I think that's ridiculously harsh on Magloire. You talk as if the senior players never make any mistakes. In general people tend to scrutinise young players' performance to the nth degree when senior players are making far more basic mistakes again and again week in week out and dont receive the same level of criticism. As for Magloire specifically tonight I thought he did really well on an exceptionally difficult night due to the wind. He only made minor mistakes and when he did he looked like he had the speed to recover. He also put his body on the line where necessary which we haven't seen too much of recently. I thought he performed far better than Mulgrew and Williams in that position recently and maybe even Lenihan and Rodwell. Can he do it again or on a consistent basis? Who knows? But he deserves the chance to show us imo.

Great post. It shows how badly the senior players have been performing when a young lad comes in for his debut and we keep a clean sheet for the first time in forever. We got the rub of the green tonight with all three goals, which maybe we deserved after the Preston game but Sheff Wed. will provide a much clearer idea of where we're at as Bruce seems to have sorted them defensively. Unusually for him TM made some bold changes, handing Magloire his debut and dropping Evans and Smallwood and putting Reed and Travis where they should be in CM and it paid dividends. The way forward for me would be to allow Magloire to keep his place until results or fatigue dictate otherwise and I'd like to see us start on Saturday with Reed and Travis in CM and the attacking personnel that finished the game so fluently. That may be a possibility as Graham was feeling the back of his hamstring on 55 mins and went off 5 mins later.

Sorry den, seems strange to say about someone who scored twice but I didn't think Graham had a particularly good game. Scored a penalty and did well to anticipate the freakish flight of the ball on the wind for a fortunate second. However as EwoodAce perceptively points out we actually looked much better once Graham went off and we started playing football as opposed to attempting to hammer long balls towards Graham. In particular Dack came into his own and started dictating play and looked the player we know he can be for the first time in months.

As Waggott would be fairly unlikely to ever sack TM hopefully the decision is well and truly out of his hands. Can't see that the chain of command is that much different to when the Walker Trust were in charge. Any ultimate decision lies with the owners and Pasha is their eyes on the ground in the same way that David Brown was for the Trust. The only difference is that the Trust would probably have given a lot more weight to the opinion of Williams than the Venkys would Waggott. Nevertheless Williams frequently got it wrong as well, hanging onto Souness far too long, failing to back Hughes and appointing Ince.

Seems somewhat convenient that a player who has coincidentally missed the entire season through injury is now being touted as not a TM signing. Same sort of thing ihas been mooted about BB even though TM himself has said exactly the opposite. Seems as though there is an agenda from some quarters to blame the owners for any signngs that have been flops.

We're a million miles off being a good team imo. It's easier to see if there's anyone good enough going forward. Raya (maybe) Nyambe, Lenihan (maybe) Travis, Chapman (maybe) Dack (if his head's in the right place). Arguably we need a LB, 2 x CB, one top class central midfield player, another decent wide player and at least one main striker to replace Graham if not two proven strikers at Championship level. Absolutely massive rebuilding job required.

I've never yet known the world cave in because we handed a young player his debut, in fact they're usually amongst our better performers on the day. Shame TM doesn't think like that.

How dare he risk losing possession by shooting from so far out. We'll not see him this season then, he'll be having that coached out of him and be being taught about not crossing the half way line and keeping the team's shape.

Leaving aside whether one bloke is a nice guy and the other one isn't, results aren't good though. Eighteen points from the last twenty games I think it is currently.

Hard to disagree. This season is turning into a desperately disappointing one which, given the lack of attention paid to improving the first eleven, merely looks to be laying the foundations for an inevitable relegation next season.

Imo you're not looking at the long term picture. If we'd brought in 2-3 first team quality players and blooded a load of youngsters and looked promising going forward and barely survived that would have been a lot better than where we are now, plummeting like a stone having given out a load of new contracts to various has beens who should have been fired off.

On that basis, no young manager would ever make the step up. Little or no risk for us until the end of the season, if we didnt get another point we still might not go down. One thing's for sure though, something has to change, it's all gone horribly stale.

Mowbray out. Johnson in until end of season. Blood youngsters. Pay off Conway, Williams, Bennett and Evans. New main striker and reassess in summer.

No.

This.

Agree with most of your assessment but I thought Evans was a disgrace to the shirt today. For me the best midfield combo is any that doesn't involve Evans. Smallwood wasn't great either today and for me the glaringly obvious change needed at HT was Travis for Evans or failing that Smallwood but Tony was obviously happy with what he saw.

It's fair to say I completely lost my rag today when Evans went AWOL, Bennett went AWOL, and Williams came over to deal with it and got skinned for their goal. Yet another goal conceded inside 10 mins and I think in the last 3 games we've been trailing inside 20 mins. After that, an absolute shambles, players swapping about from one side of the pitch to the other every 5 minutes. No changes at HT after one of the worst halves I've ever seen. No one left on the half way line for opposition corners with us one down at home. For me the manager has completely lost the plot. This side is rotten to the core. Sack Mowbray before the day is out, rip up the contracts of Williams, Evans, Bennett, and Conway, bring Damien Johnson in, and promote some young lads who might actually wear the shirt with pride, show some enthusiasm and put a shift in. # Fuming.

Same but more importantly we've won the PL and Liverpool haven't. Don't want anyone different winning it ever really, although I wouldn't mind so much if it wasn't one of the "big six." # Stillonlysixnamesonthepremierleaguetrophy

Imo we're not going down this season, we have enough credit in the bank. I don't think any of the bottom 3 will get more than a point or two beyond what we have now. Next season though....... ?

If we had two no nonsense centre backs who dealt with danger properly and a decent defensive midfielder then Nyambe, Bell and Raya would probably look very useful indeed imo

Don't blame you. I feel like I'll be purchasing out of duty rather than because it's going to blow my socks off.

I'll be renewing as I love the Club even though imo entertainment levels have been dire this season and I have lost faith in the manager. However I still think people are barking up the wrong tree regarding price. Was speaking to a Nobbers fan a few days ago and he commented how cheap our ST prices were, think he said theirs start at £400.

TM inherited a squad which got us relegated from this League. He then made an inspired signing in Dack and with him playing a blinder the same squad proved slightly too good for League 1. We've now returned to the League we got relegated from, yet the majority of the same senior players who took us down have moved from being experienced pros to being two years closer to retirement. I really don't know what TM was expecting when he said he would give them a chance at this level. If we did by some miracle sneak up into the Prem via the play offs then surely even he wouldn't say "I want to give these lads a chance" would he? He'd think we needed better players. So why it should be completely different moving up from League 1 I've no idea. I don't understand it at all and I also think he's landed us in quite a hole as there's now too much to do at once.

18 points from 19 games now Parson, it's not like it's a bit of a blip and I find it a little odd you're targeting individual players. So in your view it's all the players' fault and no blame attaches to the manager?

I dread him bringing in an "experienced" keeper like Steele who doesn't appear to make any outrageous blunders, but every time the opposition shoot it's a goal.