That was not the same position as he was more advanced and had Smallwood and Evans behind him that day.

Yesterday I didnt see a perfomance from Brown that gave me confidence that he is at the moment a Championship standard player. But even if he had, considering his age and the fact that he has only ever played at a very low level, that playing week in week out in the English leagues would be beneficial anyway.

I am saying that Rothwell's best season has come in a deeper role.

It's probably a role in which we will need to look at the market, even if its a freebie on low wages. Rankin Costello is crap and Brown is a rookie. Assuming we didn't and even if both of the aforementioned players stayed, the 2nd choice should anything happen to Nyambe/his replacement would be to move Carter.

It is dangerous to just starting listing kids as part of the potential squad. As mentioned on another thread, for me Brown and indeed Vale need loan spells next season. The likes of A.Wharton, Phillips, Batty, Cirino etc are all total rookies, if any break through next season it should be seen as a bonus, not an expectation.

The narrative around Buckley has been that Mowbray has wasted him in the false 9 role and it was persevered with for too long but it is also easy to forget that the best couple of months in his career came from that position. Assuming that Dack starts the season, it will be interesting to see how (and if) we can get them both in the team together. The common consensus seems to be that Buckley can go next to Travis but that is a whole different role and there would be question marks over whether he would adapt successfully.

The above quotes are not in any way out of order or further proof of any anti-Nyambe agenda from Mowbray. He does point out valid areas in which he needs to improve but he also literally says that he loves him and worries about him if he moves away from Rovers.

I am surprised to have seen such a positive reaction to Brown's performance yesterday, for me he was a serious weakness and Birmingham got plenty of joy down his side. It defies all logic in my opinion to have him lurking around the fringes next season as a squad player. He especially at the age he is seems desperate for a season in League 1 (ideally) or League 2, playing regular professional League football to see what he is made of.

He has had by far his best season in that role in which Mowbray has apparently caused him to waste his best talents. He has matured off the ball and it allows him to take the ball across long distances and is a useful tool in breaking at speed. When he has played further forward, he doesn't have that same amount of space to drive into and he struggles to get involved.

The point is that the fact that Mowbray's departure has yet to be announced and that Mowbray has said that he has not even spoke to Venkys yet but that they intend to call him this week proves that the search for a successor is not the proactive and thoroughly planned one with numerous candidates going through interviews that you seem to (against all logic and recent history) seems to have deluded yourself into thinking is happening. The transfer budget I am sure will be minimal and the loan market will be once again critical in cobbling together a squad for next season.

If the reward for achieving our current objective (ie promotion) was something that I would hate and that would ruin my experience of supporting Rovers, I think I would have long since packed it in.

As if we have a strategy! Why aren't the club/owners putting out a statement about the manager? Why haven't they even contacted him about his future? Obviously a manager coming in and choosing a style that doesn't fit the players wouldn't end in good results but we shouldn't appoint someone just because of the style they usually play. I never said that we shouldn't bring through young players, but it shouldn't be key in appointing someone.

He if I recall compared him to Benrahma by saying that he has similar levels of talent but needs to get more goals and assists. But its an irrelevance. He turned him from an ineffective yet flash player with the occasional screamer to a central midfielder who became wanted by Bournemouth.

You know what I mean, there is still no clarity from the club on Mowbray's future, and he has not even had a call from our tosspot owners. It should simply be a case of appointing someone not to fit a specific style that we want to play, or even to pacify this obsession over the young players, it should all be about bringing in someone to get the best results.

Good way to end a season that is a marked improvement on the prior one but of course the way that it has unfolded makes it a huge dissapointment. Buckley was man of the match, Brereton was very good and Hedges is starting to look a danger. 2 points of note for 2 players auditioning for next season who were for me our 2 weakest players. Tayo Edun is a liability, really limited on the ball and loves a silly yellow card. James Brown was also not up to scratch, made 2 or 3 errors that led to attack, needs a loan and regular football next season rather than playing the occasional game here.

Blatantly untrue, but your Mowbray hatred clearly skews any sense of logic. He arrived as a player who would score a screamer every 6 months and could never show enough to warrant a regular start, often from a wide position, after being in and out at League 1 Oxford. He has been moved into a midfield 3 and this season a midfield 2 which has seen him mature and become more consistent and reliable, improvements which have seen him attract interest elsewhere. He definitely has grown considerably as a player under Mowbray and should feel a lot of appreciation towards him.

His level? It clearly isn't is it. We would be right to let him go IF we indeed do but 15th, 11th, 15th and 8th placed finishes with a club with our wage bill ranking lower mid table is very respectable and prove that he is capable of this level of reasonable results. Nixon is a laughing stock. The manager hasn't even been officially sacked yet subject to a predictable begging phone call. Nixon meanwhile has linked us to so many managers as if we have put any thought into potential replacements. Why do we have to play this specific style? Is it not a much simpler idea to appoint a manager with the best chance of good results and let him bloody decide what style to employ to do that. Also, Lee Johnson? Not only is he a little cretin but he isn't a particularly good manager.

He was not playing throughout our winning run, with Van Hecke, Lenihan and Wharton all superb together.

I personally am not fussy on either point. I want winning football over certain styles and I dont think that a desire to get young players should overtake the want to win games. Its just that chaddy personally regularly says that the new manager should embrace the academy and bring through young players and he has dismissed other managers based on style of play.

@chaddyrovers Ainsworth always features highly on your wishlists but his team is the oldest in League 1 and they are a direct side that plays very direct football, something to which you have dismissed other managers for the same reason. What gives?

To be fair, the second part suggests that you are financially comfortable enough for a price increase to be no more than an inconvenience. Lots of people are not.

He has only failed to start this season in 3 games whereby he has been fit and available, one of which saw the debut of a new signing, one of which we won 4-1 and one in which we kept the same team that won 4-1. This season, when he has been fit, he has almost always started.

Moved away from my point, which was that Mowbray's job could indeed be described as ok/decent/mediocre/alright, in comparison I would suggest that Jones and Corberan have done very good jobs. I certainly don't think that it is impossible to over (or indeed under) achieve, we wouldn't watch football if it always fell directly in line with wage budgets and/or resources. Nor is it impossible to underachieve as for example West Brom have done this season, with a mixture of Bruce and mainly Ismael doing what I would describe as a poor job. My point wasn't specifically about Keane, it was about clouding the sole objective of getting the manager would would deliver the best results with additional objectives like getting a high profile former player. For what its worth, I wouldn't want Keane as an individual, love watching him as a pundit but I think that people are clouding their judgement having watched him in that role.

Another prediction that fell by the wayside?

Brown needs regular football, how can we be sure that he is capable of being back up to a fairly injury prone full back (if he re-signs) and how is it good for him to play here and there? The same with Vale, he couldn't score regularly at Halifax, he needs to go and get regular game time in the football league, not make up the numbers with no evidence that either is up to standard. Showed some detail below, but as I said, I would prefer Nyambe in the team, as he almost always is. Another thing you have to factor in is that when he doesn't play, our alternatives there especially Rankin Costello are dreadful, so we are replacing our likely best full back with someone who is a total weakness. But I would agree that in general, I would much prefer him to be in the team, and the majority of his tenure, so has Mowbray. This season, he missed 3 games early on through injury. He then hobbled off in the defeat at Huddersfield and missed the following Blackpool game in which Magloire started. He then missed the Derby game I think again through injury, and a chunk of 5 games in a row through another injury. So the only 3 occasions that he missed out were the Forest home game in which Zeefuik was given a game instead of him, the one and only time that has happened through choice. And also the last 2 games, the first of which we won 4-1 and the second one it made sense to keep things the same. My point has never been that I'd rather him not start, just that this idea that he has been victimised by Mowbray is far fetched. I've already said that I disagreed with the decision regarding Bennett, the issue was more that he seemed to want to cram Bennett (who was always shit) in as his captain rather than some horrid treatment of Nyambe, but it was the wrong decision, and wasn't for long. Rankin Costello was an occasional choice again that I disagreed with, presumably trying to have more attacking threat from full back in a team that at the time was trying to play possession football, before realising that Rankin Costello wasnt the man to do that. We have a fully fit squad bar Khadra and Markanday, Johnson, Davenport, Rankin Costello and Giles also all failed to be selected. As I said, we won the first game 4-1 so the squad named cant really be questioned, and we went with it again.