Even in League 1 we conceded 11 more than Wigan and 1 more than Shrewsbury who finished 9 points behind us. Poor defending has unfortunately been a staple of Mowbray's tenure here so far. We can't assume he's suddenly worked out a game plan to stop us leaking goals as this has been a constant since he arrived. The only way it's going to get better with him as manager, imo, its to have better, smarter players at the back who can manage games without necessarily needing detailed input from the manager. If you go back even further - Mowbray's Boro team in 2010-11 conceded 68 goals, way more than any teams above them and more than a lot of the teams below them. In 2011-12 they only conceded 51 but only scored 52 which was way lower than all of the teams above them and most of the teams below them. He was sacked from Boro in Oct 2013 and they went on to concede 70 that season which was again a lot. I'll be nice and opt to leave out Coventry as it was a different and difficult situation, but the last time Mowbray managed in this division there was no evidence he was able to work out how to balance attack/defence, and from his stint so far here I don't think much has changed. It wasn't your "step up" comment I had an issue with to be fair, it was "a team not too far away last season!" that I felt was wildly inaccurate. We were quite far away. The stuff about Venky's and the last 9 years wasn't directed at you personally for what it's worth, more of a general comment on the state of play.

Appreciate the optimism Biz but come on, we were a significant way away from the playoffs last season in the end, largely owing to that horrific run of form after January. We conceded the most away goals in the division (and maybe the entire football league?) so we clearly had a very pronounced problem at the back. Mowbray is out of his mind if he thinks bringing in a new goalkeeper and a young loanee from City is going to suddenly turn that around. Mulgrew is a year older now and Williams is only a competent CB at best. Everybody expected a proper CB to be brought in this summer and if it doesn't happen there should be no excuses being created to try and defend the owners and/or manager, as it was a critical area of the team that once again appears to have been neglected in favour of buying attacking players as usual. It's been nine years and the owners still don't appear to have learned that you build from the back.

Yep... Rovers 1-2 Wolves Ipswich 1-1 Rovers Derby 1-1 Rovers Rovers 1-1 Cardiff Rovers 1-2 Wolves (again) Rovers 1-4 Norwich (thanks Owen) Southend 2-1 Rovers Ipswich 2-2 Rovers So in eight of the last nine years we've only managed one goal on the opening day of the season. On the plus side we've never failed to score on the opening day since the 11-12 season, on the negative side we haven't won any of those matches and we've conceded at least one in every match too.

I don't think you can blame anybody for being suspicious of the club considering our recent history. The fact remains a lot of dodgy shit has gone down under Venky's ownership and that stench will, imo at least, be on the club for as long as they are around. It's no reflection on the manager, the staff or any of the players, it's a reflection on the owners and the turmoil they put both the clubs and the fans through over the past nine largely disastrous years. Hiring Owen "SEM who?" Coyle in 2016 was one of those things which got everybody's backs up after a few years of relative normalcy, although that period also coincided with cash flow issues so everyone was quite rightly on edge during and since that time. With that said I don't think there's anything dodgy going on as far as our current business is concerned. Mowbray obviously has a fairly narrow assortment of contacts he trusts, mainly links to previous clubs and players, so we're seeing a lot of names that can be joined together in one way or another. Meanwhile the two sets of auditors coming in a couple of summers ago seems to have put the club on a more stable financial path, although ultimately it's still a loss-making enterprise propped up by wealthy owners. Not too dissimilar to most clubs though, so not necessarily anything to be concerned about at this point in time.

I assume Bolton have still not been punished for failing to fulfil their fixtures last season? Am I the only one who wouldn't be surprised if that got quietly swept under the rug and the standard -12 points for going into administration being deemed suitable enough? It would set a really dangerous precedent going forward as clubs could choose not to fulfil their fixtures and then use Bolton as an example of a club who did the same and got away with it.

Have to agree, I don't think we have any decent wing backs on the books at the moment. Nyambe might be a competent RB/CB, and Bennett a decent backup CM/RM, but I wouldn't want either of them trying to supply crosses. Playing with wing backs tends to leave a lot of space behind - obviously in theory the LCB and RCB as well as at least one of the DM's will be covering this area as well, but that can very quickly turn into players being pulled out of position and gaps available to be exploited in both central and wide positions. You need a few smart players back there to organise and ensure the shape remains tight. I'm not sure we have anybody like that in the team, let alone a few of them. If TM is planning to play a wing back formation with three at the back then I would say at least one experienced CB is a must, and two new full backs. I just don't see it succeeding otherwise.

Wouldn't surprise me if he says no thanks and sticks it out even if we do offer to release him without a fee. He's probably earning a decent enough amount here. It's just odd to me. It's not like it'd be that difficult to bring in a replacement for Leutwiler! Tony just seems to really struggle with letting players go - Conway, Gladwin, Rodwell all offered contracts even though with the possible exception of Rodwell all three should probably have been certs to leave. Obviously Conway left by choice but Mowbray seems really reluctant to just let a player go. I don't know if it's the loyalty thing or whether he was really unsure about his budget at that point.

Why did we not let Leutwiler go at the end of last season if we're essentially bringing in Foderingham to fill his position anyway?

In fairness I can't remember the last time we signed "a few quality players" towards the end of any recent window. We signed Danny Graham(loan) on Jan 20 in the 15/16 window. We got Mulgrew on the last day of the summer window in 16/17. At a stretch you could include Emnes although for me he isn't in the same bracket. Reed came in on August 27 last summer. That's about it as far as quality first teamers since the 15/16 season at least. Graham's permanent signing was July 1, same for Rothwell. Dack was June 27. Armstrong was Jan 9. Based on past history we can expect one potentially decent signing at the end of the window, but otherwise our serious business tends to be done before then. Could change this season, but it wouldn't be consistent with how the club normally operates in the transfer window.

It's just my opinion. If you think otherwise then that's fine, we'll have to see. Personally I think we'll have a GK & CB in place well before the deadline, as Mowbray will want both players to be able to hit the ground running from the first match rather than having to spend the first few weeks bedding in and getting used to the team, the manager and how we play. A failure to prepare is preparation to fail. In my view (and it is just an opinion) the sooner we get first team players in the better. Padding out the squad or going for a surprise target can wait until later in the window.

£8m for Zahore is madness imo.

How is Craig Conway on trial at Bolton if things are that bad? It's a pretty embarrassing state of affairs there - is it not possible for the rest of Bolton's team to cancel their contracts as they have obviously been breached through non-payment? I'm sure most of them, even Lowe, could find a club willing to pay them more than £0 p/w.

I don't disagree, but at the same time we simply can't wait until the end of the window to bring in a first choice GK & CB imo. These need to be done earlier to give them a chance of being prepared for what is a difficult first month of the season for us. I'd be okay with us waiting until later in the window to add quality in the FB positions, although if I was Mowbray I'd be looking at getting Martin Olsson in ASAP if possible.

Baffling to me that some are happy for us to essentially wait until the deadline to get players in, giving them no time to bed into the squad or have any kind of pre-season getting them used to their team mates and how we set up. Just throw them in the deep end and hope for the best.

Generally just means "in most cases", so "in most cases I would only" makes perfect sense. I think most people would understand that tbh, it seems really pedantic to call it out when the meaning is obvious.

Can't imagine anyone paying that for him. A decent Championship striker but that's about it.

Where is that from? I saw he'd been linked with Swansea. Would be very surprised if he dropped to League 1.

Hard to tell how he's going to fare based on his career so far. Being settled somewhere and (hopefully) playing regularly may well get the best out of him.

I didn't realise we actually conceded the most away goals in the division, even more than Bolton and Ipswich. That's pretty scary! Thank goodness we were solid at Ewood.

Thanks to previous work I skim read very effectively

Bennett is one of them - would not surprise me at all if Mulgrew and Evans are another two who are selected far more than they should be over the coming season. Thankfully there's evidence to suggest Smallwood has fallen far down the pecking order, at least.

I just skip through the nonsense, you can pretty much tell from the usernames at this point how far you need to scroll

There is this thread for people who don't like discussion tbf.

Personally? No, I think it's beyond him. His overcautious demeanour and stubborn loyalty to certain players will likely continue to limit the team's potential. He's earned the chance to try though, so I can only hope he proves me wrong.

We saw a ridiculous amount of HT 0-0's at Ewood last season. Teams did not find it easy to score against us at home. I don't know the stats, but I'd bet it was nothing similar away from home. We can hypothesise as to the reasons behind it, but the fact remains that we were far more solid at home than we were away from home. That's obviously not uncommon, but Mowbray is going to need to work out how to take our home mentality on the road if we are to make a serious push for a playoff spot this season. Improving the defence, assuming we do, will obviously help - but our home form last season showed that the defence in of itself wasn't necessarily the primary problem. It was as much if not more to do with how we were set up.