Admiral Nelsen

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.

Love it. Although if we are to win, I'd fancy it to be a horrible first 70 before stealing a late winner.

Agree completely about the play offs. Even before the QPR game I was very relaxed that we'd end up in there with the games we have left. Our home form is outstanding like you say and we've still got plenty of the low hanging fruit to play at Ewood. I think if BBD comes back from the international break fresh and scoring, then it's not impossible that we could post a total of a tad over 80 points, so then it comes down to how realistic it is for Bournemouth to fall apart before then if we're talking about the top 2. I can definitely see them struggling in the last month or so, but before then they've got Posh, Derby, Reading and Bristol City, all at home. We're probably banking on them dropping a decent number of points in their easier-looking games if we want to finish above them. It could happen, but pretty unlikely from where we're sitting now.

I'd say that it's out of our hands, rather than beyond us. They are a couple of last minute wins away from being on extremely ordinary form for a promotion contender, and that's been going on for much longer than our recent spell, so I'd say there's potential for the wheels to come off when they play so many of the stronger sides, back to back. We'll be relying on them taking a nosedive though, as well as us putting some form together which is similar to our spell before Christmas. The absolute bare minimum that we'll need will be 80 points, which is a bit of a stretch even with the kind fixture list.

Ryan will be back sooner than expected

A good question, I think there's a pretty good chance that this is going on a lot more than we appreciate. I know PNE had a similar situation a year or two ago when four of their best players (Davies, Pearson and maybe Fisher and another?) were all leaving at once. Not sure if all of them left in the end, but most did and it was certainly hanging over them for a while, like our situation has this season.

I expect the pattern to be something quite similar to the game at Brammall Lane. They'll almost certainly be asking most of the questions to begin with, but the longer we can keep them out, the more I'd expect us to frustrate them and then start causing them problems. Wouldn't go as far as to say I'm confident that we'll get something - they're obviously the better team - but it wouldn't shock me. They give you a chance on the break, which should suit us, especially if Rothwell is back.

Could you imagine if at the start of the year you were offered the chance to go up from beating QPR over two legs, then beat the winner of Luton vs Huddersfield? To be fair, the fans of those clubs would be talking about us in exactly the same way, but I'd absolutely snap your hand off for that now. I'd be looking at QPR as strong candidates to drop out come the end of the season. Even assuming they put on a better show than they did at Ewood, they still have Luton, Huddersfield, Sheffield United and Forest all away from home, and Fulham and Sheff U again at Loftus road. Very tough set of fixtures compared to ours, so you'd assume that they would need to beat a decent number of teams in and around them to stay where they are.

No arguments from me there! I'm just saying that Mowbray tends to give out praise and criticism to all players when he talks about them in the media. With Gally he's mentioned his physicality and having 'fantastic attributes', or something along those lines, whilst also saying that he needs to score more. My point is that sometimes he's accused of unfairly digging out certain players in his interviews, but I think there's more of a pattern of him talking about good points and bad points at once, and that he does this for pretty much everyone.

I seem to remember Van Gaal tried it in the World Cup with the Dutch national team and they ended up winning with the keeper (Tim Krul?) making a few saves. Would be interesting to see how many times that a team swapping their keeper has actually lead to them winning the shootout though - wouldn't be at all surprised if it has no difference whatsoever.

Without wanting to go back and dig out the quotes, didn't he say that if he ever wants to play in the prem then he can't be missing chances like he did vs QPR? Seems to me like he's very consistent in the way he talks about players. Talks up their good points, but (maybe a bit too much) does so in the same breath as bringing up the thing they need to work on. Rothwell - looks amazing when running with the ball/needs more end product. Nyambe - Unbelievable athlete/needs to offer more going forwards Wharton - Really solid defender who can pick a pass/needed time away to 'become a man' Gallagher - Can physically be a handful for defenders/needs to score more Graham - Class finisher & target man/ not mobile enough to be play in the way that we wanted to at the time. Buckley - Amazing technique & ability to weave out of challenges/ needs to put chances away when they come. And you could go on. I think he only stops doing that when the form of a player is so good that it sounds churlish to say anything negative, i.e. Dack or Armstrong in their purple patches.

Very true - they don't half pay for it in the long run though! The state of some league players once they retire really makes you notice how tough that game is.