No evidence it had any impact on the game but Mowbray making it about him and his dispute with Venky's on the eve of the game was very unfair to the fans and players.

BBC has Gallagher left and Brereton-Diaz central. Is that correct?

That's interesting that he's had a change of role. Sam Durrant looked decent on the very few occasion that I saw him play as a winger. Quick feet and tricky but also defensively disciplined. However, he seemed to be in and out of the team, which made me think he wasn't highly rated.

Overall, I think Mowbray is being selfish by bringing this up now. He's been asked about it by journalists but he should prioritise the team over his personal frustrations. He may well have a legitimate grievance but he's hardly a young reserve player with an injury record who's set to be released by Rovers. He has been well-paid and will get a new job somewhere as a manager/consultant or, perhaps, pundit, if he wants it. Albeit, he might not get as cushy a role as he has at Rovers where he can spend possibly £1 million+ on transfer fees for Amari'Bell, Harry Chapman and Jacob Davenport and shrug it off, whilst not progressing greatly in the league for years. He's made good signings but not produced a good consistent team and had a fair amount of money to waste. Edit: I have some sympathy for his frustrations and a lot of condemnation for the owners but Mowbray should be acting as a role model for his players. No doubt plenty of Rovers players are miffed by their contract situations - especially, youth players who don't know where there next job will be. Moreover, Mowbray has given the ownership cover for a long time, to keep his job. He is implicated with the Venky's.

It's a sad state of affairs. A club ownership that, apparently, don't communicate openly with the manager. And a manager playing stupid and petulant in response by refusing to state the obvious that he is has decided to leave, rather than hope for a new deal, because the ownership don't want him. Mowbray might feel poorly treated but he's had a very fortunate and lucrative run and, I think, should show a bit more grace and intelligence. Either stay quiet and keep the attention on the team and winning. Or, come out and openly say that you're going. Staying quiet would probably be best because directing attention to himself is probably not in the best interests of the team at this crucial juncture. Edit: On reflection, the intentional ambiguity about whether he will go may be his way of leaving the door open if Venky's offer him a new deal at the last moment.

If Gallagher isn't fit, that will probably be Mowbray's big call. He'll probably put Dolan or Poveda in through the middle, reverting to the midfielder-cum-forward deployment but I would look to keep the same formation. I'd probably put Brereton-Diaz through the middle and have the genuine wingers Dolan/Poveda or Hedges wide. I'd have Jack Vale on the bench, in case it's not working and need to move Brereton wide. Whatever Mowbray chooses, lets just hope that there'll be no reversion to full backs or Bradley Johnson in unfamiliar forward roles. I'd also try to fit Giles on the bench. He's joint 6th assist maker in the league, all, I think, from his earlier Cardiff loan. If Rothwell doesn't make it, his set-pieces would be useful. Though, the danger is that Mowbray will find the urge to bring him on right wing, seeing him as the new Mahrez, or whatever.

I read that Pike is contracted until 2023, so, presumably will stay on. Though, with Brown signed and possibly more full backs, his future at the club looks limited. He'll probably go out on loan. I'm not sure about their contact situations but I'd like the club to keep Whitehall, Cirino, Gilsenan and Barnes who are all very promising but had their season wiped out by serious injury. Not sure about Saadi, who's also been injury prone. I'd keep one of Burns and McBride for a further year, if they're willing to stay. Despite struggling on loan, I feel they could have potential and might be worth a small gamble for a further year. Nolan, Durrant, Saadi, Hilton, Eastham, Brennan will probably need to look for new clubs. Edit: If the club were smart, they'd do what they did with Joe Nuttall with Jack Vale. Give him some first team appearances and see if he can't either contribute or earn the club a small transfer fee. With his Welsh U21 status, he may carry a premium, assuming he stays fit. Incidentally, I see that Brad Lyons, the NI midfielder and former Rovers player has won the Champ to promotion with Killie, in Scotland. Good to see him do well.

We did sign Markanday and Hedges who are forwards, if not proven scorers. I think a possible reason for not signing an out and out striker, say, Keinan Davis, who joined Nottingham Forest from Villa, on loan, is that Mowbray had no intention of playing strikers. He was all set for his Brereton and Gallagher wide forwards and Buckley through the middle tactics, until it went pear-shaped. That is, it seems like he's suspended those "tactics," but we'll have to wait and see for the next game. Incidentally, here are some quotes from Oct 2021 from the LET on the Mowbray's tactical masterplan of using Gallagher as a right forward/winger, despite the player wanting to play centrally: “Gallagher’s game is based on hard work. He’s an amazing athlete Gally, for someone who is 6’4, he’s really powerful, has really good stamina levels, that’s why generally through my time here I’ve played him on the right,” the manager explained. “I’ve had lots of chats in my office with Gallagher about the fact he would like to play down the middle. Yet towards the end of Danny Graham’s time here, Sam was playing out wide, Graham and Dack played up front, last year Armstrong played up front and we got the rewards as a football club, this year with the front three generally of Dolan, Gallagher and Brereton I assess the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition and I think they can all play off the left, off the right or down the middle." There have been occasions when the tactic worked, as you would expect with any that is persisted for so long, but, overall and despite that, I'd suggest it's been a huge failure and a mark against Mowbray's record as a manager in recent times. Being powerful and having good stamina levels are not sufficient criteria to be effective from a wide position, needless to say.

Good to see Sam Barnes play and score, albeit, only his 6th or something appearance of the season. I see that Goddard from the U18s was in goal with Stergiakis on the bench. The game-by-game rotation of the goalie continues to surprise me. It suggests little or no confidence at all in Stergiakis who is ostensibly 3rd choice at the club and was brought in with a transfer fee from Slavia Sofia. An attempt to evade some sort of appearance fee? I can't understand why the club don't select a No.3 and consistently play him to compete with Pears.

Look at our subs and reserves - Dack, Poveda, Dolan, Ayala, Edun, Zeefuik, Giles, Davenport - quite a few of those, I'd guess, would start for other clubs in the league. If there was a season, this was definitely it. Though, I was thinking of the relegation threatened Everton squad and the strength of the Premier League and that's another universe.

It's a fair point that a variety of formations have been tried with short-term effects. However, there is no doubt that tactical and formational mismanagement has been a significant contributor to our failures this season. Our squad is surely far better than others that are higher than us at the moment. Is this the first game of the season that Sam Gallagher has started in a central role? If so, that, in itself, is criminal. However, I take your point, that Mowbray can't sustain a team. For 4-3-3 to work, the team has to press intently and the wide players have to work non-stop to get up and down the pitch. Quite simply, Mowbray has not been able to get his team to do this. Even in the more defensive 5-2-3, we fell apart partly because of this failure to maintain intensity. Edit: Last season, 4-3-3 was so porous defensively for us because our team didn't press intently or support the full backs, so Bell, Douglas and Nyambe were exposed time and time again.

I think playing forwards as forwards, rather than Buckley, might be helping too, as well as the additional solidity of three central midfielders, albeit, with one less defender. The Buckley as striker gamble briefly worked but stopped and long needed to be shelved, under the Jon Douglas left wing, Nils Eric Johansson at left back, Aaron Mokoena central midfielder etc. makeshift experiments with a short half-life. Edit: It'd make sense to throw on Poveda and Dack or Dolan to try and increase the goal difference.

Drastic shift in formation, going back to, presumably, 4-3-3, which was so porous last season but with, perhaps, Ryan Hedges or Gallagher in the central forward role. Something had to change but this formation will only work with intense work-rate, particularly, from Gallagher or whoever plays on the right, because Darragh Lenihan is not a right back. As I recall it, players who have started at RB or RWB for us this season now includes Nyambe, JRC, Lenihan, Carter, Magloire, Zeefuik and Buckley.

Mowbray arguing, in the LancsLive article interview, that he has helped to contribute towards creating a self-sustaining club: "When I arrived there were a lot of 35 and 36-year-olds with very little value, and now the club has lots of assets, even below the first-team there’s a bunch of lads ready to burst onto the scene, because of the information and structure passed down and how we want footballers coaching." We do have four/five academy players in the first team and a strong U18 set coming through. However, aside from David Raya, if I'm not mistaken the last "top" player "produced" by the club was Grant Hanley, who was sold in 2016. I could be overlooking players but I can't think of any other academy produced player who has consistently reached that level since - which is lower end Premier League standard. I suspect Wharton might be able to reach Hanley standards but players like Travis, Nyambe and Lenihan just have not developed in recent years, after early promise. So, arguably, aside from Raya, Mowbray has not helped or overseen any of these young players push on and realise their potential. Moreover, Mowbray taking credit for the youth system, which hasn't produced real top talents of late (Buckley remains a, perhaps, distant hope), overlooks that he benefited from a system that preceded him. The likes of Nyambe, Wharton, Travis, JRC, Buckley came through the ranks during a previous regime. Mowbray gave them opportunities to make debuts or gain experience but cannot claim to have been meaningfully responsible for their earlier youth development. He might make that argument for players that he has talked up, such as Dan Pike, but, it's increasingly unlikely that this most recent U23 team will leave much mark on the firsts, as the likes of McBride, Burns, Butterworth, Magloire, Eastham and others head out the door. I don't think Mowbray's accurate in saying that there's "a bunch of lads ready to burst onto the scene", unless he means some U18s prospects and Jack Vale/Jake Garrett/Lennie Cirino, who, I believe, have 1 Rovers first team competitive appearance between them.

The three forwards formation, as modelled by Liverpool, is all about intense closing down and intercepting and, also counter attack, with the threat in behind. We lost that along the way. In some games, we simply stopped closing down and invariably got picked off. It was a very high risk approach, anyway, for us because Buckley is not a goalscorer, so far, and, unlike Liverpool, we played with two central midfielders who, as teams worked us out, could be outnumbered by clever movement. (See Keinan Davis for Forest). Once Poveda got injured, Dolan not played wide for some reason and Gallagher, who is fairly mobile but no winger, was brought in, we were weakened further and the high risk strategy was found out and has, it seems, completely fallen apart.

You could argue that Harvey Elliot and, even, John Buckley, are that type of player (in style and certainly not substance) but Mowbray played them mostly in the forward line. They had their moments but I think a deeper position suits both. It's notable that Klopp sees Elliot as a centre mid, rather than forward, probably, because he doesn't have the pace required to be in the front three. I would like to see the likes of Garrett, Cirino, Whitehall and Vale get a chance to contribute to the squad next season. I think it makes sense to start giving the sub appearances, given that we have almost nothing to play for. Cirino and Whitehall have had bad injuries and are still out but Garrett could be an option.

Excuse me for this attempt - but I can't help but try to escape reality. Outsider, Tony Mowbray was the surprise victor in the Liberal Democrat party leadership contest in the Spring of 2023. His first appointment was that of Sam Gallagher-Gaia, footballer and space explorer, as his deputy. The new look leadership lacked political experience but promised to bring the football fan into the fold and become the party of real people and the forgotten working class. Their first press conference was eagerly awaited. Sam Gallagher-Gaia, wearing a tracksuit and clearly playing up to his every man persona, read a statement revealing a dramatic rightwards shift for the party. His nervous smiles and charming gestures could not disguise the tension in the room. Amongst the headline policies he announced was the building of a wall along the Northern Ireland and Republic border to address the post-Brexit problem and safeguard, he said, the future of the Union. When a reporter asked if this did not endanger peace in Ireland and incite parts of the IRA, Gallagher-Gaia candidly admitted that he had not thought of this eventuality. Tony Mowbray intervened to say he didn't foresee any issues and if there were, he would, "get Bucko on it." It is not known who or what he was referring to. Further extremist policies announced including clamping down on religious freedoms and a surprise attack on judicial independence and human rights law. It was stated that Middlesbrough would be made the administrative capital. Whilst Gallagher-Gaia appeared uncomfortable under the spotlight, new hope of the LIb Dems, Tony Mowbray, seemed to revel in the attention. He said that his young running mate shouldn't be underestimated. "He might look like a nice lad from Devon who wouldn't hurt a fly - but, believe me, looks can be deceiving." The media furore didn't die down and the new look Lib Dem leadership faced numerous hurdles, not least of all, confusion as to their actual policies. Tony Mowbray, in a strange move, announced his opposition to the wall and stated that, in fact, the much talked about new manifesto was all the idea of Gallagher-Gaia, whose overwhelming charisma had captured the party and the nation. Events took another dramatic turn when audio was leaked from a fundraising dinner in which Sam Gallagher-Gaia was heard telling political advisor, Steve Bannon, that, actually, he supported funding the NHS, wasn't particularly political or interested in agricultural collectivism and wished that he could just go back and play football. In what seemed like an exercise in damage limitation in the run up to the General Election, Tony Mowbray confessed that Gallagher-Gaia was actually an apolitical sportsman and not the next Oswald Mosley or, for that matter Mao Zedong. However, he insisted that getting Gallagher-Gaia to read out rightwing screeds in public was the way to win votes from the disillusioned masses. He got Gallagher-Gaia to announce new policies of nationalising banks and taxing the super rich in what seemed like a gesture towards balance. The Lib Dems election campaign descended into farce but Mowbray refused to resign. He called on unity and opposing the modern curse of cancel culture, saying: "The Lib Dems are the big tent party. You need the extremist radicals, like Sam Gallagher-Gaia, as much as you need the moderates. Everyone needs to have a say to find the right recipe." Mowbray's ratings fell continuously and were predicted to pick up few votes let alone seats in Parliament. It was then that the former football manager sacked Gallagher-Gaia, stating that an internal coup had been attempted and that Gallagher-Gaia was behind it. He published a warning piece in national newspapers: "Sam Gallagher-Gaia is out of control. He represents a great threat to democracy and is plotting a putsch as I write. I urge the people of this country to oppose it will all their might. Imagine the moment when a cross comes in to the back post and the tall winger heads it in. Vote for Lib Dem to save us from military dictatorship." The putsch didn't materialise. Sam Gallagher-Gaia was found by reporters on the beach with an ice cream. He went back to space exploration and occasionally playing for Blackburn Rovers. Mowbray returned to Middlesbrough to spend more time with his chickens.

Davenport should really be on the bench at least. Not that he's really good enough but at his age, there's hope he'll improve. Though, with his contract expiring, we may have seen the last of him.

Giles was joint top of the assist charts with 9 in 21 appearances for Cardiff, before he was recalled, I believe. Looking at the clips, they were simple but effective crosses from the left or from corner kicks. Our tactics, with a dimunitive lone No.10 don't suit Giles at all - even when in his favoured role. One loan spell doesn't prove too much but he could surely contribute more. Mowbray's fantasy that Gallagher will arrive from the wing to head in at the far post just isn't happening.

I think that West Brom team reached the FA Cup semis or quarters, as well as winning the league for Mowbray, back in around 2008. It is some team with a mix of flair and strength, though, clearly lacking in a midfield enforcer and failed badly in the Prem. James Morrison not making it into the side says it all as, I recall, he went on to be a very useful Prem player and played for Scotland. But you make a very convincing point that, as well as a less tactically varied era, Mowbray had money to spend. Though, he made some smart loan moves in Bednar, Miller and Marc-Antoine Fortune too. He also, as you mention, overhauled the squad when big names like Koumas and Kamara were sold.

I stand corrected if Nyambe was injured or there was a good tactical reason that I'm overlooking for subbing him for Johnson after Edun's red card but to me it looks like another unfair and damaging decision against the player. With his pace, he can, when on form, be one of our most effective players. Whilst acknowledging he has limitations, none of the rest of the team has his speed and taking him off weakens the side. If Mowbray was intent on switching to a back four, he should have had the guts to take off one of the three CBs. Or, put Wharton LB. As mentioned here by others, Nyambe's refusal to renew his contract, thus far, is very understandable given the manager's clear scepticism of him.

I'm puzzled by the first sub of taking off Nyambe for Johnson, unless injured. The obvious and least disruptive thing to do, it seems to me, admittedly, not having seen the game, is go 5-3-1, drop Buckley into midfield and take Gallagher off for Johnson. Or, go 4-4-1, Giles left wing, Wharton left back or bring on Pickering and, again, taking off a forward. Nyambe, for all his weaknesses, is our fastest defender. That said, the way this team is sinking, I can't be confident of it making a definite difference.

Amari'i Bell key to Luton's promotion hopes and Barry Douglas back-up to Lech Poznan's title chasing campaign in Poland. Those two Rovers rejects are doing ok for themselves - at the moment. As deficient as they were for us, there's no doubt they were left exposed by our formation and tactics, with Brereton and others offering little defensive support on the flank.

Without knowing the details, surely, must be due to some disagreement rather than expectancy of being rescued by a new manager?

Watching the performances of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall for Leicester is a reminder, in my opinion, of the lack of fair opportunity given to youth players. He's made his breakthrough season at the age of 23, this year, having been on the fringes and on loan. That's far too late for someone of his talent, even though Leicester have a very impressive squad. He's surely a far superior player to Ayoze Perez, who was signed for £30m from Newcastle and arguably already more than comparable to £16m Dennis Praet. Some will argue that he wasn't ready before and I can't argue, having not watched him play much before, but clearly there is a general bias to the 'ready-made' signing.