While I agree his striker purchases will be the most likely cause of his demise, perhaps I’m not the only one who sees arguments about him staying or going as a waste of time. He’ll go when either he or Pune decides - it’s their £14 million - and there is no evidence whatsoever they’ll pick anyone better and plenty they’ll pick worse.

I’m not sure where the narrative that we didn’t create chances came from; first seven passes from kick off and Johnson has a free header at goal. Plus Gallagher’s two headers were decent chances, both efforts being far too weak when not under much pressure. Before Cairney gets the ball you can hear Mowbray shouting “Higher, Higher!!” and he was right: Johnson and Gallagher just ambled out when a sprint would’ve closed Cairney right down. Armstrong has had more than enough chances for me, I’m getting sick of him.

I’m with you on that. Given that one of the many sticks used to beat Mowbray is that he keeps doing the same thing and expecting a different result, I can’t fathom why anyone expects better than Kean, Berg, Appleton, Bowyer, Lambert, Coyle and Mowbray.

He’s not going to get fired for a bunch of defeats that were mostly in Feb/March. If we’d added the second half of 93/94 to the first half of 94/95, we’d have won the league by ten points. Second half of 94/95 and first half of 95/96 and we wouldn’t have been in the top half. The only stat that counts in P2 L2.

He’s talking about today, and they played pretty well, so they weren’t the problem today. Rothwell/Dack/Armstrong not bothering the keeper were a problem - I excuse Gallagher as it seemed his job was to stop the keeper and centre backs playing it out, which he did well..

I thought he brought him on to take set pieces, not that we got any till it was too late. There’s no way Graham should have started today given the way Fulham play, Gallagher did a great job stifling their game. For all the moaning about the usual suspects, Dack and Rothwell haven’t looked remotely like getting a goal yet.

At least half of Fulham’s possession has been in or around their own penalty are. I’d say at least two thirds of play has been in their half. We nearly scored after 24-seconds without them having touched the ball, should have put it in really. Considering we are away to a team costing over £100 million, we are doing OK.

Bell awful, Rothwell having no impact, everyone else good, Tosin and and Del very good. We have been doing very well negating their playing out from the back, there’s clearly been a lot of work on the training ground for this. Just before half time when it went back to the Fulham keeper, our entire team charged up 20 yards in unison. Downing for Rothwell might be a shout, otherwise no changes for me.

Brilliant goal totally against the run of play. Chins up lads, we are still in this. So, that inexperienced kid from City....

Excellent start

I’m guessing he hasn’t had much of a pre-season. I’d rather suffer Bell for a couple more games and never see him again than Cunningham do his hammy then it’s Bell till Christmas. Plenty of pace up too for us today. If Dack shows up we might give them something to think about.

I have now, second para deleted!

Funnily enough, the many references to “the inexperienced City kid” sound just like Mowbray himself! Ugghhh - Bell!!! 2-2

I’m hoping that players like Johnson will instigate a proper win at all costs mentality into the team.

Good posts my man, I agree with every word. My guess is it’s better for them to not put it all into equity as the debt portion doesn’t need to be written off yet in the accounts of where the money came from, so they can time when they write portions off for tax planning. In the world of the super rich, the money they’ve sunk into us wouldn’t even pay for a super-yacht Balaji would get bored of and just leave moored up somewhere. Which is a good analogy for our current situation.

Johnson every time.

Who would you have picked in his place on Saturday? Mulgrew ended last season on the bench, late recruiting and Williams injury meant he played Saturday, he was as bad as ever. Seems a normal reaction to me of a manager to think sod this, I can’t play him much this season.

For me, a bad window would be one or two so-so signings then someone steals your best player on the last day. No question in my mind we are stronger than before; not as strong as many hoped, but hope under Venky’s is wasted effort.

What happened to all the hand-wringing about senior players running the dressing room? Conway gone, Mulgrew gone, Graham starting on the bench, and not before time IMO. The bold move would be to make Johnson captain. I wondered on Saturday how long he’d wait before imposing himself on the dressing room. He clearly didn’t look or sound happy about what he saw.

Very interesting read. It does show the folly of hyperventilating to out-of-context soundbites. It’s clear that he’s very influenced by having relied on kids at Coventry and it not worked. I think it’s common when you know you are in your last job to be largely guided by what you feel you learned the hard way.

Similarly Mark, I didn’t mention Rothwell as that too had been done to death, and it’s just a difference in opinion. However, the evolution of the squad to where it is now with big signings not being the core of the team, a gash defence and too many unshiftables on the fringes is a fact that condemns him (sooner or later). Two days won’t fix six windows.

I didn’t see Gallagher season before last pre-iFollow, so was seeing him with fresh eyes on Saturday. Other than the run down the wing and cutback for Downing’s howler, I didn’t see anything from him. His miss looked clumsy and when Bell put in that great low cross in the second half, he made no move to anticipate it. I found myself wondering what this bloke has that Brereton doesn’t. He’s spent all his money on those two so might as well get sacked for playing them than for not. Add to that the “defenders are coming, oh no they’re not” issue plus Arbitro’s long-voiced concern over new contracts for fringe players leaving us with a bloated squad, I think Mowbray has cooked his own goose.

Another observation: our keeper made three saves of note, two of them due to horrendous mistakes from Mulgrew and Bennett, both from last man positions. So we were pretty close to losing 4-1 with all four goals being due to hopeless defending. 4-0 but for a circus act goal for us.

I’m not sure that stopping a team scoring from when you gift them the ball near their own penalty area counts as a heroic save; I’d call it players just doing their effing job. If we let in a goal every time we misplace a pass in their half we are in for a very long season indeed.

While that’s true, it’s also true that if Lenihan hadn’t punted the second kick of the game to them, they wouldn’t have scored that goal either. From where Bennett gave the ball away, they could only score from there if other players, like Downing, Lenihan and maybe the keeper, also screwed up.