Thinking all the way back to the Sheffield United game at Ewood, I remember thinking at the time that Poveda was much more deserving of the praise that came his way than Khadra. I know he scored, but he gave the ball away so often and just seemed to really lack any respect for possession with some of his runs. I think he's got a bit better at that, and his flashes of quality along with his pace make him a useful player, but needing to be our main attacking threat has really exposed him in our recent spell. As a defender, having to deal with Brereton but also having to think about someone with Khadra's pace must be a nightmare. But when you're relying on Khadra to make the difference, you can't trust his decision making.

Honestly, I'm just happy that JRC has got through several back-to-back starts without injury (admittedly whilst not always playing the 90). His performances look miles off - but I'd persevere with him against Reading, and with any luck Nyambe will be back after the international break.

Wouldn't shock me if we see the same system against Reading, but with Giles on instead of Pickering.

100% Nobody expects your centre backs to be expert finishers at this level, but the amount of first contacts that Lenihan and Wharton get, both of them should be on at least 3/4 by now in my view. Maybe a bit churlish of me seeing as they've done their job in spades at the back, but when you think of the fine lines in games since Christmas - it could've made all the difference in keeping us in the race for the top 2.

Literally nobody is calling him that though, and I agree that the Johnson positioning was bizarre. I'm just saying that if we're in the position of not giving the manager any credit for a positive result which came off the back of his changes, then that is strange to me. Especially seeing as we're all happy to stick the boot in for the bad results which come off the back of some pretty decent performances, as has happened over our recent run.

Yes. I think it comes with a couple of caveats that his tactics also came alongside missed pens & plenty of other chances we should've taken. But yes, he takes the blame for when we underperform.

To be fair, doesn't he say that he got selection wrong & should've changed 5 or 6 from Bristol City? I know it's not the same as saying that he shouldn't have played Johnson where he did, but he did admit to getting the selection wrong.

I don't think it'll go down as a managerial masterclass, but changing tack during the game and making match winning substitutions is exactly where managers earn their corn. Obviously the first half was a disaster & that's on Mowbray, but his changes were instrumental in us getting the three points. God knows he's got his flaws, but there's nothing to be gained by giving him pelters when things go wrong but not giving him any credit when things go our way.

Good. If you end up winning after a row then it all gets forgotten about anyway. If it played a part in picking up three points then that's all that matters. We've had that many teams full of choirboys since we were first relegated, it makes a change to know we've got a few players capable of knocking a few heads together. I bet something like this happened every other week under Sparky.

Or them all playing one another, which fortunately is pretty much the case! Agree that we can't really be counting our chickens on 73 points being enough though. It probably will, but there are so many teams in the chasing pack that it will take until at least a week or two after international break to get a proper sense of what we'll need, maybe even after Easter. Hopefully by that time we'll have picked up most of what we'll need already.

Personally, I hope not. No doubt this system has been partly responsible for our shocking run in front of goal, but typically we've been creating more chances than we've been giving away. The issue is that the personnel haven't been able to take the chances that we should have, but Brereton coming back could make all the difference and take some of the pressure off Khadra, who isn't up to being the main man for me. Very nice to know we have a genuine plan B if we go behind though.

Less said about that disgusting first half the better. As bad as I've seen us in a long, long time. I didn't think we had a response like the one we showed in us, so credit to the players is due for that. Special praise to Wharton, who was as bad as I've seen him in the first half. He was class in the second though, & it's no exaggeration to say that his goal may have saved our season.

That's fair enough, but that's a list that includes Paul Ince. I know he's got his problems, but there's no way of squaring 'he's the worst manager in the league' with our results this year. Or the last four years for that matter.

Bit hyperbolic there, no? There are obviously better managers out there, but the Championship is littered with others that're no better, in some cases obviously worse. If you go onto other teams' messageboards, you can often see Mowbray seen as a wily old fox, outthinking their own unpopular coach. Obviously we all know that this is a bit of a stretch & that Mowbray has his faults too, but there are maybe a handful of other teams' managers that I'd swap him for.

Assuming i) we don't go up and TM leaves, and ii) Lampard is still Everton manager in the summer, then the timing could work out in such a way that Rooney could be realistic. He'll have seen the Derby job through until the end of the season, so will probably feel as though he's done his bit by not leaving them in the lurch. They will probably be in L1 though - and unlikely to be in a strong position to be favourites to bounce back. Would he expect a prem job under such circumstances? Everton aside, I doubt it. Which Championship jobs would be more attractive than Rovers? There might be a relegated club who sack their manager and would fancy him, but if that doesn't happen then Rovers would have a good a chance as anyone.

Back to something like his best this year. Looking forward to seeing him develop more in his game in an attacking sense, where I think he has the potential to do a lot more, but mainly delighted to see him commit. Brilliant news.

Regression to the mean. We will probably carry on being more wasteful than we will be comfortable with, but a repeat of the chances we created against (for instance) QPR and we should score, even with our misfiring attackers.

Whilst we can't be relying on him to consistently be the difference this season, something like that would instantly change the mood around the place.

I agree that our lack of goalscoring is a massive worry, but some positives to consider before the international break. i) Bristol City & Reading have absolutely woeful defensive records - with the exception of Peterbrough they've let in around 10 goals more than the next worst defence in the league. Derby admittedly are much more solid, but even they haven't kept an away clean sheet since November. ii) Whilst it's unlikely that we'll start being as clinical as we should be at least until BBD is back, law of averages suggest that we won't carry on being as profligate as we have been either. If we had an exact replica of the QPR chances for instance, even a team which is being wasteful would expect to have bagged at least one or two more. Any team will score if you create enough chances, so even though I worry about our options until Ben comes back, I think we're well capable of scoring the goals we need to win the next three before the international break. After then, we'll be relying on Brereton and maybe Dack to take the chances that others have been missing.

Arguably none, but promoted teams often surprise you. Depends on how you play too. Wes Morgan won the league at Leicester, but he wouldn't have got a game at clubs who played a higher line. A fair few Burnley players would've been exposed too if they weren't playing in Dyche's system in my opinion.

If we finish outside of the top 6 from the position that we were in (which I don't think we will) then I've got no issue at all with not extending Mowbray's contract. I'd be highly sceptical that we'd bring in a better option, but that's a separate argument. I can't agree with those saying he should be kept on if we win the play offs but sacked if not, we can't be making decisions as big as that based on the randomness that could happen in 90 minutes of football.

Agree - the whole point of playing down the importance of some of the games we've just had, rightly or wrongly, was assuming that we can make up for it by picking up a load of points after Fulham. They'll probably be a tough nut to crack, but crack them we must.

One positive about the rest of the season is that pretty much every weekend is going to throw up one of our play off rivals playing another. Luckily the closest we'll get to that (Bournemouth fixture aside) is tonight. Makes me much more relaxed about us finishing in the top 6. An obvious point, but now we've got that horrendous stretch of games behind us, it's absolutely vital that we cash in with this run before the international break. We'll need to go at around 2 points a game from now until the end of the season to even set Bournemouth a target, so you'd say a return of 9/10 points as a minimum is needed to keep us in the promotion conversation going into April. Even if top 2 is completely unrealistic, that sort of return should really break the back of what we'll end up needing to finish in the top 6.

Sounds like JRC will come in at right-back. Mowbray saying Zeefuik's injury was a strain rather than a tear. Should be back well before the end of the season at least. Khadra touch and go apparently too. With another game at the weekend & given that Millwall wouldn't be the sort of game that you would expect to suit him anyway, I'd leave him on the bench.

Not really a comment on our handling of the Millwall game, but I think that was literally the next midweek slot available for Bournemouth. God knows what they would've done if they hadn't been dumped out of the cup by that non-league side. I might end up looking stupid for saying this given their excellent recent form, but this could well be a deceptively decent time to play Millwall. They're doing it tough with their injury list at the moment, think they only had 14 or so fit first teamers against Reading. Obviously they still won, but then again Reading are also terrible and have the misfortune to be coached by probably the worst manager in the league. A midweek trip up North a couple of days later to play the team with give-or-take the best home record in the league is a very different prospect. If it was at their place I'd be dreading it but I still fancy us to beat them at Ewood.