DE.

We'd be better off just terminating their contracts. Of course they'd both already be gone if they hadn't been given extensions, but yeah, another good decision made there. A year later and the pair of them are so bad they can't even make an impression against Oldham.

He means the team that got promoted the first time of asking out of League 1, then consolidated last season despite the manager screwing the team over in the January window by failing to address our key positions? Yeah, let's not be that team. Let's be the team that loses at home to Charlton, concedes two goals a game against any and all comers and can't hit a shot on target. That's what we want. We literally beat a League 2 team tonight because we went back to being that team. There is no other choice here.

So it'll almost certainly be Bennett - Nyambe - Williams - Cunningham at the back then. I can't discount Bell as a possibility, but let's try to be optimistic. It might be okay against a poor Boro team, but long term we're looking at some tonkings with that back four I'm afraid.

I honestly don't think it's a problem at this point. The choice seems obvious. We can worry about rotating and experimenting without Graham when we have some points on the board. Right now we need to go with our strongest team in every match until we have a bit of momentum, and there's surely no doubt that Graham/Dack is our strongest option at this point in time. If at the end of the season we have had no joy with any combination other than Graham/Dack, then there is a problem.

Yeah, agreed. I'm of the opinion Gallagher should have been phased in gradually, starting off with a few appearances off the bench to replace Graham when he's tiring, then eventually starting at home against clubs we'd expect to beat, or in midweek matches when Graham may need a bit longer to recover, and go from there depending on how he's doing. Breaking up the Graham/Dack partnership from the get go was a risk that has not paid off at all and could have a detrimental effect on Gallagher if it continues, as well as the team as a whole. I hope this is how we'll handle it going forward, but I'm expecting Gallagher to be shunted to the right hand side of the pitch. Mowbray might even continue to start him up top. Nothing would surprise me at this point.

Oh well, at least we'll have a chance to focus on the league. Nice for the BBC not to include us in this. Or does injury time no longer count as normal time?

As annoying as it will be, I can take Gallagher out on the right wing if Graham is up top with Dack just behind him and Rothwell on the left. Johnson and Travis in the centre, Tosin and Williams at CB and at least the spine of the team will be somewhat useful. We'll obviously be extremely weak on the right with the Gallagher/Bennett combo but if Cunningham starts on Saturday at least the left side will be a little more solid. Of course this is all fairly logical so I fully expect to see something totally different around 2PM when the lineup is announced.

Graham - 15 goals 5 assists Dack - 15 goals 7 assists Not effective my arse. They're literally the only effective thing in our team.

Graham scored 15 last season so he's certainly effective. Dack & Graham have been our only consistent performers in terms of goals/assists for the past two seasons. We simply have to start with them both on the pitch.

Despite the win tonight only deepens my concerns that Mowbray is really, really struggling. We can only hope tonight galvanises some of the players and cements the end of Evans and Smallwood forever. It might be worth it just for that.

We can add our name to the likes of Crewe and Forest Green Rovers as teams that have beaten Oldham this season. That might be the last we ever see of Smallwood, and Evans being hooked early on in the second half hopefully doesn't bode well for him either. Rothwell producing again will surely mean he's a first teamer going forward... right? So there are some positives. Happy to get the win in the end but that was frightening. We had Nyambe, Cunningham, Rothwell, Evans, Graham, Buckley, Downing and Brereton on the pitch at some point in the match for at least 40+ minutes and just scraped a win against Oldham. We simply must perform on Saturday or there could be some serious trouble ahead. Mowbray needs to sort himself out, start putting our best players on the pitch and find a way to stop conceding two goals a game.

At least we know we can outscore Oldham. Rothwell on the bench Saturday?

Can somebody explain to me how Oldham have only had 26% possession but had eight shots on goal and MORE SHOTS ON TARGET THAN US?

Dear God. Even against Oldham we can't help but concede two.

#WeAreGoingUp

Shouldn't have needed to bring him on to beat Oldham in fairness. Although if it was up to most of our fans he would have been sold in the summer so Tony could bring in another striker, so at least he's still here to pull the manager out of the shit for the millionth time.

The plus points of having a shot on target, you actually have a chance of scoring.

All three subs used within 18 minutes of the restart. OK. Far be it for me to second guess the manager, but maybe a double sub of JRC/Chapman for Smallwood/Platt might have been a better plan? Then bring Rothwell on for Downing and you'd at least have some semblence of balance. This is just madness.

Honestly, at this point I can imagine Mowbray on the touchlike like, "Mark, why is Richie still on the pitch?" "You didn't make any changes at half time, gaffer, remember?" "Didn't I? Bugger. Get him off." "Might be best to wait another ten minutes chief, he might be a bit annoyed if you take him off now." "It's only Richie, he'll be fine with it..."

To be fair I'd be pretty annoyed if I was subbed off 8 minutes into the second half as well... what in the world is Mowbray thinking? Is he trying to humiliate Smallwood on purpose?

Why so early in the half? Did Smallwood get injured or did Tony just forget to make the sub at half time?!

Waggott, who was brought here by...

Just for reference, Oldham are 22nd in League 2. We haven't had a shot on target against them in 45 minutes.

Managers under pressure tend to get tunnel vision, become stubborn and continue to make the same mistakes even though they are blindingly obvious to everybody else. They stop using common sense and plough ahead, usually over a cliff to their doom. A fresh pair of eyes would be able to easily locate a fair few major issues and get them sorted relatively quickly. Our squad isn't so bad that nobody could help, like Ipswich last season, so I'm sure an upturn in form would follow. It may not last but it would be better than what we're seeing now, as Mowbray is steering Rovers off the ledge and has lost control of the vehicle.

For so long Graham was the one striker we had who had avoided being shunted out to the wing. Now he too has fallen. Tragic.