The only thing I'll say in Rock and TKO's defence is that at least they immediately walked it back. Under Vince it would have taken a lot longer, if it happened at all. This probably doesn't do any lasting damage to Cody and does set up some really interesting possibilities going forward, so they've stumbled their way into something interesting in the end - they just went about it in a very backwards way. I did find it funny how at the press conference Cody basically pretended like he didn't make a decision on Smackdown and retconned that entire ending segment. That's exactly what they should have done - have Cody say he'd spoken to Rock and made a decision, then have Rock come out and engage in a staredown with Reigns without Cody saying anything else. Imply that Rock might be stealing the main event without outright saying so. Gauge the response and go from there. The press conference then makes a lot more sense. Nonetheless, what's done is done. They've done the right thing in the end, and I assume that going forward they'll just pretend Cody never actually said he was giving up his WM spot.

I think they had a fairly solid plan until Rock came in and forced his way into storylines. The Vince allegations obviously put things into a state of chaos as well. I actually think they have the opportunity now to make things more interesting than the original plans, but it depends where they go creatively. It's not ideal to have to retool a story that they likely had booked well in advance, and deal with the knock on affect of how that impacts other stories - particularly Seth's opponent at WM.

I know the Observer reported that it was part of Rock's contract when he signed to the TKO board that he would headline WM. How true that is, I don't know, but it would be baffling for them to go ahead with Cody winning the rumble if that was the case. With that said, everything about this has been baffling, so it's probably true. I'd like to see Rock/Seth on Night 1 and Cody/Roman on Night 2. Rock still gets his main event, but nothing to do with Cody and Reigns. Doesn't seem like that's the direction they're going in though.

Gally has been injured for significant amounts of time lately, so how could we build a style of play around him? Moreover the strikers that were foisted onto JDT by our DOF have by and large been completely useless. Fortunately Szmodics has stepped up otherwise we'd probably be in the bottom three. Too many players in this team who have shown their heads go down when things get tough. Easy to give it the big'un after beating a Stoke side who are struggling even more than we are. I don't trust many of the players out there and, imo, neither should Eustace.

I'm glad WWE did the right thing by backtracking (and the press conference confrontation was legitimately fantastic), but it's crazy that they misread their audience so badly. With Vince out of the picture I thought they'd be a little more sensible, but seems like TKO are just as dense. The one main difference seems to be that they're willing to change course rather than try to force the audience to accept what's given to them, which is obviously a positive.

Despite getting a goal today, Stoke fans aren't too impressed with Ennis: https://oatcakefanzine.proboards.com/thread/311905/nail-ennis

Huge win after a week of absolute turmoil. Probably the best opponent we could have had in the circumstances, but you still have to beat what's put in front of you and we hadn't done that in 11 games previous. Breathing space between us and the relegation places now.

Guess we know why JDT was so reluctant to bring Telalovic on.

Wow, all change. A win here potentially becomes even more valuable.

Can't imagine Eustace has really had a chance to put his stamp on things yet. Probably just the players reverting to a style that's more comfortable for them.

Seems like Schumacher hasn't had a new manager bounce there. At this rate he could end up back in L1 with Stoke. I'm sure there are a few Plymouth fans looking at the current score with a wry smile.

2 wins in 16 I think I read on their forum. One point off the drop as it stands, with QPR winning. Will be a huge three points for us if we can secure it.

Have we dropped the tip-tapping it around the back routine?

Would have been nice to keep a clean sheet, but you just knew Ennis would net against us. Their only shot on target so far. With that said, we've had three and they've all gone in so I suppose it's just two rubbish defences - we've just had the better attackers thus far. Can't be too critical as we are still 3-1 up.

Yeah, I think there's a difference between losing the dressing room (which I think is pretty rare and usually ends with the manager leaving really soon afterwards) and the players losing confidence in the manager's style of play. It doesn't mean he's lost the dressing room in the sense they don't want to play for him, just that they start losing faith in the methods which has a direct impact on confidence and performance during matches.

High press can work well, but typically only for certain periods. Asking a team to high press for entire matches and in every match is going to lead to exhaustion fairly quickly even in the best conditioned teams. I believe it's part of the reason Klopp's teams tend to go strong for a season or two and then start to fade away. Even with elite athletes at elite levels of fitness it's difficult to sustain that indefinitely. Basically you need a plan around what your team is doing when not executing the high press, and I'm not sure we ever had a good plan for that.

Amidst the gloom of the past decade, that FA Cup match against Leicester will be one I'll always be fond of. We were electric for those first 70 minutes and looked like we belonged in the PL. If JDT takes the Sweden national job it's an odd one for me, as I'd have expected him to stay in club management, but I wish him well wherever he goes. For the first time in a very long time it felt like the manager was on our side, genuinely, and to me at least that means a lot. There were low points during his reign, of course, but I think with backing for the project he came in for he would have had us in a decent position.

Yeah, assistant seems to be the one position that can be added to. Mowbray brought Venus, JDT brought Remy Reijnierse and now Eustace has brought Gardiner with him.

Eustace is probably one of the best options when our criteria is out of work and won't want to bring in their own staff. Good luck to him - as others have said, he's going to need it. Honestly Glen, the meeting as a whole was unfair to all in attendence except one man.

We hired an inexperienced manager for a specific 'project' - his attributes at this point in his development as a coach seemed to match what we needed. The owners then change the project entirely, slash all promised budgets and the club becomes a chaotic mess. Inexperienced manager then struggles to stabilise the situation as things fall apart. Shocked Pikachu face. If you hire someone lacking experience to do a specific type of job, you can't be surprised when you change all the parameters and everything goes pear-shaped. JDT knew this wouldn't work for him and offered to resign. Our idiot owners refused to let him leave. As always they got it wrong.

I mean, if that's the best they could come up with they probably should have tried harder. It basically boils down to "we relied on the word of a person known to have messed things up in the past, and instead of double and triple checking everything was OK we ordered a curry to celebrate despite there still being two hours until the window shut. We were all in the building and none of us thought to double check anything. All one person's fault though."

It really is pathetic how glacially things move at Ewood - except outgoing transfers, oddly enough. Those seem to go through without a problem. We've probably been negotiating with Eustace since he left Birmingham but have only just got around to sorting the contracts out.

Imagine after all of this dragging the players in front of fan groups to try and spin that some scattered boos and Venky's/Waggott Out chants are the problem. Shameless.

Understand mate and I very much appreciate your candid explanation, as always. I just disagree with the "The fault of this lies solely with the secretary" line. The fault of the initial mistake, absolutely, but GB told us checks and balances were put in place to ensure this kind of thing never happened again - but clearly if this was done it was not done in a remotely satisfactory way. In my view the fault lies with everyone involved at senior management level, as they seem to have persisted with a lax and unacceptably casual attitude to checking everything is done correctly before celebrating their success.

Indeed so, after last January if I'm in Broughton's shoes I am not trusting anybody involved with last year's fiasco. I'd literally be checking every single detail myself to make sure nothing had gone wrong, as opposed to ordering celebratory curry, especially if the deal had been supposedly concluded at least 2 hours before the deadline. That is a lot of time to make absolutely and irrefutably sure that nothing had gone wrong. Whilst it's true that the mistake is ultimately made by one person, I'm gobsmacked that nobody in the building thought it wise to make absolutely sure everything was completed correctly.