If Mowbray left right now I can't say I'd be unhappy. I'm out of patience, this defensive situation has been a problem since the day he arrived and he's done nothing to fix it. Our defence looked shit last season in a league where we had vastly superior players across the pitch. Why does anyone think it'll change even if he's allowed to buy new defenders?

This team deserves no support whatsoever. Spineless cowards.

A dead ball situation was the only way we were going to score so credit to Leeds for giving us the opportunity. Now will we sit back and defend a 1-1 or go for the win?

75% possession to 25%, no shots on target ? we could at least try to remember we're meant to be competing today rather than the usual roll over and die performance.

Happy Christmas everyone, stay safe and have a good one.

Watford are a good example of this working well. They've been constantly derided by the usual suspects for chopping and changing manager on a regular basis, but it hasn't done them any harm, has it? In fact they've been massively successful. It's all down to putting a structure in place which suits the fast-paced style of modern football, where the average manager rarely stays for longer than a couple of seasons. Clubs like us are very far behind the times with a structure so heavily reliant on the manager and his immediate staff (of which I have to include Waggott as Mowbray hired him). It was exactly the same with Kean and Bowyer, our only other longer term managers of the last eight years. Both times it ultimately led us to relegation. Not saying that will necessarily be the case with Mowbray, but once Venky's suddenly decide to turn the taps off again...

They're third highest scorers in the division so they're clearly doing something right. As far as being aggressive I doubt we were being deliberately combative, probably just clumsy.

Hard to disagree? Without Dack we've got nothing as far as creativity is concerned.

Of those we've only beaten Bolton and Hull, I think? Drew with Ipswich, Millwall, Rotherham and Reading... Wigan only have one more point than Hull and they absolutely wrecked us. Preston just below us at the moment but also taught us a lesson recently. Bristol City on the same points as us but also beat us 4-1. Fair to say we're, unfortunately, probably sinking back down to our level. I'd say we probably should be in that group of clubs scrapping it out closer to the bottom, albeit at the top of that mini-league as we're at least able to get draws rather than lose most of the time.

It's always slim margins with Mowbray. We rarely ease to victory, and although we get hammered on occasion we largely only lose by the odd goal as well. A ton of draws are inevitable. The concern with teams like ours is whether we can get ourselves out of a tailspin. Harder to do when you literally never dominate a match regardless of opposition. When those margins start going against you, morale drops and soon it becomes a big problem. Alarm bells should be ringing because our current form is dragging us down towards the relegation zone.

The way Mowbray has been dealing with Brereton is like he's sulking over having a player bought who he never asked for. Keeping him on the bench despite the enormous price tag, only bringing him on to play the last 15 minutes - almost always out of position, and even when our main striker IS injured and a space is available the manager picks midfielders to play there instead. All very odd.

Beginning to tumble down the league now. This result isn't necessarily a surprise as Norwich are far superior to us in every respect, but points thrown away against poorer teams are making the second half of the season look increasingly daunting. Another goal conceded near the end of a match as well.

Agree completely. Obviously there's nothing wrong with having long term plans, but sometimes in football you need to be ready to seize opportunities when they present themselves. I don't think our summer business prepared us to do this at all. We've found ourselves in a league where the poor teams are really poor (seriously, the bottom end of the Championship is just tragic) and the teams at the top end of the league are all capable of dropping points and stumbling. If there's any season to get an unexpected shot at the playoffs it feels like it's this one - but we've left ourselves so weak at the back that it's simply impossible for us to protect leads or stop leaking goals, even with a formation that is supposed to help with that. Of course finishing mid-table this season is far from a disaster and most of us would have taken it if offered at the start of the season. With the way things have panned out though, especially with a number of teams being significantly weaker than most would have predicted, it's hard not to feel a little disappointed that we're more than likely going to finish somewhere in the middle, well short of the top six. With Venky's in charge there really is no point looking much further ahead than the current season, so I think feelings of discontent at the moment are understandable enough. For all we know Mowbray could be out on his arse in the summer, with all our better players sold off and Steve Kean back in charge. With this lot you just never know.

I'd say 5 points is being pretty optimistic to be honest. I see us being much further behind, maybe as much as 10-15 points. Teams around us will gain momentum as we stumble our way through the season without ever picking up a proper run of form, whilst the better clubs will be able to hold onto winning positions in a way we simply can't. Barring a very good January transfer window, which I am not expecting, I foresee a decent but uninspiring mid-table finish with a lot of uncertainty as to whether we can progress as we go into the summer.

No question about it. The PL is littered with bang average teams all the way up to 6th spot (and nowadays you could even include Man Utd in that). Burnley came 7th having barely spent anything. It's a bit of a joke. Clubs that get relegated to the Championship tend to struggle to get back out, even if they keep a lot of their better players, whereas even teams like us and Sunderland who get relegated to L1 in total dissarray tend to dominate that league without even needing to play very well.

Just shows how utterly abysmal League 1 is really.

Getting three points today would have been hugely beneficial. We would have been 8th and 2 points off the playoffs, despite a fairly poor recent run of form. Instead we're 12th, with just one win in five games and looking over our shoulders as QPR, Preston and Bristol City all start catching up. With the run of fixtures coming up all three could easily overtake us by the time December is finished.

They weren't wrong.

Yep. You can look to individual players when it happens as a one off, but when it's a repeated occurance then it's an overall mentality and coaching problem. Worryingly it's one that's, imo, existed from day one under Mowbray but has spent a long time unaddressed because in the dregs of League 1 it just wasn't necessary to be particularly good defensively.

I'm not sure I can take any more strikers being brought in to play "inside forward". What's ironic is that we actually will bring in an actual winger in January, but it'll be Harry Chapman and Mowbray will either loan him out or his hamstring will go in his first training session and we'll see him less than we saw everybody's favourite crock Vince Grella.

6 so far, which is more than I'd have thought in all honesty. However, we've conceded 2 or more goals in 10 matches so far this season - two goals or more conceded in nearly HALF of our games this season so far. Nowhere near good enough. Will our esteemed local journalists bring this up with Tony though? Doubtful.

Stats suggest Birmingham at the very least deserved their draw. We had more possession but did far less with it. That said, attacking wise by the 46th minute we had done what we needed to do. Two goals clear at home with over half the game gone should usually be enough. Not for Rovers though. We are throwing points away and leaking goals all over the shop. We've now conceded more than Bolton who are 23rd, we've also conceded more than both Hull and Wigan. The same as Rotherham. The main difference is we score more goals than all of these teams, hence our higher positioning in the table. However, of the teams above us only Villa and West Brom have conceded more than us, and both have scored A LOT more goals than we have. WBA nearly double and Villa 14 more than us. Realistically this means that unless we work out how to stop conceding or how to score a significantly higher amount of goals we are going to likely end up finishing roughly where we are now. Is that acceptable? I suppose, but I can't help but look at the form of the teams in and around us and wonder whether we're missing out on an opportunity which is disappearing with every point from a winning position we throw away.

No. I'm not saying I would have sacked or indeed would sack Mowbray either, but the fact remains for all the positives he's brought to the club - and there's plenty - he's never solved our defensive issues. I would rather he'd have brought in a coach or a better assistant in the summer to sort our defence out, as it's our achilles' heel. Some fans ignored it in League One because we were still winning matches as it was easy to outscore the opposition, not so much this season and a blind eye can't be turned anymore.

What's sad is that the playoffs are there to be taken this season. Better investment in the summer and either a coach or a different manager who could organise a defence and this could have been a very interesting season. As it stands it's going to be a season of wasted opportunities, with poor summer investment meaning we're still a long way from even being back to where we were three years ago, let alone when Venky's first darkened the doors of Ewood with their presence.

We must be top by now.