I'm going up to this one, not because I thought there'd be anything riding on the game when I booked the trip but because I have a couple of friends from Middlesbrough I met on holiday a couple of years ago and I was originally more going up for the night out and take in the game as an incidental. Little bit more riding on it now after the two wins. Hope we deliver unlike the corresponding fixture last year when Boro had a man sent off mid way through the first half and we went 1-0 up from the resulting free kick but still only came away with a draw despite playing ten men for over an hour.

I literally have never heard of the player having the option to cut the loan deal short before, it's usually an agreement until either Jan 1st or the end of the season binding on all parties with the parent Club having power of recall if a problem arises that can't be sorted out between the Club's. Beyond amateurish otherwise as you can never know what your real budget for the season is if players can terminate loan deals of their own accord at the drop of a hat.

If it was my money I wouldn't give him another penny. I think the problem apart from the complete ineptitude of him Waggott and Venus in the transfer market lies as much in his reluctance to jettison players who need offloading. For example, Graham who unsurprisingly has come to the end must be one of our top earners. He should never have been given a new contract in the first place but certainly when it became obvious that we had a major issue with Brereton and Gallagher (BAG) we should have been making arrangements to offload Graham one way or another to free up room on the wage bill and bring in a replacement. Instead I expect he'll shuffle on until the end of the season contributing next to nothing and maybe even next as wel until his contract expires. I'd say similar about Evans pre injury and Bennett. Needed offloading but staples in Tone's world. Then chuck in players that he brings in then chooses to more or less ignore like Davenport Palmer and Chapman (Not forgetting Brereton) and Gladwin who he handed a contract to because he felt sorry for him and it's not hard to see how it's difficult to bring players in because the wage bill is bursting to the seams.

We did. The fee was £1.75m rising to £3m with add ons.

With all due respect, if the Club's can't agree the penalty clauses if said player doesn't play enough games and Mowbray isn't willing to budge then how can the deal be sorted? Also it's somewhat concerning that this is an issue at all. If it was a player who was coming in to go straight into the side then we could agree to any penalty clauses we wanted as it would never become relevant. Sounds like someone who quite possibly won't be playing therefore another potentially pointless signing like Chapman.

Unbelievable. So our view on Walton (and rightly so) is that he's not good enough to be our long term keeper but for some unknown reason we don't feel any need to send him back early this season. Are we deliberately trying to sabotage the rest of the campaign then?

Finlay has it about right.

Apparently we're interested in a 23 year old left back who plays for Gillingham Connor Ogilvie. Millwall, Middlesbrough and one other Club the source of info couldn't remember also interested.

Unless I've missed part of the conversation, why does that have to be us? Could be anyone of a number of Clubs!

We tend to go on wildly contrasting runs of form under Mowbray, four losses followed by four wins followed by five defeats etc so the 12 game stat probably just caught our last two wins and the four wins before the extended winless sequence. If you went back eighteen games it would probably look less impressive but then if you go back twelve or eighteen games it becomes more of a mini League table than a form table demonstrating current form. Totally agree with the point about consistency. You don't have to be world beaters in the Championship, you just have to grind it out slightly more consistently Saturday - Tuesday - Saturday than everyone else.

Another one I looked at over the last six games had us in tenth position with eight points. Forest top with 14 and interestingly Stoke second with 13.

Good win tonight, I think primarily it's about results now, the mindset has to be that we are targeting wins from the last seventeen games. If hypothetically we won sixteen of them and drew one we'd probably secure automatic promotion. If more realistically we could make a half decent stab at it and win ten or eleven and avoid defeat in most of the rest that should get us in the play offs as the mark required over the last four seasons has been 74, 80, 75 and 74. That's the heart talking. Do I actually think we'll do it? Maybe under a manager who played our best options in their natural positions, but I think we need absolutely everything running in our favour and will be held back by Mowbray and not least by: 1) His weird obsession with playing Gallagher out of position on the right wing as opposed to playing an actual winger like Chapman there. 2) His weird obsession with getting Bennett on the pitch even if he doesn't start 3) Our inability to put in a performance for 90 minutes. Not sure if this is physical or mental as I always think we look extremely unfit in comparison to most other sides but then again we rarely played for more than one half at a time in League one either. Would love to be proved wrong though.

I think you clearly have to be on the wind up with that comment. Prior to tonight we hadn't won for nearly 2 months at home and prior to the Wednesday game it was no wins in seven. To expect a huge hike in the attendance on the back of one result on a freezing mid week night towards the end of January when most people are absolutely brassic is naive at best and foolhardy at worst. If we ever displayed any consistency and actually ever got into the play off positions and looked as though we could stay there then I'd agree it would be disappointing if there wasn't a decent upturn in attendances.

It's easier to say who IS good enough not who isn't if we're ever to have any hopes of challenging g for promotion. Lenihan, Nyambe, Travis, Dack, possibly Holtby, possibly Chapman. Bare minimum, keeper CB LB and two strikers short. Probably need a creative midfielder and another wide man as well. At least seven quality acquisitions and /or youngsters stepping up and making the grade would be needed to turn us into a force imo.

No I'm not, you tried to be clever and I've blown your argument out of the water with actual stats so you're now coming back at me with a meaningless retort. Anyhow.........back to the transfer window!

Probably, but if we were only three points off relegation we'd be ten points, not three, behind 15th so the "evidence" would be a lot more compelling! To further illustrate my point, if we were ten points clear of 15th, currently, that would place us in 4th or 5th and even I would have to concede that was clear evidence of improvement.

Well, at the end of the season it's probably fair to use the table as some sort of guide as to whether we're improving or not. For me anything worse than finishing a point or two outside the play offs has to be construed as failure. I don't see that a marginal improvement on an unsatisfactory 15th position to say 13th or 14th represents satisfactory progress. The final finishing position remains to be seen. The point I was objecting to was citing something as slender and potentially fleeting as a three point gap as evidence of genuine improvement.

If they played for PNE and PNE had occupied the same League positions as we have week on week this season I don't think our fans or anyone else's for that matter would be in the least bit worried about why we or they hadn't signed them.

I am paying attention to everything that is happening. I'm not taking a temporary screenshot of our League position on a given day and citing it as evidence of major improvement because we're one win ahead of the position we finished in last season!

Tosin has been ok and Downing has been very good considering his age and how little was expected of him. But neither have been the sort of stellar successes that will push us to promotion. Then you have to remember that Tosin will not be our player next season and Downing probably only has this season and next in him so decent signings but by no means exceptional.

What evidence is that? We finished 15th last season and are only one win or 3 points ahead of that mark this far. If we were to lose the next three and we dropped to 16th would that be conclusive proof we were heading in the wrong direction?

Does the fact that window after window flies by and we still need reinforcement in the same positions we always did not tell you something? I would take exactly the opposite stance to you, I dont think the criticism of Mowbray has been anywhere near strong enough to date, he's tended to get pretty much a free ride due to the fact he brought us back up to the division from which he failed to prevent us being relegated at the first time of asking and his nice guy persona. I think that has changed slightly with the injury to Dack which has put his other dealings in perspective and brought home the potential ramifications of money being squandered and FFP sanctions looming on the horizon

I agree with you. I think under another manager there might just be a player in Brereton. Gallagher on the other hand I don't think will ever be any good. He's 24 and is not likely to get any better, in fact he seems to be on the decline from the fairly ordinary standard he set last time he was here.

That is a temporary situation based on our current League position following a rare win and one which might have completely changed in two or three games time. To look at the League position in isolation and not the overall situation imo iis head burying in the sand of the highest order. I personally dont think there is a cat in hell's chance that we'll make the play offs now or iindeed n any other season under this manager and I think it is highly likely we'll finish a lot further away from them this season than we are now. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating I suppose.

With respect what you say there makes no sense and completely contradicts the overall point you're trying to make. Yes he has (rightly imo) been criticised for being too loyal to the players who were here when he arrived and that is one of the main reasons we now need in the eyes of many to bring in so many players. It's all part of the same thing. Instead of gradual improvement to the team by attempting to bring in two or three experienced first teamers every window he seems to have taken the view that the priority was not upsetting the existing players and any recruitment has tended to centre around fringe players, loans, or "ones for the future" who can be put to one side and forgotten about. Leaving us, imo, in a colossal mess going forward with FFP sanctions also looming.