Im unconvinced that there is a consistent criticism to be had for Mowbray's treatment across the board. I do think for some of these players there is criticism to be made but I think equally there is perhaps some praise to be given. On Travis, he gets some unfair stick. He came in and did well for the three games that Smallwood was suspended in but he could have easily reverted back to the limited but experienced player. Travis has played basically every single game possible ever since and I think any talk of him stunting his development is totally unfair. Nyambe is a more complex one. Most of the time he has been first choice, but there was a decent sized spell to which Bennett was preferred despite never showing competence there. There was a game at Millwall in which Mowbray publically said that he dropped him for "lacking confidence" before putting him back in. There was also a couple of games in which Rankin Costello despite being inferior was preferred. There has also been the inability to get him to sign a new deal. So there has been plenty of game time and obvious improvement but also some scope for criticism. As for the others, the signing of Davenport has been particularly curious. Wharton has been loaned surprisingly with success (unlike many others loaned out) and had he started this season in the first team, we would have correctly questioned recruitment. After recovering from concussion, he was also preferred to a fit Ayala before getting his injury. I think with Wharton again there seemed to be a plan and some unfortunate luck. Rankin Costello has probably played as much if not slightly more than his performances have merited, and Buckley has played far more than any promise shown. I feel like Mowbrays faults and limitations lie elsewhere in the main.

I want a change of manager but for me it is a huge exaggeration to imply that Mowbray as a "football dinosaur" is going to help "kill off our club." Covid is the main protagonist that will cause all Championship clubs (and below) serious problems. I take on your board about Waggott too, all of his pricing policies and marketing strategies have shown a clear lack of understanding as to our fan base and that will only exacerbate the problem. All of this stuff about needing to rise from the ashes, on the back of some of the doomsday scenarios that you have dreamt up in the past, the club going under, the club selling its best players every summer etc before going onto the next match thread and telling people to lump on a comfortable Rovers win is what makes you somewhat of a parody figure. I also dont feel comfortable with implying that Mowbray is merely topping up his pension and cant believe his luck. He is a manager who overall has done a decent job but has clearly IMO gone as far as he can, but he seems a decent enough bloke. It is of course a job to him as it would be any other person but there is no need to question his integrity, merely suggesting that we should change manager is adequate.

The thing is that the crap he is saying isnt actually problem, but it merely throws salt into the wounds of a blatant failure to improve and come close to meeting targets on the league table. There is literally no basis as to how he has concluded that we should be 10 or 12 points better off, none at all. You get the points you deserve. I think there are still some fans who genuinely believe in the journey and that we are in a better place than last season purely on what they have seen aesthetically despite the minor issue that we are worse off for points even compared to a season in which we never got into the top 6. Even the supposed attacking/entertaining football has been non existent for quite a while now. His major flaw is that all of his theories seem to have concluded that there is a 100% correlation between having more of the ball and winning points, but there were numerous examples of teams who disproved that even last season. We also dont have any defenders who are good with the ball with their feet, nor the players seemingly to be able to play at a high enough tempo in those areas to ensure that it is not merely keeping the ball for the sake of it. Mowbray mentioned recently that he delegates set pieces to his coaching staff. A well managed side tends to be proficient from set pieces, and we may not have the biggest side in the world so to an extent I understand why we do try short corners but you have to put the time in to practice, you need the quality of coaching and you need constantly new ideas to ensure that teams never know what you are about to do. As we clearly dont have these 3, it makes more sense to play the percentages and take normal corners. Football doesnt have to be either obsessing about possession or going direct, there can be a happy medium and plenty of compromises but Mowbray seems too keen to stick to his misguided principles. We have 3 players in attacking positions that guarantee goals and assists, which gives us a huge leg up on basically everyone in this league, even having 2 as we have up until this date is a massive bonus. Play all three in their best positions (Armstrong central, Dack as a 10 ie no false 9 or CM shite and Elliott on the right and not again in CM) and go from there. We have a lorry load of players who tend to flatter to deceive, 3 bad games for every 1 good game, Rothwell, Holtby, Brereton, Gallagher etc and they can all fight for the remaining spots, then I would go with 2 central midfielders who can help to protect our flaky defence, and actually a lot of time spent on organising rather than "building on an attacking structure" which makes absolutely no sense.

You seem to be hell bent on pointing out "pessimism" as you often are but its hardly as if I undermine every signing. Elliott was a signing that excited me, Ayala seemed to fit the bill of what I wanted(in retrospect due diligence on fitness wasnt done), Douglas wasnt my first choice but I was happy at an upgrade on Bell, Kaminski I had never seen but certainly didnt undermine, Trybull seemed a decent addition, I was happy with the summer business. Kipre I was very excited about but we didnt get it over the line. Sadly the recruitment not improved us but at the time I was positive so your impression is false. I havent even said that it is a bad signing, just an underwheming one. That is more based on the situation rather than the individual. A temporary addition of an 18 year old with barely any senior experience is not one that gives me great confidence that it will make a major difference to keeping our goals against column down. The manager is the main reason for that and having said last week you wanted a change, im sure youll empathise. Financially it seems that the only market we can deal in is kids on loan, and I acknowledged that maybe the nominal experience he does have does put him ahead of some of the alternatives mentioned ie Harwood Bellis and Van Den Berg. But its more the market we are in, the inability over a long term period for the manager to organise the defence, the league position, the already forlorn hope of meeting our target this season and maybe even not being able to attend that causes me to be underwhelmed. In regards to my comments on data, I have regularly been of that opinion since the recent fad has grown whereby many on social media show various graphs and tables. With defenders especially I question their worth, with attackers goals and to a lesser extent assists are much more useful but even then things like progressive runs and expected goals are not something I take personal notice of. Again, that isnt something I do purposely to undermine Mowbray or Rovers. Kipre and Ayala ranked poorly on such "metrics" but I knew having seen them play (the doubt around Ayala was capability and reliability after injuries which has been proven) that they are both good defenders at this level. I feel that sometimes people place too much stock in such stats to the extent that they are viewed as matter of fact proof. The irony in regards to my hell bent desire to undermine everything the club does lays in your constant desperation to undermine the top scorer in the league who currently resides here.

I dont understand not including Dack. He has played 3 cameos and the majority of the game last week, he is clearly physically fit enough but lacking match fitness. Going from 70+ minutes back to a cameo seems counter productive to me, I appreciate that he wasnt on top form last week, but that was of course in a changed up side in which he played a position that he blatantly isnt suited to playing. And he might take a couple more games to build himself back up fully, but it is worth it. Play him in his best position, as our best player behind our other best player, if he cant manage a full 90 then fine but going back to cameos and he wont be able to in the near future either.

Data for defenders has very limited use. Kipre was a key reason for the improvement in the second half of the season for Wigan last season, he became a regular and they repeatedly kept keeping clean sheets. Whether he made less "interceptions" less "forward passes" less "tackles" etc is of limited use, and from numerous factors, for example, a better reader of the game will make less tackles. I saw Kipre at this level quite a few times and he was very assured. I am amazed that there was even a day worth of footage for Braithwaite to go over. Ultimately he played 9 games at League 2 level which is obviously not very good, then 4 games in dead rubbers for Everton. Again, the data is surely almost worthless in comparing a player who played a couple of seasons in the Championship, v a player with 9 League 2 games and 4 Premier League games making up his stats! None of our centre backs can use the ball very well, it makes no sense to play out from the back in that way. He may prove to be a good loan signing, we do need at least one new centre back, he signed one who is made of glass, he rejected offers for another who has never been very good and again is made of glass, and a fourth one who Mowbray was unsure on who played well a couple of times before an unfortunate long term injury. If we are unable to afford Crewe players, we are seemingly in a market whereby we have to compare and take a calculated risk on an untested kid on a temporary basis with precious little to base that decision on as they wont have played much mens football between them. Its a wait and see job but its difficult to get excited over. And Harvey Elliott is good, but he certainly isnt world class. He has only played there a couple of times, where he looks even less competent than in midfield, but it was his poor defending that led to the Canos goal at Brentford.

Stoke have Allen and Mikel back fit but still look rather depleted. Both Davies and Gunn are out still, Fletcher, Campbell and Gregory are all out in attack, Morgan Fox is out at left back and the tosser that is James McLean has been suspended for breaching Covid guidelines. They do have 3 new signings though.

Im not sure they could have gathered too much from 4 games to have such a glowing opinion to be fair. I dont have any issue with loan players necessarily, I am full of praise for the Elliott signing. I am just skeptical that an 18 year old loanee with such little experience will make a significant difference in getting that goals against column down.

His struggles with the pace of senior football were massively aided playing against a 10 man struggling team on damage limitation mode.

How much have you "seen?" Obviously he has barely played any senior football, guessing youve seen him for Everton but what kind of player is he? You say "fuck the begrudgers" but its hardly mindless pessimism. We are regressing, and signing a kid with a dozen senior games on a temporary deal in a season that seems destined for mediocrity, it would be incredible but unfair to expect him to fix our defensive woes under a manager unable to organise one.

I think that people over focus on his obvious physical limitations but I dont think he is very good beyond that. He takes too long on the ball and often doesnt seem to have pictures of the game around him. With who we have in central midfield, even including the likes of Rothwell and Holtby who flatter to deceive most weeks, I dont see how he even gets on a 9 man bench.

Kaminski Nyambe Lenihan Branthwaite Douglas Travis Davenport Elliott Dack Rothwell Armstrong Subs: Pears, Bell, Johnson, Trybull, Holtby, Gallagher, Dolan, Brereton, Downing

is anyone anything other than totally non plussed regarding the potential loan sign of a kid who has played 13 senior appearances in his his career? Is he going to make a major difference in helping a manager who seems unable and unwiling to focus on keeping clean sheets to suddenly start keeping the goals out as a sole change? Unconvinced.

So he picked the wrong option at least 243 times, assuming that the only times he ever chose correctly, he scored.

27 goals in a year for a mid table side.

Clearly didnt ask well enough.

If merely finishing in the top half rather than the bottom, so potentially a place lower than last season would ensure his place is kept as manager then I suspect that standards are even lower than I had imagined. His target is top 6.

Ive never seen him play so as I say cant judge if hes any good purely off data. Also dont think we can get away with Rothwell deep in midfield next to Travis.

Or we need to re evaluate the shape of the midfield entirely. Play Dack in his best position and play Travis and one other deeper.

A lot of excitement over Pickering seemingly stemming from random stats, crosses per game, tackles per game, progressive runs per game, and montages of him doing sliding tackles and the like. Will need to be judged in a game rather than with numbers as to whether he can help the back 4 concede less goals than it is currently doing. I will refrain from judging a player I have never seen until as and when he signs, neither left back is good enough so we do need a new left back, young, highly rated at his current club and with potential to fill the position long term, room for cautious optimism. We need a new centre back in the next day or 2 too.

Surely explaining the reasons to which someone believes a manager should stay is exactly the thing to expect on a thread questioning the managers future? Theres plenty of frustration flying around that many feel that we are underperforming and stagnating. Not enjoyment.

Im not sure how you managed to come to this conclusion. My point was even at our lowest ebbs in my life time and in even in times when it went against logic and reason, I have retained at least a bit of hope that things can get better.

Probably because people are trying to rationalise why we are never close to getting in the table where the targets have been set out. I dont really think its as simple as putting things down to one thing. Comments are meaningless. Players never say "im staying even though the manager is underachieving and I dont believe in him because ive doubled my wage." Not that im saying that is the case but comments like that are always to be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

Because I do not know what these reasons are. If you was to just simply state now, as things change too, I want Mowbray to stay because of x y and z and then constructive debate can arise.

To be honest I agree, whether he wants to shout and bawl, sit in the upper tier, pick his nose, scratch his arse, whatever he wants to do on the touchline means little. The reason that people are resorting to analysing his touchline behaviour however and questioning if he still has the dressing room is because what we have offered up on the pitch this season and perhaps prior is not good enough.