In a position only a couple of places lower than we are right now. I wanted Bowyer to leave by the end, but getting promoted out of League 1 doesn't make Mowbray better than Bowyer. We were never in L1 to begin with under GB and even when he was sacked we weren't in the relegation zone, we were 16th. I wouldn't say Mowbray has done anything yet to prove himself a better manager than Bowyer for Rovers. The only way he'll do that is by getting us into the playoffs. He's spent £7m on one striker and has the likes of Dack, Graham and Mulgrew on hand. He's not exactly working in poverty.

Probably unlikely at this point, a shame for them that they had such a terrible start to the season. Some great signings in January though - guess there was value in the market after all.

If he was a very poor manager we would have been in relegation trouble. He was if anything distinctly average, not good enough to get us into the playoffs but not bad enough to take us into serious trouble. If you take his lack of experience into account and the lack of support he had above him I think it's really harsh to shit all over his tenure. His best wasn't ultimately good enough but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. One thing I have noticed is that Mowbray gets cut a lot more slack than GB.

We rarely if ever come out fired up. I don't know why it always takes a half time team talk before our team wakes up. It's been the same since day one, Mowbray simply cannot prepare or motivate the team to be up for it from the first whistle. Our only hope is that the opposition are similarly blasé or overcautious and we cancel each other out (which leads to the all familiar 0-0 HT scoreline at Ewood). It's really weird that we only seem to be able to play properly for 45 minutes at a time. You can't even put that down to fitness as it's usually the second half where we're better, not the first. That's a bit disingenuous. We finished 8th and 9th in Bowyer's first full seasons, we aren't going to get anywhere close to that under Mowbray this season. We're looking at 18th or 19th which is lower than Bowyer even when he was sacked (we were 16th at the time, with a significantly worse team than Mowbray currently has).

Not a bad result in isolation, but it's still just 1 point from the last 15 available. Unless our form picks up quite dramatically in the next dozen games I'm going to be quite concerned going into the summer. There is a lot of work to be done to make us serious playoff contenders. Based on our recent form and the amount of upgrades needed across the park I think Tony might have to lower his and the owners' expectations for next season. As it stands we'd do well to be solid mid table next season. I just can't see us having enough to spend in the summer to strengthen from Dack's likely departure combined with what will need to be a fairly heavy influx of new players.

A staple of the Mowbray era I'm afraid. Anyone who is happy to give him another ten transfer windows or whatever simply can't complain when this happens. It's been two years, it ain't changing no matter how many more Ben Brereton's Tony is allowed to bring in this summer.

Considering how poor most of our team is at scoring goals, Mulgrew's set pieces are vital. 9 goals for the season now. Meanwhile Corry "new contract" Evans hasn't contributed a single goal or assist. Even Smallwood has one assist to his name.

Considering we had our first two shots in the dying minutes of the half hopefully the latter!

Considering our form for three of the last four months I imagine he'll have one eye on the exit door by now. He won't want to have to put up with a relegation scrap next season.

Roughly where we should be with our current team and manager if we are being brutally honest. Still think we've got further to fall, unfortunately.

Feels like these players have given up. 7 shots to 0. Embarrassing.

Steele and Emnes' best moments in a Rovers' shirt combined into one:

Entirely likely we would have been looking at the playoff lottery last season rather than automatic promotion. I don't think anybody can hand over heart say our football was good enough to take us up whether Dack was in the team or not. He was so important to everything we did last season (and still is this season) that I'd genuinely say by himself he may have been worth 15-20 extra points.

11 goals and 5 assists from Dack this season, isn't it? Compared with: Jack Rodwell - 1 goal 0 assists Charlie Mulgrew - 8 goals 0 assists Darragh Lenihan - 1 goal 0 assists Ryan Nyambe - 0 goals 0 assists Amari Bell - 1 goal 0 assists Derrick Williams - 0 goals 1 assist Elliott Bennet - 0 goals 3 assists Lewis Travis - 0 goals 0 assists Corry Evans - 0 goals 0 asists Richie Smallwood - 0 goals 1 assist Harrison Reed - 3 goals 5 assists Joe Rothwell - 0 goals 1 assist Adam Armstrong - 4 goals 3 assists Ben Brereton 0 goals 1 assist Danny Graham - 10 goals 3 assists Joe Nuttall - 2 goals 0 assists But yeah, let's get rid of by far our most impressive goalscorer and creator (whilst our joint best creator in Reed goes back to Southampton) and build around players who rarely score or assist, let alone do both at once. What could go wrong?

Overall sensible comments from TM and mostly stuff we would all agree on. You have to find a balance between being loyal and making sure the squad is prepared quality-wise for the next level, and I think Mowbray has erred on the loyalty siide of that equation a little too much. Suggestions of selling Dack concern me hugely as Dack is the only creative player thus far that TM has bought and successfully integrated into the team. If Dack goes we'll have absolutely no creativity unless Rothwell starts, and that's a bit of a gamble to say the least. Seems like this season has been effectively written off by the manager, and he also seems to think he's coached this current team as far as he can and will now be relying on money from the owners to improve us - again, concerning to me as relying on these owners for funds and stable support is asking for trouble. I also think we could and should be far better defensively, even with the players we currenty have. I don't accept that we need to buy a bunch of players to be better than fourth worst goals conceded in the division and joint most long balls played. But anyway, it would appear TM is essentially putting us in a holding pattern until the summer. Hopefully he's taking note of some of the worst offenders on the pitch and planning to cull accordingly. I just hope he'll get the backing he seems to believe he'll get, because if he doesn't and Dack is also sold then we will be looking at a swift return to League 1.

Some interesting stuff there, anything said about our appalling defensive record?

https://www.infogol.net/blog/analysis/championship-promotion-race-assessed-23012019 An article from last month predicting eventual finishes, based on xG. We're slipping pretty quickly towards the 18th we were tipped for in the article (we were 10th at the time).

I'm not sure if it's intentionally playing to our strengths or just a result of our weaknesses. Playing the long ball game is OK if it's part of a strategy but I don't really get that feeling when watching us, it seems more like hit and hope a lot of the time. In theory we have the players up front in Dack, Armstrong, Rothwell, Brereton (?) and Reed to hurt the opposition as and when we win knock downs, but I'm unsure as to whether that is our actual strategy or not. If so then I think our form from November-December and now through February suggests teams might have found us out!

I'm not sure our approach is as much pragmatic as it is desperate and lacking ideas. I doubt Mowbray is drilling the percentage game and long ball positional play into the players. I could be wrong but I feel like our long balls are more a byproduct of a lack of ideas or passing options on the pitch, particularly at the back, which just ends up with a hopeful hoof up to Graham. The fact it's happening enough to make us joint top in the long ball table suggests that we really do have a problem with players making themselves available for passes and being aware of where they and the opponents are on the pitch.

If a long ball game is effective then I don't necessarily have a problem with it. Obviously it has been successful to some degree results wise, but our glaring inability to defend continues to cost us points. Perhaps retaining possession rather than lumping it up the pitch and generally losing it would be a better option, particularly when we're defending slender leads - which is most of the time if we're winning a match. The opposition can't score if they don't have the ball. I appreciate our players for the most part are not especially gifted technically - which I assume plays a part in our long ball strategy - but if they aren't competent enough to pass a ball between themselves and get into a shape that allows space and opportunities then there is an issue at both playing and coaching level which will get a lot worse when our few technically gifted players, such as Dack, move on.

Seen it all before. They always seem to wriggle out of it despite clearly being an absolute trainwreck financially. In any other business arena an entity as dysfunctional as Bolton would have been dissolved years ago. We're obviously not exactly a beacon of financial stability but other than that odd period where we were surviving on payday loans the club itself has never been in a position of receiving winding up orders, etc.

No, because that won't give everybody their daily dose of OUTRAGE and moral superiority. #GiveMowbrayAChance

Indeed, we are (in some cases were) angry because they promised to respect Jack Walker's legacy and instead disgraced it.

Feels like we're going to be in need of so many upgrades that we'd need summer to be extended indefinitely. Anybody who previously played for us going to be available? That seems to be our main market these days.

This is particularly damning when Mowbray's preferred choice of system is using wing backs! What good are they if we're not putting any bloody crosses in?