Our current system makes it virtually impossible to get the best out of Armstrong, Rothwell, Brereton or Gallagher individually, let alone in the same team. That's nearly £15m of talent who have been signed for a system that doesn't really suit them, and there is no evidence we are planning to change style any time soon. Worryingly Tony seems to be trying to retrain Brereton as a left winger (!), whilst Armstrong is wasted on the flanks and Rothwell is only partially effective out wide. Jury's still out on whether Gallagher can be the Graham replacement we need, but we better hope so as I don't see Venky's sanctioning another big splash on a striker.

I think our issues go far beyond just pointing at players and saying they aren't performing, aren't good enough, etc. I don't think we set up in a way that gets the best out of the vast majority of the players we have at our disposal. Our main right back is a right midfielder/centre midfielder. Our main left back is at best more of a wing back. Our playing style makes it difficult for either of our CM's to contribute to the attack, as if they do then the defence is totally exposed on the counter. Our wingers are almost always converted strikers and they play like it. Dack often has to drop back to get the ball, limiting his effectiveness, and our striker has to be a Danny Graham type because otherwise the long balls we play are worthless. You could argue none of our other strikers possess the same abilities as Graham which means they look very limited when in that role. We haven't necessarily recruited badly (defence aside) but we don't play to the strengths of the personnel we have, and it's a common theme throughout Mowbray's managerial career. For some reason his transfers don't match the way he sets his team out, so his vision is either so advanced that he needs incredible players to achieve it, or it's just nonsense and doomed to failure.

Not trying to go into conspiracy territory here, but I do wonder if the owners have demanded that Gallagher play full matches unless he absolutely cannot. Against Charlton he was clearly tiring but instead of bringing him off, Mowbray pushed him over to the right wing and instead put Graham on for Armstrong. Yesterday the obvious choice seemed to be a like-for-like swap with Gallagher/Graham, but instead bafflingly Travis is the one hooked. Hopefully I'm just seeing things that aren't there but I do find it odd.

Problem is Parson I can't think of a single player who has significantly improved under our current manager and coaching staff since we got promoted out of League 1. Raya - declined to the point the manager was openly criticising him and was eventually sold. Nyambe - has somehow ended up behind Bennett in the pecking order. Bennett - being repeatedly exposed at RB with countless mistakes. Lenihan - lapses in concentration, has had injuries which won't have helped. Mulgrew - much like Raya, declined to the point he was totally dropped in March and then loaned out last week. Bell - still looks like a League 1 player. Williams - poor at LB, has looked decent at CB but only played a handful of games in that position. Travis - has progressively been less impactful since his introduction to the first team. Has maintained a decent level of performance but hasn't exactly kicked on. Evans - one of our highest paid players is a bench warmer. Smallwood - position usurped by Travis after numerous poor performances, now nowhere near the first team. Armstrong - consistent performance levels, but can't say he's improved since he arrived. Rothwell - great end to the previous season, dropped for the first game of this season. Brereton - no comment required. Dack - blows hot and cold. Seems to struggle to get into games without Graham in the team. Graham - has maintained consistent levels of performance. I could be missing somebody out, but I can't think of one player that improved last season. A lot of them seemed to regress if anything. If we're pinning our hopes on Mowbray sorting this out on the training ground I think we are in for a long season.

It's clear that Mowbray is not a manager who learns from his mistakes. He sticks stubbornly to his guns even when everything is burning down around him, lashing out at the media, other clubs and his own players. I was stunned by how much of that article and the comments describe exactly what is happening right now. An unbalanced squad, an inability to defend, poor substitutions and tactics, criticising players in public, agitation with the media, baffling press conferences, the "building a team" excuse... the writing is on the wall. This isn't going to end well for him or for us because he is incapable of adapting or changing. It's just a question of how bad it gets.

Perhaps Venky's were only willing to release the £5m to sign him if he played regularly up top? After seeing Mowbray throw £7m away on Brereton last season it wouldn't be an unreasonable demand. Gallagher hasn't been subbed in either of our first two games. Graham and Brereton came on for Travis and Rothwell yesterday, whilst Graham came on for Armstrong against Charlton.

I posted this link in the match thread, but it's worth posting here as well just due to the striking similarities with our current situation: https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2010/mar/25/tony-mowbray-celtic-manager-sacking "Celtic finished Wednesday's defeat with six strikers on the field. Their most creative player, Aiden McGeady, appeared to be deployed at left-back." "In a none-too-subtle dig at Rangers, Mowbray claimed perhaps "negative" and "defensive" football represented his best hope of success. Such a notion is undermined by the fact Rangers have scored eight more league goals than their city rivals this season. Equally pertinently, Mowbray had similar struggles in England's top flight a year ago as his West Bromwich Albion team were relegated with a shocking goal difference of -31." "Yet there followed little evidence that Mowbray's undoubted ability to spot and sign the quality of player necessary to succeed in Scotland could be matched by the talent to use that personnel effectively. In a city where time is not a football commodity, the inability of Celtic's new signings to hit the ground running was fatal." "While insisting, rightly, that the level of scrutiny afforded to him was considerably more intense than when he was in charge of West Bromwich or Hibernian, Mowbray undermined his subsequent assertions that such attentions did not worry him with an agitated or confrontational manner. Mowbray, in truth, was subjected to no more or less criticism than Burley, Berti Vogts, Paul Le Guen or John Barnes endured during their own traumatic spells in Scottish football." "Even Celtic insiders privately shook their heads at their manager's constant references to football ideology, how he "builds teams" as if instant success is an unexpected by-product, rather than the possible bedfellow of changes in personnel. The fact some of those changes included players signed on loan, the £68,000-a-week Robbie Keane among them, suggested at least someone at Celtic was aware short-term success is necessary for the club." From the comments... "No semblence of tactics - not even the tiniest bit of compromise in his "attacking football" philosophy despite it obviously not working - Desperate substitutions worthy of Football Manager 2010 (ie - i'm not winning, i'll just chuck on 6 strikers) - Sold the basis if what was a fairly decent, if unspectacular side - a former defender who cannot organise a defence." "Goodbye and good luck to a thoroughly decent man, but an awfully incompetent manager. I could spend the rest of the day chatting about how crap the team has been. We have more talent individually than we did last year, but not a single scrap of organization to build it. Not to mention the lopsided nature of the squad - 45 wingers, 275 strikers and just two vaguely-defensive midfielders, one of whom can't tackle and the other of whom can't pass." "I am glad he is gone, and that people realise he isn't that great a manager which I know sounds harsh, but it pisses me off that he always blamed lack of good results on playing the game a certain way. His failures had nothing to do with that - it was the very bad defence which he picked and played. At West Brom he kept saying that he would 'stick to his principles' etc etc - but you could still play decent football and win games, many teams manage that. It seemed to be his comfort blanket that apparently his teams played good football, but I am not sure West Brom fans were that amused watching them every Saturday and eventually getting relegated." "He was out of his depth. Never mind the "attack-minded football" - Mowbray ripped up the back 4 without seeming to have a plan in mind. He slagged off his players in public. His press conferences were hand-in-mouth bad." "That Mowbray failed is no surprise. At WBA he had a reputation for building sides that where attractive in attack, but weak at the back." "I never thought Mowbray looked like he had a clue what he was doing. You need to be intelligent to be a football manager, and , sadly, he looked to be sorely lacking in that department. Some of his post-match interviews were embarassing, like when he openly criticized particular players(you just can't do that), or when he admitted that he didn't enjoy being the manager-dreadful."

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2010/mar/25/tony-mowbray-celtic-manager-sacking Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I think he probably would have started beside either Tosin or Williams, most likely Tosin as it was a pretty big risk throwing Williams in so soon after he'd recovered from injury.

I understand your sentiments, but you can't trade on past glories at this level. Everyone appreciates that TM got us out of League 1 at the first attempt, but we aren't in League 1 anymore. That's a division where Bolton can pick up a point despite not even being able to field half a dozen senior players. This is a much tougher level, and whilst I don't consider last season a disaster by any stretch of the imagination, everybody could see the warning signs with our poor runs of form and alarming tendency to concede a lot of goals away from home. Some people are happy to forget all about that and treat this season as a clean slate, and if so then fair enough, but I think it's also totally fair for fans to take last season into account when judging how we're performing this season. Your point on Venky's is valid but we've been here before with Bowyer. It doesn't take much for the switch to flick back to madness and Mowbray isn't in control of that.

Maybe, but if so it must have happened fast over the summer as in our final four matches of last season Graham scored twice and got an assist. Overall 15 goals and 5 asissts in 43 appearances... compare and contrast to Mulgrew who was so abysmal after Christmas he was dropped in March, yet started this season as captain in the first eleven. Granted he has now been moved on, but that seemed to be a sudden decision rather than a long term plan.

I think the reputation system is either hidden or disabled now, so in theory I don't see any reason not to remove the limitation if possible. I think it'd be something for @J*B to look at though, as I believe that's beyond the powers of the mods! There may also be reasons for keeping the limit that I'm not aware of.

Looks like Raya had an outstanding game for Brentford today.

Maybe he was saying "I'd rather go to bloody Rangers than Wigan!" Or maybe not. Still a strange move for him to make though. From club captain, charity ambassador, and team leader at Rovers to a backup option at Wigan. He must have really wanted out of here.

We'd probably end up with the return of Shebby Singh.

One year ago on the opening day of the season we were 2-1 up against Ipswich, then in the final minutes of the match we allowed Tayo Edun to gallop towards our goal unchallenged and fire in an equaliser. A year later we're talking about the same problems, except this time we aren't even getting a point from these matches. Progression? I'm not so sure. And no, not one shot on target despite having £5m Gallagher on the pitch, the much-coveted (at one time anyway) Bradley Dack, Joe Rothwell and Adam Armstrong all on the pitch. Not one of them could hit a shot to even test the keeper. We know these players can score goals (Gallagher aside) because they all did it last season, so why in the first two games of the season have we only hit two shots on target? And the only goal we've scored was an own goal. Not sure what Mowbray is telling them to do, but it ain't working.

He's got a strike rate of just over 1/3 for us in the league so we all should be really!

On the contrary, it sounds like we mostly agree that it's a personnel choice. Fair to say that if Graham was on the pitch instead of Gallagher a few of the crosses we put in may have found their way into the net? Or perhaps he manages to lay off a ball to Dack for a clear strike on goal. It's funny because even though there has been criticism of TM not putting players into the team from the get go, I actually think we would have been better off with Graham up front for these first few matches and integrating Gallagher after we had a few points on the board and a bit of confidence flowing. Now granted even with Graham on the pitch we may have lost to both Charlton and Fulham, but I think we'd have had a better shots on target ratio than 8%.

17 points from 57 (19 games).

I agree Williams is not the main problem at all, the manager is. Williams is a solid enough backup CB and I don't have a problem with him in that role at all. I will have a problem if when Lenihan is fit he is on the bench and Williams is ahead of him though. If Mowbray doesn't consider Lenihan necessarily any better than Williams in that role then it means we should have been after at least two CB's in the summer, not just one. I'm not sure our attacking play is the problem tbh. We scored plenty of goals last season and we've had plenty of chances on goal in the first couple of matches, we've just had very few on target, which again points to poor personnel choice by the manager. Graham and Dack had a great link up last season and we need Graham back starting asap IMO.

Yeah, but would you have been happy with Derrick Williams as first choice CB for the next campaign at the end of last season? Our expectations are getting lower and lower. At the end of last season and even coming towards the end of this window we were being seen as dark horses for playoffs and people were backing that. Now it feels like people will soon be saying 21st is a good season and a job well done Mr Mowbray. It's worrying.

“That’s football,” Mowbray said of allowing Mulgrew to leave and Lenihan picking up an injury. “It’s early season, I don’t think central defence was a problem. “I thought they applied themselves well. “They all need to develop relationships and when Lenihan gets himself fit and comes back then he will have to compete to get in the team.” Bloody hell, sounds like Del is now first choice CB even when Lenihan returns from injury!

J*B's 11 v 11 post from a couple of days ago had Brereton on left wing, which I commented on at the time as being a bit weird. It might be that Tony actually wants him to play there.

I wonder if Lenihan and Nyambe backed Mulgrew?

Managed a 0-0 today despite having 5 shots to Coventry's 24. They are lucky the standard in League 1 is so poor.

And keep in mind most of those points came from dead rubbers at the end of last season.