Today's episode of Tony's excuse making its the turn of the officials to take the blame for our results. Mowbray seems to take particular issue with the 99 minutes at Coventry. I'm not sure why because I thought the referee played the correct amount of time given the injury and interruptions to the 6 added.. Now I'll be the first to admit that the referees are poor and I do my fair share of complaining about them at games but this is just another example of Mowbray firing off in every direction other than looking at himself and admitting responsibility.

I think even Venkys would struggle with that list. Taking out Cooper and Robins, who aren't going to leave their current jobs where they are loved to come here. there are few options. Pulis a possibility but if he has one eye on retirement as rumoured he might not be bothered about it. The rest I would be fascinated to see how they would manage to parachute one of that lot into this club and job. They'd probably have to bring them into another role first with the aim of promoting them in due course as it would be obvious something was amiss otherwise.

You didn't answer my questions. How and why are Steve Cooper and Neil Critchley 'dynamic' or 'good training ground coaches' as opposed to anyone else? How do you know that they are more dynamic than anyone else? You seem to attach great importance to these 'attributes' so I was interested to know what they actually were and how you determine if a manager has them or not. It seems to me you are referring to younger end managers who have recently emerged from coaching at youth or reserve levels and have transitioned well to managing at senior level. If that's what you want us to do - identify someone to transition from coaching youth teams to first teams fine - I'm not sure why you want that or think it is essential. There aren't many who make that transition. Even Critchley has a lot to prove yet with his career still in its infancy. Gary Bowyer made that transition yet wasn't deemed good enough here. Who would be on my shortlist? Off the top of my head, without applying much thought to it, I would think about the following people who are currently available or working at a level where they should be obtainable for a billionaire backed club: Slaven Bilic, Daniel Farke, Slavisa Jokanovic, Gary Rowett, Chris Hughton, Garry Monk, Mark Bonner, Danny Cowley, Liam Manning, Ian Evatt, Uwe Rosler, Nuno Espirito Santo, Vladimir Ivic, Wayne Rooney, Lee Carsley I accept however that it isn't easy - because we won't go for any of these names either because we won't pay for them or won't allow them to do their jobs properly or because they don't have the right agent. So instead we scratch around for the desperate and willing - those who nobody else want or who know the right people. We could and should have moved for Chris Wilder, Steve Cooper or Alex Neil - all of whom were available last summer and are infinitely better managers than Mowbray, now we won't get any of them. I'm trying to be realistic - I don't apply arbitrary requirements like age or unmeasurable metrics like being a 'training ground' coach or 'dynamic'. I just look at track records and reputations in the game and don't care if they are 70 or 40 or are used to working in youth systems or if they come from Blackburn or Brazil. I don't think it matters. You just need a good manager able to work for lunatic owners. By taking your approach - limiting options to those of a young age, those who have never managed before or those only who have recently worked in someones academy - I think you are taking needless risk for little reason. The first team isn't an academy and one of the problems is Mowbray treating it as a shop window or development centre for players. We need promotion and we need a manager who is going to focus on that and that alone. Just watched the interviews of Corberan and Jones after tonight's game. Corberan clearly has a far greater understanding of the game than Mowbray and you can tell that just by listening to his interview for a few minutes. Jones disgusts me but after losing an important game tonight he is clearly raging and is wound up like a spring, raring to go and coming with the fighting talk. Beats shoulder shrug Tony going through the motions.

We aren't getting in the top 6. Looking at the table tonight that is unforgivable. Heads need to roll.

I'm going for a repeat of the Coventry game and a score draw. Another 45 minute performance will either see us trailing at half time before we recover in the second half or we play well first half but then let it slip in the second and concede an equaliser. Posh aren't a good side but will be fighting and have put a few decent results together recently.

Define a 'good training ground coach' - what does that involve and how do you know if someone is that? Define a 'dynamic manager' - what is one of those and how do you know certain people fit that criteria? Define 'young' - what does age have to do with it? Would you turn down Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp who are both in their 50s because they aren't young enough?

Adkins ticks every box going for this lot. Available and desperate for a Championship job. Record in the distant past of a promotion to the PL. Would willingly work within the structure we have in mind which is basically to agree to work with Lowe, Benson and Johnson and accept only being able to bring one staff member in. I also remember that when Coyle was sacked and just before Mowbray arrived he was heavily linked with it.

Spot on. PL clubs are desperate to find somewhere to send their youngsters and will do so if it ticks the boxes for them. That is they can go somewhere where they will be played on a regular basis and get development time. Due to the way we operate it is no surprise we are well up the queue. Well located for NW and Midland clubs, mid table Championship football, almost certain to play people on a regular basis because we've such a reliance on loans and a manager who loves to rotate and tinker even to the detriment of results. Mowbray has had 5 years as manager and 10 transfer windows so it isn't exactly an achievement that within that time and opportunity he has brought in a few good loans. Clubs know we need them and will play them. But it goes beyond that - look through the Championship and I doubt you'll find a club that hasn't got at least a couple of players on loan from PL sides. The Mowbray crew would argue that he has the ear of Pep and Jurgen, that they trust him more than any other manager, that it is only due to Mowbray and his contacts that we can bring in any quality on loan. It's just another strand to the mythology that we need him and without him it all falls to bits.

He's been in charge for 12 games. Bit early to be brandishing him a failure. They were a sinking side when he arrived and there are signs of them starting to turn a corner. I find it utterly bizarre that you would support the appointment of people who have never managed before - Wilcox, Johnson or of extremely limited experience - Mason, Edwards - yet you would turn your nose up at the most successful manager there has been at this level in the last 20 years with 4 promotions and a play-off final. I think you are more interested in image and perception than in cold hard results. I think you are more interested in unearthing a hidden gem or doing the weird and wonderful and then being able to celebrate if it works out well than you are just going for tried, tested, proven.

As if WBA are going to sack Steve Bruce after no transfer window and appoint Mowbray. If they did we should do a swap.

There's a perfectly good reason nothing has happened on the Riverside. It's the same reason the ground is filthy, the pitch is knackered, we aren't selling season tickets. Waggott doesn't have the authority. He's a CEO in name only. It's a sham. It can only come from India and nothing has come from there in nearly 2 years.

Ideally you would yes, but that doesn't mean you stick with Mowbray after speaking to others and offering them the job. You decide Mowbray is done, you identify and speak to alternatives, and select one, then appoint them. You don't decide Mowbray is done, speak to alternatives and then decide to stick with Mowbray for at least another 12 months.

Is this based on anything other than online rumour? I mean if it is true the club spoke to numerous people last summer about taking over then this causes all sorts of issues - firstly why on earth persist with Mowbray if you have reached the point of actively speaking to alternatives? Secondly what sort of a shambles are we if we can't even source a different manager even after going to the trouble of speaking to them and instead persist with the bloke we were trying to replace?

But we had all this last year. He was clearly fed up, out of ideas, looking like he wanted to be elsewhere. Then the season ended, he had a holiday and it all started again.

Tony Mowbray will be our manager next year, provided he wants to be. Little doubt in my mind on that and I will be surprised if he isn't. What happens now is that we get through the next 5 games with no news or announcement. A couple of weeks after the season is over and Mowbray has been on holiday we find out when he is going to India with Waggott. They go, we hear nothing for another week or two, and then at some point in early June they confirm he is staying on, references to the 'young team' and going ever so close this season and building on that. It will all be about how the owners have reaffirmed their commitment and are determined to keep building. By this point everyone else has another major head start, made worse by the shortened summer break and early start to the next season.

Johnson also falls into that category of senior player that Mowbray has tried to avoid here. The sort who have a long and relatively successful career behind him at similar or higher level clubs, promotions and accomplishments in the bag. Mowbray doesn't like these sort because they will detect what a shambles this Club and Mowbray's management is and will also say something about it, because he will have one eye on the end of his career and doesn't need the money or have a long term future here anyway. Mowbray much prefers the younger end players who owe their first team level status to him and who won't have experienced anything higher or better than playing in Rovers' first team. That way they won't question or undermine him. I've certainly noticed a drop in the players over the last few weeks - even when we were struggling at places like Hull, Swansea and Sheff Utd I didn't detect any breakdown in relationships but in the last 3-4 games I have - just little things that are hard to identify but just seems to be less of a spirit on display. A definite case again yesterday of the players not having a clue what we were supposed to be doing as the game went on and Mowbray started throwing subs on with little plan in mind. I think everyone would benefit from a change, including Mowbray. But he's a stubborn one and thinks highly of himself so when the inevitable offer comes from India to stay on, because they can't be bothered getting anyone else, I'd be surprised if he turned it down. Then we will see players depart because they won't want to stay and endure another season of his management.

Mowbray has installed Venus as some strange hybrid assistant manager/head of football. We are told that a large part of that role is sorting out contracts for players. So if one of the reasons Nyambe and Rothwell haven't signed is because of bad blood due to past negotiations then it isn't inconceivable that a change in management team might make them think again. Of course we'd need owners with some interest to find out if that was the case.

Ismael gone to Besiktas. Yet still some would argue Mowbray is better than him Bilic, Farke or Jokanovic are the big options to go for If we are looking down the divisions I'd be interested in Manning at MK Dons. Automatic promotion push in his first season and very highly rated.

And how on earth did a washed up managerial applicant manage to secure a meeting with one of the owners based in India? People at the Club can't even manage that.

I've got no qualms about admitting I must be one of Tony's nasty 'doom-mongers'. I tend to get like that when we deliver relegation worthy results over a third of a season, meaning we have collected a meagre 14 points from the last 45 available. Then there's the level of performances which never extend beyond 45 minutes and often don't even get that far. He's back in divide and conquer mode - anyone unhappy or critical of results is a negative doom monger that by inference is a damaging element at the club and not needed. I think we are well past Mowbray's sell by date. I look at the players and I think they are done with him. I don't think they aren't trying - far from it - there are 4-5 in particular who I think give it everything and are visibly hurt by this season's collapse. But I think they know that it is gone and I think they have lost faith in the manager and know he's blown it with his approach. If it hadn't already it must have come to a head in the Derby game and once that confidence is broken it rarely returns. I don't think the players have a clue what is being asked of them or any understanding of why it is being asked. I certainly don't understand half of what I see. Maybe that's because I'm not a footballing genius like Mowbray but it seems to me he's on another planet with some of his decisions, and it shows with the team looking rudderless half the time. At a normal club the manager goes as a result of this as the squad needs fresh ideas and voices. But at Venky Rovers the manager survives and is allowed to spend all summer recruiting a new squad, spending more money and starting another cycle and the players depart.

So somewhere close to 6,000 walk on or package ticket fans there today once you take off the circa 8000 season ticket holders. Absolutely criminal that the Club is doing nothing to try and keep these people and get them signed up for next season whilst they can. Instead they are going to let this season fizzle out into disappointment, let them go off into the summer sunset and oversee a miserable summer of business and then try to get them back in June/July. There's ineptitude and then there's what we see at Rovers, which is self-destruction. I walked past two people heading back to my car saying they wouldn't be coming next season. By the way, I notice that the small number of people willing and able to buy tickets in the DE for today's game were relocated elsewhere in the ground. Another fiasco. And who were the people in the Legends Lounge? Quite a large group of people watching the game from in there.

Based on what exactly? Something you have heard, been told? Of course Venus' contract is going to expire at the same time as Mowbray's. They come as a package. I think people overestimate/exaggerate the role of Park. He's a mate of Mowbray's who has been helping with scouting. They brought him in to fill a gap for the year until this summer which he has done. The fact that all 3 are out of contract is entirely understandable and does not lend weight to the theory that they are all moving en masse to another club. Of course he could have an offer. How many Clubs around are in need of a new manager that would have already had a word with Tony Mowbray about joining them next year? I mean seriously, if we look at the Championship the only possibilities are mid-table sides unlikely to trouble the play-offs. So that's Stoke, Cardiff, Bristol City. I think it would be extremely unlikely for those clubs to have tapped up Mowbray and Venus whilst they've still got managers in place. The rest are all either busy pushing for promotion or are settled with existing managers doing ok jobs. I still think there's an overestimate as to the calibre of club that would be interested in him.

They want us to think he has other options lined up. They want us to think a new manager is too much to ask for. They want us to think that there is too much work to be done if St Tony leaves.. I don't agree.

Prior to coming here Waggott was in his early 60s and picking up consultancy work from Martin at Southend and Scally at Gillingham. Type those names into Google to read all about their antics at their clubs. Now he's the CEO of a mid table Championship club, Cat 1 academy, household name, picking up a huge salary to 'look into' things. His remit seems to be to keep things ticking over and keep the media/fans quiet and off the owners backs. He probably has to pinch himself in a morning when he wakes up. I personally can't wait until he's gone and the damage he has inflicted can hopefully be repaired. Firstly we need a CEO with no links or friendship with the manager, otherwise the function of CEO cannot be performed Secondly we need someone with some sort of track record in the job.

People keep mentioning the possibility or renaming the Riverside as the Tony Parkes Stand. This was raised a long time ago and nothing has happened. I don't think that is because Waggott doesn't want to. Put simply he will need authority from the owners to do such a thing and he can't get it. That and it would cost a bit of money to put new signage up so it's a non starter, just like any other infrastructure investment or improvement.