Sorry, I probably wasn't clear, I meant that he would admit his comments at the end of last season about defenders coming were a mistake. I think if he could go back in time he would almost certainly stop himself from saying that.

If at the end of last season Mowbray would have come out and said "defensively we're alright, we're going to be starting the first game of next season with the same defenders", I think the calls for him to leave would have been numerous - because it would be an utterly ridiculous statement to make. This is pretty much where we are now. So I don't see this topic as reactionary, more a response to the fact we were essentially lied to last season by the manager and he's now backtracked on everything he said and we're still leaking goals and losing games because of it. Generally speaking I like Mowbray, but he has made a critical error of judgement and only has a few days to rectify it. His inability or outright refusal to act on fixing our defence has already cost us three points today. It'll likely cost us more at Fulham. IMO supporters have every right to be angry over this. There's no excusing it. He told us in no uncertain terms last season that "defenders are coming" - he lied. We've got one, and he's a 21 year old loanee who has been brought in so late he may not even feature until six points have already been potentially flushed down the toilet. In fairness if this was put to Mowbray privately I think he would hold his hands up and admit he's made a mistake. Doesn't change anything though.

I can't see us getting in another first choice keeper, to be honest. At best we might get another centre back, but I think that's likely to be it and I'm not even sure we'll get that. Bennett seems to be able to do no wrong, even when he's blatently making mistakes, and Mowbray will see Bell/Williams/Downing as acceptable left back options - although I consider none of them as adequete long-term players for that position. I don't think he sees left or right back as a priority, which is a shame as they are critical weak points that I'm sure will be exploited time and time again as the season unfolds.

Agreed, unless we have 100% possession our defence is always going to be vulnerable. Lesser teams will counter attack us, whilst better teams will simply pulverise us. We won't lose all of those games, but we'll get a lot less points because we simply don't have the quality at the back to keep the ball out of our net. We can't progress without the back line being addressed, it will undo any of the good work our forwards manage.

Travis out, Evans in. Gallagher out, Graham in. Rothwell banished to the u23's, Smallwood replaces him on the bench.

Does that make us the better team, though, or them? Sounds like we were set up completely ineffectively and weren't able to create anything useful, whilst they had a counter-attacking system which targeted our poor defence and worked. We had more possession for sure, but it doesn't sound like we did much with it, whereas Charlton made the most of what they had.

Tbf I wouldn't say it's all of a sudden, we went through two periods last season where we looked like a relegation side. February to April in particular we lost nine out of eleven games. Fortunately those down periods were countered by periods where we got results that made us look like playoff contenders, and it ultimately balanced out to leave us relatively safe. Last season we were able to get ourselves out of those nosedives - the problem comes when yanking back on the stick stops working. Eventually it will. Lurching between very good and very bad form is not the sign of a team ready to make a serious push for promotion. Quite the opposite.

I haven't seen the game so I obviously take note of those that went, but I struggle to see how we looked like we were going to win the game when we only had two efforts on target. Charlton had five.

Mowbray's comments since around February strike me as those of a manager at the end of the road, who knows there are problems he can't fix but tries to bluff his way through it even though deep down he knows he isn't able to solve what's wrong but desperately hopes something will click. The contradictions regarding defence from the end of last season to this season are very concerning. He said all the right things at the fans' meeting and agreed with most of the criticism, yet he hasn't acted on those words at all. Actions speak louder than words and we need to see some action from TM as soon as possible, or there is no reason to keep faith in him as he is clearly lost.

They didn't have Mulgrew, Bennett and Bell in defence. It's not the result in isolation, it's a build up of issues that has been going on since last season. Had a quick look on a Charlton forum, they genuinely can't believe they won. Treating it like they've just beaten Man City. That's how low their expectations were.

We knew this last season though. It was obvious to everyone, even Mowbray essentially said as much in public. The fact he is either unable or unwilling to address this problem brings into question has capability as manager of the club imo. Not a call for him to be sacked but if we continue this campaign with those two at the heart of defence then something is very wrong.

“I thought there was some good stuff, domination of the ball, but the frustration was the quality of the ball in to the box, the final pass, the clinical side of the game to score and create chances." A shame we didn't have a player available who has shown himself to have the ability to score and create chances. Somebody like a Joe Roth... oh, wait.

Those quotes really are damning. Somebody in the press needs to play this to him and ask what's changed? Judging by today's match absolutely nothing. Of course they won't. It'll be "hard luck Tony, played well today, just couldn't quite get going", "yeah we played well but Travis wasn't good enough and Rothwell was terrible when he came on, at fault for the second goal was the lad, destroyed our momentum. Brilliant performance from Benno though, if we had eleven of him on the pitch we'd be right up there lads, I'm telling you".

I think both Gallagher and Brereton would work well in the right team... but it isn't ours. They're never going to come close to their potential playing under Mowbray. They'll either be shunted out wide as ineffective wingers or asked to be Danny Graham clones, and I'm afraid neither of them are that. We'll need a new manager and a totally new way of playing to get the best out of either of them - and considering the outlay we really do need to get the best out of them.

I imagine Downing will get the benefit of the doubt with it being his first game for the club. Fair enough I suppose. Bennett and Mulgrew though... what do they have to do to get benched? A Shane Duffy? It was so, so obvious last season that neither of them were up to the required standard and yet here they are, starting another season as if nothing is wrong. "Defensively we're alright"... no, Tony, you were right the first time way back in April. We aren't alright.

Bell and Williams as our main left back options... truly frightening. We'd be better off putting a dustbin on the pitch - more likelihood of stopping an attacker at least. Wouldn't surprise me if Downing ends up at LB with Rothwell playing ahead of him.

Forest's keeper is having an absolute nightmare. Badly at fault for two goals in the first 25 minutes.

You got 1/2 right, although to be fair most of us predicted Mowbray wouldn't start Rothwell. It seemed like an inevitability that the one player the fans were most excited about would sit on his arse for 70 minutes watching the manager's favourites labour through yet another unimpressive performance. There was no excuse for him to be on the bench today, but going forward he simply must start. If he's still being used as backup/rotation by the time January rolls round he needs to be looking for a move, because he will be wasting his time here.

Judging by the stats Bolton got absolutely hammered today. Score reads 2-0 but 25 shots to 3 against Wycombe... ouch. Surely no hope for them this season.

"It's embarrassing to go 10 games without a win. I'm an honourable guy." Last season between Feb 2 and April 6 we won one match out of eleven and lost nine of them. Embarrassing indeed.

I was willing to give him this window to see if he had learned from last season's mistakes and had something new for us, a bit of courage and bravery. But no. Same old shit. I don't necessarily think we'll go down under TM but we will never, ever crack the top six with him in charge. I'm 100% sure of that. We'll be lucky to get into the top ten, frankly. His recruitment is questionable at best, his team selections make me want to slam my head against a wall and his tactics are incredibly uninspiring. He has his good points - he's a good bloke, he's brought unity and togetherness to the club, he pulled us out of the pit when we were at arguably our lowest ebb in the last decade, he's the only manager in the last decade who has had a vision for the club that goes beyond the immediate future (although he shouldn't be the person doing that). Full respect for those things, but if we want to progress Mowbray is just not the man for the job. Realistically though he is going nowhere any time soon - and to be honest even if he did I am sure our owners would get in somebody worse. It's not just that we aren't going anywhere under Mowbray, we aren't going anywhere under these owners until they realise how important the managerial position is and what the manager's responsiblities should actually be - hint: not running 80% of the club. They don't appear to have learnt this with nearly a decade of experience though so I'm not exactly hopeful anything is going to change in the near future.

Problem is Dack has been inconsistent for some time now. We just can't rely on him to be consistently good every game. Sometimes others need to step up and take charge when Dack is having a stinker. They never do though. When Dack is off form the entire team is off form. It's just not good enough when we've spent a combined £12m on attacking players in the last two windows. The only player who has shown a glimpse of being able to pull the team up when Dack is misfiring is Rothwell, and lo and behold he's back on the bench.

Tony Mowbray chose those attackers though. He decided to put 35 year old Downing on the wing ahead of Rothwell who was on fire at the end of last season. He chose to put Gallagher ahead of Graham despite the latter being our most consistent goalscorer for three or four seasons now. Stupid decisions which have once again cost us.

A draw would have been a poor result, a loss is absolutely pathetic. Mowbray should be ashamed of that starting line up, particularly the omission of Rothwell which IMO is absolutely disgraceful. Just shows Mowbray is the same cowardly manager he was throughout most of last season. Hilarious (not really) that he managed to crush optimism an hour before the match started with his team selection. I'm sure we'll get the usual defence of "it was the first game, weird results happen", etc, but this isn't a weird result. This is just typical Rovers under Tony Mowbray. Overcautious, turgid, bumbling, and defensively shambolic. 90 minutes in and we're already at our 2 goals a game average conceded. Excellent job. Defenders are coming. Would appreciate a timeframe on that Tony as judging by today's efforts by the usual suspects at the back reinforcements are needed ASAP, not at some time in the distant future after we're done overloading midfield and attack to the point where players like Rothwell, Graham and Brereton are on the subs bench. It's what I expected but I'm still fuming. Not sure if it's obvious or not.

I'm glad I didn't!