Bloody hell

I thought Warren was bad enough but Benno is helping to make this commentary unlistenable.

If you say so Baz. For me, Ayala and Lenihan are better. Just ahead of Lenihan and Wharton. Maybe we can just keep chopping and changing the back two for the rest of the season...

Williams starting ahead of Ayala? WTF?

None taken. I don’t think much of your opinions either. 👍🏻

If he was a young lad then I’d agree. A seasoned player and international really shouldn’t be so far off the standard, never mind the pace. If he was carrying an injury that affected his performance then Mowbray should have played a youngster. Our lack of depth in that position (at the club) continues to haunt us. It’s no use selling the likes of Matty Platt and then bemoaning having no options. Where was Annesley? If he wasn’t injured then there’s no excuse. Mowbray just doesn’t trust young players.

How does that contradict anything I said? He wasn’t good enough and wouldn’t have played if Lenihan had been available.

Williams was very poor and did a lot wrong. That’s all it takes to put uncertainty into a defensive unit. Their goal was down to a lack of cohesion in our defence.

If Lenihan plays tonight Williams doesn’t. Not something I find funny at all. But I know that’s not really what you mean.

Mowbray isn’t up to it but, I agree, you have to blame Lenihan for us dropping 5 points in the last two games. Williams should be nowhere near this side. Even Mowbray admitted he had barely played this season. This is the difference between real promotion candidates and pretenders. We drop important points at important times. Fine margins.

Agree about Armstrong. He just gets his head down and shoots. It either goes in or it’s another wasted opportunity. He needs to get his head up and recognise that he has team mates. It’s like he is playing for himself. He’s scored a lot of goals this season but he’s no Dack. Andy Cole got pelters for needing five chances to score one - and that was in the PL.

We have plateaued I’m afraid. That isn’t just tonight but a consistent failure to push on when the pressure of the play-off places loom against contenders. We just don’t have that extra that is needed. We can blame injuries if we like but other teams had had similar situations.

There’s a school of thought that an away point at a top half team is a good thing. That is only true when analysing and consolation after a game. It should not be the target going in.

Good point by the Sky commentators. Mowbray can’t motivate us to beat top half teams.

Really poor goal. We rarely seem to concede goals that you just marvel at. It’s always sloppy errors or poor positioning.

Sickener

You hum it, I’ll play it.

Makes me laugh at what a “different club we have become in 3.5 years”, yet talk about replacing Mowbray and it’s “we can’t trust that we’ll get anyone better” So... same old shambolic club then. Some folk just want it both ways.

Williams is proving himself as the massive weak link here.

Sky banging on about how many goals we’ve scored. 0-0.

Is anyone looking for an answer other than ‘money’? IMHO... Our wage structure is set up to not reward senior players: if you do well and want to earn more you have to leave. In parallel is Mowbray’s ‘right character’ philosophy that says: if you get us promoted that’s where the rewards are. If you don’t like that then you’ve got an attitude problem. Footballers don’t care about clubs (barring one or two exceptions) and they don’t care about the manager. Their careers are short, with the existential threat of it being even shorter. They care about money, contract length and game time. What annoys me most is that this wage ceiling we’ve imposed on ourselves could be higher if we hadn’t thrown away £12m unnecessarily. We could have got better players did a fraction of the price and used the money more wisely. Every time you see Brereton and Gallagher in the line up, remember that this is at the expense of a sound reward and retention strategy. Nyambe, for one, has been badly managed - dropped for Bennett FFS - and should be sold for minimum £5m in today’s market. If we are going to sign players on a promise of developing them and then not standing in their way when a good offer comes in then we have to actually develop them and ensure offers are forthcoming. Mowbray’s high footballing values and Waggott’s low standards are a bad combination and ambitious players will drift in between the lines. If you are asked to work to higher standards than your peers in the industry then there needs to be higher reward than them. It’s promotion on the cheap or “we go again”. (At least for as long as we sustain the debt and/or Venkys don’t get bored).

Tbf I don’t much either, it’s a dark place, but it does have its uses. A lot of companies use DM on Twitter a lot more readily than email.

Tag them (and the EFL and the club) on Twitter if you don’t get any response.

Is that what happened?! That’s a new one on me!

Once the game is underway, providing the buffering isn’t fubar’d, it is pretty steady. The rest of the product is amateurish. Buying a match pass is about as straightforward as you can get though.