DE.

Really disappointing half, as soon as they equalised our energy levels seemed to drop into the comatose range. We look like a team that's lost four in a row rather than won four. Big improvement needed in the second half if we even want a draw out of this.

Can't remember the last time we had such an extended run of consistent team selections.

Yeah he technically left at the end of August, although he only appeared once for us in L1. Fair to say he hasn't been missed.

Seems like a matter of time until Stoke overtake Luton, at which point I think the bottom three of Luton/Wigan/Barnsley will be pretty much set for the rest of the season. Luton and Barnsley especially are well short of what's needed to survive, whilst Wigan will (imo) need a change of manager to stay up.

Well it's possible, but evidence suggests they're more likely to sack him if we're mid-table as that's where we were when Bowyer was given the boot. I'm sure Mowbray knows as well as the rest of us that guessing our owners future actions is a pointless exercise.

Owen Coyle has essentially built an entire career around one lucky promotion, I think the benefits to a manager's reputation outweigh any hypothetical negatives tbh.

I can remember people saying similar things about Bowyer tbf, although I don't think there's any truth in either scenario.

I believe to embed an image it needs to end with an attachment like .jpg, .png, etc. So for example whilst your initial link won't work, if you paste the direct link... It embeds automatically on Imgur you can get the direct link just by right clicking the photo and selecting 'open image in new tab' (there might be better ways but that's how I do it)

This is exactly what needs to change. We've been on winning runs before, but a couple of poor results and we seem to mentally collapse and it takes too long for us to recover from that. We need to be more resilient mentally. If we have a couple of bad results but then turn it around and start winning matches again, then I'll believe it might have finally clicked. Until then I'm enjoying our current run of form but wary about what happens when it comes to an end.

Whatever way you look at it we won't get promoted with our form see-sawing throughout the season. Our periods of good form need to be longer than our periods of bad form. Let's not forget our horrific run last season between Feb-Apr was our worst since Venky's took over, and we struggled badly between November-December that season as well. Those nosedives need to stop happening for us to be successful.

I don't think Del is a good left back at this level so I wouldn't want him and Bell as our only options if Downing got injured. He's fine as CB cover though.

In fairness there isn't much competition there save for Lenihan!

I like Mowbray as a person but I don't like the way he has historically approached football matches. Negative thinking, trying to make out that average opponents are something special, constantly starting matches like the team had just come out of the pub (the dreaded Ewood HT 0-0), strikers being pushed out wide ineffectively, constant tinkering and rotating, playing favourites even when said favourites are in extremely bad form, dropping others for what seem to be smaller indiscretions, wasting our transfer budget on non-performing strikers whilst failing to strengthen the defence ('defenders are (not) coming), criticising certain players in public whilst never mentioning others far more deserving of criticism... I mean, that all happened and four wins doesn't erase history. We won four on the spin last January so we aren't exactly in unprecedented territory here. If our form continues and we mount a genuine playoff push then I'll be delighted. I've never had a problem with Mowbray as a person. A month's worth of results isn't enough to sway me yet though. This is how it's always been under Mowbray - periods of awful form followed by unexpected good form and then back to bad form. Maintaining consistent form for longer than a month is what we require and we can only live in hope that the penny has dropped and we'll see a more consistent team and approach adopted for the rest of the season. I don't think we'll see many complaints directed at the manager in that situation even if we do fall short of the top six pre-season target.

I personally don't consider Mercer's posts offensive enough to censor. Obviously other mods may have a different opinion!

Mercer isn't breaking the rules with his posts, as annoying as they may be to some people. Trolling is largely deemed as insulting other posters, not predicting a Rovers win. As roversfan99 points out, if nobody responds to his posts then they gain no traction and are easily scrolled past.

Please don't bring politics into the football threads - there's a general election thread in ICBINF for that.

Unlike the other two they have a novice manager, which I think is going to cost them in terms of an automatic promotion place.

WBA beating Swansea 5-1 and are already 10 points clear at the top of the division, having only lost once the entire season. Even Leeds are 8 points clear of Fulham in 3rd. Great for those two clubs but doesn't say much for the rest of the division. Playoff spots and that third promotion spot are wide open imo. We're only 5 points off Fulham ffs.

Rothwell, Nyambe and Graham starting were all being asked for, as well as not playing Gallagher on the wing, not starting Armstrong up top by himself and not playing Bell under any circumstances. For what it's worth I don't think the fans opinions had much if any sway on Mowbray's decision making, it's just common sense that took him a lot longer to realise than the rest of us for whatever reason. Arma seems to go through purple patches of form where he scores goals so if we're in one of those periods now then great. Evans coming in and playing like he has is obviously something that has to be credited to Mowbray, as he could easily have tried to shoehorn Bennett in there instead. I'm kind of shocked he didn't. Johnson's sudden fall down the pecking order suggests he isn't an option, whilst Smallwood seems to have been bundled into the trunk of Oldham's bus. Has he been seen since that game? Unfortunately for TM we now have £12m worth of striking talent warming the bench, which is unfortunate to say the least. I think Gallagher will be useful for us in future, albeit overpriced, but I honestly don't know what can be done about Brereton at this point other than loaning him out and praying he improves dramatically.

New manager bounce didn't last long for Stoke. Beaten again today by Hull after being one up, three defeats on the spin now.

In fairness I remember quite a few people saying they'd rather have Downing at LB than Bell or Williams. Agreed that no one wanted Evans back in the side, and it's nice he's going through one of his purple patches at the moment. I wouldn't bank on it lasting but whilst it lasts it certainly helps us out. On the other hand it also begs the question of why he hasn't played like this more often during his 7 year spell at the club. I think Tony's comments about having to leave Evans out to motivate him were very telling and I don't consider Evans a long term solution to any of our problems. Armstrong's worst performances came when the manager repeatedly played him up top where he is completely unsuited to our style of play. No surprise that when he's put out on the wing and Graham put in the striker position then Arma starts performing better. A lot of people were asking for that at the very least if Armstrong had to be in the team. All people have really wanted is players playing in their best positions, rather than nonsense like Gallagher on the wing, Armstrong up top, Bennett at right back, etc. Now that this is finally happening the team is showing what it can do.

Problem is "The Elite" haven't been established as a proper stable on TV. They have helped each other out on occasion but there's never been an explanation as to who they are, what their goals are, etc. Commentary announced a couple of weeks ago that "Hangman" Adam Page had left the Elite, but why would anyone care? He's not been shown doing anything with them on TV, so unless you watch the BTE show on YouTube it isn't going to mean anything. It's just going to cause casuals to tune out because they have no idea what is happening, and would need to invest too much time into catching up and then keeping up. As I said before, anything of consequence needs to be on TV so people understand what is going on. A perfect example is the Daniels/Pentagon match this week. The crowd weren't really into it, and despite the commentators declaring it was a hot feud with history it didn't ring true because a lot of it hasn't been shown on TV. Daniels came out singing and dancing for what was supposed to be a grudge match. Also how about a video package to remind the viewers why these guys want to fight each other so much? AEW assumes the viewer knows far more than is reasonable. They act like they're a promotion which has been running for years rather than one that only started producing TV in October. I still enjoy watching Dynamite overall, but I think a lot of things have less impact on me than they should because I don't know the history behind the feuds and AEW don't bother to explain it to me either through commentary or hype packages. Jericho is holding the show together right now and is consistently the best thing about Dynamite, but others need to start stepping up if they want to build a serious fanbase.

Credit of course goes to Mowbray for making the changes a lot of us had been asking for. He could have continued being stubborn but I think he sensed he was approaching the precipace with the fans and did what was necessary. With that said I'm still cautious. Last January we went on a run of four wins on the spin after a string of poor results bringing us within touching distance of the playoffs, then went on a nosedive until April. We will obviously lose a match eventually but it's how we respond to that which will determine whether things have really changed.

Another great result, and another clean sheet. Amazing what a little consistency in team selection and playing people in their actual positions does. A shame we wasted the first few months of the season with nonsense selections but it is what it is. The penny seems to have dropped for the time being at least. Derby didn't have a single shot on target. We only had three but at least we made one of them count. Rovers 1-0 Derby Spurs 5-0 Dingles QPR 2-0 Nobbers Bolton 1-2 Wimbledon Luton 1-1 Wigan That's a Saturday I can raise a toast to. Assuming the other results stay like that. Ugh, late equaliser for Bolton. Garbage league.

Not going to put up with comments deliberately trying to wind up others - fair warning now to stop.