Another round of fixtures that should be ideal for us to make up ground on rivals with them all having tricky fixtures. Preston don't lose many so tough for Luton, Blackpool decent at home, Forest v QPR playing each other. We've got a home game against a side in dire straits. But matters not if we can't score.

Punching above our weight next to Huddersfield, QPR, Luton and a few points above Coventry, Millwall and Preston?

Last two home games at 0-0 with 10-20 minutes remaining and desperate for a goal and Mowbray has turned to Jack Vale and Bradley Dack. If you can find a more succinct summary of what a mess the January transfer window was than the above I'd like to see it.

Almost perfect results today in dingle relegation operation. Only downside was Everton getting nothing but still think they'll come to when the pressure is really on. With a bit of luck Watford and Roy will haul themselves to safety and relegate both the dingle and Leeds/Everton.

I didn't expect Sheff Utd to win because their away form is dodgy and Coventry are strong at home usually. I expect we will discover that when we go there. Also masters at comebacks and late goals as we found out at Ewood earlier this season. But we really need to stop drawing comparisons to the sides around us because whilst from time to time there will be hammerings - Sheff Utd getting a battering yesterday - Middlesbrough getting a battering last week by Sheff Utd - their form over the last few months is good and solid - they score goals. The myth that an FA Cup run is detrimental is being demolished once again by Forest and Huddersfield rapidly climbing the division despite both being in the Cup until this week. So much for "f*ck the Cup, we're going up" nonsense being sung at Wigan at the start of this horror run (Wigan another lot who have managed to balance two cup runs with automatic promotion push in the league below). Forest have had ground to make up from their abysmal start to the season when they were marooned at the bottom. We should be embarrassed to be talking about falling below them given the gap and lead we had established. It is completely unacceptable form overseen by a manager with a track record for this sort of rubbish. It falls into two categories. First he is a poor in match manager - results prove that - he is unable to turn a game around so if we concede first we are almost certain to lose. If we are desperate for a goal he will make all sorts of strange decisions like he is playing football manager on his laptop whilst neglecting the other end of the pitch - see Bristol City and Sheff Utd recently. An extra 2 points from those - the minimum we should have had - could be crucial yet lost through incompetence. Secondly his transfer business in January was diabolical, and the more i think about it potentially dodgy too. When it comes to determining his future these two things have to be looked at, because those two things aren't going to change with him. He's too set in his ways and too stubborn to even admit he's made a mess of it, let alone able to learn from it and improve.

I wouldn't want us to be no, but if the UK government imposed strict sanctions on them then we would have to deal with it. I think there is a league rule that proof of ability to fulfil fixtures is required before being allowed to start a season. If that can't be provided then the rules should be applied equally - just as they were for Bury.

Fingers crossed for Everton beating Wolves, Leeds beating Norwich, Watford beating Southampton. If the conflict in Ukraine and sanctions on Abramovich continue - which I expect they will for the next few months at least - then Chelsea need to be kicked out of the League. He isn't able to sell them and isn't allowed to bankroll them. The League will require evidence that Chelsea are able to fulfil their fixtures in order to start the new season. This is why Bury were refused permission and kicked out.

All there in black and white Chaddy. Join the dots and think outside the box.

I think the only person happy with the Hedges deal so far is Darren Mowbray

Yep. If this run continues until May then even his most loyal fans will be having to question him. It won't. We will get the usual upturn in form once the pressure and expectation is off in late April but by then we'll have no chance of overtaking Forest, Hudds, Mboro, Sheff Utd or Luton. He's blown it. If I had an ounce of belief that he accepted his errors, or would learn from them, then I might support him having another season to go one better. But this bloke has spent the last 10-12 years doing this which is why he's never got above the middle of the Championship. He thinks he is Pep Guardiola but he's a very average manager who can't change and won't learn.

We'll announce prices at the back end of June when the season is history, most people are off on their summer holidays and we've sold Brereton and put prices up to the most expensive in the Championship. Then wonder why sales are poor.

So around 13,000 home fans on. Despite being served up with dross since Xmas. That's 5000 on top of our season ticket sales. If the club had any interest in making efforts to boost attendances they'd be trying to persuade those 5000 to buy season tickets for next year.

Its been a spectacular collapse and it shows little sign of slowing. To go from the start of February in the top 2 and 9(?) points clear of 7th to be here on 12th March and likely to drop out of the top 6 is a travesty. I'm struggling to think of a comparable rapid collapse in position and results. Mid table form since January would have us still sitting pretty. But it has been relegation form. Today was a shocker. From 20 minutes in I had that feeling in my stomach. Bristol City are a side that leak goals like mad - 36 conceded in their last 17. To fail to score against them horrendous. I'm not even going with the chances galore routine. I don't think it was the same as against Millwall. Against Millwall we had 3-4 chances in the first half that normally you would expect to put one of them away. Today, other than the penalty miss and the long range Khadra effort I'm struggling to recall many other times they've been seriously troubled. I think the season is over. Such a waste and I only hope there is an inquest into what has gone wrong because there needs to be. What is not acceptable is the shoulder shrugging, hard luck and claims we are doing everything right but scoring.

I'm sorry? I think I've been on here many many times rubbishing the suggestion that you put forward that the only reason we couldn't keep Reed was because his girlfriend didn't fancy it up north. I was keen on signing Reed permanently and Southampton were open for a deal. I would have preferred we paid £5 million for him than Gallagher, yet you came along and said there was no way on earth that could ever have happened because his girlfriend wanted to be on the south coast. I pointed out that was a ridiculous attitude for a professional footballer who would have no such qualms if facing a PL move to City, United, Liverpool It seems to be one of your favourites from the book of excuses - absolve the club of any responsibility and pile it all on uncontrollable elements that we can't do anything about. Just blame family reasons and that will avoid anyone at Rovers being responsible. My understanding of the situation is that Rothwell was keen on a new deal this time last year and wanted to sort his future out with Rovers. That fell on deaf ears and nothing was done until we suddenly triggered the 12 month extension. This of course fits with the radio silence from the club, no news about anything, no signings and Mowbray not knowing what he was doing. So not baseless conspiracy but actually a reasoned explanation. I suspect Rothwell will have been quite unhappy about that - firstly that the club made no effort to keep him long term, secondly that he didn't know if he was being retained, released or sold last summer and thirdly that he was forced to stay for just another 12 months on the same salary. Once that had happened (if that's the way of things) I can completely understand him telling Rovers where to go. Waggott probably felt very good about himself and his clause when doing that last summer - come back to bite him and us. I suspect the same or very similar applies to Nyambe.

Not that old chestnut again. You pulled this one with Harrison Reed saying his girlfriend couldn't cope with him playing in the NW (as though he'd refuse a move to City, United, Liverpool on that basis). Rothwell is from Manchester and other than a couple of seasons at Oxford has spent his entire career in the NW at United, Barnsley, Blackpool and Rovers. His girlfriend is from the Midlands and he's got two young children. So when and why would he want to 'move back south for family reasons?' He will move where he gets the best offer - financially or otherwise - for him and his family. He will know that Rovers aren't offering him that, so he will go elsewhere. Rovers could have prevented this by dealing with his situation last season when he wanted his future sorting. He wanted to know where he stood this time last year as his original contract was expiring. Rovers unilaterally invoked his 12 month option which has blown any chance of a new long term deal. That has Waggott's grubby fingerprints all over it.

It doesn't put anything to bed IMO. It is very welcome news and I applaud all involved for getting it done. The iceberg on the horizon next year and summer 2023 might have largely been avoided with this and Kaminski but that doesn't mean the problems are dealt with this summer. I'm not sure it absolves the club of any responsibility. Maybe it shows the Club realises what a calamity they've made of things with Rothwell, Lenihan, Nyambe - acting too late and offering too little - and are now learning from that mistake by offering more or dealing with these others more quickly. Just a shame it has taken the imminent loss of 3 key players for them to act. If we get one or more of the trio sorted then things will be looking up but I don't think there's a cat in hells chance on Nyambe or Rothwell.

Brilliant news, well done all for getting this sorted

Maybe Mowbray needs to learn to play differently. That way we could sign players who can score and would have had a chance of automatic promotion. Poor managers can't change a system or deploy a plan B and keep persisting with something that isn't working.

Meanwhile look at who Forest and Middlesbrough signed. Next you'll tell me 'we couldn't afford it' or 'FFP' Middlesbrough lost a lot more than we did last year. Signed Connolly and Balogun. No problems scoring goals. Joke transfer window conducted by joke operators.

Sounds to me like someone lower down the chain was under the impression that the DE would be open moving forwards after the Double Decker deal. Wires have been crossed and upon realisation this morning Waggott has put a stop to it. A club with any sort of plan would be releasing ST details for the DE lower immediately and trying to capitalise on the 800 or so who were in there the last two games and make the area into a singing and dancing stand. I thought the drummer in there improved the atmosphere on Tuesday. He's so daft he is probably expecting 4000+ Blackpool, Stoke or Bournemouth supporters coming. Not a chance especially at Category A prices. I don't remember Blackpool bringing that many even in the PL. Bournemouth don't travel and Stoke fans a fraction of what they used to. Yet he sees local derby, recent PL club and club chasing promotion and sees bumper followings. Category A well worth the cost of losing a couple of thousand home fans because the expected increase from a large away following more than covers it.

Mowbray and Waggott's summit meeting in India: Mrs Desai: "so Tony how have things been in the 3 years since we last met?" Tony: "oh great, thanks so much for your continued support, you are wonderful people" Mrs Desai: "how has the team done? I haven't been checking" Tony: "oh wonderful, you see despite cutting the wage bill and bringing in big money from Adam Armstrong we have managed to continue our improvement and have gone close to promotion. We've all worked very hard and the fans are very happy" Mrs Desai: "sounds good. So what do you want us to do next?" Tony: "well we can sell Ben Brereton, another signing of mine, and get another £15 million for him so you don't need to spend again this year. All I need is a new contract to continue and ability to sign some free agents/loans to replace departures" Waggott; "I've slashed the wage bill and we've expertly managed FFP and kept a competitive team despite these cuts. I've grown attendances over the season from less than 10,000 to now 13,000+. Covid, bad weather, etc. I've done all I can - i even opened the Darwen End for home fans because they wanted it but then they wouldnt buy tickets there. I'm going to put prices up again on season tickets because after such a good season they will pay more" Mrs Desai: "great, see you both next year"

"We did all we could" Wednesday afternoon announce Darwen End open for home fans Thursday morning announce Darwen End shut to home fans due to lack of take up. Laughable. Just when you think the incompetence couldn't go further. How many were they expecting to shift in the 7 business hours between announcements?

Lots of good thoughts in there. In terms of Mowbray's future, if I was running the Club it would be as follows: - Gets us promoted = 1 year extension and substantial bonus, given the summer and early next season to see how we start but with a contingency if we are struggling to roll the dice on a top manager - Gets us in the play offs and we lose = a conversation to be had, slightly ambivalent tbh and much would depend on what the owners had planned budget wise, who else was available and what the senior players were thinking. I know it isn't something that will happen here but yes at other clubs the owners and directors listen to noises coming from the dressing room and factor those into considerations. - Miss out on the play-offs = off you go, thanks for your efforts, time for someone else to have a go I say 'if I was running the club' because I think we all know that there will be no such considerations here, and I firmly expect that Mowbray will stay if he wants to. Venkys will not take him to India to sack him and I very much doubt they have any appetite or interest in axing the coaching staff, embarking on another recruitment process and then having to 'get to know' the new man who won't bring a CEO with him. The only issue might be whether Mowbray wants to stick around. I don't buy the whole family man, long commute, hard life talk from him. He's got a great job, is effectively his own boss doing what most people in football would love managing a good club how he wants. He's been doing it for nearly 20 years straight so obviously loves it and during that time has worked in Ipswich, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Coventry so he's obviously happy to commute and move around as most in football have to do if they want to last in it. One thing that occurs to me is that maybe he will throw in the towel due to being fed up with Venkys. It is obvious there was a serious issue around this time last year. A surprisingly good run up to January seemed to overcome that and reignite things with him but after another shambolic transfer window he might be at the end of his tether, especially if there's no money in the summer and the players leave on frees. Then again if they offer him a deal and some sort of backing I don't think he could resist. If this run continues and we miss out and then Mowbray gets another contract I think we will be looking at a further drop in season ticket sales, especially with idiotic pricing and sales windows again. As for who to replace him with most of the obvious names have been snapped up by rivals. People like Steve Bruce, Chris Wilder, Alex Neil, Danny Cowley and Mark Hughes would have been on my list but all now employed elsewhere. Gary Rowett another who consistently overachieves. There are options like Slaven Bilic, Daniel Farke, Valerien Ismael tried and tested at this level and available but likely to cost. But of course when paying people the money Venkys are there is a big wide world out there to explore and recruit from rather than limiting ourselves to familiar names or the lower leagues. If we were to look down the divisions I'd like to consider poaching Evatt from Bolton, or looking at Liam Manning at MK Dons, or Mark Bonner at Cambridge, all of whom have done very well in short managerial careers. Ryan Lowe would have been another before Preston moved for him. But I think it will be the agency scrapheap to find someone without compensation who will work with the existing setup. So come on down Nigel Adkins or Tony Pulis,

So we signed a guy who struggled to get in Spurs' reserve side as the man to get us promoted? Then he got injured we had 2 weeks to act and did nothing. I'm entitled to comment on the lack of business done in January and yes, could have, should have, would have perfectly sums it up. That is a failing on the part of the club and heads will need to roll if we don't make the top 6 because it will be disastrous if we don't from where we were in February. I'm pointing out things that could and should have been done that we failed to do as directly responsible for the downturn in results You appear to want to credit the club with trying and failing to do things. Doesn't work like that.

He's done this with most players he has signed unless forced into playing them due to injuries. So we shouldn't be surprised when he comes out with this stuff about Hedges. He did same with Harrison Reed who had played regularly for Norwich and has since established himself as a mainstay at Fulham - yet wasn't up to the job of playing in our team and needed to learn from Smallwood. He did it with Joe Rothwell and spent 2 years with him limited to 20 minute cameos because he didn't understand how we play. The bloke is a liability, and nowhere near as good or clever as he thinks he is.