What team would everyone play on Tuesday night? Walton Nyambe Lenihan Adarabioyo Bell Chapman Travis Davenport Downing Graham Armstrong Not ideal having Downing wide but in the absence of any competent wingers at least one of him and Armstrong will have to play there. Very much a pragmatic 442, not Armstrong as a number 10. Johnson and Rankin Costello should be taken out. No more strikers out wide bollocks. No Samuel near the 18.

I was more interested in his continuous and consistent record of goals and assists rather than a big mouthed chairman inferring that the player like the majority of human beings is somewhat motivated by money. Maddison or Gallagher out wide? Maddison or Rankin Costello as a 10?

It is adapting "a mob like attitude" to feel like the manager should be heavily criticised and questioned for spending 12m on 2 absolutely joke footballers?

It wouldnt be too difficult to play wide and do a better job than a 5m striker who has had a grand total of zero effective games from a wide position yet has become our first choice winger to be fair.

I dont know why the fact that Mowbrays trying his best to improve us and that hes working hard is constantly brought up as a defence of him. No one doubts that, and the same probably goes for the other 23 managers in the League. You mention FFP and the need players to exceed their value which I feel like your defensive and flippant attitude towards the Gallagher and Brereton is somewhat inconsistent with that. You mention wages but Gallagher was reportedly on 40k at Southampton so even with a wage cut you would suspect that he is probably our highest earner, and I bet Brereton isnt on the peanuts some make out considering that he is a 7m signing. There will always be teams like Fulham who undoubtedly we arent on the same level financially but it is much more difficult to plead comparative poverty when you have a 5m and high earning ineffective striker as our first choice winger, who has never had a good game from that position and we dont really have any other wingers bar Chapman who has fallen off the face of the earth. I appreciate that you have criticised Gallaghers performance but you have also defended Mowbray and even called the outlay on him and Brereton as a "fairly moderate/good amount!" I am starting to get a case of de ja vu with Rankin Costello compared to what I have seen from Buckley. Both look out of place in the Championship and slightly overawed and it is obviously difficult to justify giving them a run of games unless they are capable of having an impact on games, even with our lack of alternatives. Of course they will and should get more chances but I can't say that either has made me particularly excited at all from the limited we have seen from them in terms of having any attacking impact on games.

Enough said!

Because you are making out that we are better off without players who are quite clearly an upgrade on what we have.

I wish we was in their position!

Every human being is interested in money, lets not pretend that he is a one of a kind money grabber or that he couldnt do better than Gallagher or Samuel on the wing or Rankin Costello as a 10.

That is absolutely embarassing.

I singled out Armstrong, Gallagher and Samuel for criticism too. Was an attacking performance whereby criticism is deserved basically across the board!

I wouldnt panic yet, the terrible form has only been across 19 games.

The inability of all the team to stay on side was embarassing but Armstrong was by far the worst offender. He should have gone out wide, I know we want him central long term but if the alternative is Gallagher and Samuel wide theres no alternative. Playing as a number 10 you need to offer an attacking threat and every time he got the ball he didnt know what to do. Cant help but be worried and unenthused at the prospect of watching us for the rest of the season with the current remaining players.

Views on Gallagher/Samuel wide, Armstrongs return to spending all game offside and Rankin Costello?

To be honest, we had been offside so many times all game that it was probably his instinct to put it up again!

Drab, limp performance and cant argue much with the defeat. Think it could be a sign of things to come regarding our attacking options going forward this season. I am absolutely flabbergasted that Mowbray watches Gallagher out wide and thinks it has ever worked well enough to repeat it. We ended the game with 2 strikers out wide and the only striker we have who can play that role was playing as a 10. Its infuriating, its not effective and its horrible to watch. Kudos to Samuel for putting in one of the most pathetic cameos of all time. If hes a better option than Chapman out wide... Rankin Costello is nowhere near at this time, he seemed overawed, a few times he had the ball and no clue of what to do with it, not particularly fast or technically good and not sure why he played central which sidelined Downing. Armstrong reverted back to trying to win the world record for offsides in a game. The amount of offsides across the board was embarassing. Johnson has been a dreadful signing, so poor on the ball. Travis, Nyambe, Lenihan and Downing were ok and Walton made a couple of routine saves but was really, really poor for the goal.

Its a bit of a logic leap to suggest that if we did achieve our aims and expectations of a top 6 finish, something that has correctly been pointed out as being incredibly unlikely as weve never been in the top 6 at any point, that people would just dismiss that by creating new expectations. There is no need to create theories up to back up a "moaners" based hypothesis that you have. For what its worth, it depends what you use as the barometer to gauge progression. Compared to this time last year, we are in exactly the same position so no progression. Conversely, we finished 15th and are currently 10th, so whilst we dont have a full season of evidence to accurately compare against, we have progressed. I think we definitely have progressed this season on the assumption that both squads were fit and healthy. The problem people keep flagging up is that the main upgrades ie Downing and Adarabioyo are temporary additions and if we assume that it is highly unlikely that we will have a sniff of promotion this year, then comparing summer to summer we have not really moved forward in terms of progressing slowly and incrementally towards the top 6 if it is done in such a way. Mowbray chose to spend his transfer budget solely on one player who has been a failure and not added to the potency of our attack. He also gave the green light to sell a young and flawed but talented goalkeeper but he did sign a talented player in Holtby who we have for another year. The signings targeted were mainly in the wide areas so were never direct replacements for Dack and the at the time fit and healthy Holtby. The wide areas have been an achilles heel throughout Mowbrays time in charge and we needed to strengthen there to add additional sources of goals with or without those players.

I totally agree with what you say and that there is blame to be given. But even if you chose to suggest that the restrictions and the market put things totally out of our hands, you can at least admit that it has been a poor window! Even Mowbray and Waggott said it was.

I am not even sure it is just the psychological pressure of being near the play offs, I just think that with all things levelled out we are mid table fodder at the moment. On a particularly poor run we might delve into lower mid table and I think went as low as 18th but never in serious danger of relegation, conversly after good form we might poke our head into the lower top half but again neve making it into the top 6, and ultimately we level out in the middle. Agree with the rest of your analysis though.

Johnson, Travis and Downing was your midfield 3 in the team you suggested. Has this change or are you just covering all bases?

No, he was 6 windows ago, I was referring to the last 4 windows in the Championship. I mentioned Dack as an obvious undeniable point of praise in my analaysis of Mowbray earlier.

They also played in that win so your argument is faulty. Bennett has proven time and time again that he isnt good enough. If I see his name on the team sheet tomorrow it would displease me.

Excuses, facts, reasons, whatever the reason, we didnt sign players that we needed and wanted. That makes the window a failure and based on the comments by Mowbray and Waggott they both would be the first to agree. I dont think anyone bar Mercer predicted any major sales. Ultimately we didnt end the window in the position we wanted to and hoped for at the start. You are manipulating the conversation to suggest that I want us to pay over the odds etc, but there are plenty of other players out there. We wanted tostrengthen and we didnt strengthen, its a simple as that.

Even if we go with a 433 Bennett should be well down the list of potential players. Using that isolated example as proof that Bennett should start tomorrow in midfield could also lead to Smallwood and Mulgrew starting tomorrow and us rueing the loss of Joe Nuttall.

You repeatedly refer back to that game as you know that it is the one home game that I missed last season! He was also integral to a dismal performance, probably our worst of the season at Home to Stoke playing centrally. He lacks any attacking or technical ability and is not a Championship standard player. Elliott Bennett should not be getting into our starting 11, and he is not in our best 3 central midfielders if we indeed go down the route of playing that formation. Bradley Johnson would be ahead of him and if we didnt play him, I would prefer to give Jacob Davenport a game, Bennett we know isnt capable at this level, Davenport supposedly has plenty of potential so why not?