Reading through the articles today on the Lancashire Telegraph website of Mowbray reviewing his meetings with the owners I am even more concerned rather than reassured. It would be helpful if Mowbray explained which of the owners he met whilst in Switzerland. Was it Mrs Desai? It seems we're still no nearer than we were months ago in relation to this European scouting network. Mowbray is still talking about it being something he wants to be able to put in place rather than it being something that is now in place. It is concerning to me that he clearly identified that as an issue many months ago and yet it seems no nearer to happening. Mind you, given some of the stories I've heard over the years about the difficulties of getting approval from India for even minor yet necessary expenditure I imagine he's having difficulties getting approval for a relatively large and in some respects unnecessary outlay. Seems anyway that this network isn't going to be in place in time for it to bear fruit by the time the summer comes round. Mowbray's language is very similar to that Paul Lambert was using around this stage 3 years ago. Publicly telling the fans and owners what he wants to do and what he thinks is needed to achieve their aim (supposedly) of promotion, lots of suggestions about various areas of the club that need strengthening and the need for more investment Sounds to me like they're telling him they want promotion and yet he doesn't feel as though the tools are there to do it yet. and is trying to get that message across to them and explain things to them via the media as well as in his meetings. All very odd. Seems the manager meets with them but then needs to get his message across in the public arena. Not for the first time. Wouldn't surprise me if he or they had no idea what the plan was going to be come the summer in terms of budget etc.

So much more exciting under the up and coming Dean Smith than the 'dinosaur' Steve Bruce though

'Lifts the lid on Switzerland trip' basically an admission that the purpose of his trip was to meet the owners and Mowbray then setting out his vision which is more or less the same as he has previously. No real Intel about the meeting or what is going to happen. At least he didn't refer to other stakeholders....

I'm amazed at that figure if true. I'd have expected a couple of thousand even for a tv game with them being up there. Bad news for Waggott and his massive away fans agenda.

No, I think the problem is two fold. Partly it is down to the way we play - we crumble under pressure - this has been going on since last season when we managed to get away with it because we were playing garbage sides. Clean sheets have been very rare, particularly away from home. There is something structurally wrong with the way we defend as a team. Call it what you want - lack of discipline, lack of nous, lack of leadership - but it keeps rearing its ugly head and has done for too long to ignore it any further. It is also partly down to personnel not being good enough. I think I said yesterday that I would be looking to offload Williams and Downing in the summer, Bell would be on the bench (at best), I'd sign a new CB and RB, but would keep Nyambe, Lenihan and Mulgrew. Do you agree that coaching, recruitment and tactics are all the remit of the manager and at least one of those things needs improving on for our defensive record to improve?

I'm not having that. Mowbray has been manager of the club for 2 years. He's had 4 transfer windows, a healthy budget by most accounts, supposed freedom to do things as he wants. He's an experienced manager who has operated at Premier league, Championship and League One level for 10 years+ so should know straight away whether the players he has are good enough or not and act accordingly. Not give them a full season to 'prove' themselves before having to replace them when they can't do it. It's his decision what he does and it will be his neck on the line. We have 3 options: 1) stick with what we are doing, which is one of the worst defences in this league. I know enough about this game to know that if we continue to ship goals at the rate we are doing then sooner or later we WILL end up in trouble at the wrong end of the table 2) stick with the same personnel but try to change things through different coaching - this is for the manager to work on every day in training and the proof will be in the pudding when the players cross the line - at the moment whatever he is doing isn't working because we're still making the same mistakes and conceding goals galore 3) change the personnel - get out there into the transfer market and replace those players with ones who won't keep making mistakes - once again this is the manager's job and he has cash to do it by his own admission. Whichever way you prefer to do things the manager is the one who has to sort it out and deal with it, and it will be the manager who carries the can if he doesn't. Suggesting that the manager is blameless and it's all down to sloppy individual errors is nonsense.

Where did I suggest getting rid of anyone? Point was that this is the manager's team, he has either signed everyone, given them contracts or has had ample opportunity to replace them if not deemed good enough. So suggesting that our defensive woes are the result of errors or mistakes that aren't the manager's fault but the players cannot be correct - if it is all down to individual errors and not poor team organisation then it is still the manager's remit to deal with that - by either coaching it out of those players or getting shut of them and signing others.

The manager takes responsibility. He coaches the team, works with them every day, picks the players on matchday, has had chance to replace any he doesn't think are good enough. If all those goals are down to individual mistakes or loss of bottle then that still falls back onto Mowbray - he's signed/kept/coached these players so if they keep losing their bottle in games or making frequent mistakes then it is his fault. I've no interest in how many goals we concede from set-pieces any more than how many we score from set-pieces. It doesn't matter. They're all goals.

I'd have thought Brendan Rodgers would find space for him at Celtic, with Kean being from up there and an ex-Celtic player. Rodgers couldn't wait to use his Swansea programme notes to criticise Rovers fans for their treatment of Kean so surely he'd be eager to help his old mate out with a job?

I think Sunderland are of sufficient size that even if they don't go up they'll still be a force in that League regardless. But yeah with parachute cash dropping and the squad they have they'll probably have a huge job on their hands this summer. Seems their problem is drawing too many as they don't lose games. It seems that with the exceptions of Bradford and Coventry the 'biggest' clubs i.e. those with the biggest crowds and Premier League history are gathering towards the top of that league - Sunderland, Pompey, Charlton, Barnsley - then Luton who have the momentum from last season and get decent gates themselves - then Doncaster and Peterborough who are regular top 6 pushing teams having been in the Championship recently. Definitely more competitive than last season when we were streets ahead of the other top 6 sides other than Wigan.

They've also signed a raft of experienced players to be able to have an immediate impact rather than an assortment who aren't ready to play.

If the owners really decide on their backing for the club on who the manager is then I'd suggest we give up now, because we'll never get anywhere if that is the way of doing things. Likewise the fact that you're concerned they'll get another Coyle - you'll remember they preferred Coyle to Warnock and only got rid of him and brought in Mowbray when it was too late - at no normal or successful club do managers get retained out of concern about who will follow them - only at Venkys Rovers. Hurst did a brilliant job with Shrewsbury with no money, there's no argument there, and as such was touted for bigger things. What he did at Ipswich this season clearly wasn't very good. What Mick McCarthy did at Ipswich was very good yet you seem to have an intense dislike for him. What knee jerk reactions are you referring to? Knee jerk to me implies people are suggesting Mowbray should go on the back of one or two results. I've seen a very small number suggest Mowbray should go and they have all been based on what they have seen all season with our regular away day collapses.

Harrison Reed is exactly the type we should be after, but he's just one piece of the jigsaw. We could really do with retaining him and I really hope we find a way to do it, but whatever we do there are 3 or 4 other areas that need improvement. It seems Mowbray isn't going to start Reed in CM, so with that in mind we need to come up with another alternative to the Evans/Smallwood axis. I think Evans has been good this season, and I'll never question Smallwood's commitment or effort, but a combination of the two starting every game is a problem. Luckily we have surplus budget left over from last summer (Waggott) plus money available in January that we elected not to spend (Mowbray) plus whatever Venkys make available for the summer window. Rolled into one that should be a nice healthy kitty to dip into and with our new scouting/recruitment network getting up to speed we should be seeing the fruits of that by more imaginative and better value signings rather than seemingly pursuing from a very short list. I won't hold my breath though.

Quite the shopping list developing here for this multi-year slow build adding one or two a window we keep being told about. Lets assume that Dack is sold in the summer, and Reed is out of reach for us (or possibly doesn't fancy hanging around being played out wide every week), and we can't strike a deal with Rodwell to stay on. Then we'd need probably 2 CBs, a new LB, replacements for Reed and Dack, ideally an improvement on Smallwood, at least 1 quality CF to complement Graham (assuming Brereton improves and starts chipping in). We've also got a lengthy list of players that need to move on. Gladwin will go, Conway will probably go, question marks around Samuel's capability at this level, Downing will be off, for me Williams can go if we can find a buyer. A huge, huge amount of work. Even if we get lucky and keep Dack. To have any chance of keeping Reed he is likely to use up the majority of our budget, but will probably be beyond it. Either way we'll still need 4-5 others of decent quality to come in.

Not as bad as the referee against Bristol City. Minimum of 1 minute in the first half, yet only 40 seconds played. Minimum of 4 minutes in the second half, yellow card issued for their keeper during that time, yet the whistle blown bang on 4 minutes.

Time and time again we get to 70 minutes having made all 3 substitutions. I think Mowbray loses the plot in games when we're struggling or losing, throwing on players in the hope they change the direction of the game but it very rarely works out for us. Partly because our squad isn't good enough and we don't have any game changers but even when we bring on the likes of Graham and Dack it rarely seems to pay dividends. So many times we end up throwing people on and it seems to be a gung-ho approach with little thought given to keeping the back door shut at the other end of the pitch. Too many people playing in too many different positions or being asked to do too many jobs. I'd love to have a clear starting XI where everyone is in their best position and knows their jobs inside out and for that team to play 3,4,5 games in a row without the need for numerous changes, formation alterations, positional changes etc.

I don't agree. We had 2 maybe 3 chances to score. The likelihood of scoring all 3 is remote, if we'd have got 1 we'd have sat back like we've done countless times. As I said, at WORST last night we should have come out with a draw. Either 0-0 or 1-1 having done the hardest part and finally got the equaliser late on. Unfortunately once again we manage to find a way to drop points from a good position. Having equalised at that stage away from home you should not lose, certainly not against a side like Reading. I can perhaps excuse late collapses against the likes of Leeds and Sheffield United but not against a side as limited as they are with such a blunt attack. We were 2-0 up at Brentford and look how that one ended up. Nothing to do with failing to take our chances. Failing to keep a clean sheet is the problem.

I must have missed safety being achieved in February. We've 14 games to go, 42 points to play for, some of our rivals have 45 to play for and the way we're shaping we won't be getting very many. Bolton and Reading have come up with wins this week, PNE have overtaken us having been well behind in January, and Wigan and Brentford demolished us not long ago. The only saving grace is our home form where we are dull but quite hard to beat. That should be enough to scrape the couple of wins needed to rubber stamp survival. But I'm not cracking open the bubbly in mid-Feb with a 3rd of the season left as we plummet.

There's no such thing as a game being 'dead and buried' with us. Even if we'd have been 2-0 up I'd have had no confidence in our ability to hold on. See Brentford as an example. We can't defend and can't grind out results away from home. Nothing really to do with not taking our chances. At worst the game should have been 0-0 or 1-1 yet we conspired to concede 2 goals against the 2nd worst team in the league who couldn't score before last night.

The Championship is unpredictable by nature. Sadly we are the opposite - very predictable, certainly in our performances if not our results, and it is quite boring in my opinion. The way we play is predictable, slow and easy to stop. Bucket loads of possession and yet very little penetration, urgency or end product. Our only decent chances yesterday were on the counter attack with pace, mainly through Armstrong. Other than that we have Mulgrew, Rodwell or Smallwood with the ball at their feet stood still on the half way line taking an age to decide what to do with it, before it ends up going nowhere. Our game 'management' comes in the form of chucking on 3 attacking players between 50 and 70 minutes and hoping they can get us a goal. Trouble is whether it works or not we reach 80 minutes knackered, have lost the balance to our team as we have too many players on the pitch chasing a goal and not enough able to defend ours, and we can't make any more changes, whilst usually fitter opposition keep subs back. Same old mistakes and it happens too often. Bristol City, Swansea, Brentford, Sheffield United, Preston, Wigan, Reading - each and every one has followed a very similar pattern and each has ended with us conceding late on. On the whole happy with the season so far but last night was an atrocious result but sadly a predictable one. Reading battling for a win in their survival push, 1 win since November, can't score - along come Rovers and they score 2 and get the win - despite us equalising at a good time to at least take a point or if not all 3. We haven't a clue how to approach the game having got the goal we chased for so long. It's embarrassing. Almost as though scoring takes us by surprise and we don't know what to do next. Same story at Leeds, Brentford, Middlesbrough. Garbage.

Reading only won one game since the start of November, yet only a couple of points from safety. Looks like being a much lower tally needed for survival than when we went down on 51 points!

We should finish above them. We were miles ahead at the end of January and they've had a month without a manager and been under Ffp sanctions all season.

We drew 2-2 with Reading and 0-0 with Millwall at home, we play Reading tonight and Millwall away was one of the worst games of football ever seen, though granted we got a very good win there. He'll make them very difficult to beat and I'd expect them to be up there next season.

Let's see how many times they concede 3,4 or 5 in a game between now and the end of the season.

Steve Bruce wasted no time in sorting Sheffield Wednesday out. 4 clean sheets on the bounce for them having been a defensive shambles not long ago. Another manager who understands that to get anywhere in this league you need to sort out the defence first and build from that. Criticism from those who think that constitutes negative football yet it will get them up the table whilst 'exciting' Villa ship goals galore.