DE.

It's not the fans who need to remain level headed and calm, it's the owners. Anybody looking long term is very much ignoring the elephant(s) in the room I'm afraid. As long as these idiots are in charge of our club I can barely look past the end of the month with any confidence.

Did Bolton get away with it as well? As per the rules they should have still been docked points even with the last minute save happening, but that all seemed to quietly vanish into nothing. I guess the EFL are happy to sweep the Bolton mess back under the carpet for another few months until it starts all over again.

Much like Smallwood in CM, Williams was capable enough last season at LB in a much poorer division, but if we have long term aspirations of getting promoted - as TM claims - players like this need to be phased out and replaced with better. I wouldn't be averse to keeping Williams on as backup but I'm not comfortable with him as a first teamer at this level.

Nothing wrong with bringing in players to develop, but they should be costing the types of fees Rothwell and Davenport commanded, not £7m! That's crazy for any club at our level. You don't throw that kind of money away in this league on future prospects, that's a fee for a first teamer. I'm struggling to think of any club in the division who's spent that kind of money on a prospect that wasn't expected to go straight into the first team? Are there others? Or is this all very peculiar?

Knudsen is dreadful. No better than Williams or Bell.

I assume this is a half season ticket appeal too. If it's anything to do with discontent from his team selections then simply play strikers up front rather than midfielders and we'll be fine. Thanks.

I have my reservations with Armstrong as far as finishing is concerned. Granted he's being played out wide in matches which is not and has never been his natural position, but he has had opportunities to score and always seems to miss. Just the one goal so far this season. He needs to improve in front of goal and in fairness to Mowbray I'd be wary about putting Armstrong up top as a lone striker as well. Not convinced he has that finishing instinct.

I still think Mowbray has quite a lot to prove as far as our transfer dealings are concerned. Outside of Dack, who was obviously an exceptional purchase, have many of his other buys significantly improved us? I'd argue most of our better players were already here when he arrived. Graham, Bennett, Mulgrew, Evans, Lenihan, Raya, Nyambe... I'm not saying he hasn't done a good job coaching them as we've obviously been getting good results overall, but has anybody been brought in by Mowbray who is at a similar level? I'm still not convinced Smallwood is Championship calibre. Reed is decent. Most of the others are yet to impress as far as I can recall.

Yeah, but it's clear Mowbray won't. He's had two chances against Rotherham and Preston to play Brereton up front and he's instead chosen to play midfielders there. So if Mowbray won't play Brereton up front we need a reinforcement there ASAP.

Largely agree with this, although with Brereton's fee taken into account I'd have to put his mark at closer to a 2 or 3. £7m for a striker who isn't trusted to play against Rotherham or Preston, and when he does get a few minutes on the pitch it's out wide? Something isn't right there.

We seem to be trying to play a passing game rather than a long-ball game - which would be fine if most of our goals this season hadn't come from set-pieces and crosses. We don't score from open play very often and when you watch us it's clear that if Dack isn't at it we have no creative players on the pitch capable of producing anything worthwhile. The rare times we do players like Armstrong and Rothwell inevitably miss, so unless a chance falls to Graham or Dack chances are we aren't scoring from open play. You'll get the odd worlie - even Lowe scored a 25 yarder once - but by and large, especially with our defending, it isn't going to be enough. With all of that said, does it make any sense to play a system with no striker? Nope. So Mowbray really needs to be asked to explain this nonsense. I'd love to hear the rationale behind a system which, on the surface, appears to be completely self-defeating on the basis of the players we have and the goals we've scored so far this season.

I don't think Palmer is especially good but he's useful enough to keep around. My concern is that he's getting minutes over the likes of Rothwell who is one of our own players. Unless Palmer starts producing incredible performances (no sign of that yet) I'd rather he was used as an impact sub with our own lads getting time on the pitch. If Rothwell isn't good enough to push for a regular starting place then why is he here? If Mowbray doesn't see Brereton as a striker (and all indications are that he's inexplicably brought the lad in as a winger or a "wide forward") then top priority should be decent back up to Graham. Our over-reliance on Graham is killing our ability to score from open play so whether we need a like for like backup or something different I'm not sure. I suppose you'd have to say like for like as we already have something different in Brereton and Armstrong, Mowbray just has no interest in using them in their natural positions.

I bet you couldn't believe your luck. First that team sheet, then we come out and play the first fifteen minutes like we've been on a week long bender.

Dack is obviously not a striker, he's an attacking midfielder who happens to be good at finding the net from that position. I don't remember Lampard ever playing as a striker - although if he was managed by Tony he may have started up front with Drogba out on the wing to try and counter the threat of Bolton's right back or some stupid nonsense. That said I don't see Dack as a top tier PL player. Not even close. He might be decent at a club like Palace, Southampton, Bournemouth, Everton, etc. That said I'm sure those clubs could get better for £25m, if that's what we're demanding.

Did anybody ask why we seem to have no alternative to a 33 year old who we knew well before the season started wouldn't be up to playing a full 46 games? I mean, we apparently had £7m to spend so you'd think we might have considered it a priority. Instead we've brought in more strikers to convert to wingers (does Tony know there's a difference?) and we're left to play midfielders up front with predictable results.

I like Mowbray as a person, but we've never had a period under his leadership where I've thought "yeah, he's cracked this". Points wise we smashed league 1 last season, but it didn't really feel like it. We've technically had a decent start this season but I'm never confident as I just don't know what to expect from the manager beyond overthinking and extreme caution.

I just can't understand what possesses Mowbray to persist with this false nine nonsense. We've looked shit every single time we've tried it. If not for a worldie from Reed WBA would have beaten us trying the same bollocks. Enough already. We aren't Barcelona. More like fucking Bromley today.

We can only hope this result acts as a major wake up call to the manager. It's been coming. He needs to stop fucking around and get serious.

It's really quite simple and something we've known for a long time. Mowbray is generally a very smart bloke but often overthinks to the point of idiocy. He's gotten away with it more often than not during his time here - but that's in part due to the fact the majority of his reign has been spent in L1 where our superior quality protected against tactical negligence. We aren't afforded those protections now and it always feels like we're on the verge of a really poor run of form, yet we grind through it. At some point Tony has to start being more sensible or we're going to throw away any hopes of a playoff place.

Plenty of shots, but no striker, so ?

Clearly not!

Nope, that's just because Mowbray has never been able to stop us leaking goals. We've just been good enough attacking wise for it not to matter as much as it should. Now we're messing around with this false nine bullshit there's going to be problems.

To be fair it's not like we've got £7m we can just spend on a... Oh, wait.

Jeez. If we don't get back into this Mowbray has to start explaining these ridiculous starting line ups. He's been getting away with it recently but today could be the day the proverbial chickens come home to roost. Could be a good thing in the long run if it stops him handicapping us from kick off.

Well at least we've had our usual defensive lapse early this time. Gives us plenty of minutes to get back into the game.