DE.

Birmingham beating Bolton last night means that Sunderland are now 8 points adrift with 6 games left. Looks like they'll be doing back-to-back relegations. Even we avoided that!

Our main issue was the midfield area which was absolutely dire. Obviously Steele is a terrible goalkeeper too. I certainly wouldn't swap our current squad for the class of 2016/17! We were relying on Danny Guthrie of all people to be our saviour, and expecting the likes of Samuelsen and Byrne to make a difference. I'd rather not remember No Hope and Lowe stinking up the midfield game after game. Amazing that Henley can't even get into the first team of a minor MLS club. That kid has really lost his way. I mean, he always looked like a kid playing with men, but I wouldn't have expected his career to spiral as fast as it has. I figured a Championship or L1 side would give him a chance. Even Uncle Gary had no room for him (or J-Lowe) at Blackpool.

Roberts spent half the game on his arse complaining to the ref, and his finishing was only good when he didn't have to think about it. One of the most infuriating players of that era. Still no Chris Brown though.

He's shit but he's no Chris Brown tbf, at least Samuel has actually scored a few.

I think it was Rowett who said that Warnock told him in the summer that the Championship was wide open this season and that he was going to go for it. Seems to have worked out for him. Similar to the season Ipswich got into the playoffs, or Blackpool for that matter, sometimes there are enough poor teams and managers for an opportunity to arrive for a smaller, less fancied team to have a stab at getting themselves up. If you never try you'll never know. As for Marshall, he had some purple patches here too. We all knew there was a player in there, but once his head dropped it dropped for a long time and that's where his problems exist.

Looks like it won't take much more than 40 points to stay up in the Championship this year. We got relegated with 51. Sticks in the craw a bit. On the plus side we really have nothing to fear if we do go up. If Cardiff can get promoted and Bolton stay up then there's no reason we can't achieve at the very least a decent mid table finish. Just got to get there first...

On a different topic, unless they have a very abrupt downturn in form Cardiff are almost certainly going up. Eight wins on the spin at the business end of the season, win their game in hand and they are ten points clear of Fulham in 3rd. They'd only be three points off Wolves in 1st! What a job Warnock has done there.

Mick adjusts his style for the players he has at his disposal. Nobody could get a team as limited as Ipswich playing entertaining football. He's done a very good job keeping them stable and secure. It won't be a surprise to me if they're on their way to League 1 this time next season.

As long as he gets us promoted, yes. If not then much like Bowyer I imagine he'll soon find himself without his best players and without any further communications.

It seems like Mowbray basically got the keys to the kingdom by travelling to India and metaphorically kissing their feet. Warnock strikes me as a very different personality. Tan comes off as a little eccentric but I think he's ultimately always wanted to succeed at Cardiff. A lot of Venky's decisions have been questionable to the point where success on the pitch doesn't seem like it's always been their #1 priority. Their employment history suggests they want largely subservient, humble managers who won't rock the boat. Warnock is certainly not that. I'm not convinced it would have worked out. Obviously you then ask the question of why he was being interviewed in the first place, but probably just a case of the left hand having no idea what the right hand is doing.

I really do wonder what would have happened if Warnock had come here as he was supposed to. I think it probably would have ended in tears with Warnock getting frustrated and leaving either through being sacked or resignation... but you look at what he's done with Cardiff and can't help but think 'what if?' ...

I've seen McClaren and Bilic mentioned so far, Ipswich fans don't seem to be keen on the former but more interested in the latter. I'm not sure they have the budget for either of those managers but I suppose we'll see. Bilic with no budget would be a disaster imo. Schteve would probably keep them up but again would need money to really put things right there - and he'd be off like a shot as soon as anything better came calling.

I guess that shows the difference between the fans who use forums and people who don't! Most of the people I talk to probably don't go beyond the Ipswich Star newspaper for content on the club. If Mowbray is a genuine target for Ipswich then I think it'll be a case of waiting to see if we get promoted or not. Can they afford to wait that long? We'll almost certainly be in the playoffs if we don't go up automatically, so at the very least they'd be waiting until late May/early June to find out if Mowbray is even available and willing to talk. It's hard to blame the Ipswich fans for feeling the way they do about Mick. He's done an incredible job but the football is dire, there's no getting around it. Watching Ipswich makes Allardyce's Rovers look like Barcelona in comparison, it really is that bad. But what else can you do with such technically poor players? As I said, Evans either needs to stump up some serious cash for the next manager or prepare himself for the very real possibility of relegation. At least part of this has probably been prompted by Ipswich having their lowest crowds in 20+ years. There aren't that many other options around here to watch a decent standard of football, so when typically loyal Ipswich fans are walking away there is a problem. Mick is just a symptom of that problem, though. The main issue is lack of investment which will come back to haunt the club if they appoint a new manager and fail to give him a good budget to work with. The last manager who had a decent budget was Roy Keane, and he left in January 2011. There are some parallels between ourselves and Ipswich. During the Bowyer years we finished on very similar points to them most season (although we undoubtedly had the better squad) and in recent years both teams have been starved of funds and had their best players sold for profit which was not reinvested. Ipswich are basically at the point we were at when Lambert left at the end of the 15/16 season. One wrong appointment and it might be game over for them.

It's a weird one with Ipswich. Most of their fans desperately want Mick out, but have very few answers when it comes to who can realistically replace him and not get the club relegated. Make no mistake, Ipswich have a poor squad and have done for years. Mick has basically worked miracles there and had to employ some pretty horrific football to get the results required. Unless Evans stumps up a decent transfer budget for the next manager they could easily be on their way down next season. Haven't heard Mowbray's name mentioned as a potential replacement tbh. I imagine a lot of Ipswich fans don't even know he's our manager. I've spoken to quite a few who have been surprised when I mentioned it. If they think he'd be an improvement on Mick they might be in for a rude awakening. Mowbray won't be able to sign the equivalent of Dack, Graham or Mulgrew for the Championship. If he did go there he'd be working more with the Dominic Samuel, Corry Evans and Marcus Antonsson types. If we go up I think Mowbray would probably be better off staying here, in all honesty. If we stay in L1 I think he'll be gone anyway, so Ipswich could be an option for him. Not sure he'd be welcomed with open arms if he'd just failed to get the best financed team out of League 1 though.

I don't consider Nyambe a huge loss but I wouldn't want Caddis in there as a replacement. I don't think he has the same qualities and was a poor signing in general. Bennett or Travis would be better options, although I agree we would lose something in CM if Bennett was to be moved out of there. A shame Smallwood's form has nosedived in the past couple of months.

How his star has fallen. Been paid handsomely whilst doing so, though. Another player whose peak years appear to have been with Rovers.

Bolton 1-0 Villa, Bolton now six points clear of the relegation zone with five clean sheets in their last eight games. I was concerned that we wouldn't have enough quality if we got promoted, but if Bolton can stay up then there's nothing to fear in the Championship.

Sunderland fans all hate him tbf.

Our old friend Jason Steele getting himself sent off today by somehow misjudging the flight of the ball, coming out of his area and then handling it. Amazed we were actually given money for him.

Well done for bringing him in, TM. Really good signing.

I agree that Rotherham have probably left it too late. A very impressive run but unless that continues until the end of the season and one of us or Wigan collapses they'll almost certainly be looking at the playoffs.

A lot being said about our defence after the Wigan match, a quick stat attack on that... Rovers have conceded two or more goals in 8 matches this season and kept 12 clean sheets. In 36 games those stats don't seem so bad, however... Two or more goals conceded Rovers - 8 Wigan - 4 - this was actually just 1 match until February! Shrewsbury - 4 - similarly to the above this was just 1 match until Jan 13th when we beat them 3-1. Worth noting with the above that we've played 4 games more than Wigan and 2 more than Shrewsbury, so there's still room for the above to change, particularly as both Wigan and Shrewsbury's defences have started creaking in the past two months. Clean Sheets Rovers - 12 Wigan - 19 Shrewsbury -13 Again worth noting the 4 game and 2 game difference between us and Wigan/Shrewsbury respectively. It makes Wigan's CS stat in particular even more impressive. I don't think many would have assumed we would have almost the same number of clean sheets as Shrewsbury. We were actually very solid defensively in the first few months of the season, it's only since December we've started really shipping goals. Since Dec 26th we've only had two clean sheets. Before that we had 10, so, there's definitely been a marked downturn in defensive capability - but that coincides with scoring more goals, so there does seem to have been a shift in tactics/instructions from Mowbray to give us more attacking threat at the expense of our defence. Results suggest that Wigan and Shrewsbury's defences are both starting to leak, though, which particularly bodes well for us in Shrewsbury's case as they don't score many. If their defence starts to falter they will inevitably fall away and might leave it between us, Wigan and Rotherham to fight it out.

Monk's already become a card carrying member of the Championship managerial merry-go-round.

It's funny because Birmingham fans were clamouring for Cotterill before he was hired. Then literally a few weeks later they were almost all calling for his head. It was one of the fastest dips in footballing popularity I've seen.

You can tell Coyle is a bullshitter because his words have no substance. He talks about things vaguely but you can tell he has no idea how to implement those ideas. It's clear within a couple of minutes of listening to Mowbray that he knows exactly what he wants to do and how to do it, whether you agree with him or not.