Its the games after Watford that are the concern. Nicely placed with 2 home games on the spin the other week, 4 points should have been the minimum and we end up with one. How many times in the last two seasons have we just on the edge of the playoffs with decent games to come and we've ended up going backwards

To be fair to Mowbray for once, Rothwell is supposed to be the one and it is why he played Chapman centrally when he came on on Saturday but when team play very deep it doesn't work even with the players you mentioned. It is then you need variation in the game which is where Mowbray falls down.

Exactly, it is like Bowyer who had a liking of signing a load of players for the same position and then could not fit them all in so you had the likes Cairney playing wide. The difference between Bowyer and Mowbray is that Mowbray has spent big on players which he does not know how to get a tune out of hence why Brereton and Gallagher out wide. Logic says you play the big guy down the middle but when your big guy actually gets bullied by centre halves then you are in trouble and try moving him out wide to try his luck with a smaller fullback. What Mowbray still hasn't worked out is that without anybody close to him the ball is lost anyway or at best goes backwards to where we started.

I agree with you in principle about 4-2-3-1 but I think 4-3-3 will be this season's formation. I agree that an additional midfielder should reduce the amount of defensive work that the wide attacker should need to do but the width will depend on the fitness of the fullbacks to get up the field and back when defending. The central midfielders do need to cover the full backs but if a team attacks with overlapping full backs then the wide attackers would need to get back.

I was actually thinking of Chapman as the wide man who played centrally when he came on on Saturday.

I still dont see the Armstrong wide left as an option. It never worked. How many goals did we concede when Armstrong did not backtrack leaving our full back exposed especially if the opposition plays an attacking right back. Armstrong looks better in the middle, as does Dack. If we had a good target man Id say play them inside left and right feeding off the No.9 but we don't have one

Its a shame we haven't got wingers who can get to the byline and cross to a tall centre forward attacking the ball in the box. We are nearly there with this manager except we have a tall forward who should attack the ball in the air but appears to be afraid of his own shadow and plays wide and on Saturday we had a wide man who used to take on full backs and cross but we play him down the middle. We have the basics there for a plan B but slightly wrong now lets see if our manager can work it out.

Playing a winger like Chapman in there is a case in point, he is a winger and should have been out wide. Instead we had him in the middle and SG playing as a wide forward. Formation should utilise player strengths not players be shoehorned in to fit a formation.

Your formation should reflect the strengths of the player's available. Some manager's like to fit formations to counter the opposition which time and time again Mowbray has failed. Dack is injured at present so we should not be playing a formation that suits him but none of the players fit. Mowbray tried to show horn midfielders yesterday into a formation that suited midfielders that weren't available. He tried shoehorning Evans and Johnson into a team when it is clear it is one or the other not both. Mowbray has changed tactics when he has been forced into a change of formation. The past tells me that we be back to 4-2-3-1 as soon as he can. Once that formation returns he stick to it and will change the personnel even if they dont suit it.

The fact 4-3-3 doe not suit Dack is irrelvent at the moment and has worked well on occassions this season. Its the lack of the ability to change it when its not working that is of concern

err so do the forwards but they didn't. Nyambe offers little in attack either so doe he get dropped as well? I don't rate Bell one bit and would replace him but on Saturday there were far worse than him. Easy scapegoat me thinks

To be fair Bell did little wrong on Saturday so I dont see the need to replace him for this one. Further forward every player did not do much right for the last two games so all of them could easily be replaced without a blink of an eye.

Just like other seasons, the fact is simple, if a team can counter plan A we have no plan B....we have plan A with different personnel.

Apologies if this has been covered earlier but why did Mowbray bring a tall centre forward on and play him wide[I know that has been covered] and then bring a winger on and play him in the no.10 role central? A player who can dribble, take a full back on and can cross a ball from out wide? Yet again Mowbray persisting with SG out wide is just not funny now!

I know but he ran his contract out before so there was a chance he'd do it again. Im sure no one would have budgeted for money coming in

They wont see it though will they? Lets hope they like SG and Ellott on the flanks. Remember its the future

Personally think he was always going to run his contract down like he did here. He then gets the transfer fee as a signing on fee. We were never going to see a pay day from him

Works though doesn't it??

Too good to be true?

Big Woy's last game at the Scousers.

What you say is basically correct. Allerdyce getting sacked needn't have been the death nail in the coffin though. His football was mainly sterile, only played in games he felt he could get a result in and by his own admission he was walking at the end of the season regardless. The death nail was not replacing him with a proven replacement.

Suspect the overall package would have meant it was Manning or the four players we've brought in which swayed the decision

That all depends if he is going to be held to account

Spot on. Now with a selection of 'Wingers' at the club. SG as a true centre forward may work as a plan B to the pace on offer with Armstrong on plan A. But this will rely on him being confident in himself that he can stand up to a big centre half and also that these wingers can cross accurately, an art which seems to have faded in the modern game

I understand the reason for him being in the squad and being Club Captain. What many didnt understand and why the 'hatred' arose was the shoe horn effect around the team Mowbray did last season often to the detriment of the team when a place on the bench was required for him.