JHRover

You would think that purely by law of averages sooner or later in a season people like Smallwood and Evans would grab a couple of goals. Even if it's off their backside from a corner or a ridiculous deflection. If you're one of XI on the pitch 46 games a season I would expect every player bar the GK to score at some stage or other, even if it is just once by fluke. That we've numerous midfielders, some who claim to be attack minded (Bennett, Rothwell) and yet all have a big 0 next to them in March suggests a big problem for me. As you say, it has been going on for a long time now. When we go back to the Lowe/Williamson Axis with about 3 goals between them in 5 years.

Still no season ticket news nor any suggestion there will be anytime soon. Meanwhile down at Forest folk are queuing outside their ticket office this morning to get their renewals in. Norwich have shifted more than 20,000. Numerous others have got them on sale, many 'without knowing what league they will be in'. Meanwhile nothing from Ewood and I'd be surprised if there was anything before May. Then Waggott and co. have the brass neck to complain about the number of people buying.

The concern for me is the reliance on Mulgrew for scoring goals. Without his set piece brilliance we'd be struggling. I'm not really on about penalties (although we've had quite a few this season and he's scored them all from memory) as penalty takers can be replaced. It's the free kicks and corners that have been exceptional. The bigger concern is how few goals we've had from midfield this season. Smallwood, Evans, Rothwell, Bennett, Conway - how many goals? A couple for Harrison Reed. Nowhere near enough from a midfield however you want to dress it up.

I wonder if it is all part of the plan to go to Venkys at the end of the season to request additional funds - if he can show how after a few injuries we're so short on numbers we can't even fill a bench.

I will never, ever understand why at 2 days notice the manager is contemplating heading to Sheffield with an empty space on the bench. The only circumstances I could understand it would be if we came down with a virus on the morning of the game meaning a few were missing and we didn't have time to draft in replacements. Even with the U23s playing on Friday night, there should be no reason one of those who play could not be subbed off after 60 minutes, and get on the coach to Sheffield on Saturday morning, Unlikely that the player would get called upon to play but if he did it wouldn't be too much to ask for a young lad to play in 2 matches in 24 hours, and it would be a massive experience to some of them to travel with the 1st team to Wednesday and experience pre-match etc. Even more bizarre that two of those players, Chapman and Davenport, have been signed by this manager in the last couple of transfer windows and have seemingly got nowhere near the first team picture despite being signed as such.

Ifs and buts. If we hadn't had such a poor start to last season we'd have won the league comfortably. If we'd have been able to defend a lead late on in games we'd have 10+ more points. Mowbray's job is to eradicate those maybes and near misses.

Was just going to put something similar about Sheff Wed. Just noticed that members prices start from £23 and 'Gold' members get bigger discounts. Meanwhile nailing away fans for £33. Is there anything stopping Rovers charging £20 for home members and £30+ for all away fans? Would certainly provide a bigger incentive to join the 1875 club if you were saving £10+ on all home tickets.

Any manager that delivers 6 defeats in 7 at any professional level is going to attract criticism and begin to have his position questioned or doubted. You've only to look at the stick Parkinson is getting at Bolton or Cook at Wigan where circumstances have arguably been far more difficult than they have here yet their fans are completely fed up with it. PNE lot were calling for Neil to go after the first few months of the season yet now are worrying about him being poached and Dingles were after potting Dyche before Xmas and no doubt will be again if they go down. Welcome to the world of football! If you can't handle criticism or questions about futures when plummeting down the division and losing every week you should probably go and watch another sport because I don't think any club in the top 4 or 5 leagues could go on a long losing run and not see stick towards the manager. For some reason it is seen as 'loyal' or 'superior' to attack or ridicule anyone who expresses concern or doubt. I haven't reached a stage where I've sought for Mowbray to go and hope I don't reach that stage any time soon, but I am going to criticise him when we perform as we have recently, and nor am I going to go round calling people pathetic who do have big doubts about him. Delighted we ended the run with a win on Tuesday but if we go on another 6 game losing streak the one looking daft will be Smith.

Just looking and Reading have some tough games to come - away at Stoke, Hull, Norwich, Bristol, Middlesbrough and home v West Brom, Preston, Brentford and Birmingham. Pretty tough run in there.

Still no news on the Birmingham points deduction? Rumour was that the League were seeking a 12 point deduction which if imposed now would dump them right into the middle of the relegation fight.

Last night so important with Millwall and Rotherham picking up surprise wins this week and Reading enjoying a bit of a resurgence. Looking bleak for Ipswich and Bolton but wide open for the other place - Rotherham, Wigan, Reading, Millwall and even QPR looking dodgy. On form Wigan must be very worried.

Any idea on ticket sales? At £33 a head I can't see them flying off the shelves.

Cook won't be used to this sort of position. He's never managed at this level before this season, he's no longer a big fish in a small pond as he was at Wigan, Portsmouth and even arguably Chesterfield when they had a bit of money behind them. Apart from his brief spell at Stanley he's never really had to battle against bigger and better equipped sides. Observing the way he conducts himself on the touchline I can see one or two pampered players getting a bit fed up of his approach.

Stanley took another big step to safety last night but still only 4 points off the bottom 4 but with a game in hand. Big match against Rochdale on Saturday. A couple of wins should be enough for them.

Has Paul Cook ever agreed with a penalty against his teams? I can't stand the man although last night he and his team looked a pale shadow of the team we battled with last season. We question at times how much we have progressed this season but in Wigan's case they look well short of what they were last year.

What a massive relief to get the 3 points, which should be enough to survive given the gap. With a couple of tough away games coming up where wins will be unlikely we simply had to get the 3 points last night. To get 3 goals and a clean sheet should hopefully improve the confidence. A few bold decisions by Mowbray, the inclusion of Magloire was certainly one that didn't fill me with optimism in the car on the way over, but very pleased to see him perform and come out with a clean sheet. On the downside I felt for the first 45-60 minutes we were poor. Going in at half time we were saved by the penalty but other than that we'd offered little. Only once we were 2-0 up in the last 30 minutes did we start to play some good stuff and looked like we were dangerous. Lots of work to do but given the circumstances with injuries and form delighted to get a 3-0 win.

Can't see how, unless we've allowed the pitch drainage to go to rack and ruin over the last few years. We've had worse than this over the years and Ewood has usually held up quite well in it.

You've a bloke like Waggott seemingly tasked with making cutbacks and balancing the books whilst you've unpredictable owners responding to a managers request for funds to strengthen the team. Hence the inconsistencies. We haven't any money to do anything but then the owners can turn around and throw multi millions into the transfer pot.

I think they've been changed recently, perhaps following the Watford debacle, and have tightened up the regulations.

https://www.efl.com/-more/governance/efl-rules--regulations/section-6---players/ Jump to rules 55.1.1 and 55.1.2 - a standard loan must either be a full season or half a season e.g. the time between two transfer windows. Any recall clause can only be included in a full season standard loan and can only be activated during the winter window.

We can't recall the loanees. We're awful in the air regardless.

Raya Travis-Nyambe-Williams-Bell Bennett-Reed-Evans-Armstrong Dack Graham

We also seem to be forgetting Joe Grayson, who was also allowed out on loan to Grimsby. I mention him because he is one that Mowbray likes, having been given a few chances in the first team squad. So that's 3 that we allowed out on loan with no option to recall, including one that Mowbray likes/trusts and who would surely be getting the call now to play. I can only conclude this whole sorry episode has at least in part been financially motivated. I've heard some tales over the last 12 months about loan deals we have done or not done due to insignificant amounts of money so it honestly wouldn't surprise me if those lads had been sent out to bring in some loose change for a few months.

I think ourselves and Wigan have probably suffered from over-confidence following promotion. Both managers probably felt loyalty to last season's heroes and believed they were good enough to coast to survival in the Championship. Both ourselves and Wigan enjoyed momentum from last season which has kept both our heads above water up to now, both have seen the rot well and truly set in although we had the benefit of a purple patch in January which Wigan didn't have. Both sides heavily reliant on home form which until recently was very good. I see more Championship experience at Rovers than at Wigan, and also our manager is more experienced at this level than Cook who is used to managing promotion favourites in the lower leagues rather than relegation favourites in a big league. Wigan have also had their takeover saga to deal with and less of a budget than we have enjoyed. As for Rotherham I suspect their fans are delighted just to be in with a chance of survival in this league. Completely different expectation levels for them having been long term League One/Two rather than Premier League.

I think anyone would have expected either Mulgrew or Lenihan or both to pick up injury(s) at some stage between January and May if playing every week. Both are injury prone and always have been. Sad but true. Expecting them to play 3 times a week for half a Championship season and not miss any games is madness. Rodwell in a similar boat - his entire career based around lengthy injury absences so expecting him to come in as back-up and play 90 minutes on a regular basis is again highly optimistic. Even then he isn't a defender. Williams isn't a CB despite attempts to convert him into one. I blame Mowbray for arriving at a situation where we've 4 options for CB and none of them are really CBs and 3 are extremely injury prone.