When we were off form, Mowbray was rightly criticised. We hardly invested loads in January, our main signing instantly got injured, aside from that the loan signing of Giles is comparable to Thomas, chuck in Hedges and Zeefuik on loan and its hardly a huge difference. I am in agreement of the flaws throughout the club, Broughton/Waggott and of course the owners all bigger problems than Tomasson but he isnt exempt now from criticism just as Mowbray wasnt. My point isn't that we should be banging in the goals. My point is that we don't look like a team that can attack at all. I am not accepting that our current squad shouldnt be capable of creating more than 1 decent chance at home to bottom of the league Wigan who usually leak goals. We for months havent played like a team that knows how it is expected to attack or works on its attacking. If we created chances and then missed them, maybe the point about the lack of a goalscorer would be more pertinent, indeed we didnt have Dack available last season. Also, why are we not a threat from set pieces? If you genuinely believe that this side is attacking as well as it could do with the personnel we have then fair enough, the manager cant be blamed.

I think your argument isn't helped by the childish opening line, I haven't asked for a managerial change for a start. I have never once defended those above the manager either, the whole club is and always has been dysfunctional. The jury is very much out on Broughton who has not performed well enough in the transfer market, Waggott is a clown and of course the biggest problem will always be the owners. But that doesn't mean that it isn't acceptable in a home game against a terrible team who are bottom of the league has been conceding loads of goals to not create a proper chance after the fifth minute. It's not as if we had a number of chances and failed to take them. We don't look like a team that is well drilled on how to score goals. There surely is enough dynamism at the managers disposal with the likes of Dolan, Hedges, Thomas etc to at least show a bit more urgency. We have Dack who will sniff out chances if we could get near the opposition goal. There is no interchanging between the attacking players, they don't look like they train together. Then there is set pieces, is there a less effective team from set pieces in the league than us. It is drab even beyond any misgivings right at the top.

Really difficult to put together a reasonable team at the moment, can't see a change in the back 4 and keeper although against good attackers I can see plenty of danger coming our way. Travis to keep his place, Dack to keep his, Dolan deserves a start then beyond that, struggling. No Vale involvement under any circumstances. Can only see a comfortable defeat.

What chances? We had one proper one, that is it really. Vale is still considerably poorer than the admittedly limited alternatives. The football on offer last season was far more entertaining than this season which is as dull as anything going back to Appleton, lets see if we finish higher or lower then we can judge comparatively as ultimately the league table is the important thing. Playing the same way? Lacking in seemingly a game plan, lacking in tempo, not creating chances and ultimately not looking overly arsed, creating one proper chance. Tomasson has a point with what he says re the dysfunctional running of the club, make no mistake, but he is not doing his job very well in the last couple of months himself. I can only presume that you are taking the piss. That squad contained Steele, Greer, Brown, Henley, Lowe, Akpan, Guthrie, Emnes, Bennett and Feeney. This one has Kaminski, Wharton, Ayala, Pickering, Buckley, Travis, Dolan, Brereton and Gallagher who all featured regularly for a team that finished 8th last season, added to by Hyam and the returning Dack. How is that core worse than the team Coyle left or performing miracles to be safe from relegation?

.

There are a lot of players with flaws and the whole club is dysfunctional. No doubt about it. But these players after a good start are playing far more dysfunctionally than they were last season. Tomasson deserves lots of criticism for how we have been playing especially tonight and there is no excuse for playing Vale.

The Brereton comment is a criticism of our terrible owners. Anyone but Vale. Dolan for one. Brereton central, even bloody Gallagher. Even Leonard. No doubting that he has limited options, Vale is the worst of them. He would struggle in League 2. But even with all that, there is no excuse for such a performance, one of many in recent weeks. We are not improving.

We did enough to beat them comfortably? Most did ok? What game was you watching?

Absolutely appalling. A lot of the flak has rightly gone upstairs after the last week but that was not acceptable, on the back of so many woeful performances. Tomasson deserves so much stick for another no show, no game plan, no tempo, no passion, nothing to cling on to. If this is a Jon Dahl Tomasson team, we are going one way. Why does he keep playing Vale, he is appalling, offers nothing. Imagine defending the choice to let Brereton run his contract down.

I'm not sure that he will, he clearly wanted a striker that Broughton was unable to give him and he always plays him on the left.

Burnley are 17 points clear of 3rd place, Sheff Utd are 10. Fulham finished 8 clear of third last season, with relegation sorted with a couple of games to go. The number of teams that get promoted on parachute money is stark. The play off format gives more something to play for, but it can't be the most competitive in the world.

Makes sense if true.

With these owners we will not become successful at trading due to their insistence at over ruling managers and removing autonomy regarding potential player sales. There is no point in anyone under them even trying to do that when the owners are so set on scuppering such a plan.

We could go with Brereton up top, an actual goal threat who can run in behind and hold the ball up.

He isnt going to say how shit he is though so id take it with a pinch of salt.

New head of recruitment is Welsh.

If Brereton was in form off the left then I would not move him but he is not effective from the left in a 4231 like he was in the formation last winter because whilst he played from the left he was much more central and further forward. It then gives us the options of Thomas, Dolan and Hedges competing for the wide roles either side of our main 2 goal threats. Playing Vale is like having 10 players.

I don't see why the theory has to be that Vale is doing things that us mere plebs cannot fathom or understand. Sam Gallagher is very average but he is far better than Jack Vale. He is not prolific but he will always score close to 10 goals, sometimes from wide which is pretty underwhelming still but is incomparable to someone with 1 league goal in his career at this stage. Vale doesn't link play at all, he doesn't put himself about, if the ball comes off the ground he never ever wins headers and the ball tends to bounce off him. It often does with Gallagher but defenders would take a game against Vale over Gallagher any day. Vale even with such poor options is not the best we have. There is little onus on you for Vale getting into goalscoring positions which is half of the battle of "creating chances." The onus is not just on the players around Vale to create him chances, his movement is poor. He can't hide behind the "system" as a central striker who has not shown signs of creating chances for himself with clever movement. Dack has also scored 4 goals this season, you point to the "subtlety" of Vale's movement as a reason for that. Even if we accept Vale's movement as a big reason for the goal at Bristol City, and that amble to the side is becoming as infamous as Myles Anderson's tackle! For the other 3 goals, Vale wasn't on the pitch! I don't see where the confidence comes from that it will be addressed next window. Broughton has had 2 in which he signed Hirst as "first choice" in one and nobody in the second.

It is a must win tomorrow for me to end a poor couple of months and try and regain some form. Wigan are shocking, we are at home v bottom of the league. If things start badly on the back of recent performances and off the field woes, the crowd could easily become disgruntled. It's on the players and the manager to get a good response tomorrow.

Agreed. In the summer a conscious decision was seemingly made that Buckley would successfully transition from an attacking midfielder to a holding midfielder and with Rothwell leaving, another attacking midfielder was brought in. There was a semblance of reason to that theory but his big strengths last season were winning the ball high up and playing players in on goal, his best spell by far in a Rovers shirt was as a false 9 with Brereton and Khadra either side going beyond him, as much as that form really nosedived once the whole team dipped and we didn't have Brereton fit and scoring goals running in behind. His main assets are restricted playing so deep and he dawdles on the ball, he takes too long on the turn and lacks the awareness to avoid being pick pocketed.

I wonder if Leeds will go for a new manager. They have a decent squad and are in terrible form under an energetic but rather irritating manager that struggles to get results.

Dyche straight in with a bang at Everton with the same players. Well drilled, a threat from set pieces and a new lease of life. I wish they had stuck with Lampard.

If that's something you are clinging on to, it suggests that there hasn't been much in the first place to cling onto! You compare him to a youngster in Adam Wharton with a similar amount of game time if not less, you can point to a man of the match performance at Blackpool, a goal v Birmingham, an excellent performance away at Boro and a superb assist at Hull for starters.

Underwhelming goal record, Cardiff fans seemingly in unison that he isn't very good, and whenever I have seen Cardiff on Sky and he has played, he has been part of an impotent Cardiff attack. Granted I didn't watch the game at Cardiff earlier in the season as I was away in which he did score a very good goal. Mark Harris, Sam Gallagher and Jack Vale would be possibly the worst set of strikers in the league.

He would have been struggling had @JoeH not mentioned that!