Just now, Mercer said:

Only tool is you posting such naive cr@p.  Jog on.

Ok, I take it back. You are a reasoned and sensible poster who clearly has great insight into the workings of Charlie Mulgrew's brain.

In fact, you should be a pundit. Nay, a clairvoyant. I think you've got what it takes.

Just now, Mercer said:

Not that simple.

You are Mulgrew and you earn say £25k pw.  He is not going to walk away to earn say £10k pw somewhere else.

His agent will think Christmas has come early.

You talk as if you know for a fact when you don't. Mulgrew could just as easily be thinking he's got 30 more years to make money and only 3 to play professional football, so knowing he is going to sit on the bench held absolutely no appeal to him and would be even less appealing in 12 month's time. Who knows? Probably only Mulgrew and his family.

Talking like you know what someone thinks and how they make decisions does you no favours and makes you come across as a bit of a tool to be honest.

Having let the beer wear off and let the result sink in, my thoughts; the good the bad and the ugly:

Good:

• Johnson looked the part, the polar opposite to all the dross we've had in CM since N'Zonzi left. He won balls in the air, he can pass, he was commanding. A professional CM at last.
• We dominated the ball well and played with pace. In the first half we got the ball forward quickly, on the deck and got into good positions consistently. Last season (and basically every season since Bowyer) we've either been able to control the game slowly around the back four without ever looking threatening or hoofed it up to someone and got a break of the ball occasionally. This was different and much more accomplished football.
• I didn't feel anywhere near as nervous when Walton had the ball at his feet compared to when Raya did.
• Downing decent, Walton ok, Gallagher was a handful.

Bad

• We can't defend balls into the box. It's either Mulgrew is that bad or they just aren't being coached properly. If the players are out of position when the ball is about to come into the box, then it's poor play. If they're in place and still can't defend it then it's just bad coaching. We know what players we have, we know what players they have, there are a finite amount of places you can cross from, we have to have a plan for what our defence needs to be doing to defend it. If that isn't working (and it hasn't for 2 seasons) then the plan, the coaching, is wrong.

Ugly

• What was that formation we switched to when Graham and Rothwell came on? We went from dominating, looking like we were the only team remotely likely to win the game - to 10 mins later being behind and not looking like equalising. We created absolutely nothing after going behind. As soon as they scored their second, we'd lost.
• I forgot Dack was on the pitch after the 80th minute. Couldn't tell you where he was playing, had to check the BBC site to see if it was him that went off for Buckey.

Just now, Sparks Rover said:

Absolutely feckin gobsmackin 

That reaction to factual information based on data, is one of the reasons I love data science. Perception of the real world is so prone to biases, data isn't.

It surprised me too BTW.

5 minutes ago, RovingRover said:

Last season Derby County scored 69 goals (5 goals more than us), but conceded 54 goals (15 goals less than us).
That is the margin of error in terms of competing for either automatic promotion or play-offs.

3 defenders have departed this summer:

• Ashley Cole (played 9 games for them last season in the Championship)
• Marcus Olsson (played 0 games for them last season in the Championship)
• Alex Pearce (unused sub a handful of times last season and didn't play for them in the Championship)

Today they have added highly talented defender Matthew Clarke on loan from Brighton and Hove Albion, signed equally talented defender Krystian Bielik from Arsenal for £7.5 million rising to £10 million.

If Mowbray thinks we are going to do better than teams who have improved on an already solid defence without significant improvements being made to our defence, he is living in cloud cuckoo land!

You can easily spin the stats the other way though, looked through some stuff myself and this is what stood out to me...

• We had the 5th best home defence (better than Norwich, West Brom, Villa, the same as Leeds and 1 worse than Derby)
• We had the 24th best (i.e. worst) away defence
• We had the 20th best overall defence (just shows how bad our defensive record was away from home)
• We conceded 2/3 of our goals in the second half of games
• All the teams in last season's top 6 came within the top 14 in terms of overall defence (least goals conceded)

We've let Downing go who played 3 games and Rodwell who played 13 times. Mowbray has clearly decided that the keeper and the lack of experience around the side has been the cause of that disparity between goals conceded home and away, first half and second. Still probably need 1 more CB to my mind though.

• We scored the 14th most goals at home
• We scored the 7th most goals away
• We scored the 12th most overall
• All the teams in last season's top 6 were in the top 7 in terms of goals scored overall (Brentford are the outlier, scoring the 6th most).

So we lack goals at home and leak them away (mostly in the second half).

Attack trumped defence when it came to finishing in the top 6 last season (just ask Middlesbrough; 1st defensively, 19th offensively).

Those stats put our transfer window into a bit more perspective for me.

---

Also of note, Nyambe and Mulgrew come out by far as our worst defenders in both goals conceded and points won (and Williams when played as a full back)... Worth noting though that Nyambe and Mulgrew played most of their games together, so either could be dragging the other's stats down (most likely Mulgrew doing the pulling I'd wager).

Bennett - Lenihan - Williams - Bell come out as the clear best, both home and away, in terms of points won and goals conceded.

Like so 

What a strange thing to argue about when you can find out the facts in literally 30 seconds by opening up a new tab and typing it into Google.

15 minutes ago, roverandout said:

Because he doesnt want to be found out, the fraud that he is

Did Mowbray have an impassioned evening with you mother by any chance?

1 hour ago, tonygreenbank said:

Bookies are giving us 33/1 on being Champions; 10/1 on being top 6 and 4/1 on promotion. Where’s your fiver going?!

Covering the costs of his us for relegation bets.

31 minutes ago, roverandout said:

Add to what merce said, mowbary Has left us in exactly the same position was when he came in. Has he significantly improved the squad? No. Are rovers results by and large been better with him in this league than when could left us? Debatable.

If that's really what you think then I'm afraid there isn't much hope for you. Those aren't opinions, they're disprovable nonsense.

Just now, Stuart said:

Imaging thinking the phrase “black lives matter” would bring anything other than resentment or that justice is something to be meted out by social media and not the courts.

All lives matter FFS.

Look around, the world is going to shit and people still think that these divisive ‘movements’ are a good thing. The “you can’t say that” generation are the reason we have Trump and Brexit.

Black Lives Matter means that black people's lives matter just as much as any other. It means "all lives matter", and points out that black people's lives have been undervalued. And that extends to the courts. Come on. Either try to understand it, or don't complain about it.

Also, it's pretty ridiculous to say that younger generations are the reason we have Brexit when there is a distinct correlation between areas with a younger demographic and voting remain.

43 minutes ago, pick32 said:

Raya wasn’t the problem he didn’t drop us that much points and the stats show he prevented a lot of goals,

two week to get a keeper in and hope he clicks with the team is ridiculous.

makes you wonder what Mowbray was doing for the last 4 months when most managers would have a plan to execute.

Can we please stop referring to those stats, they are wrong. In fact, they are IMPOSSIBLE:

If Raya had made 2.9 saves per match and 3.5 saves per goal, we would HAVE to have conceded less than 1 goal per match. Which we did not. Unless Raya let a hell of a lot of crosses go straight past him anyway.

I didn't want us to sell Raya, but it's well documented that we wanted to bring in a new 1st choice keeper, and if he didn't want to sit on the bench every week (which is fair enough) then it simply is what it is.

Not making a comment on how long it's taken to get a GK, how I think we'll perform this season or whether we should have focused on CB over a new GK.

Just trying to stop the spread of false "fact".

Also not meaning to pick on you @pick32, I've seen posts referencing those stats a lot, yours was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

4 hours ago, roverandout said:

5 years ago, sturridge was a world class footballer. Outstanding talent but he's gone the way of many talented english strikers, collymore, jansen, etc who took the foot of the pedal. Such a waste. Why did he join west brom when inter wanted him?

Are you for real?! That is the most ridiculous thing I've read in a long time. I can't even put into words how wrong it is. It's actually really annoyed me.

This is probably the last I'll post on the subject and I'll go back into obscurity for the next 5 years again, but to address a few of the responses...

If the owners wanted promotion at the start of the season and mowbray talked them down from that, then that's still on the owners. They're responsible for the strategy for the club and the target for the manager. That's a basic principle of business. People aren't responsible for what their goals are, they're responsible for achieving them (within reason). Whether they have input in what they are or not.

Also, with us getting so close to being a part of the playoff race up until the end of January and then capitulating up until April doesn't have an impact on the success of this season for me. The goalposts can't be moved and to judge mowbray on what could have been this season is unfair. If we had been in a relegation scrap and come out of the season 15th, it would have been a success and would have been seen as such by most people. To be basically safe by march is a greater success, just we're hardwired as humans to want progress. We're given 5 so we want 6. 

As for whether mowbray can take us to the next level, ie the playoffs, which I believe will be the aim for next season, remains to be seen. I'm sceptical that he can in all truth. He needs to sort out a shockingly poor defensive record for a start. But, he has earnt the right to have a crack at it. He has done everything asked of him exceptionally well.

Put it this way, if your manager asked you to achieve x and you did, and even got beyond that and they turned around and said that because you got so close to y but didn't make it, they're letting you go... Would you think that was reasonable or not?

This can be put very simply. The owners set out goals for the season after a discussion about what can be achieved with the finances available. That's how it works. This season the goal will have been survival, last season the goal was promotion. Mowbray has achieved both of those goals in his only full seasons at the club, fairly comfortably too it must be said.

Judge all you like on the relatively minute detail. It's pointless in this context. The choices he has made have achieved what has been asked of him, so he's earnt the right to continue. If he had a different remit, he may have made different choices. Who the hell knows... Fail to reach the goal next season (or not look like achieving it halfway through) and it's a different story.

If you don't agree with the goal that's set out or TM isn't financed properly, place the blame above Mowbray's head. If the goal isn't met due to tactics, motivation, coaching, whatever else, place the blame on his.

He reminds me of Pedro from those clips. I know it's a lazy comparison and he's obviously not as good, but as soon as I watched I thought Pedro.

Great footwork and balance but not an amazing amount of pace.

Looking forward to seeing him play. Might get a go off the bench against Spurs if Roque is out.

Was only saying the other day its the likes of Ronnie and Duggie that statues and stands should be built and named after at "Ewood Park".

RIP Ronnie

Hear hear!

When i started watching Rovers in the sixties to many Rovers were 'Douglas and Clayton'. Even at the end of their careers they were both still class acts. Darwen End-Clayton stand, Blackburn End-Douglas stand. Perhaps it could be the last contribution of the trust.

Jack would have approved.