‘Possibility’? I think you mean ‘overwhelming probability’! And I’m not sure 24 games in our first season back counts as ‘soldiering on’.

Do I hear the rattling chains of the Ghost of Christmas Past, John McNamee....?

Helped the owners more like. I’d rather they spent heavily chasing the Dream first

Personally I’m glad the playoffs are now out of sight; this squad in the Prem would’ve been a complete disaster. A lot of work needed before we can seriously think of top 6

In that order. Today’s back 4 took us down 2 years ago. Nyambe has improved significantly and Charlie's goals keep him in the team, plus his distribution. But can anyone say Lenihan has improved at all in two years? Williams finds ever more creative ways to a) give away goals from nothing, b) miss absolute sitters, c) or both. If an 8-figure offer comes in for Dack, I’d take it, put Rothwell in his spot and get two proven defenders to rebuild the back 4. Reed/Rodwell may be the answer in central midfield so I wouldn’t spend there.

What on earth makes you think interviews five mins after the whistle are a) in any way thoughtful, and b) for the benefit of the fans anyway? Managers hate them because they are still consumed by the emotions of the game and will say whatever they feel is best for the dressing room, rightly so IMO. At the fans’ evenings, Mowbray seems more than willing to talk openly and honestly to the fans, maybe too much so.

I think there’s some confusion on here between the meanings of responsibility and accountability. Who’s responsible for conceding two in the last four minutes: the two centre halves who should have dealt with both crosses, neither of which were from especially dangerous positions, and particularly Rothwell for criminally giving away possession. Who’s accountable for the long term trend to concede late: the manager. To solve the problem I feel we need a 6’5” veteran centre half and a better left back. January would be nice. Second half was much better than the first till that point. Smallwood for Rodwell added a lot of energy and pressing. Rothwell’s one attribute of running with the ball got the free kick but, beyond that, I don’t see him as a central midfielder: extremely one-footed and gives it away far too much in critical areas. I think he’s here as Dack’s stand-in.

I don’t get all the excuses for Armstrong, he’s not exactly hugging the touchline. He’s been getting the ball to his feet in the channel, that place where Shearer, Garner and countless forwards we’ve had used to do relish getting it. He’s just shite with the ball. I actually thought we were doing relatively OK till Williams gave away his weekly goal. They are top for good reason, better players than us all over the park.

There’s too much money in football for there to be no tricks going on, at any club in the top two divisions. Why do managers have agents when they are hardly ever “transferred”, get sacked every 18 months with half of them never working in football again? I do trust in Mowbray, versus Coyle or Kean, but I accept he has a boss.

I think I’m these DoF days it’s not as black and white as it used to be. Plus it’s a matter of degree; I can see us having two parallel transfer policies and budgets, the main one with the manager fully in charge, supplemented by an occasional “investment” one. I have no doubt, for example, that Mowbray decided to sign Armstrong whereas I’d bet that Reed was more an agent finding his client a club with Tony saying yeah, I like him, while Brereton was most likely done between agent/Waggot accessing Balaji’s back of sofa play money. Either way, Mowbray needs to piss or get off the pot. These weekly 15-20 min cameos aren’t doing Brereton, the team or Mowbray any good.

Christ, that defending was worse than I thought. Williams ball-watching, Bell needs to take the man in front of him Annnndddd doesn’t.

They had a lot of sideways possession in front of our 10 or even 11 men. We didn’t play our normal pressing game (rightly imo as they were mostly better than us one on one) but sat back and looked to play on the break.

Thought we did ok first 60 mins, gave them a good game, had some decent chances but didn’t take them. Then two subs made us progressively worse: Palmer did as expected for a no effort show pony but Brereton’s was the worst sub appearance I can remember - saw a lot of the ball and did the wrong thing every single time. Their goal had been coming for a good ten mins. Once Reed was knackered we had no chance. Positives: no-mask Raya, Graham, Reed and maybe Bell.

One brilliant nutmeg and a couple of good first time passes

So far, so good. It’s really enjoyable having Elliot Bennett as the co-commentator on iFollow. As an aside, I’m multi-tasking watching City v Palace and Palace’s second goal was goal of the season by a mile.

League starts?

All as sub I believe. I think I read he didn’t get a start till the following season. I’m sure he’d have been in the squad, I’m not sure he’d have been the fulcrum of the team.

He seems to have trusted Nyambe and Raya more than many on here.

He is indeed, but then he’s 24 next month. I wonder how good he was at 19 and if he would have been in our team or on the bench?

My memory is crap - Cole and Stead each kept us up!

Worth every penny for the brace against Plymouth!

“I don’t think it’s the time to go and bring seven or eight new players in. “I think it’s a time to add players bit by bit and if you do need to drastically change things then the summer is the best time to do that so you can bed your players in as best you can through pre-season.” Sounds to me the manager is just reflecting what is common knowledge about the January window: there isn’t the quality available to make major changes a sensible proposition. Thinking back, I’m struggling to remember transformative mid-season signings beyond John MacNamee. Bentley? Did we sign him in Jan? Berkovic? Even signing Steve Archibald from Barcelona didn’t make much difference, other than to our excitement levels - that Villa game!!

Not to someone who has 70 cars in the garage and sends over £15m/year to no seeming benefit to themselves whatsoever.

Leaving aside all the made-up numbers - mine included - this is the crux of the debate: how much latitude did Mowbray have to spend the money? The least likely scenario IMO is he was sent £7 million with no strings and his FIRST PRIORITY was to blow the lot on a lad who wasn’t anywhere near ready. Unfortunately, this ‘manager is an idiot’ theory is the least worrisome one. The - to me - more likely scenario is that so big a sum was only available for ‘investment’ in future potential. Maybe Balaji has a syndicate of friends who like a flutter, and the payoff when you get a transfer right is like 17 black coming up. Even if the lad stands still, transfer fee inflation alone should see a very good chance of getting it all back.

If he only sits on the bench there won’t be any fee add-ons. I’d be amazed if he was on any more than £15k/week ie £750k/year.