DE.

Don't usually quote myself, but...

Think it'll be wins for both the bigger clubs. Luton are sinking fast after a decent start and Barnsley don't look close to being good enough to stay in the division. Stoke's players meanwhile will assumedly be looking to impress the new boss.

This week AEW drew 822,000 viewers, whilst NXT managed 813,000. Obviously a huge boost for NXT, likely thanks to the exposure the brand received on Raw & Smackdown along with the invasion style angle they are doing. AEW bounced back from last week, but considering last week was game 7 of the world series that isn't necessarily a useful comparison. Compared to two weeks ago, the last 'normal' week, they are down another 20%. They have their Full Gear PPV on Saturday so may receive a post-PPV boost next Wednesday. Very possible NXT could overtake AEW in the next couple of weeks if the Survivor Series build stays strong though. Some random thoughts on Dynamite: - Still feels like the matches are a bit too long. I don't think they've gotten the balance quite right yet between match time and character development. - Their insistence on having all clean finishes will hurt them in the long run. Sometimes it's OK for a match to end in a DQ if it furthers the storyline. It would have been better to do that than have Hangman get pinned by Jericho again this week, for example. The show ended in a brawl anyway. DQ's should generally be avoided, but in some circumstances - particularly on TV - it can make sense. - Their women's division feels like a bit of a mess at the moment. Too many women, not enough time or character development. Also whilst I appreciate Emi Sakura is a legend in Japan, I don't think she is necessarily the best choice for Riho's first PPV opponent. - Fantastic promo from Cody. Incredible that WWE dropped the ball with this guy - he has his dad's charisma and likeability, and is a great wrestler too. He's a ready-made star and they had him stuck in that ridiculous Stardust gimmick. Idiots. - I wish they would stop with the Dark Order stuff. They aren't over and I don't even get what their gimmick is. There are better tag teams to showcase. - Similarly, Shawn Spears comes off as very bland to me. His whole personality revolves around that chairshot to the head he gave to Cody a while back, plus having Tully Blanchard as a manager. Again, not over and imo not going anywhere. Having a match with Brandon Cutler isn't going to help things. This match should have been on AEW Dark and the time used on TV for character development elsewhere. - Jericho's promo video mocking Cody was hilarious, but as the Cody one was web-only I imagine a lot of people had no idea it was a parody. - Overall I preferred last week's show. I thought the character development was better and the matches more interesting. This week had a great promo from Cody and an excellent main event/post-main event angle, but I thought the show as a whole was pretty average.

If you want to write publicly about football then you need thick skin. There will always be somebody who disagrees with you.

It's hosted by Corey Graves. The last episode was pretty good. Think Corey could do with a co-host for certain talking points, but he does okay by himself.

Stoke have made an approach for Michael O'Neill. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/50330200

The whole WWE employees invading a WWE show led by a WWE CEO is all a bit hokey to me. You also have the logic gap of enemies suddenly standing beside each other like nothing's ever happened between them. Feels like they do this every Survivor Series now and like most of their ideas it gets old fast. The Smackdown "invasion" was definitely better than Raw though.

Ridiculous if Gallagher is earning even a penny more than Dack, let alone 3x as much. Hopefully the figures are outdated.

No wonder Gallagher and Downing are starting regularly.

Much like many other players who have come back here after periods away, I'm not sure Rhodes coming back would do much for us now. He did well when it came to goalscoring in his last spell here and obviously had a solid connection with the likes of Conway, Cairney, Dunn, etc. Totally different team now though, no guarantee he'd be able to gel with the current team or with the way we set ourselves up these days. Would also still likely be commanding a hefty wage and is coming up to 30 in February having spent the past few years in the wilderness. I'd probably pass despite his past contributions. With that said we absolutely do need a striker. Not as top priority necessarily but pretty high up there nonetheless. I get the feeling Graham may be gone in January, and if not he will be by the time next season rolls around. That leaves us with, what, Gallagher, Brereton, Samuel and Armstrong? Scary thought. It shouldn't be considering that's about £14m worth of expenditure in transfer fees alone, but unfortunately it is. We desperately need a regular goalscorer up top, especially with our defence being as fragile as it is, and I don't see that changing any time soon either.

As of yet we don't have any proof that this is actually Simon posting. There are many people with a grudge against this site and many of the views on here, and it's possible this thread was started as a way to goad people into attacking Simon and making us look bad as a result. Therefore for the time being I'm going to lock this thread and hide the replies. I'll discuss with the mods if it should be re-opened.

Considering we've lost 5 of our 7 away matches so far this season I'm a little surprised people are confidently predicting three points here against the 3rd place team in the league who have only been beaten once at home so far this season. It's obviously possible for us to get a result here but I would be extremely happy coming away with a point from this one.

That makes me feel better.

It's a matter of time before our better players leave or retire. Lenihan, Dack, Travis, Mulgrew, Graham, Rothwell, Holtby and Downing could easily all be gone by the time next season rolls around. Walton, Tosin and Cunningham are also loans and will likely need to be replaced in the summer- obviously Cunningham technically needs to be replaced in January due to his injury, but anyway. We know Mowbray's recruitment is inconsistent at best (and I'm being very generous there) so chances are we will be significantly weaker going into next season. I have little doubt we will face an increasingly difficult battle to stay afloat and if we don't drop this season I think we're prime candidates to go down next season if Mowbray remains in charge.

Obviously disappointing that at 0-0 Mowbray was planning to bring on Evans. Suggests he would have been happy with a home draw despite our horrific recent run of form. Unacceptable. With that said his decision to bring on Buckley instead paid off, so yes, credit to him for that. He's at his best when forced into making decisions either through injury, suspension or other circumstances beyond his control. His achilles heel as a manager has always been his tendency to overthink and it's rare that his forward-thinking planning comes off. He has a better success rate with decisions made at short notice, but obviously that will never get us anywhere long-term.

Doesn't change anything for me in regards to how I feel about Mowbray, but I think it's clear the players are still with him.

Feel like I've entered the twilight zone. Our shocking record of failing to come from behind in the league to win is finally over!

AHH, the classic Ewood HT 0-0. Like an old pair of slippers. Tony will be buzzing.

Yep...

Yeah, but if you remember a few weeks ago Jones basically came out in an interview after a loss and said he was done. I think it was after Huddersfield beat them. Literally everyone expected Jones to be gone after that, but he inexplicably stayed on whilst the club remained absolutely silent. I have to assume that they began their managerial search then. Jones was completely resigned to leaving at that point. It was a matter of when the trigger was pulled rather than if. Funnily enough since then results for them have actually improved a little, but I think the decision had already been made to replace Jones, so it didn't matter.

Completely agree. Whenever I see stability mentioned in regards to Mowbray I can't help but disagree - we are not in a stable situation right now. We have a chronically underfunded defence which is our achilles' heel time and time again. We sold a goalkeeper we had trained from the academy and replaced him with a loanee of the same age who is at best no better and at worst a significant downgrade. We have blown £12m on two strikers who don't score regularly (or even play in Brereton's case). Many of our bright young talents are failing to click in the first team and either ending up back in the u23's or relegated to the bench. Our captain is shoehorned into the side no matter what, despite there being better options in every position he can play. Our best striker is being forced into retirement despite his replacements failing to impress. Forgetting the squad imbalance we keep going into these tailspins under Mowbray and that is simply not sustainable long-term. This is the third severe nosedive in form since the beginning of the 18/19 season, and each time we look less and less like pulling ourselves up out of it. Eventually we just won't recover and will end up sinking out of the division. If we fail to win either of our next two matches we go into the international break with a maximum of 4 points out of 24 and most likely rock bottom of the form table. If managerial change doesn't happen soon then I fear our league position will soon reflect our position in the form table. After nearly 3 years of Mowbray's management I don't see a silver lining. He's too stubborn and clouded in his views to change, as proven by his tendency to make the exact same mistakes at every job he's been at for the past decade or so. I don't think TM is capable of change and more importantly I don't think he's willing to change. I don't think he sees himself as the problem, so somebody else needs to recognise that and take action before we end up back where we started, with Mowbray's legacy in tatters.

I don't think he really wants to be bringing up Villa, as the only reason they went on that run of form was because they changed manager. He conveniently omits that detail.

I would assume they've spent the past few weeks searching out a replacement. The timing of the sacking on a Friday is a little bit strange, but I'd be surprised if they don't have someone lined up and ready to come in by Monday.

It feels like he hasn't really grasped the seriousness of the situation yet. He thinks it'll be like last season and we'll suddenly start picking up wins after going through a rough patch. I'm not convinced, and I think if we fail to win before the international break Mowbray may start to realise that we're in big trouble.

So apparently a significant amount of WWE talent have been kept in SA and aren't being allowed to fly home. Meltzer on Twitter: "Some notes since nobody can say anything. WWE had a problem in Saudi Arabia. Talent was not allowed to leave on their flight and most are still there. 20 people, 12 of which were talent, have left but the rest are still there." PWInsider: "the majority of those delayed leaving Saudi Arabia for tonight's Smackdown taping will not make the taping and are now at hotels in Riyadh. We are told there is no word yet when they are now leaving to return to the United States" Sean Ross Sapp on Twitter: "There were rumors among talent that Vince McMahon got in some kind of disagreement in Saudi Arabia, though I haven't been able to fully confirm that."