Love smashing Preston, but can't help but wonder where this kind of performance has been for the vast majority of 2022 - from both management and the players.

Yep. Steele (26) Raya (21) Henley (22) Greer (36) Hoban (23) Williams (24) Lowe (25) Mulgrew (31) Ward (32) Hendrie (22) Nyambe (19) Brown (37) Wharton (19) Doyle (20) Feeney (30) Akpan (25) Guthrie (30) Lenihan (23) Tomlinson (19) Mahoney (20) Evans (26) Bennett (28) Conway (31) Stokes (28) Graham (31) Emnes (28) Joao (22) Gallagher (21) Chatting shit as usual in order to try and make himself look better. Brown also only played 5 games for us that season and was leaving at the end of it anyway - as was Greer. Oh, and who was it that gave contract extensions to old boys Graham and Mulgrew two years later? The latter of which in particular bit us on the arse when Mulgrew declined massively and we couldn't shift his hefty wages off the books.

I mean, considering we've had a grand total of 4 points out of a possible 18 I think Johnson would have struggled to do much worse. We've basically been in relegation form since the new year started.

Incredulous comments from a man who never takes responsibility for anything. I'd have a lot more respect for him if he had held his hands up at various points during his tenure and admitted he got some things wrong, but I don't think he ever has.

I may be misremembering, but regarding budgets, didn't Mowbray say in our first season back in the Championship that he encouaged the owners to spend less? I remember thinking it was a bonkers statement at the time, and I can't help but wonder what the motivation behind that was. Can't say I'm convinced it was for the good of the club when you factor in the wages wasted on the likes of Smallwood, Hart, Mulgrew, etc when there was no need to do so.

Should be reposted every time someone starts a thread attempting to praise the charlatans in charge of the club.

"In hindsight, maybe we should have played how we did in the second half from the start." Yeah that might have helped Tony 🤔

If he had any dignity or respect for this club he would resign tonight. He's not going to miss out on much in terms of payoff at this point.

Hopefully just 3 more games until this idiot leaves the club, to be replaced by the next idiot off the scrapheap. As much as I want Mowbray to be gone, never forget who has had us in the Championship for 8 seasons (L1 season excepted) and never once been able to even sneak a 6th placed finish.

Bell will be competing in the playoffs this season. Am sure he's thankful every day that he isn't taking instructions from Mowbray anymore.

False position, simply put. I genuinely think at the present time we are the worst team in the division.

Hopefully. We've been the second worst team in the entire division since Christmas, and we just lost to the only team who are below us in the form table. That's a fact the manager can't hide from - not that any journalist will dare confront St Tony with such blasphemous facts.

Hopefully the spark needed for the crowd to really get on Mowbray's back. Not expecting it but let's see.

Dyche clearly didn't lose the players 3 years ago and the article doesn't even say that specifically. Extremely clickbaity headline. That aside, I've been seeing all the same nonsense as we got here when Allardyce was sacked. Same old story of owners wanting champagne football on a beer budget. It rarely ends well.

The clown in the dugout needs to be sacked tonight. He doesn't deserve to see the season out.

That or the model they have simply doesn't work in the second tier, so they're panicking now in a desperate attempt to survive.

Actually saw a comment on their forum calling it a Venky-esque decision.

Very strange timing. Have to assume they have someone lined up - a shock return to football for Allardyce?

That or we would have chased an injury prone player, who'd fail his medical at the last minute. Tony fans would say "well how could the manager possibly forsee that recently injured/regularly injured player could possibly fail a medical?" whilst Mowbray and club would act like this player was the only possible option, therefore we did our best and let's crack on with that standard February death spiral and mid table finish.

I agree with you that such an appointment at this stage would require a level of foresight Venky's and those working for them do not possess. People at the club would need to have seen and understood that things were going badly wrong at least a couple of months ago and began sounding out potential options should Mowbray completely fuck things up (as has come to pass). We can be sure that nothing like this has happened, and if TM was removed at best you'd get Johnson possibly leading the team for the remaining games. With that said, not sure Johnson would be a worse option? He'd presumably at least play everybody in their correct positions and we probably wouldn't have to worry about Gallagher on the wing or Bradley Johnson or Bucko playing as a false 9. Pointless to even bother speculating though, as we know Mowbray isn't going anywhere.

The season is over anyway as long as Mowbray is in charge. Even if a new appointment didn't have any noticeable immediate impact, at least they'd have a handful of games to assess the squad before the summer began. It doesn't matter anyway though. Venky's won't be removing Mowbray until the summer - if he's removed at all - so the season will draw to a slow, painful conclusion with the manager taking us right back to where we normally sit - mid-table. Whilst I agree with others that this is a bang average league this year, I don't think we're above average in any way. Brereton was for half a season, and that was the difference. Without BBD banging in the goals we showed ourselves to be a relegation calibre team, as was predicted at the beginning of the season. Just fortunate we had Diaz in form for as long as we did.

Literally the only good thing to come out of this season will have been that a portion of our fans will have gotten something out of it in regards to the Diaz bet.

We haven't been great but we go in one up at HT and that's all that matters. Need another two to sneak back into 6th.

And yet as it stands still somehow only 3 points off 4th.

And the fans can see that. There's no need for the manager to publicly shame the players. Not a single good reason to do so. The only (formerly) good manager in recent times who has resorted to that is Mourinho, and it stopped working years ago. Now it has the opposite affect as player power is more prominent now than it ever has been. How often did/do you hear the likes of Ferguson, Wenger, Klopp, Pep, etc berating their own players? It doesn't happen because they know that what needs to be said can and should be said in private. Going public is a sign of a manager who has either lost control or doesn't care.