lol why?

Mowbray has a weird fetish for collecting midfielders. Perhaps he wants to leave Chapman "mint in box"?

Walton, Leutwiler, Bell, Evans, Smallwood, Samuel Those are the ones I'd offload. Don't think we can afford wholesale changes. I'd keep Bennett as a utility player. Certainly not captain or first pick. Armstrong has a decent turn of pace, even if his brain's League One standard. I'd cut our losses on Gallagher. Never rated him and not sure what possessed us to buy him in the first place. Brereton I would give another chance under a new manager.

Spot on, Mercer. What have we got to lose by playing Chapman? Look at Rothwell when he got a run of games towards the back-end of last season. Not saying Chapman will tear it up but we're letting a perfectly good winger go to waste because his face doesn't fit with the manager.

Too right. All the "personal abuse" stuff is a classic diversionary tactic to take the edge off. Mowbray is paid rather handsomely to do this job. Like you said, he's wasted tens of millions to sustain us as a mediocre, bottom-half Championship side. Not good enough.

You're always loath to lose your best players but Dack will be gone sooner or later. I would do our best to keep hold of him until the summer, as we could easily get drawn into a relegation scrap without him. With a good pre-season under our belts I think Rothwell & Holtby could both cover that position. I don't think we're seeing the best of Holtby playing him in centre midfield. We could invest the Dack money into a defender or two, perhaps another striker, and have a more balanced side. In theory, of course.

What abuse? A few murmurs of discontent among the collective sigh of relief after Saturday's smash and grab? Sorry but the pressure's on. Mowbray is old enough and ugly enough to know it comes with the territory. Compared to the vitriol that spews out of some fan-bases, the Rovers faithful have been muted when it comes to their dissatisfaction.

Who are you referring to? Mowbray doesn't have any friends in charge. Waggott? Like every other Venky CEO he's just a tick-boxing exercise. He has no power. It will be Suhail who has the most sway with the owners.

It's the Jordan Rhodes argument all over again. A player who can be largely anonymous but still pop up with a goal or two each week. I can see why Dack frustrates some supporters. As the fulcrum of the side, most of our good work comes through him. If he's having an off-day the whole team suffers.

Not sure there were any when Bowyer got potted. A lot of us felt he was here to stay because he flew to Pune and kept in with the owners. There's no point trying to predict anything that will happen here other than one disappointment after another.

I haven't followed Mowbray's career closely enough, but I know that his WBA side were famed for their good football but powderpuff defending. Probably part of the reason they yo-yo'ed. I wonder if Mowbray tried to reinvent himself after that experience and style himself a more modern manager? That would explain the overthinking and needlessly tinkering with tactics and team selection every week. Instead we end up with a team that's neither cavalier or tough to beat. Sure there's goals in us but that seems to be down to individual skill than anything else.

Mowbray lectures Rothwell and Chapman about grafting and the "seriousness" of the game but the shiftless Armstrong is one of his first picks. Guess it pays to be part of the lemon drizzle gang ?

Have to agree with chaddy on this one (did I just type that?), I think Hughes would struggle without the Tafia behind him. I'm going for Roberto Di Matteo as my left-field choice. Apart from that blip at Villa he did well at WBA, Chelsea and Schalke.

Damn you're right. Spirit of the dambusters!

Against the mighty Barnsley.

Called it. Look forward to hearing how Barnsley are "fighting for their lives" and our "never say die" spirit.

1-0 Dack

Barnsley are trying to bring us down to their level. Watch us turn on the samba style!

To be fair, many of us pointed out last season that we won more games without Mulgrew than with him. That said, it was blindingly obvious we'd struggle to get through a season with only two senior centre-backs and a City loanee.

Bah. Showpony. Never good enough for us.... apparently.

Fascinating article. Good insight into the cognitive dissonance the manager engages in to justify his batshit selection policy.

Didn't he admit to only keeping Gladwin around out of sympathy? I know he's not breaking the bank but I'm glad we have money to burn on pity contracts. We could always do with another midfielder anyway.

Mercer is being a wee bit mischievous. He's conscious of the problems at the club, and vocal about the manager's failings but still predicts us to spank it most weeks. It's borderline trolling at this point.

Dalglish & Souness - neither could be tempted out of retirement for this basketcase Sparky - possibly. his stock has fallen since he left here. Allardyce - only if Venky's bent over backwards and give him a sackful of money (in other words, no) Lambert - nope. he saw the iceberg and jumped ship. Bowyer - yup, company man.

We've been debating "life after Venky's" for years now. Fact of that matter is that so long as the sword of damocles hangs over us, a lot of fans won't care about Venky's holding the deeds as long as we're still in a competitive division.