We were battered for at least 85 minutes, no two ways about it. Constantly lost the ball in midfield, we could neither get the ball on the deck and play around them nor launch it long and have Gallagher or Brereton hold it up. Luckily Boro were no great shakes in front of goal, and the back four along with Pears all had good games defensively with the caveat that they never looked like a solid unit, lots of panicked individual defending. We obviously need to play a three man midfield with at least one proper anchor, the two men we had today were eaten alive. Elliott showed glimpses of class, while Gallagher showed that he lacks true killer instinct. A goalscoring forward would have launched himself at the ball that passed Brereton earlier, now he reacted only when the first player missed it and lost the opportunity.

I don't care if they spend £100 million in the next window, that's not going to happen. My respect and loyalty are not for sale.

I cannot believe this isn't a more wide spread opinion. Even the more skilled and sensible football pundits tend to wring their hands whenever it comes up. What's there to hesitate about? Who would miss playing those awful excuses for football clubs?

Very different types of striker though, but perhaps they're just looking to get bodies in at this point.

I used to watch Alesaami a lot when he played in Sweden, he stood out then as an attacking full back in a team that also demanded a lot of him defensively. Seems to have made some bad choices regarding his clubs after that (Palermo was a famous nuthouse back then), but if he hasn't gone downhill completely in the last five years (and his stats shows that he's at least been playng regularly wherever he's been) he'd at least be an improvement on what we currently have IMO.

I'm well aware, one of few TV-series I'd call haunting... But I'm leaving it up to interpretation if what plays out after that scene is meant to mirror the rest of our season!

0-0 against Cardiff at home with them having a player sent off, but also third straight clean sheet and still in the top 6 after this round no matter what the rest of the teams do.

Watching the highlights now, who plays in Armstrong for the last goal? That's a quality pass. Also impressed with Dolan's decision making for the third goal, plenty of young players would have slowed the counter attack down and gone for a dribble there instead.

Mols apparently with the assist for our last goal, any chance he'll be considered for some first team action this season? Even with another one in on loan we will be going through lots of central midfielders.

It's the second big conspiracy currently plaguing Rovers. Besides Mowbray being an undercover agent sent out to keep us in mid table rather than the top 6, Armstrong is now sabotaging the team in order to make himself look better so he'll be sold quicker. Do keep up!

Well, it's also true that the further down you are, the less attention your players get from teams higher up. It's already exceedingly rare for PL teams to buy from the Championship. The only ones buying our players currently are newly promoted and demoted teams, and they still have a massive, global range of choice in front of them besides players like Armstrong, Dack, Travis or whomever.

It's a conspiracy then? Mowbray is an enemy agent (sent out from Burnley, perhaps) out to ruin Rovers by playing advanced head games with the fans?

Nuttall scored a total of 2 goals for us, and then 4 in 40 for Blackpool last season. Let's not build him into some massive example of misused potential.

Hard to make the comparison, none of their teams pulled up any trees in this year's European competition, but surely it says something that all those current world class Belgian players (De Bruyne, Lukaku, Courtois, Witsel, Hazard and I could go on) got their start there?

Our first recruit from the much vaunted European scouting network, let's see how it pays off. At least he doesn't seem less promising than any of the other names that's been floating around.

Marco Van Basten (after having been tackled by Guiseppe Bergomi in a Milan-Inter derby): "Hey Bergomi, not only are you a terrible footballer, you're ugly too" Bergomi: "Maybe so, but at least I'm not in the gossip tabloids every week." Van Basten: "That's because you're so ugly."

He was however very good in the famous 3-4 loss to Chelsea in the late 90's.

That is some classy build up from Emnes, he really could play when he wanted to...

Not sure if it's been brought up before, but Martin Olsson is back from injury and has been looking very good playing as a makeshift centre back for his hometown club Helsingborg in the Swedish top tier. He's only there on symbolic wages in order to get his match fitness back up, and will likely move on to a new club this summer. Apparently he's already had offers from clubs in the Championship, wonder if we're among them?

Who is this Whiteman I keep seeing mentioned?

That's the formation Brazil used when they had Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Rivaldo, Adriano etc. Not a terrible fit for our attacking players, but our full backs aren't anywhere near good enough to give the required support in attack. As for next season, I'm pessimistic. It's very rare that the kind of wholesale clean outs us supporters regularly want actually come to pass. Replacing Adarabioyo and Walton will of course be the main focus, can't see us doing much beyond that.

2 new assists for Holtby, when not injured he's very high Championship quality. He needs to be involved more next season, although Dack also needs to get into that midfield, and we're already shipping too many goals. It's a bit of a puzzle, but I think Mowbray deserves the chance to keep laying it. As long as you end the season higher in the table than the season before (15th, as everyone no doubt remember) it takes something extraordinary to mark it as a failure, and the dud transfers of Brereton and Gallagher doesn't qualify for that IMO.

12th seems about right given our performances this season, the real question is if we can push on next year? Without at least one of Dack and Armstrong, I doubt it.

As we ended in 15th last season, it's quite literally progress.

Being relegated certainly doesn't fall on Mowbray's shoulders, and while bouncing straight back is never an easy feat it was what everyone expected of him. It comes down to how you rate the 15th place our first year back in the Championship (jury is still out regarding the current season, naturally). I'd say it's a good result, particularly since the spine of the team were mostly players Mowbray either brought in or got performing to a higher standard. Sure, Coyle might take credit for first bringing Raya, Nyambe and Lenihan into the team towards the end of his tenure, but it was Mowbray who got them performing on a high Championship level rather than as relegation candidates.