Honestly none of us will ever really know what is going on, as it's all he-said she-said nonsense, but one thing that is clear is that AEW is very quickly spiralling out of control. It needs a strong hand on the tiller, and Tony Khan isn't that guy. It's obvious Punk doesn't respect him in the slightest, and if he doesn't show some serious leadership skills here I imagine he'll lose the respect of much of the locker room. One can only imagine what the likes of Jericho, Regal, JR, Mox, Schiavone and Danielson are making of all of this. Some of them will be having some nightmarish WCW flashbacks, whilst others will be wondering what the hell is happening and how it's gotten to the point where the champion and top star in the company is literally getting into fist fights with the EVPs. Two things Punk can't be defended on, in my view, is his comments on Hangman and Cabana. He just comes across as petty and majorly unhinged. Young Bucks and Omega is a different story - just a case of multiple big egos clashing in the worst way.

Tony does love a good tournament though. Tournaments are to Khan what tag team matches were to Teddy Long.

Meltzer and Alvarez have stated decisively on WOR that it is not a work, and that there's legal action being taken. Even if it was a work... what does it really achieve? It just makes AEW as a company, Tony Khan as a leader and Punk as a champion all look like a total joke. Not to mention most of the casual fans don't follow the backstage drama, so it's only going to translate to eyeballs on the product from smark fans - who are most likely already watching AEW. There's so much dissention being reported from AEW that it genuinely sounds like the entire thing is falling apart. That's not a good look.

Punk is just Punk. This is who he is, this is what he does. He's a toxic personality who is rapidly poisoning AEW. Dude stewed for three months over a totally innocuous comment from Hangman Page in a promo everybody had forgotten about by the time he came back. He's harbouring a grudge over Hangman saying in a random interview a while ago that he prefers to make his own mistakes and learn from them than just sit around taking advice from vets (keeping in mind with Punk's hiatus taken into account Page and Punk have basically been wrestling the same amount of time). Maybe Punk has some valid points, but to air them in that manner? Come on, man. Made himself look like a child having a temper tantrum. Khan looks just as bad through all of this. Sitting there mimicking a nodding dog whilst Punk eviscerated his EVPs, one of the company's top, homegrown stars and in truth the company itself. MJF was right, the guy is nothing but a fucking mark with no backbone and needs help desperately. Khan would have genuinely been better off using the money he wasted on Punk to keep Cody around. The Codyverse was way out of sync with the rest of AEW by the end, but his backstage respect and overall demeanour is clearly missed. To top it all off, there couldn't be a worse time for AEW to be imploding from within. WWE is in the ascendency, feeling fresher and newer than it has since Smackdown's incredible August 2016 - April 2017 run. With Vince gone, a lot of Trips favourites in AEW are now looking over at WWE thinking it's time to go home - and who could blame them with the increasingly amateur way AEW is being run. I was a huge fan of AEW, but it's increasingly feeling like a federation for WWE cast-offs and midcarders. The backstage bullshit just makes a shit situation worse. I never thought I'd be looking forward to Raw & Smackdown more than Dynamite & Rampage, but that's where I am right now. I don't even watch Rampage anymore. With that said, WWE still has its issues. The ending to Clash at the Castle was a massive missed opportunity and the ending with Drew and Fury singing was just fucking dumb on every conceivable level. Fine as a dark segment post-PPV, but why the fuck would you air that live? Strowman coming back and making the tag division look like a collection of jobbers was another 'lolWWE' moment which shows some things will never change. Overall though WWE just has more structure, more coherence and makes more sense than AEW. Primarily thanks to Vince leaving, but still... who would have thought it.

For me the Reading match was worse - at least we scored a couple in this one - but there are some obvious flaws in our approach which need to be ironed out sharpish. We've won 4 games out of 8 so it's not like the approach is completely flawed (even though most of those performances weren't particulary good either) but there's still something amiss with the way we're managing games at the moment. In particular we often seem to start slowly, struggling to get into the game in the early stages. We clearly have issues defensively as well, but that may partially be down to a lack of consistency in defensive pairings. We've had various players filling in at the back, and at RB especially we've got various players slotting in there (JRC, Travis, Buckley) who aren't naturals in that position and are making us weak on that side. That's just down to poor recruiment I'm afraid. One small positive is that we haven't drawn any matches yet, meaning despite losing half of our first eight games we still have a fairly healthy points return. Losing four of the last five is obviously a huge concern though, especially having conceded nine goals in three of those matches. We are going to begin dropping down the table like a stone if JDT doesn't get a grip on the situation quickly. Our good start has given us a buffer to smooth things over, but these issues need to be addressed soon or we'll soon be at the wrong end of the table and the pressure really will start piling on. It's pointless discussing a long-term journey if we're involved in an immediate relegation battle. We can only hope the manager finds a way to shore us up defensively, and we have better luck with injuries over the next few months. A settled back line will almost certainly help us stem the flow of goals being conceded at the moment.

How many times has Dolan come on as an impact sub and done well, only to start the next few games and be completely ineffectual? Lad isn't a 90 minute player unfortunately. The way we used him today was exactly how he needs to be used.

You can't lose these kinds of games at home and expect anything from the season. We've looked like absolute dross so many times this season already. It really is a huge concern. I would genuinely take 21st right now if it was offered.

Gentle reminder lads, debating opinions is OK, personal insults are not. Let's keep it civil.

Do have some decent songs tbf.

Great to put an end to our losing streak with a clean sheet. Onwards.

My view is that neither his Fulham or Bournemouth sides were hugely impressive, despite having a huge advantage in terms of parachute payments and overall budget. Kind of like us in L1 under Mowbray - we rarely looked like a great side, but we got promoted comfortably because we simply had significantly better players than basically every club in that division. Even Lampard, who is bombing hard at Everton, did OK with Chelsea. Gerrard was decent at Rangers but is struggling now at Villa. I agree that it's difficult to judge, but that's just my general feelings about Parker. I think there may be a decent manager there somewhere, but he needs to challenge himself at a club with lesser resources to really test his mettle. I'm not convinced by him, but then ultimately my opinion means very little, so I'm really just vomiting my general thoughts into the void.

I'll amalgamate my posts from the Championship thread... Some of the Sunderland supporters' reactions are definitely way OTT. I get that he's not the most exciting appointment, but from some of the comments you'd think they were about to appoint Steve Kean. There are some misguided comments on there regarding TM playing a 'good style of football' though. I've seen that a few times and whatever they're basing it off, it isn't the time he had with us. Our football was largely attritional under Mowbray, and during the period he was obsessed with possession it was downright horrible to watch. We did have some good performances under Mowbray, but they tended to be in isolation rather than over a sustained period of time. I find it hard to even really describe how we played under him, but I wouldn't overall describe it as good to watch. Ultimately however I only cared about results, and in some seasons (L1 season, first season back in the Championship) it was good enough regardless of how we played. In other seasons it became an added frustration as the death spirals, tinkering and overcomplication repeatedly torpedo'd our chances of getting into the playoffs. Obviously with last season being the worst, considering where we were and where we ended up. Even though it was technically our highest placed finish under him, the last half of the season in many ways made it feel like the lowest. I'd say the closest we had to consistency was from around October in our League 1 season to the end of our first season back in the Championship. Still not sure what you'd call our style during that period, honestly, but it was somewhat settled for the most part. I think I remember a statistic showing we played the most long balls, or joint most, during our first season back in the Championship, but it wasn't like it was under Big Sam. Anyway, after that he tried to evolve our style and yeah, from that point it became confusing and inconsistent. He wanted to do the possession based style for a while, but it didn't work. The stats from that season (19/20, I think?) showed that we actually did far better in the games where we had less possession. Our burst of good form during the 21/22 season that got us to second was basically a low possession, counter-attacking style, but once teams cottoned on to what we were doing we had no effective plan B. Coupled with BBD's injury we lost all semblance of style and just faded away. Mowbray isn't a terrible manager by any stretch, but he's also one that has repeatedly shown not to learn from his mistakes. He's carried the same positives and the same negatives to essentially every club he's been at. Sunderland can expect some good runs, some horrific runs, some baffling tactical selections, bizarre soundbytes and periods of satisfaction followed by equally long periods of immense frustration. There will always be debate on here about how much TM was hamstrung by the owners and the way they ran the club, so I guess we'll see how many of the same patterns develop at Sunderland, which may give an indication.

Put it this way, I wouldn't have been thrilled if he somehow ended up as our manager. Maybe you would, but without the biggest budget in the division I don't think he'd get close to the playoffs let alone promotion.

Parker wasn't going to be able to buy his way out of being a bang average manager, as he did in his Championship seasons with Fulham and Bournemouth, so angled to get sacked after the 9-0 before his reputation was completely destroyed. Mission accomplished.

Mowbray isn't a terrible manager by any stretch, but he's also one that has repeatedly shown not to learn from his mistakes. He's carried the same positives and the same negatives to essentially every club he's been at. Sunderland can expect some good runs, some horrific runs, some baffling tactical selections, bizarre soundbytes and periods of satisfaction followed by equally long periods of immense frustration. Hopefully when we play them it'll be during a death spiral.

To be fair it's worth remembering we spent £7m on him in the first place, add in wages and £5m reinvestment isn't as unreasonable as it sounds.

The more worrying aspect of our defeats is that it reads 0 goals scored and 7 conceded. I know general concesus is that stats are evil, but even during our first three wins we were outperforming our xG and the last three games suggest that this wasn't a meaningless statistic. Being unable to score and unable to defend is a recipe for total disaster. We're also likely to lose last season's top scorer, and relying on Vale or Gallagher to step up is a huge risk. Dack may chip in with a few, if he can get back up to speed, but we need far more than that. A goalscorer is an absolute priority. If we sell BBD without bringing in a very good replacement I fear we really are in for a long, tough season. There just aren't enough goalscorers in the team.

I'd say the closest we had to consistency was from around October in our League 1 season to the end of our first season back in the Championship. Still not sure what you'd call our style during that period, honestly, but it was somewhat settled for the most part. I think I remember a statistic showing we played the most long balls, or joint most, during our first season back in the Championship, but it wasn't like it was under Big Sam. Anyway, after that he tried to evolve our style and yeah, from that point it became confusing and inconsistent. He wanted to do the possession based style for a while, but it didn't work. The stats from that season (19/20, I think?) showed that we actually did far better in the games where we had less possession. Our burst of good form during the 21/22 season that got us to second was basically a low possession, counter-attacking style, but once teams cottoned on to what we were doing we had no effective plan B. Coupled with BBD's injury we lost all semblance of style and just faded away.

I mean, some of their supporters' reactions are definitely way OTT. I get that he's not the most exciting appointment, but from some of the comments you'd think they were about to appoint Steve Kean. There are some misguided comments on there regarding TM playing a 'good style of football' though. I've seen that a few times and whatever they're basing it off, it isn't the time he had with us. Our football was largely attritional under Mowbray, and during the period he was obsessed with possession it was downright horrible to watch. We did have some good performances under Mowbray, but they tended to be in isolation rather than over a sustained period of time. I find it hard to even really describe how we played under him, but I wouldn't overall describe it as good to watch. Ultimately however I only cared about results, and in some seasons (L1 season, first season back in the Championship) it was good enough regardless of how we played. In other seasons it became an added frustration as the death spirals, tinkering and overcomplication repeatedly torpedo'd our chances of getting into the playoffs. Obviously with last season being the worst, considering where we were and where we ended up. Even though it was technically our highest placed finish under him, the last half of the season in many ways made it feel like the lowest.

I don't think Mowbray would be a disastrous appointment for them. He can be infuriating but I'd expect him to keep them up comfortably enough. What's left behind once he goes is another question, as we're finding out now.

When people start trotting out the hard luck stories you know the club's in trouble. Worrying times. Huge few days ahead.

https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/mowbray-just-announced.1587674/ Gone down about as well as you might expect.

Yeah we are in huge trouble. Look worse than Coyle's no hopers. Having JRC on the pitch is like being down to 10 and playing against 12.

Doesn't seem like TM would be the most popular choice...

The bubble well and truly seems to have burst for Liverpool. I know they have injuries but what an unbelievably poor start to the season for them. United aren't beating them through quality, but just through sheer effort and willingness to battle for everything. The total opposite to their first two games! Maguire and Shaw likely to be warming the bench for a while, one would think.