Bennett was one of his first signings and a big favourite from his Norwich days do dont be so sure. Indeed he signed him, Simeon Jackson and Elliott Ward all of whom he had managed previously as well as a few expensive loans, including Graham in his defence as he embraced the sale of our remaining quality player. I think his record not just at Rovers but across various jobs in different situations show that he does not have the competence. I agree that having someone who everyone around the club loves is not necessarily condusive to success but conversely Lamberts persona is in my opinion part of his tactic to try (and often succeed) to deflect attention away from what hes doing or not doing on the pitch by appearing to be ruthless, no nonsense, honest, hard hitting etc and ultimately it can have the effect of making the fans warm to him and usually direct their anger elsewhere.

Another point to add to the healthy net spend, the recent major additions to the wage bill, the lack of considerable liabilities on huge wages from Premier League seasons gone by and the lack of enforced sales is the quality of the academy that gives us a head start over most at our level. I am not saying that Mowbray has not impacted positively on their development as of course they have but to have players like Nyambe, Lenihan and Travis all as key players slightly reduces the scale of the recruitment job required, compare say to Preston, they dont even have an Under 23 team! All of these reasons are why I refuse to accept the narrative that any manager is severely restricted by the resources available to them, I have given numerous factors as to why Rovers manager has plenty to work with and really be competitive. Mowbray of course is competitive but I just feel like there is a glass ceiling he will be unable to break through, im not staunchly against him continuing but the fact that we are even discussing limited resources and he has spent 12m on 2 players who havent at all contributed and of course there has been undeniable scope to be doing better. Regarding Preston, I agree that no teams recruitment is perfect but if a new manager came into our club for example, I think it would be far more difficult not in terms of the quality players as they are similar but in terms of shaping a squad in a balanced way. Mowbray or another manager has now Johnson, Mulgrew and Bennett on huge wages well past their best, 2 useless strikers who will be nigh on impossible to shift, no professional goalkeepers under contract and no effective wide men under contract. Stockley for example was a cheap buy from the lower leagues who is an effective option (and has been better for them than our 12m strikers) from the bench and ultimately could be moved on fairly easily. Sinclair is a little bit removed from the norm and I presume their biggest earner but he would walk into our side and has a couple of goals from wide. Their squad is much more balanced both positionally and financially and they are effective at signing cheap players either from England or Ireland. Take on your point about the restriction that any new appointment would likely be agency driven rather than competence driven. Also there are certain other restrictions that will hinder any manager we have until changed, for example their disinterest leading to decisions on budgets etc being delayed leaving us behind the rest.

The thing is no team will have much money this summer, as a club with minimal budget but one touch wood not going into administration (not for one second that it is anything to be thankful of!) we would not be any less attractive than a number of other clubs. Say if the Preston, Millwall etc jobs became available. That being said, the lack of resources will be another barrier in sacking the manager anyway. The be careful what you wish for reason not to sack the manager is not a valid reason because this is stating what we would do. The owners wont be intetested enough to be considering letting Mowbray go either but no one in their right mind is saying to sack mowbray and bring in a Kean, Coyle, Berg or Appleton. If they did sack Mowbray and bring in a joker, that wouldnt be anyone getting what they asked for.

You mention being brave in the transfer market but ruthlessness has always been an achilles heel. Even recently hes dishing out temporary extensions for crap players like Samuel, Smallwood and Hart who are useless, useless and unused and useless and ineligible when we are amidst the economic tightenings of a pandemic. Last year he offered extensions to basically everyone and hes already given Bell an extension. We have to be especially efficient with our resources at this time and he isnt. Our squad is so imbalanced, 7 or 8 players are good enough and the rest arent. I dont swallow this about us having lower half resources as if we are overachieving in the top half as that isnt a true reflection. Just looking at the wage budgets is flawed for numerous reasons: - There are teams with far larger wage budgets because they have recently been relegated, so essentially a chunk of their wage budget is useless waste on Premier League wages, for example Stoke have Mame Diouf etc, Swansea have Routledge, Dyer etc. Its not as if its all an asset to the manager. - Further proof of a limited correlation between league position is that there are teams with much less wage expenditure right up there and performing better than us. Brentford and Preston have much more efficient recruitment, Sheffield United got promoted spending less on wages and Millwall were much higher and this season are on the same points. - Our wage budget I think will have gone up proportionally more than most with the additions of Johnson, Gallagher, Downing, Holtby, Adarabioyo, Cunningham and Walton. We will only know for sure when the next accounts are published. - A big way in which Mowbray has been lucky is the net spend available to him of over 10m since we came up. Not many teams can boast that but it has not been spent well. - No sales have been forced to halt our progress. Raya was the only sale and Mowbray was clearly happy to cut ties with a player he publically criticised and dropped for the inadequate sub keeper he signed. I am not Mowbray out consistently because I am aware that even if we could and had interested and logical owners, it wouldnt be an easy decision. Hes borderline either way. I just look at our squad and its consistent imbalances and I dont see Mowbray getting us into that top 6 before the promising core is broken up and we start all over. I feel its important to point out that in terms of resources he has plenty but it has not been used very efficiently.

You are right to be fair there. Be mad at a manager signing poor players, using poor tactics, making the wrong subs ultimately all leading to poor results. People only notice a managers off field mannerisms, Mowbray stood there doing nothing, Coyle stood in full kit, Kean licking his lips etc when results arent going right on the pitch.

Conversely, do you have ever stop defending him? ? Agree that Guardiola is not a comparison to take seriously.

If that is the case though surely Mowbray has essentially strengthened his own position by spending so much prior and not really strengthening the squad since promotion, leaving a very imbalanced squad. He doesnt have money now mainly because of the pandemic but he has had money and has possibly wasted the chance to get much closer. We have a very competitve wage budget considering a number of those spending more (Stoke, Swansea, Cardiff, Huddersfield) are not necessarily at an advantage, they are recently relegated clubs full of high earners who arent contributing that they cant shift. Theres no way Mowbray could complain at what he has had to work with. At least 10m net spend post promotion, no key players that he wanted to keep have been sold and hes been able to add plenty of frees who wont have come cheap. The likes of Pulis and McCarthy have history for getting the best out of what they have but that wouldnt have to be the only route. Other experienced managers, a younger forward thinking manager from lower down (Ainsworth etc) or a foreign manager.(like Forest, Brentford etc have done) It all doesnt matter as we couldnt afford to sack Mowbray and he is safe with Waggott having his back.

We have spent an average of 6m a season on dismal strikers, whilst they have apparently spent 6m a season at the same time as Bielsa. They will end that 2 seasons in the Premier League, whilst we are saddled with 2 liabilities! Our wage bill must have gone up considerably looking to the 19/20 accounts, with Johnson, Downing, Holtby, Adarabioyo, Gallagher and Walton added.

Samuel not only in the team but on the right wing again?! No need for him ever to feature again. I though you were very keen on Armstrong central? Shows what we are up against in that 5 of your side currently isnt contracted into next season. Out of the 3 we could sign back up only one should.

Very true.

Cant see past a defeat to be honest. Play off hopes over so may aswell freshen things up. No false 9 and wide strikers bollocks. Armstrong with Holtby just off. Give Buckley, Chapman, Davenport a game, get Lenihan back in, dont risk Travis unless hes fit enough but if he is get him alongside Davenport. Under no circumstances should we play Bennett especially not at left back.

Mowbray bang on regarding the very poor alternative football without fans is. As he says, feels like a training exercise.

Because it is not a minor thing that can be brushed under the carpet! I never said that they should all be in the team, but how does these players existence justify Mowbrays position is what im saying! A new manager would still have them at his disposal, just like the supposed scouting network. There is no evidence that Mowbray would use the extended scouting network well or poorly, and there is no evidence that these youngsters will all become key under Mowbray. The only 2 that have had game time have struggled mainly out of position. So neither strengthens his position at this point. There is further irony that after the first game v Barnsley that we WON you were insistent on Mowbray being sacked. Following the humiliating defeat away leaving any slim play off hope extinguished with 6 games to go, and with many of Mowbrays flaws in plain sight, notably a lack of defensive reinforcement and a few of Mowbrays poor signings in sharp focus (Breretons petulance, Johnson barely able to move, Samuels inability to score goals etc) and you are now defending him often with illogical arguments.

And by the summer they will be gone again and we will be on the look out for more defensive sticky plasters despite blowing another 5m and big wages on a waste of space! Still none the wiser as to how the fact that he "rates" our young players listed but has yet to successfully fully integrate any (the 2 he has given game time to mainly out of position) is further evidence to keep Mowbray. Nor that our scouting network has supposedly improved.

He said at the one before that defenders are coming and yet a year on we are in exactly the same position that we were then. Judge on actions not on words. If Thompson cant even make a 20 man squad at this point with Bennett playing left back then he cant be that close.

Fair enough. Your illogical argument is summed up by listing 6 academy graduates to try and strengthen the point that Mowbray should stay, of whom only 2 have appeared in the first team, fleetingly and predominantly out of position and have struggled to hold their own, and the other 4 (2 of whom are in positions whereby we have had numerous absences) are as of yet unused. When shown how illogical an argument that is, you then suggest they arent ready. Which im not saying they are or that they should play, but how on earth is that a logical point?! IMO expecting a constructive transfer window is totally illogical considering that apart from Armstrong who we had in League 1 anyway, the transfer recruitment since promotion has not progressed us long term, with only short term signings (Reed, Adarabioyo, Downing) excelling, especially when we are in a pandemic and will likely have minimal budget to work with, compared to the very healthy budget blown to date. The squad is still horribly imbalanced and has numerous additional expensive liabilities (Gallagher, Brereton, Johnson) and non contributing wage drains (Rothwell, Chapman, Davenport) that we are lumbered with. The conversation is all moot because he wont be going anywhere, he has a cosy job with his mate Waggott and even if there was a desire to freshen up I am almost certain that we couldnt afford it.

1. So would your declaration of progress and/or your view on Mowbray continuing if we was not to beat the 60 point total from last season? 2. Why would a new manager rip up the supposed work done on widening the scope for potential new signings? To br honest this summer the idea of plucking signings from all 4 corners of the globe seems fanciful considering the current situation anyway. But theres no justification that Mowbray should stay in case a new manager doesnt for whatever reason want an enhanced scouting network. 3. Again I think you are being optimistic expecting an influx of signings but my point is long term you could argue we have actually gone backwards this season in terms of recruitment. We have added 2 big earners who we would find it impossible to shift but neither of whom are any real use. We have also lost the aforementioned keeper we had. The 2 most successful signings are a soon to be 36 year old midfielder who might contribute for another season, and a centre back who will almost certainly go back in 6 games. Recruitment in the last 12 months has a big cross on it. 4. I dont get why you are naming youngsters in your argument of Mowbray should stay. If you said Travis he certainly deserves credit for him. Buckley has played bits and bobs almost exclusively out of position and not established himself. Rankin Costello has made only 2 starts (and struggled im both) so again at this point judging Mowbray is not evidence of anything positive. Thompson cant make the 9 man bench even when all of our left backs are injured, Vale made the bench for the first time yesterday with little appetite to bring him on, and Carter has again been on the bench to make up the numbers. When a gap came available he would rather bring back Mulgrew who he has written off prior. None of these are points which enhance Mowbrays position at this time. 5. The issue about waiting for budgets is a long standing problem and you know that and constantly brush it off. "Its the way they work." Why is the start date so critical, early September, late September, early October, late October, the need for players is exactly the same regardless! And FFP or no FFP, we are going to have a very limited budget, which is why we need to steal a march on the best cheap freebies to fill the gaps, and ideally let all but Downing go from the out of contracters.

To be fair to Mowbray, I dont think its fair to give him anything but praise regarding Travis. He has consistently and quite rightly played him since he broke through and often with Evans to allow Travis to break forward. Nyambe is an interesting one. He has come on leaps and bounds this season but hes still far from the complete player and there was a long while when Bennett was shoehorned in over him which cant have helped.

1. The concept of progress and improvement now does somewhat hang in the balance. We are 4 points behind last seasons points tally, with 6 difficult games to go including the top 2, Cardiff and Milwall. If we was to finish on the same or even less points than last season, would that cause any doubts as to whether youd want him to stay? 2. You regularly mention this European scouting network. Firstly I feel that you are under delusions of grandeur in terms of it all clicking into place and our summer will just be first of all a normal one considering the pandemic (example A being Wigan) and also that we are going to go and sign numerous players from the continent to improve us. But presuming that it is all systems go, why does that have to stop with Mowbray? The scouting network surely doesnt stop in his head. 3. You mention his signings which are a mixed bag but in terms of progress, it doesnt look good. Firstly, obviously we have lost Raya, with his faults sure, signed a goalkeeper no better who this summer has gone. So this summer to last summer, we are down an asset. We spent that money and a bit more on possibly our biggest owner who is absolute shite and a total liability on our wage bill. We cant get rid and hes of no use. Throw in Johnson, another high earning non contributor and weve got 2 big earning failures and of course a hole instead of an asset in goal. Holtby is a good addition for another season who has mainly been used wrongly, Adarabioyo has been good but will go back and leave a hole, and Downing again has been a good signing might get another year but even post lockdown his influence is waning. Are we even in a better position compared to last summer in terms of this seasons recruitment? Not sure we are at all. 4. The 4 you mentioned are all key, but is Rankin Costello a symbol of success on Mowbrays behalf? An assist for a fifth goal at Sheffield Wednesday his sole contribution to date. Buckley has only really had one good game. Chapman has been totally wasted. Davenport has also rotted away and the less said about Brereton the better. Not sure that area really is a qualified success either. 5. You are constantly defending the club for its policy (inconsistently applied in Bell's case) of dithering and waiting regarding budgets. Do you agree that with any lingering play off hopes now gone, the budget should be agreed NOW between our incompetent owners and the manager to ensure that we can be proactive?

The difficulty for a new manager to compared to the job Mowbray had is that under Coyle he had pieced together a squad filled with cheap shite on short term contracts and substandard loans. At the end of the season much of that crap (Brown, Greer, Byrne, Hendrie etc) plus a few longer term shit players like Lowe and Akpan all were due to be out if contract. Even if a new manager came in Mowbray has signed loads of sub par players on long term contracts that it is so hard to rebuild. Mulgrew, Bell, Williams and Bennett were given extensions, so theyll be sticking around, Johnson, Gallagher, Brereton, Rothwell etc are all sat on decent contracts im sure and I bet Mowbray is already pushing deals over the line for our out of contract rag tag bunch. Big money players meant as promising assets are now sat taking a considerable wage as costly liabilities. A further problem is the fact that a normal club would now be planning for next season. With our disinterested owners no budgets will be discussed until the end of the season, if in any possible with Mowbray in India. Any competent free agents perfect for us in these economic circumstances will go elsewhere and we will again lag behind. Theres also a good chance now that we might actually finish on less points than last season. The season is again over with plenty of games to spare. Considering that weve signed 3 expensive loans this season, 3 big earners on frees and of course a 5m signing who is now probably our biggest earner, and we are no nearer to getting a successful way to get this totally imbalanced squad to work efficiently. I am struggling to see any reasons why we should continue with the current manager. He has wasted our money and our squad is still all over the place. His recent use of an experimental system to terrible effect shows that he is no closer to piecing things together. @chaddyrovers what is your methodology behind thinking that we are going in the right direction considering how his squad is so imbalanced and so strewn with financial liabilities. He may even be unable to claim progress this season. As it is, its so frustrating that we know our owners dont give a shit, no thought will be given regarding budgets etc for at least a month, we will try and fail to play catch up with a limited budget and our squad will still be full of shite next year.

Have to have a number 10 because Dack and Holtby play there. Absolutely scandulous that there are NO players (for either system) that can play those wide roles. None at all. Shambolic. An area that needs fixing in the summer as much as any. With no money its gonna be hard. Good chance we wont even beat last years points tally of 60. Progress? What progress.

Do you agree that the false 9, wide striker experiment needs to be put in the bin and kept there?

Suspect theres more chance of Sam Hart being number 1 on the opening day of next season.

The main purpose for these last 6 games has to be to work on next season. It wont be because Mowbray wont be as proactive as that. Then you have our absent owners who still sont have an inkling to get a budget sorted for another season in this division anytime soon and any frees will go elsewhere. We know that Lenihan, Nyambe, Evans, Travis, Downing, Dack, Holtby and Armstrong are good enough. I suspect that they are the only ones but a key objective needs to be to see if any of the younger players are good enough not even necessarily to play major roles next season but as part of the squad. Problem being Rankin Costello and Butterworth are injured and Wharton is presumably ineligible. Buckley, Davenport and Chapman all need plenty of game time between now and the end of the season just to see. If one shows hes good enough then its worth it. The likes of Bennett, Mulgrew, Williams, Bell, Johnson, Gallagher and Brereton are all drains of our now small resources, if I am being honest even for free most of them wouldnt attract suitors. Rothwell is the same, a load of shite. I think id take a free for any if someone was willing to take on their wages. None of them can be close to that opening day side next year. Sadly i suspect 3 will be starting and itll be the same old story. In terms of out of contract players, Mowbray wont be but he needs to be ruthless. Samuel, Leutwiler, Hart, Smallwood, sadly now Graham and if theres any chance at all that his contract hasnt been extended then Bell all need to go. The only extension should be Downing. Totally fed up tonight and the manager has so much responsibility for that woeful performance summing up so many of the self inflicted problems due to his management.

But he signed 7 of them. Gallagher and Brereton the less said about the better. Rothwell has been fur coat and no knickers since he joined. Samuel as bad as any of them and always has been. Holtby for some reason playing as a focal point in attack. Armstrong our only threat subbed off. And Chapman the most pointless signing ever. Ultimately its his own bad recruitment.