DE.

Tbf Ipswich and Shrewsbury both did that and it didn't get them very far either. To some degree I think it's just luck and circumstance, outside of the really terrible candidates who should never have been considered (Steve Kean). Interesting that there have been no PL sackings yet, especially considering the dire form of most clubs in the bottom half. I guess because they're all as shit as each other it doesn't make any of them stand out as being really shit.

Shrewsbury have sacked their manager. Wonder if Hurst will end up back there? Bowyer a possibility too.

Can't disagree with any of that really. The pyramid is clearly broken and as far as I can tell the fracturing is getting worse rather than better. Even with increased parachute payments relegated clubs are struggling to stabilise themselves after being relegated. League 1 is becoming increasingly distant from the Championship, but that's only because Championship clubs are overstretching themselves to the point where it's no longer uncommon for a club to be tens of millions in debt, if not hundreds. The only reason clubs aren't going bust left, right and a centre is because football operates in its own, bizarre ecosystem where money is an incredibly fluid commodity that only really exists when HMRC come calling. In theory there's a lot to like about the Championship, but the current model is not built on a solid foundation and realistically could collapse quite rapidly. You wonder what happens to the likes of Aston Villa if they don't go up this season. Bolton are still in all sorts of trouble. Multiple clubs have been hit with embargoes over the past few years. Clubs like us and Ipswich are 100% dependent on our owners footing bills that constantly increase insane debt levels. Almost every club is operating at a loss, and if you aren't then you're probably not going to survive. The whole thing seems completely unsustainable. How much debt can clubs accrue before it becomes too much? Us and Ipswich must be getting close to the £200m mark now?

Can you imagine how boring it would be? The allure of big club playing big club would wear off pretty quickly when it becomes a regular thing. That's what these geniuses putting forward the idea don't seem to have come to grips with. Eventually the so called Super League would fall into the same state as every other league - you'd have the teams at the top, the middle of the road teams and the lower end teams. A couple of clubs would swap around every season but you'd end up with the same basic pattern as you have in every other league around the world, rendering the whole thing largely pointless on top of being a logistical nightmare. The Championship should be bringing in far more TV money, really. It's a good quality league with a ton of interesting, diverse teams and plenty of good quality players scattered across the division. Chuck in genuine competitiveness from top to bottom and a full schedule almost every week and it should translate to a strong market. It's surely by far the best second professional tier of football in the world? It feels like the FL are just happy to trundle along under the radar rather than aggressively try to push this league as something unique.

The Championship has developed into an exciting league, but with almost every club losing money something is going to have to change.

Those in charge of the football league are clearly doing a bad job marketing the brand. The Championship is significantly more entertaining than the Premier League but has none of of confidence or swagger that the top division possesses. Even the highlights package is stuck on some barely known freeview channel. I'd say all of the FL divisions, even going down to L2, offer the viewer plenty of drama and intrigue. Unfortunately instead the lion's share of investment and wealth has been ploughed into the Premier League, bloating it to the point where it's become a parody of itself. Mourinho complained yesterday that Man City had "two home friendlies" before facing United, but the reality is that practically every home match this season has been a friendly for Man City. This is the first PL season ever where after 12 games none of the top three teams have been beaten. The gap between the bottom half of the PL and the top half of the Championship is, imo, closer than it's ever been. Teams getting relegated from the PL rarely have an easy ride in terms of getting back up, whereas in recent years the likes of Watford, Bournemouth, Brighton, Huddersfield, Leicester and Burnley have either kept themselves up or established themselves as mid to lower table fodder for the bigger teams. As it stands few if any Championship clubs seem able to turn a profit or break even. Most are operating under a loss underwritten by the owner. 19 of the 24 clubs in the league in 16/17 made a loss. It's not a sustainable model, so it's understandable if clubs are pushing for the league to do a better job of promoting itself and getting better deals. As it stands they don't have a viable long term business model so that should be causing concern.

WBA only had 28% possession but had 20 shots on goal, whereas Leeds had 72% possession and had 15 shots. Not sure I've ever seen a side with only 28% possession over the match have 20 shots on goal. Really weird.

Pretty much exactly the same as last season tbf. We raise our game against the better teams and allow ourselves to be dragged down against the lesser teams. I guess that's where a passive managerial approach logically leads to.

Really poor result. The manager's lack of courage and our love of conceding goals will torpedo any playoff hopes. Mid table is still a decent achievement but it's going to be a shame to think of what might have been, much like GB's first season in charge.

Was hoping Brereton would be given a chance to impress from the start today, whether that be up front or out wide. Seems like a good game to give him a shot.

In comparison to their last season in the Championship, yes, but they've still only won 4 games out of 16 and are two points from the drop zone. -9 goal difference and only won one of their last five games. Granted they've managed three draws in there, but still, no reason to expect anything other than a Rovers win here, other than the fact it's Rovers.

Most definitely for Lenihan We beat Rotherham 1-0 at Ewood in 2015 and they were one of the very few teams we actually beat with Coyle in charge at Ewood, 4-2 in Sept 2016. Along with beating them 2-0 last season we have a pretty solid home record against Rotherham in the past few years.

I remember us being superb for the first 60-70 minutes of that game, definitely one of the better performances from last season.

With a manager like McCarthy or Allardyce at the helm I think WBA would probably be in the top two spots. The football would obviously not be as 'entertaining' but it's all about getting out of this league as soon as possible. Every season from the moment of relegation becomes tougher. Look at how we fell away under Bowyer - from 7th, to 9th, to 16th with three wins from sixteen games and GB sacked. The quicker you escape this league the better. You really need to give yourself the best possible opportunity from day one to bounce back.

It seems increasingly rare for older players to be able to cut it in the Championship, particularly if they've been plying their trade in the PL for a number of years beforehand. It seems to take a certain, fairly unique type of character to make the step down and thrive.

If he really wanted Chapman I'm sure we could have made Boro an offer they would have accepted much earlier than the last day of the window. We had £7m to spend on Brereton after all. It was clear from Mowbray's quotes that he never considered Chapman a serious priority.

Seems Tony was right to hold fire on this one.

It feels like some of our own fans were more upset about the decision than QPR's!

It's inevitable that we'll go on a poor run of form eventually and eat a few defeats along the way. The overall attitude and determination across the squad gives me confidence that we'll come out the other side of that okay though. We battled back last season after a very disappointing start, with huge pressure as favourites to get promoted, and got to where we needed to be. No reason to think based on our start this season that we should be worried about being dragged into a relegation fight - it would take some really bad luck in the form of injuries or Venky's being Venky's and nuking the club with another stupid decision.

This time two years ago we were 23rd with 13 points after 16 games with a -9 goal difference, having just lost 2-1 to Aston Villa to make it three defeats in a row. Owen Coyle did his best Steve Kean impression by saying we "dominated the game" in the first half and claimed "there is enough in the team to know we will move up the table". True, but not with you at the helm, Owen. That said, you can't doubt the managerial credentials of a man who says "I've told the players, and I was quite vocal about it, that they must not give away soft goals when we are in a winning position". Such insight must have blown the players minds. Compare and contrast, we just beat QPR to go 8th with 25 points after 16 games with a -1 goal difference. We already had 9 defeats under our belt this time two years ago, compared to just 3 this time around. Also despite winning our latest match and doing very well results-wise so far this season, the manager continues to demand improvement from the team. The difference between a proper manager and a fraud imitating one.

I said at the start of the season I felt WBA would regret not bringing in a proper manager. Not too often that the coach who has a half decent run as caretaker transitions that into long term success. Bowyer was a different kettle of fish as we desperately needed somebody to steady the ship before we sunk completely. Generally speaking bouncing back at the first attempt from this league is the best chance of getting out, and WBA should have put as much effort in as possible to ensure they had the best opportunity to do that. Sticking with Moore was not, imo, the optimum way to go about that. That said, I hope Moore does turn it around as he seems like a decent bloke, but much like GB I think his inexperience will cost WBA too many points in the end.

Depends on how you define a dive. He made the most of quite minimal contact, but there was contact. You see them given often enough. We'd probably be annoyed if it was given against us in all honesty, but I think we'd also be questioning why the defender is going off his feet when the attacker is running the ball out of play.

Just saw the penalty on the Quest highlights show. Soft, yes, but the defender shouldn't have slid in. He did catch Brereton's heels and made no contact with the ball, so, he's giving the ref a decision to make. Brereton wasn't really going anywhere so if the defender hadn't gone to ground chances are there's no penalty, no goal and the game ends 0-0.

For sure, but that's the nature of the beast. Bad decisions happen. They only had one shot on target the whole game, so if they were on the receiving end of a bad decision they were always going to be losing. If they'd tried to actually win the game they might have had a goal or two to make up for a poor decision against them. When he says that QPR did enough to win it I lose all sympathy. By the sound of it they did everything possible to make it a miserable afternoon for everybody.

It was clearly an insipid performance from us today, but I'd be more angry as a QPR fan. On a great run and they come to Ewood to face a Rovers without Raya or Mulgrew to try and grind out a 0-0 draw, only managing five shots the entire match. That's pretty sad, although if they'd come to actually make a game of it maybe we would have come out of our shells too. McClaren: ""It's a bad decision which has cost us a point and continuation of our run." Wrong, Steve, it was your decision to play for a goalless draw that ended your run. Try to be a bit braver next time, you might get something from the game. As it stands you left yourself open to a sucker punch and duly received it.