DE.

I personally don't think Mowbray's transfer record is particularly good. What he's done well is keep our better players here whilst blooding young prospects like Raya, Nyambe and Lenihan. Dack was obviously a blinding piece of business, but I can't think of any other players he's brought in that have really impressed, other than Reed who has been very good so far despite being shunted out of position. Smallwood had a decent first half of the season in L1. Armstrong had a nice purple patch when he first arrived (again in L1). The rest have either been able to 'do a job' (often out of position) or loaned out/rarely played for us - Hart, Caddis, Whittingham, Gladwin, Brereton... I'm not that confident in giving Mowbray a lot of money, in all honesty. We're at a point where Downing is being glorified for bring competent at his role, mainly because we appear to have spent £7m on a 'long term prospect' as opposed to strengthening areas that need additions now. I'm not necessarily asking for another Dack, but a player on the level of Evans, Conway or Nyambe is surely achievable?

Lambert needed a win early on to get things going. They had a couple of games where they were 2-1 up, playing well, then conceded and ended up drawing both. Since then it's slowly been going downhill. In fairness they are playing better, but their defence is atrocious. Makes our backline look like a legendary Italian defence in comparison. The only plus is that they brought in so many League 1 standard players they should be well equipped for next season.

This season aside his wiki stats don't make great reading for a striker. 4 goals in 40 apps for Yeovil... That said we'll probably play him on the wing. If Eaves is the calibre of signing we're looking at (26 year old lower league journeyman) then I think we can forget pushing for promotion.

He didn't look at it differently though. He was as cautious and petrified of the opposition last season - whether we were against Wigan or Bury - as he is this season. We were promoted because our team was far too good for that division and Mowbray, for all his tactical faults, is able to command the respect of his players. I think we'll finish mid table this season, and I think that's where we'll finish pretty much every season as long as Mowbray is here. The only way we'll go up or down is if our team either significantly improves (I'm talking becoming the best in the division) or declines (similarly becomes one of the worst). Mowbray is a good bloke and a safe pair of hands with a decent squad, but he doesn't have the courage to propel an average team into promotion contention imo. I'd love to be proven wrong but I believe we would need massive investment from Venky's to get promoted with Mowbray at the helm.

That miss from Evans was criminal.

Obviously would have been happy if offered a 1-1 before the match started. Less so if I was also told they'd play 70 minutes with ten men and we'd be a goal up at half time, but not particularly surprised either. The last thing a Mowbray team wants is the opposition losing a man. It simply isn't compatible with how we play. Unfortunately every team is not Sheffield Wednesday so in a sense normal service resumed this week. Underwhelming but we have to accept it's mid-table for us this season (still completely acceptable) and see how much Venky's are willing to put into a serious promotion push over the next two years.

I can definitely remember Mulgrew having positive things to say about Coyle, but that might have been the Scottish connection at work. Realistically it makes no sense for players to say negative things about their manager, as much as the fans may want to hear it at times. How many of our players publically criticised Kean whilst they were here? Can't remember a single one. I remember plenty of them licking his arse though.

There isn't much difference between the Championship and the bottom 13 teams in the PL these days, so if Reed is doing well here he could definitely do a job for Southampton. Hope he stays until at least the end of the season though, he's been a breath of fresh air since arriving. Don't think we'd miss Palmer.

I'm sure he is Yeah, a fairly short stint but a surprise at the time. I'm guessing he didn't take too much from his time working under Kean. Then again, judging by Reading's form this season...

What happened to him at Derby? I can't really remember. He's got a pretty decent win% there so did they go on some horrendous run or something?

There have been a lot of lows (no pun intended) during the Venky's era, but Lowe being made captain was one of the worst. I'd made a joke about it a couple of years prior, but when it actually happened it was anything but funny. You knew right then that things were only going in one direction.

Doesnt sound like it's going so well at Bolton. https://lionofviennasuite.sbnation.com/2018/12/3/18121252/five-things-bolton-wanderers-1-1-wigan-athletic

Bolton seem to have been in a bad way forever. Not sure how they still exist.

If the Coyle/SEM stuff hadn't happened in 2016 I might take talk of them turning a corner or whatever else a little more seriously, but that whole episode stunk and keeps my suspicions raised even with a relatively painless past 18 months.

I wouldn't welcome them back, but at the same time I wouldn't be openly hostile to them as I don't think violence or indecent behaviour does anything to paint the support in a positive light. No option for that, so, other, I guess?

Venky's are the ones who put the club in danger of administration in the first place. Would you be grateful if somebody stabbed you in the face but then had the courtesy to take you to the hospital afterwards?

End of this season is the cut off point for Villa and FFP isn't it? Don't see how they can avoid at the very least being fined heavily. If they aren't then it sets a precedent for every club to ignore those rules and take any punishment to court for a lengthily, drawn out process. The only clubs still hiding behind FFP rules will be those whose owners use it as a convenient excuse not to invest.

Smith seems to have gotten them going in the right direction. four wins and a draw from their last five matches. Cahill would be a decent addition. Only 32 so you'd assume he's still got a few years left in him. Momentum seems to be with Villa at the moment but their poor start has given them a mountain to climb if they want to avoid the playoff lottery. Does suggest either Bruce had lost the plot this season or the players weren't playing for him as their form was frankly embarrassing considering the talent in that squad.

Problem is it would probably take Huth a few months to get up to speed after being out of action for so long. By that point the season would almost be over. Most of the golden oldies being mentioned from our past had still been playing regularly or semi-regularly for their previous clubs before joining us, which is where Huth has a severe disadvantage.

In fairness they also called Bowyer's sacking about two months early!

Tbf I imagine if anybody else was serious about him they probably would have signed him by now! Don't think we'd have much if any competition.

I agree with Chaddy on this one. If Huth is such a hidden gem surely somebody else would have picked him up by now? He's obviously still on a free transfer for a reason and I don't see why we would be desperate enough to be hunting around the free transfer bin for backup players. I've had enough of bringing in over the hill players for one last payday. I'm absolutely sure Downing is and will continue to be a more suitable back up CB for us than Huth would be.

They didn't seem to have prepared at all for us. Either that or the players deliberately ignored the manager's instructions? He was just sitting in the dugout the entire match looking vaguely bored - have to assume if they weren't executing the game plan he would have been getting orders out onto the pitch? All very bizarre. It was easy to see why they've been spiralling downward though.

He was given the freedom of the park to be fair. You can guarantee he won't get that amount of room very often this season.

Can we stop the "recently promoted" talk? It's starting to annoy me a bit. It seems like a way for positive posters to justify having little faith in Tony or the team to actually achieve something decent this season. Whilst it's technically true to say we're recently promoted, we spent a single solitary season in League 1 and absolutely smashed it. Reason being we should never have been there, and the only reason we were was because our idiot owners sabotaged us with Coyle. Mowbray's points per game ratio after he was appointed proves that we had a team in 16/17 that should have survived relatively comfortably, and probably would have if we had appointed, say, Warnock - as was supposed to happen. We also went down on a record points total - in the vast majority of seasons we would have survived with the points we accrued, even with Coyle's mismanagement taken into account. That said, talk of being "recently promoted" - as if we're fucking Shrewsbury or Burton Albion - might have some credit if we had lost a lot of our better players upon relegation and TM had needed to rebuild from scratch as a result. This, however, did not happen. We retained all of our better players. Raya, Nyambe, Lenihan, Mulgrew, Evans, Conway, Bennett, Graham - ALL RETAINED. We also added a Championship-ready player in Bradley Dack to supplement an already strong side. So, all of that considered, why is it being considered some kind of miracle that we're in mid table and able to compete with the likes of Sheffield Wednesday? We were recently promoted out of a division we should never have been in, with a squad that had by and large already proven itself more than capable of competing in the Championship. I don't think there's any need to talk down the club, the players and the manager by referring us to a "recently promoted" club like we spend years in League 1 and finally have our shot at the big time. It was only a few years ago we were competing for playoff places in this league ffs. Granted we've had a pretty significant turnover of players since then, but it's not like Nyambe is any worse than Todd Kane or Adam Henley, or Williams/Bell are that much of a downgrade from Tommy Spurr. Smallwood is no worse than Jason Lowe and according to most on here Jordan Rhodes was a huge hindrance to the team so surely Graham is an upgrade in that department? TM was as furious as the rest of us after the non-performances at Preston and Wigan, and rightly so. He clearly has ambitions for the club and I'm with him on that. We deserve to be in this league and we are completely capable of competing. Getting mauled by the likes of Bristol City, Wigan or Preston is in no way acceptable, irrespective of the league we were in last year. Judging from Mowbray's reaction to the defeats I'm pretty sure he feels the same way.