Neither. They weren't good enough to stop us going down and we wouldn't have been promoted without Dack. At the time we were relegated I'd say only Mulgrew would have been considered a major loss although Graham has done better since. I'm sure that ideally they would rather not have played in League 1 but obviously they must have been well enough remunerated not to receive an equivalent or better offer from a Club higher up the pyramid. Bit of a stretch to call it a masterstroke on behalf of the manager.

Unless it was very well hidden, there was zero interest in any of those three at whatever money they were on.

Some fair points and probably not time to pull the trigger yet but the possibility someone else worse might be appointed should never be a reason against making a change if things clearly aren't working. Personally in the long term I just don't see us progressing much beyond the point where we are now under TM so for me the question is do we soldier on indefinitely in an attempt to preserve the status quo and cement ourselves as a perennial lower mid table championship outfit or at some point do we have to be slightly more ambitious and take a bit of a gamble? If the latter, is there any real point in delaying it indefinitely?

The first thing for me that needs to change is that TM needs to stop being too loyal to the players who have been here some considerable time and be a lot more ruthless in attempting to improve the squad. Team spirit can only get you so far and we still have the rump of the squad that got us relegated last time round. I've said numerous times that those players will do for TM eventually unless he is careful.

I find it astounding that you think "we aren't too far away". The main worry for me is not that we have one win in eight etc etc (as if the worst comes to the worst we should have enough points in the bank to limp to survival) but rather the fact that long term we are showing no signs whatsoever of progression as a Club. I think most supporters in the summer thought that if we were to compete as opposed to merely survive at this level the first team needed considerable strengthening in key areas i.e. centre back, a dominant central midfielder one or preferably two main strikers and a couple of genuine wingers. TM completely ignored this preferring not to upset the players already here and overloaded the squad with midfielders who with the benefit of hindsight he hasn't used. He has also handed new deals to players who either aren't good enough or who are on their last legs. I don't think any blame can be attached to the owners in this, if you take TM at face value and the money was there all along for him in summer then he had a budget of c 11m for transfer fees plus loan fees and wages for all the loanees plus questionable contract extensions which overall should have been more than adequate to strengthen the first eleven. However there doesn't seem to be any suggestion whatsoever that we're looking to make the Reed deal permanent so once he goes back we'll be no better off than when we were promoted. If god help us Dack has had enough of carrying us or were to be sold then we'd be considerably weaker than where we were at the start of this season so the whole process of trying to merely consolidate would start again from a far weaker starting point.

Spot on. If that's the attitude of the team then it's completely wrong and it's no wonder we're on the wrong end of so many comebacks. The aim should be to be two or three goals up by the hour mark and have the game done and dusted. If we do occasionally find ourselves in a game where it's tight then so be it but that shouldn't be the aim or expectation.

We've still got half the season to go yet. Long way to go before we can say we've finished 10th to 14th. Carry on as we are doing and it'll be 20th to 24th.

"Positives". Errmmm.........

Won't happen but good shout. At least we'd see some decent football.

Mulgrew's as culpable as anyone for me. Great from free kicks, not a great defender though.

To be fair it looked like there'd previously possibly been a confrontation on the touch line with one of the Leeds assistant staff and TM initially looked like he wanted to carry it on until Bielsa calmed him down which was what the subsequent shrugging and hugging was about I think.

I know. From open play we're clueless though. Reliant on nicking something from a set piece or being gifted a penalty. Plus we cant defend despite lining up with seven defensive players.

Oh well we've surpassed ourselves today. 2-1 up on 90 mins and lose 3-2. Sick to death of the lack of resilience with this bunch of players even though we line up incredibly defensively and I do feel Mowbray's time is coming to an end - he seems completely out of ideas.

Did it go in? Unbelievable save by Raya initially.

The scoreline looks tight but its an embarrassing performance. Evans is an absolute disgrace in midfield jogging around a bit and doing plenty of pointing. He might as well get in the bath now. Williams as we know is a defensive liability. Bell isn't offering a huge amount. Of our three attacking players Dack looks up for it today but he's completely on his own. Graham is shot at and nothing Armstrong does seems to come off. If we carry on like that it's probably just a case of how many. Can't see us scoring unless Mulgrew scores a free kick from distance or they give us a soft penalty.

With pacey inventive midfielders zipping the balk about either side of him Evans looks so far out of his depth its frightening. Doing a Lowe, jogging about a bit whilst the game goes on around him.

Isn't that a reason for him NOT being on the bench? I would have thought that a fit Travis was a better option than a semi crocked Reed. The line up isn't quite as unimaginative as I was fearing, we usually line up with seven or eight defensive players plus Dack and Graham anyway.

Indeed, would like to echo Stuart's sentiments, Merry Christmas to all and don't let the football ruin your festive ribaldry. Lol.

Actually, we are, but it's only when we have a dangerous break or situation on or have the ball in our own half, we pass the ball interminably sideways and backwards until the opposition have recovered their shape and any danger is gone.

Errr..... he isn't, he is well past hs prime and is a mid table Championship player at best. Sorry, for the 7m spent on Brereton I'm not having it that thete was no -one either at home or abroad that wouldn't have been an upgrade on Graham if only in terms of being nearer his physical peak. I suspect the problem was that we misjudged the market in the summer, went back to the owners for more money at the last minute then started trying to throw money about like water at anyone who would entertain us just before the window shut.

Tony: "We're not used to seeing us lose at home". Me: "We're not used to seeing us win at home either!".

You keep making this assumption that BB is on very low wages. May or may not be the case. Furthermore you keep trying to justify the signing on the fact that other Clubs with bigger budgets may have committed to spending more on other players. That's irrelevant. You can only judge our situation relative to OUR budget and the fact is 70% of the transfer budget was splurged on a player who after half a season has yet to make a start. Even if he'd only cost £1m and was on 5k p.w. if he'd never started or impressed off the bench it would still be a waste of money. Still blame the manager rather than the player for the situation unless and until he is given an extended chance to shine from the start in his natural position and fails to take it. Hope you got your pressies wrapped. Merry Christmas.

We did need at least one, maybe even two strikers but ones who the manager would be prepared to put straight into the team. I think we all expected Armstrong to do a bit better, but ideally we needed a new first choice striker as well allowing Graham to fulfill the role of reliable back up.

Sod it. If we're going to go down, let's go down in flames. I'd like to see us stop humping the long ball up to Graham and start playing the ball cleverly into channels for the likes of Armstrong and Brereton to run onto. I'd go Raya Nyambe Mulgrew Lenihan Bell Palmer Reed Rothwell Dack Brereton Armstrong .....but I suspect TM will be ultra cautious and I wouldn't be surprised to see him pack defence and midfield and maybe even come up with some weird formation without an out and out striker like at West Brom or Preston.

I hope we don't regret the decision to give TM a new long term contract. It would have been more than adequate to keep him on a one year rolling deal with handsome performance related bonuses imo. I wasn't comfortable when TM was instrumental in landing Waggott (with whom he's worked before) the Chief Executive's job at Ewood. Waggott gets the job, gives Mowbray a new long term deal and in the meantime suggestions are starting to emerge that the manager might be acquiescing to signings being brought in who might not be his choice. All feels a bit too cosy to me.