Depends if by experience you focus solely on the number of first team appearances or include career games and years on the clock

As it stands neither will be. That might change and they might sign new deals but once again all has gone quiet on that front and the club really needs to be making contingency plans for them not being here. We can debate another time just how outrageous and damaging it will be to lose them both for nothing but in terms of dealing with their probable/possible departures it is just more work on an already limited budget. I'm not sure which other defensive academy lads you expect to come through to play regularly in the Championship by the summer. Mowbray has already proven he has no intention of playing Carter preferring to send him off to Burton Albion and bringing in someone younger and less experienced from elsewhere. I can't think of anyone else looking like being remotely ready for this level of football.

But come May Ayala will still have 2 years to run and a dodgy injury record and Wharton will be barely half way through his absence with serious injury. Williams, Bell, Nyambe, Douglas, Braithwaite and Bennett all on their way meaning at least 6 decent defenders needed in the summer. 2x RB, 2x LB and 2x CB.

😄 I stopped short of casting any judgement on the player. As I've already said, he might be class. But he's here for 4 months. We are still lumbered with Mowbray and co. and because of that we aren't going up, so its ultimately window dressing for little benefit to Rovers.

I'll have a bet now that Kipre doesn't arrive and I doubt anyone else at CB will. We might get Pickering if Crewe get desperate for money but more likely someone else will gazump us.

A deal such as this Branthwaite one is win-win for Mowbray and Rovers. 1) Everton will be delighted to send him here knowing he will get first team minutes at a mid-table Championship side. Ideal for his development rather than sitting on their bench or with their U23s. 2) Due to the above Everton will be willing to do a deal for little cost to Rovers as we will be doing them as much of a favour as they are doing us 3) Rovers get to 'address' a problem position for the remainder of the season without having to pay any fee, without any medium or long term commitment to wages and with minimal contribution to wages (no doubt covered by the outgoing Chapman). 4) Rovers get to foster positive links with local Premier League sides which I suspect is a core element of Mowbray and Venkys transfer 'strategy' to recruit heavily using loans. On occasion this can be good - see Harvey Elliott - but it is short termism in action and personally I find it a tad embarrassing that we are operating in such a way for essential positions. Not a recipe that will deliver promotion. Expect to see us secure a 'prestigious' friendly with Everton come the summer though. Doesn't really get us anywhere either way. It's just a complete shambles from back to front really.

Wharton won't be fit until December and even then will need matches to get up to speed. Would be insanity to pin any hopes on him for next season as most it will be gone by the time he's ready to play. I agree that Bell and Williams will be no great loss but they will still need replacing at some point as will Nyambe and also converted defenders Bennett and JRC who are also out in May. A lot of work to be done yet we are wasting time and money signing short term loans now.

And will also have lost Bell, Nyambe and Williams along with Braithwaite (if he arrives).

Branthwaite is the sort of 'back to reality' signing we're used to here after talk about Whiteman and Pickering (Christ, players from Crewe and Doncaster are now out of our reach). Short term cheap loan for a PL teenager to fill a gap until the summer. Short term, unproven but most importantly cheap and requires no commitment from Rovers. Ticks all the boxes. He might be decent, he might not. We will still concede with alarming regularity. Come the summer he will be off and we will need more defenders. So predictable and to be honest depressing.

And I'm pretty sure that Waggott hasn't been attending games during Covid or certainly not all of them which usually means it is just Cheston and Silvester representing the club.

Mowbray has had fortunes to invest compared to Alex Neil with very little or nothing to show for it in results and league positions. We blew them out of the water when signing Armstrong and there's no way they'd have been able to afford Brereton, Gallagher, Ayala etc. Once again if it is true they have more money than us then what's the point in Venkys?

I've already named a dozen managers who are available who i think would progress us. If you go back through my posts. If I was being paid £300,000 a year I'd be able to find more.

Agreed. Which is why we need a manager and coaching staff able to get us there. Coming up on 3 years now and still nowhere near.

Nor would I blame the club. I accept that we are where we are. Provided we got a reasonable price for him I wouldn't have an issue with selling him, although I would be concerned/disappointed if we did. We ain't going up any time soon unless something drastic changes so don't see how we could reasonably deny him a Premier League move. What I would object to is handing Mowbray whatever proceeds we got. He's had enough and we need to be moving on. My worry is that a sale or two of prized assets is just going to see the 'slow build' continue for another few years and the owners think Mowbray is great because he's turned them a good profit.

Selling Armstrong for over 10 million secures Mowbray's position for another couple of years. He'll be Mr Popular with the Venky bean counters and point to his approach being vindicated. Not what we need. We need to keep Armstrong as long as possible and make a managerial change to bring in the staff needed to get us promoted. The Armstrongs of this world are like gold dust. Very difficult to replace. The Mowbrays of this world are easy to replace.

Interesting to read that we've only been paying about 10% of Trybull's wage which is a staggering £22,000 a week at Norwich (according to Sharpe/Rovers). That takes some believing given Norwich are financially sensible and quite well run and Trybull joined them in the Championship after a nomadic career. But even if true it confirms my suspicions that on many of these loans - Reed, Palmer, Tosin, Trybull, Elliott - we aren't spending anywhere near what some might think and are picking these lads up at the end of the transfer window on low cost short term deals. I suppose the big question is who has leaked this £22k per week / 10% contribution story to Richard Sharpe and to what end?

That's probably part of the problem but not one we should be surprised with. As a manager he's always focused on the top end of the pitch rather than the back and this has ultimately been his downfall in all previous jobs including Coventry. I also doubt that those funds would have been sanctioned by the owners if they were instead being spent on a couple of experienced centre halves. I just think this manager neglects the defence, always has, always will, and some of the things I've heard from his career in terms of defensive organisation and coaching tally with this. As I said yesterday with a negligent approach and attitude to defence, staggering for an ex CB who has had the same issues elsewhere in his managerial career and hasn't learned from them, then it matters not what personnel he puts out. There's a limit to what the best in the world could do if the coaching and tactics aren't right. Put Allardyce or most Championship managers in charge of Douglas-Ayala-Lenihan-Nyambe and you'd concede a hell of a lot less than we do. Likewise we wouldn't have ended up playing two midfielders in there.

Has any defender been consistently good under this manager? Tosin was good but has since shown he was probably too good for us. Cunningham for a spell before he got injured. Amazing how all the rest end up rubbish even when they arrive here with good reputations from elsewhere. Perhaps there's another reason for it. Maybe the penny will drop upstairs sooner or later. We'll probably work our way through another dozen defensive scapegoats before then costing the club millions until Mowbray has nowhere left to hide.

Oh well, another dollop of free positive publicity and 'proof' we are chasing decent players. Should keep restless fans quiet for the rest of January.

I thought we went backwards after Trybull was taken off on Saturday. Probably another who needs a run of games which he hasn't had yet.

I wish I could have such faith but it simply isn't happening. We're wasting time and money on this when it should be going into a new manager and coaching staff.

I'd rather we made decisions to try and get promoted and keep Dack and Armstrong. Starting with appointing the coaching staff required and having an assault on next season.

I'll stick to what I said yesterday. I don't care who we sign as I don't think it will make an ounce of difference. This lad might be a good un, he might be crap. I've never heard of him so don't know. Eventually the revolving door of players will stop and people will realise that the problem is in the dugout and not just on the pitch. We could sign prime Maldini and we'd still concede goals galore under this manager. All this does is buy him more time as fans get excited by a new arrival or two to take us through to the summer.

I'm really past caring who we bring in. At best a temporary sticking plaster but unlikely to make any significant difference unless the manager goes or changes his approach.

One way to look at the Mowbray situation is to ask ourselves if he has really done enough in his near 4 years at the club to earn relentlessly enduring patience and support. I’d argue that the initial few months of his tenure were exempt due to the horrendous situation he inherited and then clearly he did a good job in leading us back from League One at the first attempt but since then it has been over 2.5 years and barring a few short decent runs it has been mid-table or bottom half throughout. Some might say that is good because he’s kept us clear of any serious relegation trouble and established us again which is all correct, but my view is that with the resources and squad he has had at his disposal that isn’t much of an achievement. It certainly doesn't earn him endless time to keep repeating the same old mistakes. It should be noted that there are only 10 managers in the Football League who have been in post longer than Mowbray has been here. I’d argue that every one of those managers has had either far greater success in their time or far more testing conditions to work in, or both, earning them the time they have had. These are: SIMON WEAVER – HARROGATE – Led them up the non leagues and into the Football League for the first time ever GARETH AINSWORTH – WYCOMBE – led them up from League Two to the Championship against all the odds into a division they shouldn’t really be in SEAN DYCHE – B*RNLEY – twice led them to automatic promotion to the Premier League and has now kept them there against the odds for several years JOHN COLEMAN – ACCRINGTON – led them to an unprecedented promotion into League One and has kept them there despite being the smallest club and budget in the League and is now closing in on the play offs – we might be playing them soon JURGEN KLOPP – LIVERPOOL – League Champions and Champions League winners – enough said MARK COOPER – FOREST GREEN – Led them into the League for the first time and consistently pushing for promotion to League One CHRIS WILDER – SHEFF UTD – Led them from League One to Premier League and kept them there, boyhood fan PEP GUARDIOLA – MAN CITY – 2x League title and multiple other trophies – enough said PAUL WARNE – ROTHERHAM – 2x promotion from League One & no money to spend in the Championship DAVID ARTELL – CREWE – Promotion from League Two and now at highest level in many years with no money to spend Others around for just less time than Mowbray are Mark Robins at Coventry – promotions from League Two to Championship with zero money and no stadium, Neil at Preston who has threatened a couple of times to hit the top 6 (including being in the top two for a chunk of last season), yet is also now getting grief from fans, Nuno Santo at Wolves who has led them from Championship to Europa League in 3 years and Farke at Norwich on course for his 2nd promotion to the Premier League in 3 seasons at this level. We can therefore see that all these managers around who have been in place for longer or as long as Mowbray have vast reserves of credit in the bank, are working at lower league outfits with no money or have won trophies/promotions multiple times at their existing clubs. Mowbray’s achievement of taking us back out of League One, whilst respectable and successful, is in my view much lesser than the achievements I’ve listed above from similar long term serving managers. Other managers to do what Mowbray has include Cook with Wigan, Parkinson with Bolton, Jackett with Wolves, Caldwell with Wigan. Promotions not to be sniffed at but none of those lot were entitled to 4 or 5 years free reign or cult-like status after that to tread water. Most were binned off relatively soon afterwards. This isn’t a Mowbray bashing exercise just think it is worth pointing out that his accomplishments in taking us to a regular mid table fixture don’t really match up to other long serving managers who have truly earned enduring patience and loyalty at their clubs. He's something of an anomaly. He isn't a club legend despite what Waggott and others want to believe and I don't think he has achieved anything in terms of results above and beyond what would be expected for someone in place this long. He's something of an anomaly among the longer serving managers. The problem of course is the lunatics that run the club seem to enjoy the tribute the manager pays them by going off and telling them how brilliant they are and this appears to be a prerequisite to getting any money out of them. Barking mad but likely to hinder things considerably.