Disappointing defeat tonight which didn't really reflect the balance of play. Thought we were looking good value for a point which would have been a good start to the season for what was a young and inexperienced side missing the familiar faces of the last couple of seasons (Grayson, Buckley, Butterworth, Rankin Costello). Rare event of 3 penalties all awarded to one team and all scored but couldn't really have any complaints with any of the decisions as it was very easy for the referee to award them. Hope we get a manager sorted soon as it has gone on long enough. The number of games we have to get through at u23 level really means we need a decent manager in place to lead us through it and up for the challenges ahead competing in a multitude of competitions this year.

I don't like this categorising of fixtures into 'tough' or 'very tough' or 'winnable' etc. This appears to be based on either the profile of the clubs we are playing or if they have been in the Premier League recently. I don't believe any fixtures are especially tough or easier than the others. Stoke would be described as tough - they've lost both matches against unfancied teams. Cardiff were fancied - got beat off Wigan and scraped a home win against Luton. If you go through all 46 fixtures all but about 6-7 home games would have to be desribed as tough matches. Virtually every away game is classed as a tough place to go with our away record. We've already had a banana skin in Charlton which normally should have been a home banker. We're quickly running out of the 'easy' games. Even if survival is the aim you have to pick up points from games you aren't expected to. Our aim is supposed to be considerably higher than mere survival so we will need to outperform several of these tough teams. Next two are Middlesbrough and Hull. These will be portrayed as 'tough' matches yet i see those as two sides who will be mid-table at best this season. Mowbray said we'd be chasing the play-offs this season so getting results against them will not be some sort of miracle. We need to do it. I don't really listen to Mowbray's interviews any more but expect on Thursday we will have the usual about what a massive brilliant club Middlesbrough are, how we'll try our best to compete blah blah blah. You make your own luck and win games against the odds. Reality is the way we are playing we won't win many no matter who the opposition. You need to be able to defend for 90 minutes and test the opposition goal and we're doing neither.

It seems West Bromwich has gone or is going the same way with Birmingham as places like Oldham, Bolton and Bury are in Manchester. Gradually being absorbed into little more than satellite towns, being left behind whilst the big city gets all the investment and money. Not much by way of pubs around West Brom these days and next to nothing in the immediate vicinity of the ground. Even the pub/club right across the road has recently shut and converted into a large Greggs. Nice easy away game at a traditional club. A lot of respect from me for sensible pricing. Long may it continue. Just a shame we won't reciprocate and encourage it moving forward. Suspect that might change once their parachute cash runs out.

Precisely. Waggott goes on about 'reciprocal pricing' as though he would prefer to charge Leeds and Wednesday less than we are and are only reacting to their pricing. But everything he has done here has been the opposite and he'll milk the Leeds fans for every penny. The proof will be when WBA come to town. Nothing stopping us charging £20 an adult but Waggott will expect them to bring 3000+ so will charge them £30.

A tricky one for Mowbray because he is in some ways in a no win situation. Home against a crisis club who have got off to a poor start in the 4th tier. We need to get up and running quickly. A defeat to this lot and we go from poor start to awful start and the pressure cranks up. Can he afford to throw in the kids? Suspect tonight's U23 team will give us an answer. Likewise if he goes with a strong Xi and someone gets injured he's going to be in trouble. I expect a strong team as he did that at Carlisle last season and Coventry the year before.

Havent seen anyone complaining about Raya being sold, though it is concerning if he requested to leave us to join Brentford. Personally I'm more concerned about Mowbray apparently deciding last season that he didn't want Raya, agreeing to sell him, then replacing him with someone with less experience on loan for the season. Meanwhile the goals continue to fly in whilst Raya is good enough to play every game for Brentford who are likely to finish above us.

I can only go off what has happened since we decided to sell him. The manager suggested that he was the reason or one of the reasons we conceded so many goals last season. So far that has been wrong.

He's conceded 1 in 2 games. We've conceded 4 in 2.

No I didn't see him play yesterday. I'm not judging Raya or Walton on one game, just pointing out that Mowbray pointed to Raya's 'inexperience' as an issue and reason he was replaced yet he's now keeping clean sheets for a rival whilst we continue to concede. Think people will realise this season that our defensive woes were as much to do with our coaching than players.

Amazing how David Raya can start for Brentford at Middlesbrough and come away with a clean sheet and 3 points. Mowbray reckons he was too inexperienced for us, then signs someone on loan with less experience. I think the coming weeks will prove that Mowbray is incapable of assembling or organising a competent defence. Last season he got away with it as people believed the problem was Mulgrew and Raya.

When the time comes a Director of Football needs to be appointed before any new manager. That Director of Football needs to be experienced and proven in a similar role elsewhere, preferably with European background. Not a used car salesman on a 6 month deal like the last one. That individual will be employed to hire and fire the next manager. Not Waggott, Cheston, Pasha or whatever agency is flavour of the month in India. None of the above are football people with sufficient expertise to pick a decent manager. The owners need to drop this nonsense about building personal relationships and having the manager run the club. It isn't doable in this day and age. At the moment there are League Two clubs with bigger, better and more competent structures in place than we have. It can't go on. Not that Mowbray is going anywhere any time soon as I think they'll prefer to roll the dice and hope he keeps us up than rock the boat by getting Venkys to approve a change. If he walks, which is more likely than the sack, we'll be back in cheap, bargain bucket unemployed managers again and then the cycle starts off again. Last time Adkins was close to the job so he might be there again although he walked out on Hull and might not fancy another dose of working for clowns. Other than that we've Steve Cotterill, Dougie Freedman or Alex Mcleish. Cant see past such desperate names.

What does getting us out of League One more than 12 months ago have to do with the current situation? Since then we've spent £15 million and in my view look like we could easily be relegation fodder this season. Do we just stick with him regardless of results for the next 10 years because he got us up from League One and had a decent first half to last season? Form in 2019 has been dreadful. Recruitment has been mediocre at best. We continue to leak goals and are toothless in attack. Things have to improve and if they don't the manager will have to go.

It could go any way. Impossible to say. Bolton of course is the 'worst case' scenario but some time off, even for us, because their predicament has been 4-5 years in the making from Davies pulling out then handing over to jokers like Holdsworth and Anderson who never had the cash required. Personally i think it would be nigh on impossible to find owners with less interest, pride, and care than Venkys. You only have to look around Ewood to see evidence of the lack of pride and interest. Of course there are many that wouldn't have the funds Venkys appear to have , although with more care and effort the need for their financial support would be less, I'm certain of that. If an owner with serious interest got stuck in I'm certain revenues would increase whilst losses could be cut, but obviously not entirely given the division we are in. I think it suits Venkys to carry on with the £100 million of debt line because it makes them feel good about themselves and serves as a constant reminder to the plebs how much money they've put in. I'm sure even they know that they aren't getting it back but it shows everyone what they've 'invested' into this. A bit like driving around in a Ferrari - everyone who sees you driving it knows you are loaded - owning a club £100 million 'in debt' to them shows everyone how loaded they are and what they've put into it.

Their 'debt' cannot be recovered, unless they establish us in the Premier League for many years and each year take some of the cash for themselves to pay back what they've lost. Even then they'd probably still find a way to make us be a loss making club so it goes around in circles. We don't owe them that money. They aren't getting their 170 million back. That's their 'investment' in the club over 9 years. They aren't the first to heap it onto the club as 'debt'. Davies did it at Bolton and Al Fayed at Fulham. Think also Abramovich at Chelsea at least in the early days. All got wiped away in the end because it had to be. I'm no expert on the benefits of piling it on as debt rather than as equity but there must be some. Liquidating the club is a non starter. If they did they'd recover at my guess about 10-20% of their 'debt' at the absolute most. Brockhall is attractive but a planning permission nightmare and property in Blackburn worth inconsequential amounts. When they are tired of losing money on this the only sensible way out is to hand the club over to someone else to have a try. Whelan did it at Wigan. Walked away and handed over the reigns in an orderly fashion. Morgan at Wolves. Those prophesising a repeat of the Bolton situation need to recognise that the reason for their situation is through failing to pay their bills and borrowing money from all over the place to do it. No suggestion that is happening here. Not because they lost a lot of money under Eddie Davies, who wrote off his 'debt' like he had to do.

He wasn't on the A list, according to Mowbray

I think I'd be a bit less angry had this been the first bizarre failure of a window we'd had. But this has become par for the course really. Certainly since last summer our transfer business has been very strange, but even before then it was neglectful of key areas. It always seems to follow the same sort of pattern too. We go into the window talking the talk and appearing to recognise the issues, publicly admit our weaknesses, promise big things which then don't materialise. For it to happen once is disappointing. 3 or 4 times in a row suggests incompetence. At Wigan he will have competition for a place at CB. More competition than he has ever had here. Add to that a more decisive/ruthless manager and that Mulgrew will be starting from scratch there rather than being well established as top dog here and I'm struggling to see how his chances of game time are going to increase. I could understand it if he had been gradually replaced or frozen out here and was struggling for minutes but he was starting as our captain 6 days ago! Given our lack of depth he would be certain of more game time here even if not 1st choice as we will get injuries. Something has happened. Personally I think the financial situation is heavily restricted on defensive players and the only way Mowbray was able to get Cunningham in was by offloading Mulgrew once Wigan took an interest. I wonder what would have happened had Wigan not come in. I'm sure Cunningham wouldnt be here and I'm sure we'd still be using Mulgrew in the team.

Barnsley showed last weekend how it is done. Of course that might have been a wake up call for Fulham and them being at home this time changes things but they are clearly beatable. Not interested in them really though, we need to get off the mark, if Barnsley can do it there's no reason we can't.

Wigan appear well equipped at CB, certainly more than we are, so it seems odd that they came in for Mulgrew and we let him go given the numbers. What happens if Mulgrew goes and sits on Wigan's bench whilst we have injuries and no fit CBs? To be honest I loathe Paul Cook but would trust him to sort a defence out before Mowbray.

You and Mowbray/Rovers might like to think that but the chances of it happening and working are slim. No room in the Championship for inexperienced young players. Mowbray, if he's still here by then, will be reluctant to gamble on throwing the youngsters in. But given we follow an unwritten rule of being unable to permanently sign an established CB chances are that they'll be desperate for someone to emerge from the academy to do the job.

I'd shake hands on survival right now. If Mowbray surprises me and manages to sort the defence out we might climb into mid-table. Likewise if the failings of last season continue or get worse we could easily drop. I think some forget just how bad we were in February and March. Can't be like that again.

Alternative theory - Mowbray couldn't sign anyone until he got someone off the wage bill. He comes to the conclusion that Mulgrew is one he's prepared to offload The fact he started Mulgrew on Saturday as captain v Charlton tells me that he was still very much in his.plans and developments yesterday were unexpected. Mowbray probably reaching desperation stage to bring in a new LB so agreed to sacrifice Mulgrew to do it. As I said last night we can try our best to rationalise decisions at this club but our antics on deadline day over the last two summers do not suggest there is any coherent plan.

Can anyone think of an away game this season where we wont be able to wear either the home or away shirt but will be able to wear the 3rd kit? What are we going to wear at Huddersfield or Sheffield Wednesday? Might just get away with grey but wouldn't surprise me if fussy refs said no. You have to wonder sometimes. Blue and white home shirt so a pale grey away shirt and blue 3rd kit. Beyond belief. The whole point of a 3rd kit seems to have been missed here.

Why?

We could sign Cristiano Ronaldo and I'd still be concerned about that defence.

Just trying to work out what happens when Lenihan picks up his inevitable injury. Williams no pre-season of any description. Presume the 'grand plan' is to make Nyambe into a backup CB. We'll be seeing Joe Grayson in the team, no doubt about it.