Mid table team with a mid table manager which is where I see us for next few seasons with Tony as manager. There will come a point we will need to take a gamble where we either give mowbray a significant war chest to strengthen squad to get rid of the Williams and Smallwoods of the team but allow for a mowbray dropabollock as we have seen with the breretons, gladwins, Hart, Samuel but hoping a pulls a few more dacks out that or we gamble with a change in the manager to pull us up to the upper echos of the league. If venkys do neither it could be a rather frustrating few seasons ahead 

1-0 graham 

I would like to see us make a move for Ivan Toney, looks like a player that could have an impact for us 

Too many toon fans as friends for that to be a good draw for me 

Boyata?! Jesus no

18 minutes ago, DE. said:

Can we stop the "recently promoted" talk? It's starting to annoy me a bit. It seems like a way for positive posters to justify having little faith in Tony or the team to actually achieve something decent this season.

Whilst it's technically true to say we're recently promoted, we spent a single solitary season in League 1 and absolutely smashed it. Reason being we should never have been there, and the only reason we were was because our idiot owners sabotaged us with Coyle. Mowbray's points per game ratio after he was appointed proves that we had a team in 16/17 that should have survived relatively comfortably, and probably would have if we had appointed, say, Warnock - as was supposed to happen. We also went down on a record points total - in the vast majority of seasons we would have survived with the points we accrued, even with Coyle's mismanagement taken into account.

That said, talk of being "recently promoted" - as if we're fucking Shrewsbury or Burton Albion - might have some credit if we had lost a lot of our better players upon relegation and TM had needed to rebuild from scratch as a result. This, however, did not happen. We retained all of our better players. Raya, Nyambe, Lenihan, Mulgrew, Evans, Conway, Bennett, Graham - ALL RETAINED. We also added a Championship-ready player in Bradley Dack to supplement an already strong side. 

So, all of that considered, why is it being considered some kind of miracle that we're in mid table and able to compete with the likes of Sheffield Wednesday? We were recently promoted out of a division we should never have been in, with a squad that had by and large already proven itself more than capable of competing in the Championship. I don't think there's any need to talk down the club, the players and the manager by referring us to a "recently promoted" club like we spend years in League 1 and finally have our shot at the big time. It was only a few years ago we were competing for playoff places in this league ffs. Granted we've had a pretty significant turnover of players since then, but it's not like Nyambe is any worse than Todd Kane or Adam Henley, or Williams/Bell are that much of a downgrade from Tommy Spurr. Smallwood is no worse than Jason Lowe and according to most on here Jordan Rhodes was a huge hindrance to the team so surely Graham is an upgrade in that department? 

TM was as furious as the rest of us after the non-performances at Preston and Wigan, and rightly so. He clearly has ambitions for the club and I'm with him on that. We deserve to be in this league and we are completely capable of competing. Getting mauled by the likes of Bristol City, Wigan or Preston is in no way acceptable, irrespective of the league we were in last year. Judging from Mowbray's reaction to the defeats I'm pretty sure he feels the same way. 

Superb post, wholly agree

18 minutes ago, Gav said:

We said the same in the pub, but it wasn't as good as Dielnes striker a few years ago at ours to steal them 3 points, 30yr strike, top corner, better than today, gutted....

I was at that game, was a sickener that one. Joao strike is better however, that one took a deflection. 

Mad a side note Baptiste scored that day, our last solid and capable full back to my memory 

I was pleased with being proved wrong, genuinely thought Conway was done after he was hooked after 30 mins in was it the Bolton game. I don’t think he will be able to do that every game sadly but excellent today. Downing was good today but it played to his strengths, his issues have always been pace and distribution, iv seen him kick it straight out of play too many times. But again we’ll done today.

williams/Smallwood are still terrible and must be upgraded soon. 

Good that dack and graham turned up.

one game doesn’t make the other messes forgettable, I still have question marks on mowbray. 

What’s disgusting is the gloaters going back over concerns pre kick off and saying haha, get a life, 100% justifiable 

enjoy the win, could be a long hard December 

There was me thinking it might be a nice relaxing sat afternoon 

If Conway puts a performance in today then Armstrong shouldn’t play on the wing again

That lineup is just about the final straw for me, if we are poor and slump to a defeat again I’m calling for mowbray to go, sick of this now. Williams, Conway, Smallwood and downing. For the love of god, none of them are good enough 

Raya

nyambe. Lenihan Mulgrew bennet

        Reed.     Rodwell 

rothwell.                     Dack

          Graham  Brereton 

feel a lot of our problems are due to lumping it up to graham who has nobody around him. Let dack and rothwell run with it into the wings and throw in crosses for our two big strikers. A novel approach granted but it might just work. Bennet at lb until January when it gets sorted with a purchase. It’s not ideal but can’t trust Williams or bell currently 

He is considered a bit of a joke figure in Scotland due to his shambolic time at Celtic to be honest, my main concern is I don’t think we play good football. We have controlled one game this season, cup game against who was it, Carlisle? The rest has been even or we are outplayed

Just now, Tom said:

The commentator just called Smallwood Bigwood and it’s the best thing to happen in this game 

I thought he said Fleetwood and I thought aye that’s about his level 

Just now, CrouchingNunhiddenCucumber said:

Ridiculous, worse than Coyles team, behave 

That was as bad as a coyote performance that first half, no shots on target. Tell me how that is any different 

At no spell in mowbray reign have we been dominant and fluent for a whole game, I think he is on thin ice, he doesn’t seem to know how to change it. He was talking about a new approach and way we play- how exactly? Is the new approach to go 3-4 down before we play because that’s what it looks like 

This is worse than coyles team. We showed absolutely nothing there. See Hughes is about to be punted by Southampton- anyone else take a return? Mowbray isn’t the answer, think that much is clear 

Il drive dack to spurs if they offer us anything like numbers floating about. He is so easy to mark out the game and get him in a wee huff he starts flinging himself to the ground 

Please take Smallwood off he is burning my eyes 

We are a hard watch just now

This is pathetic 

Should’ve made more of that break, good team scores there 

I do wish mowbray would drop Smallwood it’s painful

Ref needs to calm down with the cards. Smallwood woeful as usual

Smallwood the headless chicken as usual