able to link up so well, and it isn't the same with Gallagher or Brereton.

To be honest I'm watching Powerrr so late this week that I would have seen the spoiler on reddit even if you hadn't posted about it. Steiner will be interesting if nothing else! Keep his ring time limited and it could be a decent little run for him. You say that, however... ?

I haven't watched Powerrr or AEW Dark yet as thanks to Wrestle Kingdom I'm still catching up with Raw and New Year Dash, but I feel like NWA has enough wrestlers already without adding more. Steiner has NWA history so I don't necessarily mind him being added to the show, but it feels like they're going to need to extend the show past an hour if they're going to seriously showcase half the talent they have! The Steiner Brothers were an integral part of Nitro when I started watching, so I've got a lot of fond memories of them during that period. I was beginning to tune out of Nitro once Scott got his big singles push and I never rated Rick as a singles competitor. I wasn't watching WWE during Scott's run there but I think everyone agrees it was awful, save for "GIMME A FUCKIN' MIC". Steiner was well past his physical peak during his TNA run but his promos there were absolutely legendary. Steiner Math alone made his TNA run worth it, and I thought he was good as part of the Main Event Mafia. I'm not sure what he'll bring to NWA as his promo style will have to be neutered somewhat and his wrestling skills are very limited these days. I can't imagine he'll have a major role or too long of a run there, but he'll give them some name value which can't be a bad thing short term. Just finished Liger's retirement ceremony from New Year Dash and it's well worth going out of your way to watch. The entire NJPW roster (all wearing Liger shirts), the NJPW President and Liger's wife and son came out and gave him flowers. Antonio Inoki appeared on screen to wish him good luck. Liger had a retirement speech which was translated by one of the English commentators - although he (the commentator) started choking up towards the end! Then the roster threw Liger up in the air three times and the crowd and wrestlers sang his theme song before he left. I bet the creator of the Jyushin Liger anime never imagined an entire crowd would be singing the theme song over 30 years later! Quite a few of the wrestlers and the audience were in tears. It reminded me of Ric Flair's ceremony back in 2008. Really classy stuff.

Agreed. It's like when people wanted Bentley back, then got their wish and he was rubbish. Nostalgia clouding rational judgement I'm afraid. As far as Maddison goes, I wouldn't mind him on a free but also think it's valid to point out that he's 26 and still in League 1. He had a £2.5m release clause and if nobody felt that was worth activating then that says something. It's not like WBA or any of the other teams supposedly interested in him couldn't have afforded that.

There's no chance of us getting into the playoffs with the current manager in charge. I don't think he's ever had us in the top six, even briefly, has he? Our form is far too volitile under Mowbray. His inability to stop us from collapsing after a poor result will mean we forever stay in mid-table at best. Mentally he just isn't able to keep the squad at the level required. We need a no-nonsense winner in charge of the team before we can seriously think about promotion. It's exactly the same issue we had with Bowyer.

I just finished watching both days of New Japan's Wrestle Kingdom 14. Jeez that was a slog... roughly 10 hours. I can't say I paid full attention to everything as it was sometimes in the background whilst I was doing other stuff, but as far as the standouts... Both of Liger's retirement matches were really good. Honestly I didn't recognise half of the "legends" as I've never really gotten into historical Japanese wrestling, but nonetheless they did a great job of putting the finishing touches to Liger's career. Going out on his back for both matches was a mark of respect from Liger - although I wouldn't have expected anything less. An absolutely class act. I didn't realise he's still "only" 55... it feels like he's been around forever. Quite the final entrance as well! Both of Jon Moxley's matches on the shows were really solid. He looks like a totally different person since leaving WWE. Ospreay/Takahashi was fantastic, but that's almost guaranteed when Will Ospreay is involved. Good to see him not trying to kill himself for once mind. Hiromu Takahashi looks like an absolute star and I'm guessing he'll be pretty big in the next few years. White/Naito was good but I didn't think the ref bump was necessary and the match could probably have been a bit shorter. Naito's knee injury angle was obviously playing into his match on day two against Okada so made sense. Okada/Ibushi was excellent, although it was kind of obvious Okada was going to win to set up the match against Naito on day two. This match went just under 40 minutes so one hell of an effort from both guys. I'm not sold on Ibushi's look if I'm honest but he's a hell of a worker nonetheless. Ibushi/White from day two was another really good match with an excellent story told with Gedo getting involved to give Ibushi an out for losing. I assume his double loss over the two days will factor into a storyline that plays out leading up to next year's Wrestle Kingdom. I probably won't keep up with NJPW so I'll have to wait until next year to find out how they went forward with this. Jericho/Tanahashi was superb. What can you say about Chris Jericho? Still incredible despite his age. I didn't expect Tanahashi to tap but it shows how much respect he and NJPW have for Jericho, and I imagine they'll have a rematch at some point. Interesting that the AEW championship was spotlighted for this match. Relations between NJPW and AEW have been publicly rocky since the Bucks and Omega departed for AEW, but hopefully this signals a thawing of tensions. It would be really cool to see some of the NJPW stars appearing for AEW. Okada/Naito lived up to the hype and produced an outstanding main event. I remember a couple years ago watching Naito lose to Okada at WK12 and wondering if NJPW dropped the ball as Naito seemed so incredibly popular at the time - but I guess they knew what they were doing as it made for a great storyline for this main event, and Naito became the first person to hold the IWGP Intercontinental & Heavyweight titles. The post-match attack by KENTA was a nice touch which sets up future storylines going forward. Only four major complaints from me - the event was too long and had too many multi-tag matches which weren't anything special. The english commentary team were often annoying and I wasn't a big fan of them - no choice but to listen in English however as otherwise I'd have no idea what the context of the storylines were. Finally NJPW simply has too many false finishes and kickouts from finishers. It's a very common NJPW complaint though and at this point I don't think they're going to stop doing it. Overall an enjoyable event but finding ten hours of time to watch it isn't easy. Wrestlemania is long enough but somehow New Japan went even further. How long before we have a 24 hour event? I can only watch so much before I begin losing concentration. The big matches drew me back into watching but I totally zoned out of a lot of the undercard stuff.

I'm more worried about where our squad will be by that point in all honesty. If FFP really is a problem and we have to start selling our better players to keep our heads above water, we could end up back where we were in 15/16 with a rapidly worsening team and all money from sales disappearing into the FFP void. Selling Dack for whatever price, whether it's £500k or £5m or even £10m may help us stave off FFP but the loss of such a key player with no means of bringing in a worthy replacement could mean another exit from the Championship causing a much bigger financial headache. Of course right now it's impossible to predict the future. Who knows where we'll be by that point, or who will be in charge. If it's still Mowbray then I think the above concerns will be valid, if it's somebody else then it depends who's in the manager's chair and what kind of support he has. We also have no idea how Dack will perform upon his return so for all we know there may not even be any interest in his services. One thing that's been a common theme of Venky's tenure is that the sale of better players never leads to bringing in suitable replacements. They are pretty much always worse, sometimes hugely so. We haven't had to sell any of our best players in some time so I suppose it's easy to forget how bad we have been at replacing good players since Venky's arrived.

Problem is even if we did sign some hidden gems from foreign lower leagues I have zero faith in Mowbray or his staff improving them or integrating them into the team in a useful manner. I'm kind of resigned to almost every signing we make regressing and struggling to have an impact due to the manager and his baffling philosophy. I only hope that some of the players Mowbray has signed and will sign actually have untapped potential which is realised under a new manager. It's Venky's we're talking about here though so the "new manager" would probably be Iain Dowie or someone equally ridiculous.

It's a bit of a disaster for Dack tbh. This was his time to move, if he was ever going to do it. Assuming we extend his contract to 2022 and opt not to sell him before then (not sure there would be much point if we're only going to get £5m for him) then he'll be, what, 28 and a half by the end? That's very late to get a move to the Premier League for a player who has never played there and recently recovered from a serious injury. At that point I think his best and only shot would be moving to a Championship club with aspirations of promotion. Certainly no guarantee there and if that club doesn't get there quickly he'll soon be 30, at the tail end of his career and very unlikely to make the step up to the PL by that point.

Yep, this is the reality. Mowbray hasn't signed a single permanent player other than Downing who has improved us in the Championship - and Downing is a 35 year old with a very limited long term future here. I'm not sure the concern of Smallwood returning if Evans departs is warranted. Smallwood hasn't even been on the bench for our league matches. He's so far down the pecking order that realistically even if we did sell Evans it'd take a significant injury crisis for him to appear. I think he will be gone in the summer, maybe even this month, and a total irrelevence as far as selling Evans is concerned. I'd say at the very least you've got Johnson, Bennett and Davenport ahead of Smallwood in terms of replacements. Downing could also play there, as could Buckley or even Tosin at a push (isn't he a DM too?). What we need to do is invest in defence ASAP. It'd be difficult if we had to pull Bennett or Tosin out of defence as we have very few alternatives and many injury-prone players.

In fairness I remember a lot of people being very uneasy with the fee we were playing for Gallagher. I don't think many thought he'd turn out this bad but it wasn't a piece of transfer business everyone - on here at least - was on board with. Far from it. As far as whether the team now is better than the team we went down with - yes, it is but I'd only say marginally. Simply by virtue of Lowe being nowhere near the club we're in a significantly better position in midfield at least. I'd say defensively we're not a whole lot better. Lenihan, Williams and Nyambe were already here in 16/17. Tosin is a loan so not our player. Bell is awful. Walton is worse than Raya. Bennett is a piss poor right back and again was already here when Mowbray arrived. Mowbray has failed massively in regards to improving the defence. Midfield is definitely better. Don't think many would argue that. Up front we're still relying on Graham, who's now three years older and less effective. We've wasted £12m on Gallagher and Brereton who look far from the finished article. I understand that Emnes and Joao were loans but in terms of present impact (and long term losses) they are an improvement on Gallagher/Brereton IMV. I would include Samuel but firstly he's crap and secondly Mowbray seems to see him as a wide midfielder. So overall 1/3 areas of the team improved, with the other two no better and in fact I would argue the attack might be worse as it stands. Mowbray's transfer business was good in League 1 but look at the budget he had compared to everybody else. We were able to go out and buy one of the best players in the entire league. We had the money to afford the likes of Smallwood, Armstrong, Antonsson and Samuel who had all been playing a level higher the season previous. Mowbray himself repeatedly said that season it would be embarrassing if we didn't get promoted with the resources we had available, and I'm sure I remember him saying he'd walk if he didn't get us up. In terms of the Championship I think his transfer business is very poor. I'm not sure he's brought in a single permanent signing that's improved us and has actually been extremely negligent with the budget spending so much on two misfiring strikers that we are now looking at FFP sanctions. I wouldn't trust the bloke with another penny.

They are all theoretically winnable games as every one of those teams has been inconsistent form-wise. Problem is when we're circling down one of Mowbray's death spirals we're extremely consistent form-wise in failing to win. So it depends how long this latest disaster-run lasts. Without Dack I can see it stretching on for as long if not longer than last year's February-March catastrophe.

Ain't that the truth.