Simply untrue. We are conceding at a lower rate than the previous 2 seasons.

I thought the criticism of us was that we were too nice.

I wonder what would be said if that was Mowbray.

Beautiful - just beautiful.

Yes, we were much the more imaginative side; Warnock's team just lumped crosses in to the box.

He's a similar style of player to Vardy in that he's best suited to a counter attacking team. Worth remembering that at his age Armstrong is some way ahead of where Vardy was.

What's Derek Shaw doing these days ?

With respect "top drawer executives" expect to receive a great deal more than £300k.

Mate, he's been fired from his last 2 jobs because he was judged to be getting his teams relegated. Poor tactics, poor judgement in the transfer market - £15m on Berahino. He's a busted flush at club level and is best advised to hang on for the Wales job which may well soon be available.

Not really. According to Wikipedia since he left us in 2008 he has managed clubs for 381 games. Some of those will be in cup competitions but in those games he has won 134 and drawn 96 which on a points per game basis is 1.307 per game. Currently this season we have 33 points from 24 games which is 1.375 points per game which I keep hearing from here is not good enough. So how is Mark Hughes good enough ?

He had Stoke on a Coylesque 20 points from 22 games when they got rid of him and based on what he then did for Southampton no way would he have kept Stoke up. Your concerns do not bother me, I'm afraid.

He left Stoke because he had put them in the relegation zone from which they did not recover, and was sacked from Southampton because he had put them there as well-fortunately his successor saved them.

He can do for them what he did for Stoke and Southampton.

Seems only yesterday people on here were holding him up as an example of a manager who knew what he was doing.

Thanks. Regarding the postponement go on to the Swansea match thread and you will see Mowbray getting the blame - apparently due to Sam Hart getting a 1 month extension on his contract. We have a lot of young players and I think patience is the right way forward - I have no sympathy whatever with those who post to the effect that John Buckley is not a footballer. As I said the problem is getting that first goal - we are not perfect and I agree with you on the set pieces but those should not be a massive problem. I think last season we got more early goals than anyone else.

I would certainly be prepared to give him until the end of the season. I know people are frustrated with things but I do think that there has been some improvement; right now our problem is getting the first goal in games - when we do we go on and win. We are a bit like Leicester in that we are at our best when the opposition are pushing on against us ; unlike Leicester we have not yet advanced to the position of making it more difficult for the opposition to get that first goal and having the ingenuity in midfield to open the opposition up to score it. However I don't think we are a million miles away - particularly as we have a lot of young players. What I am simply not going to do is join those who find fault with everything - the latest being blaming the manager for a game being postponed.

If we haven't improved defensively why are we conceding fewer goals per game than the last 2 seasons ?

It will have been disappointing -yes.

As you say, the facts don't lie - the 51 points we got in our relegation season would have kept us up last season. My posts are designed to show that Mowbray should not be blamed for our relegation. He achieved a 50% improvement on his predecessor in our points per game return; in no walk of life does a manager who achieves that with the same resources as before get described as having "failed".

With that lot the team come out on to pitch for games to "Living In the Past" by Jethro Tull.

Thanks for being polite with your reply. My posts were more trying to point out to Mercer that the comparisons he was making were unfair regarding relegation and were in my opinion complete nonsense regarding our promotion season when you looked at the facts. I think some of the criticism of Mowbray is grotesque because frequently it is based upon that sort of bending of the facts. I also dislike the personalised abuse of him - "feck off" etc- which I think is totally undeserved. I actually think Warnock has a superb record as a Championship manager although I suspect he won't get Middlesbrough up this season.

Irrelevant.

O'Neill took over Stoke with 31 games to play so had plenty of time to turn things around. Warnock took over Middlesbrough with them outside the relegation zone. In contrast Mowbray had 15 games in which to save a team that were 23rd. The facts don't lie.

Who do you think there is at Ewood Park who would have heard of the managers at Barnsley and Reading ?

How did we "unconvincingly" limp home in Division 1 - we got club record numbers for points and wins. Mowbray didn't take us down with 22 points from 15 games - Coyle did with 29 points from 31 games. If Mowbray is so bad why do you keep placing bets on his team to win ?