If they could turn back the clock I doubt they would ever have purchased us to begin with.

Now that would truly be the ultimate admission of failure.

Wee Stevie is still available. I wouldn't put bringing him back past them. "You know, Madame, we were 3rd when Steve resigned..." Not even going to go further with that. The very thought makes me shudder.

Sadly I think you're right, I don't think LB is being given high priority at all. Which is a shame as I consider it as weak as CB and weaker than RB, where we at least have Nyambe.

Well, obviously, but I bet Gladwin and Whittingham were on a decent wage for League 1. Relatively speaking if Olsson was willing to drop his demands, which he may well do if he's without a club and recovering from a serious injury, then why not give it a shot? I'd certainly make contact at the very least to discuss it.

If we were going to go for any unattached player with a bit of injury risk then I'd be fine with it being Olsson. The lad knows the club, has pedigree at this level and plays a position we are critically weak in. I doubt he'd be asking for crazy wages at this point either. Unfortunately he fails two major criteria: - Not British - Hasn't played for any of Tony's former clubs So he's probably not even on our radar. But even so, if we can give the likes of Gladwin, Whittingham and Caddis multi-year deals then why not offer Olsson a 12 month deal to see if he can get back up to speed and give us a useful option on that side? Maybe we already have and he isn't interested in what we're offering, but I haven't seen anything to suggest we've even considered it.

Well, your first paragraph is the ballsed up the transfer window option, so yeah. Saying "we just missed our targets" with a shrug isn't good enough. Not when Bennett and Bell are starting on the flanks. I consider relegation unlikely, but before the Charlton match kicked off most of us were harbouring ambitions for at least top ten if not an outside shot at sneaking into the playoffs. I'd consider both highly unlikely without defensive reinforcements.

There's no probably about it imo. Our current defence isn't Championship standard. Mowbray stated exactly this at the end of last season, so he's either changed his mind since then (and if so he is wrong), or he's ballsed up this transfer window and likely wrecked any ambitions we had for the forthcoming season short of staying in the division.

We only had two shots on target so yeah, we'd have needed a 100% coversion rate to draw.

We can only conclude that we're paying a bloody massive loan fee for this City lad.

Pretty sure current day Baresi, Maldini and Costacurta are still better than those three at defending.

Should that be the case then I'm sure Mowbray, being the honest and transparent man that we are told repeatedly he is, will enlighten us on why we've been able to spend £5m on a striker - despite already having quite a few on the books - but were unable to spend anything on the one area of the pitch that desperately needed it and that he assured us would be addressed. "Defensively we're alright" doesn't cut it.

"Celtic finished Wednesday's defeat with six strikers on the field"... why does that sentence not surprise me in the slightest?

Successful clubs get it done Chaddy. Losers make excuses, winners make it happen. We need a new mentality at the club if we really want to push on.

A lot of people still wanted to believe that Mowbray would ultimately make the right call. I expected the line up he presented, bar Gallagher/Graham, but being prepared didn't mean I was any less angry when it was confirmed. I genuinely would rather have seen Nyambe/Lenihan/Tosin/Wheelie Bin as our defensive lineup. Couldn't have been much worse than what we got.

For me the line up on Saturday was far more infuriating than the result. I can accept an opening day loss - the first day of the season always throws up some strange results. Granted with us it's never a win, but that's another story. But to see Bennett at RB, Mulgrew at CB, Bell at LB and 35 year old Downing on the wing whilst the likes of Nyambe, Brereton, Graham and especially Rothwell sit on the bench was just incredibly disappointing and killed a lot of the good feeling on here before the match had even kicked off.

Thanks, that pretty much answers my question. Although I hope Tony doesn't look at that scenario and think "if Corry and Richie had been on the pitch, that never would have happened".

It's strange to me how in the build up to the first goal one of the Charlton players has acres of free space in the middle of the pitch to run directly towards our penalty area. Where exactly have our central midfielders disappeared to at that point? Bennett is literally the only one anywhere near the guy, and he's a right back. Why has our shape completely dissolved?

Thanks, although I'm kind of sad it's mostly just discussing ways the current manager annoys me ? I'd genuinely love to have a pint with Mowbray and get some insight into his thought process, particularly with the playing strikers on the wings method. Although I get the feeling the conversation would ultimately end with "you're really overthinking this, Tony".

What's funny is that when Downing was signed I distinctly remember the concensus being that he would not be playing on the wing, that he'd be in the middle as that was where Boro were playing him, etc. Lo and behold first game of the season Downing is indeed playing on the wing. Whilst I believe that he should largely be used as an impact substitute (or LB if we don't bring anybody in by Thursday, he must be better than Bell) I get the feeling Tony has brought him here under the impression he will be a first teamer. If so then it will inevitably be at the expense of one of our younger players which is not what I want to see.

I may not agree with everything you say mate, but with explanation I at least understand and respect where you're coming from. I'd much prefer to see this kind of back and forth than insults and discussion being shut down due to hiding posts, etc. It would be boring if we all had the same viewpoint and the more debate the better, as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure almost all of us with severe doubts over TM hopes he proves us wrong, as that will only benefit Rovers long term. I'll be more than happy to hold my hand up at the end of the season if we've done well and say I was wrong - it wouldn't be the first time! - but without defensive reinforcements I fear Mowbray may not make it that far. Let's see what the next few days bring.

People seem to forget sometimes that Travis only became a regular in January - literally weeks before Mowbray was talking about loaning him out. Fortunately for us Travis came in for Smallwood - who I think was suspended? - and made such a difference that Tony had no choice but to do a u-turn. Another case of his hand being forced rather than naturally bringing a player through and dropping a favourite through poor form. Now credit where it is due, Mowbray kept Travis in the team even when Smallwood was available for selection again, but it would have been very difficult for him to justify doing anything else. Rothwell for me is the worst of the lot. He must be wondering what else he has to do to get a shot here. Showed glimpses of talent in his appearances before April last season, then FINALLY gets a run in the team for the last few matches of the campaign and is superb, giving us a new dimension and helping us go on a run of wins which previously seemed unimaginable. First match of this season rolls around and he's replaced by 35 year old Stewart Downing. If I was Rothwell I would be mightily peeved about this. How can you see this as anything other than stunting the development of a young prospect in favour of an extremely short-term solution? We can only hope that Rothwell is back in the team ASAP and Charlton was an aberration. It will reflect really badly on Mowbray otherwise imo, and Rothwell would be well within his rights to demand a transfer elsewhere.

I agree that now isn't the time to act, but I do think Mowbray overthinks things and you can break some things down to some fairly simple points. Is Bennett a good right back? No. I don't think anybody can really argue that he is. He's adequete at best and very poor at worst. He costs us points in that position. Therefore going into the transfer window we either consider Nyambe good enough to be first choice RB with Bennett and JRC acting as backup, or we don't. If we don't then we need to bring somebody in to do the job. Yes, it's easy for me to say 'just bring someone in', but that's just what you have to do. You've got to get on with it, or be prepared for criticism if you fail to address that problem and it affects results going forward. That's how it works - the manager ultimately carries the can, whether you perceive it to be fair or not. Fear of the opposition comes from us playing like underdogs in most matches and I think that's demonstratable by the fact we've rarely dominated teams under Mowbray's tenure. Whether a team is low or high in the table we tend to have fairly even games, suggesting we don't ever plan to impose ourselves. That may just be Mowbray's preferred style, and if so then OK, but you aren't going to get into the top six playing like that. I'd agree that all managers have favourites, but I'm sorry, when you come out and publicly slam young players whilst completely ignoring the mistakes made by your senior favourites, it will be highlighted. Mowbray's criticism of Travis, Rothwell and Raya last season was bang out of order imo, especially when he has never and probably will never name the likes of Bennett or Mulgrew. I disagree with slating players in public to begin with, but the transparent nature of who he targets really leaves a sour taste in my mouth. When all is said and done, nobody (well, almost nobody, there are exceptions) will 100% agree with what a manager does. We will all have our criticisms, whether it's tactics, post-match interviews, transfers, staff recruitment, or whatever else. I'm unfortunately at a point where I am disagreeing with more of Mowbray's decisions than I agree with, and when it gets to that point I personally consider it time for a change. The timing of the change is important too, though, and as I said above that time isn't right now. It may be soon though. We need a lot in the last few days of the window imo.

Technically I'd say our troubles started in November when we were spanked by Preston and handily beaten by Wigan. After that we went on a very poor run of conceding numerous late goals and throwing away points. We had a kind run of fixtures in January which we got maximum points from - but you have to consider it a blip when we then lost nine of the next eleven games, largely continuing the terrible run of form that began in November. As I mentioned in a previous post, we lurched from very bad to very good form last season. It was an unstable nine months which left everybody feeling a little unsure, but Mowbray's comments suggesting he understood our concerns and would act on them quelled the growing unease. Then the transfer window and yesterday happened, and it feels like all the problems from last season are back for another nine months. I agree that there is no point in removing him now. He's had a transfer window and will have time to show that he does have this situation under control. I'm not confident but all we can do now is wait and see what transpires. If the same mistakes keep happening and we keep dropping points due to poor defending then harsh criticism must be expected though.

At the end of the day mate you either think Mowbray is doing a decent job, or you don't. I totally understand the viewpoint that Mowbray is doing well with what he has. I may not agree with it, but I do get it. Personally, my viewpoint that Mowbray is not doing such a good job and is failing to rectify our problems. At the same time I'm aware of the restrictions and pitfalls that come with working for Venky's, and the very real possibility that we could end up with someone significantly worse than TM if he goes. I appreciate what Mowbray is trying to do for the club and I think he has a lot of good ideas - unfortunately I'm not sure he's able or willing to implement them, for whatever reason. I strongly believe he's taken us as far as he can and that we will start to regress the longer he stays. We all want Mowbray to do well, because if he does well then so does the club. I just don't see any evidence that he as a manager is learning from his mistakes. As far as Mowbray is concerned, I feel like very little has changed since our League 1 campaign. If he can't push beyond his fear of the opposition and fear of change then regrettably we will need to find someone else to move us forward. It's just a shame that our idiot owners are the ones in charge of that, because it's practically guaranteed they will fuck it up.