Give over you were crowing about the top 2 quite forcefully earlier in the season. He was your messiah again but now the bleepers are going off loud and clear and you've reversed to top 6 mode 🤣 My position has never changed i said last mid season please change in summer we need new ideas on the pitch. Said exactly the same this time but of course last summers window gets us excited and now this one again. However we all know we'll see the same things going round in circles, some things he can do nothing about. Other things are ingrained in his dna and are his go to methods and always have been, all the evidence is out there. So i'll remain where i am thanks and still say barring a miracle we need to change in summer. You'll be on again before seasons end trumpeting he's done enough to warrant the summer window. 10 games next season, christmas etc and claiming we'll be in the top 2. Some of us learn quickly others don't i takes a while for pennies to drop. You might be better off hiding behind a door than making an ass of yourself claiming leadership then going down blind alleys. After a while nobody follows anymore 😏

The pitch has to be sorted first i think is an absolute priority now so the stand and even the fabled 'deep clean' might have to wait. Get the pitch done then surely this fantastic football it's stopping us from playing will see us promoted. Then get the Riverside done and it'd be like the dawn of a new era hopefully so lets just pull out all the stops for a season in top flight again. Its so vital for this club and then we should be able to see if all the talk is just that. Sadly i think sitting in upper mid in this division is very comfortable for quite a few down there.

At least i don't tip toe back and forth on the manager issue like you. You're legendary for it one week dropping on your knees next week getting the knife ready for his back 🤣 And as you should know by now i don't tip toe round anything. The man himself has gone to the trouble quite a few times of thanking his recruitment dept. That obviously goes over the heads of the handful who want to paint him as some kind of messiah. So in reality i'm just picking up on what he's said himself and naturally assuming that the better tools he's being given now should result in a bit more consistency. That is where the buck stops with him and ANY other manager. Quite why you have to try and paint Mowbray as some unique case i'll never know. Still at least he knows your knife is back in the drawer.....for now.

Well the manager would need to say 'i didn't sign that player somebody else did', that'll never happen. Besides how much input do the recruitment dept have in matches or day to day training once they've got the manager what he says he needs ? It's his job to get a tune out of the now higher grade bits of the jigsaw he's being given. If he can't what do they do sack the recruitment dept or him ?

A lot of truth in this so it'll be interesting to see how he manages it. I'm always of the belief you stick with what is working as long as you can and only change if you have to. TM seems to operate a rotation policy to try and keep players fresher by putting them in and out sometimes. It might work in fitness terms but i don't think it works well for the team consistency and that can reflect in performances and results.

I think they are going for maybe a total stats based approach now. And obviously the top quality young players are usually the ones with the best stats so a penny has finally dropped - get quality. Sadly we can only afford to borrow them but my god it makes a great refreshing change to giving the Wards and Caddis's of this world ten grand a week 2 year deals. This recruitment dept needs full and continued backing it's obviously got its finger on the pulse. Hopefully a good younger striker is flagged up in summer although i hope they didn't have their name on the Brereton one !

Not a question of having it both ways it's more a case of sharing the credit where it should be shared. He's done well convincing the owners to back the setting up of that dept. Hardly rocket science in suggesting a club the size of ours should have one though. And don't forget the recent talk of recruitment going over his head on a player when he wanted someone else. No idea if that might be the case so best to share the plaudits for now and keep everyone happy.

Ripped jeans - a no goer !

I'm sure he plays his part in it but he himself credits the recruitment dept with a lot of decent recent incomings. So we should be aiming praise in that direction really and save the TM praise for when he makes a good team out of them. That's his main job in it all now. The owners also deserve credit ( through gritted teeth from me ) for providing this manager with incredible backing considering the zero income. Now they should stop peeing around, over complicating things and just have a real go at it. Nothing whatsoever to lose and no excuse whatsoever for playing safety first disjointed going nowhere stuff. Get after teams !

Scott Dann WAS a good defender.......for Crystal Palace. Here, barring one brief spell when he'd got fit and was playing for the move he was average to pish at best. No better than Hanley really just a bit less alehouse.

Come on who'd be surprised to see Bennett/JRC, Lenihen, Williams, Bell start the 1st game next season 😬 Defenders are most welcome at last and lets hope they make it count this season. Might be nice at some point to see 'our' defenders signed. After a decade of neglect with the pitch though brass might be tight come summer !

I don't think we can say the gameplan worked against Luton just because we nicked it by the end. It clearly wasn't working for long periods although the application was there. Sometimes you just have to stick at it and hope that one half chance gets snapped up. I think that applies to this league and being at the top end of it more than any other. Again it was a game quite resembling many of the lge 1 season in as much as we were stuttering along giving opposition too much respect. A chance gets snapped up then a raft of changes from the strong bench gets us over the line. We were strong enough to see it out and had a non panicking keeper playing his part in that. Both those ingredients have been added this season so there should come April/May be genuine signs of moving forwards. If he gets the backing this window and rumored signings there really is no hiding place anymore, not one. We are though now capable of grinding out wins and winning when playing shite. That's a positive even though it might not seem like it watching some games. Sod the stats and the stars it's all about results.

You can't keep going back to that though at some point he has to make a clear effort at pushing us on. If improving the club after taking over ( which managers are actually paid huge sums to do ) was a guarantee of a job for life Don Mackay would still be here. Never lose sight of the fact establishing us as regular top 6 contenders is the aim not midtable wannabees costing owners 20 million per season.

The budget stuff crops up again but it needs pointing out that isn't always as it seems. Yes a lot have parachutes but that money is already tied up in big post Prem contracts. So some managers, players and clubs are stuck with each other when they might not want to be. That affects things we know we've been there. Most of that has been eradicated here now, maybe still in the losses column but they aren't stinking up the place on a daily basis. Next is the Cat 1 academy we have and youth it is producing. So both those factors added together give TM an advantage over a few clubs with similar and higher budgets. That's why it IS fair to have decent expectation levels above what some see as our 'budget level'. TM takes a lot of credit for putting it together even though some areas have been criminally neglected. He's doing ok with the youth as well in bits and bats although we have lost Mahonney, Raya and could lose Nyambie under his watch. When most of his squad is fit he has to get a better tune out of them than he is doing at present. The excuses have worn thin now and the waffle is getting to Coyle levels.

Some strange chairmen in the championship as under performing managers keep getting gigs. Then under performing again yet sometimes when they get a complete curve ball in from elsewhere they do well. For a spell at least. Seems if you are a British manager and have one success somewhere - however it comes about - then you can live of it for a decade.

Yes one of those tough unbreakable ones, i'm confident it'll last me another 3 years because its been bounced off the floor recently. Has Brad ?

Good news on Dack although you would have thought he'd have had to prove his fitness first !

I think they are used to it down there Stoke have been an ugly team as long as i can remember. They'd tried to get away from it a bit i think but this guy has got them back to what they are used to. As for here yes damn right fans would moan but winning would keep a lid on it. Being pragmatic wouldn't work now though with what we have we are far too powder puff under Tony nice guys.

Fair play to Stoke they have a style, a real ugly one but it's theirs they know what they are doing. They appear to be good at it and so far it's beginning to pay off. Lets see where they finish, no doubt if they finish above us it'll be put down to budget in some quarters.

Yep drilled out of him it's a modern way, he isn't an academy robot that probably explains why he has a bit of individuality. However doesn't sit well with the games textbook manual coaches and all their badges. No wonder the game is so stale and methodical.

Surprised at that i thought he was at least a decade younger for some reason and had just had a hard paper round. Unbelievable that he sounds like another part timer as well for his 300k. I don't know all the ins and outs of what he actually does but from where i'm standing his renumeration far outweighs his contribution.

Where is this talk of Waggot retiring come from ? Surely a couple of years here hasn't filled his coffers that much has it ? He's not that old is he ?

Maybe we should have an eye on Giggs ? Curve ball.

Consider this - By the time Mowbrays contract runs out in 2 years this team could be broken up and sold off. Transfers and some running costs recouped, FFP realigned, % all pocketed and some youth been blooded to fill the gaps. It happened before and could well be the plan again. We are then left with Mowbray on a new 3 year deal rebuilding another midtable team using frees, loans and kids. Or he's bailed out and a cheapo or someone like David Lowe has to fight the fires. Whilst bemoaning 'there is no one else' and 'who'd come' just bare the above in mind. The words slow build echo around that scenario and imo that's where we are heading and that's why there's no big push. Not from those here running the show anyway. I don't know about pension fund but TM, Swaggo and the gang will have enough of our generous owners money to join Elon musk in space by the end of it !

Perish the thought Mowbray said he was leaving or going somewhere else. By the logic of some on here we'd just have to fold the club and turn the lights off it would all be over. Maybe a few would feel better if he got another 2 or 3 year extension to his present deal ? I'm sure it'll come up at some point in the near future hence his relentless long term marginal gain waffle.