DE.

I'm pretty sure BDS was being sarcastic I certainly hope so. Lowe's post-Rovers' career has gone exactly as I thought it would. The detour to Birmingham was a bit random but injuries and shit performances were par for the course. He looked his usual self last Saturday, even got the mandatory yellow card to bring back those nostalgic memories.

Terry has never been in a professional coaching capacity so I think it's more prudent to be sceptical of his abilities than not. Being a top defender doesn't automatically make you a good defensive coach, and that's not even what he's been brought in as - he's assistant manager, which entails far more than just sorting out the defence. What has "JT" ever shown anybody to suggest he can help out tactically, for example? It's obviously a risk and I can't understand calling it "genius" when there's as of yet no proof that he's any good in a non-playing role. As far as him being a bad influence, he was only at Villa for a season. Look at his influence in getting multiple Chelsea managers sacked for a better perspective on his character. Not going to go into cheating on his girlfriend with a team-mate's girlfriend (and getting her pregnant in the process) or racist taunts to other players. Good player yes - good person, no. One of the worst. That's going to have far more impact in a non-playing role than a playing role, imo, so it's completely valid taking it into account.

Their fans seem to think it'll be an internal appointment.

Smith is in theory a good choice as manager. Sir Lionheart of England as assistant I can only see causing problems. He's an insidious character and will be looking for a way to take the top spot before too long. No idea who the Sporting Director is.

Considering we already have the likes of Rothwell, Armstrong and Palmer more suitable to play in Dack's position I can't see Brereton being brought in to play there.

Yeah, but he only cost them about £7m. Dack would probably cost double if not triple that, which is why clubs tend to look abroad for prospects rather than paying over the odds for domestic players.

If the Walker Trust had waited a couple of years they could have sold us for much, much more. They really did sell at the wrong time. Hindsight is obviously 20/20, but at the same time it was clear even in 2010 that PL rights fees were only going to go up. I remember even at the time people were surprised at how little we'd been given away for.

Yeah it's been mooted since April. £22m seems fairly reasonable for a small Championship club. What a Hong Kong company would want with a team like Wigan is another story. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Evans is a decent squad player but I don't consider him a top priority. It's nice that he's had a few good games as of late and actually been fit for a few months but history tells us that, much like Ben Marshall, Evans is a player who has short purple patches and long periods of average to poor form, usually accompanied by injury. I wouldn't be averse to giving him a year's extension on reduced pay but I don't think we need to be fearful over Evans leaving. We'd cope fine without him.

I would be careful about what we're offering Evans.Considering the era he was bought in he's likely one of the biggest earners at the club, and simply isn't good enough to be in that bracket. Any contract extension should see his wage reduced to a more reasonable level, but unlikely he'd accept it. He's not worth spending a big wage p/w on imo. At Mulgrew's age I think an extra year is sensible. If he starts picking up injuries again we don't want to be left with a player on a longer deal we can't shift. As long as he's on a competitive wage it should be enough to ward off most interest.

Easy to forget the kind of squad we had back then. Some top players in Robinson, Hanley, Duffy, King, Dunn (albeit coming to the end of his career), Rhodes, Gestede, Olsson, Cairney and Conway in his prime. A few decent 'squad' players - Spurr, Kilgallon, Marshall, Kane and Evans. Possibly Taylor as well. A lot of absolute tosh though - Lowe, Jake Kean, Eastwood, Varney, Williamson, Etuhu, Feeney and Henley. We also had a lot of players out on loan who were on huge wages which we were probably paying most of - DJ Campbell, Best, Rochina, Orr, Goodwillie... Overall we should have been able to get into the playoffs with the team we had imo. A fair few of our better players went on to play in the PL, and others have become solid Championship players. Robinson only being able to play roughly half of our games meant we had a huge weakness in goal playing Jake Kean or Simon Eastwood. We'd be in a similar situation if Raya got injured now, though. Centre-midfield was obviously a graveyard too. Dat Lowe/Williamson pairing. Still gives me nightmares.

Yeah agreed, but I think he did the best he could within his capabilities. Considering where he came from and the trajectory of his career before he joined us, I have to say he performed significantly above my expectations even though we ultimately took the drop. I'm not sure any manager within our reach at that point in time would have kept us up. Regardless, it's all about the present. He's gotten us back to where he found us, and we're now in a similar position to where we were under Bowyer in the first couple of years of his reign. We can only wait and see as to whether he can push us further. Bowyer was considered a failure for not getting us into the playoffs, and I don't think we're in any weaker of a position than we were back then. Arguably we're in a stronger position as Bowyer never had £7m to spend on a single player.

In fairness to Mowbray, that first half season was a far from easy task. He had to take a group of completely demoralised, unfit and disorganised players and get them picking up points very quickly. For the most part he was able to do that, and if not for a freak season in terms of points needed to survive we would normally have stayed up fairly comfortably. I don't place any blame on him for our relegation - all blame goes to Venky's and Coyle for that. Our season in League 1 was questionable at times in terms of performances, but the quality of our squad alone meant we got promoted without too much to worry about in the end. Had it not been for Shrewsbury having a once in a lifetime season us and Wigan would have been promoted with months to spare. This season so far is similar in many ways - questionable performances at times, but we're still picking up a good amount of points. We have weaknesses but it seems like the entire division has the same inconsistencies. Mowbray's main positive attribute is his ability to foster an incredible spirit amongst the squad. The team obviously have a huge amount of respect for him and we always fight until the end. Thumbs in the middle for his transfer dealings and tactics. Hit and miss for both imo. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, usually somewhere in the middle. You could argue that this is the case for the vast majority of managers, though, so I'm not going to come down on him too hard for that. Negatives are an over-cautious approach when it isn't always necessary, and an inability to solve defensive issues which have plagued us for years. We struggle to see out games and set piece vulnerability has never really been addressed. I don't think it ever will be. All in all I think he's done a good job and would be happy with him being given an extra 2-3 years to build a squad capable of competing for promotion. Any more than that would be irresponsible imo. A lot can change in a year, let alone six.

Wigan takeover due to be completed in six weeks: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45799463

Can't imagine our current owners getting anybody better. Keeping him in situ for the foreseeable future should be a top priority.

Agreed, it would be a bizarre move, especially with such huge pressure. Villa basically have to get promoted this season or it'll be cost cutting to the extreme in the summer as FFP sanctions are supposed to kick in, and I don't see how Villa are going to be able to avoid being sanctioned. Much more likely that they'll be hiring a newcomer with nothing to lose or an experienced manager out of work who's at the last chance saloon - Henry and Moyes seem like the most obvious candidates, for whatever reason McCarthy doesn't seem to be in the running at all and I can't see Allardyce taking this one.

Ideally with younger players with potential at this level you buy them for a fairly small outright fee with the potential for it to rise with promotion/goal add ons or large sell-on clauses. It's quite rare for a club in our financial position to commit a significant amount for a youngster, and if we do then the general expectation is that he'll be ready to come in and have an immediate impact. Nothing particularly controversial there, I'd have thought? We don't know specifically how the Brereton deal is structured but I'm not convinced Forest would have sold him for peanuts with the hope of a big payoff further down the road. I have to assume they're guaranteed a decent sum no matter what - if not, they'd have surely loaned him out with the hope of him either evolving into a better player for their own use or to sell at a large price to a cash-rich Championship club or a PL club looking for the next big young talent. The only reason to sell outright to us would logically be because we were offering the type of money that couldn't really be turned down for a player who may or may not have what it takes to get to a much higher level.

We were fortunate to be playing the third lowest scorers in the league behind QPR and Rotherham, and even then we very nearly gave a penalty away in the final stages of the match. I don't think changing tactics and playing the same way is going to work against too many teams. There's nothing wrong with playing a more defensive style to protect a lead, but it can't come at the expense of completely nullifying our ability to attack. If the opposition knows you aren't going to be able to attack effectively they'll flood forward and eventually the pressure will tell. It's basically what Sheffield Utd did on Wednesday - they were constantly throwing numbers forward because they knew we weren't going to threaten them in their half of the pitch. We don't quite have the balance right yet - but the fact we are where we are in the table despite that is great, and if we're able to improve tactically then we could have a really good season. Mowbray's post-match comments suggest that we aren't playing the way he envisions, so it's obviously still a work in progress. Our final position in the table is largely going to depend on the manager being able to get it sorted.

It's been pretty much confirmed that we are obliged to buy him in January, so, that £7m is coming out of the coffers no matter what. Indeed. Hopefully it'll work in our favour in the future.

Palmer really did do well for our goal. He could easily have gone down, and most players would have, but he showed great strength to keep going and pass into a dangerous area.

3 wins in 12 games suggest Villa need some pretty serious surgery if they are genuinely entertaining ideas of promotion. The squad is good enough but there's obviously something very wrong there mentality-wise.

I think he was agreeing with you.

He's spot on and I'm glad he isn't coming out and saying he's happy with that performance. Three points is great but we need to be much better than that. The mentality after we scored our goal was all wrong. It obviously wasn't the plan, so it's something for Mowbray to analyse and work on during the international break. The Championship is wide open this season and with the right mentality we can potentially have a really good year. There just needs to be much more confidence and self-belief. I have to assume our recent inability to see out games combined with the terrible performances against Derby and Sheff Utd have taken a bit of a toll on the players. Hopefully that can be rectified because there really is nothing to fear in this league.

His attitude is obviously right now, but it's a question of whether it will be long term, particularly if he's still a rotation option in six months time rather than a regular first teamer. For what it's worth I think he'll keep himself in check as he knows his reputation he taken a huge hit over the past few years, but we can only wait and see.

Raya was the difference between one and three points today.