Played a key role with Dack in giving Graham a brilliant chance early in the second half. I think a lot of the reason as to why Rothwell is such a favourite and Palmer not so much is the way they play. Rothwell charges round everywhere like a labrador but does he have any end product most of the time? Not sure.

A very poor result and further proof of a worrying underlying issue in an inability to beat the weakest teams in the division at home, as we also saw v Millwall and Reading. This will need fixing urgently if we want to trouble the top 6. That being said, we had more than enough chances to win in that second half, we battered a very poor Rotherham side and justified a very positive attacking selection by Mowbray. Armstrong's directness was very similar to how he played v Leeds, he played like a natural winger and needs to take more care with his end product but he was a constant menace. I'm surprised to see such a mixed response to Palmer and how he did, I thought he was our most inventive player and hes also massively improved in terms of work rate. I also dont think that Bennett merits a place in the starting line up, Mowbray was correct to play 2 attacking wide men (and should do so more often) but wrong to shoehorn him in at right back where he again was poor in the first half. Nyambe was excellent when he came on and needs to come into the line up, with Armstrong and Palmer wide, and Bennett as the odd man out on the bench. When he moved centrally he kept relieving the pressure by taking speculative pot shots. Elsewhere, Raya was relatively untroubled but seemed very slow getting down for their goal. Bell is a load of crap and isnt good enough. Lenihan was very good and Rodwell fine beside him. Smallwood was quite poor first half, and Reed was affected by his injury for quite a while. Graham wasted a few golden chances and Dack wasnt at his best again but he is like a magnet to the ball in terms of anticipating and taking potential chances. I dont get how you can justify questioning Dack being a guaranteed starter. He is a regular, consistent source of goals in a team that doesnt score that many, he has scored far more than our other 5 attacking players combined, and his goals alone should justify a place regardless of how he is playing otherwise. You mention the fact that he keeps scoring as if its not enough, or as if its not that important.

What a bizarre argument. Your pompous attitude towards floating fans I hope is one not shared by the higher ups at Ewood, we need to embrace and appreciate that those beyond the already attending will need more persuading. To imply that we may not even want any extra fans to justify the pricing is ridicilious!

Smallwood would be nowhere near the Premier League even if he was fast. Hes neither good enough on the ball nor good enough at reading the play to be a Premier League player. He is a useful player to have around dont get me wrong but he is limited at the same time. For me our best central pairing when fit and available would be Reed and Evans. Rodwell is also potentially above Smallwood as he is far better on the ball. With Raya, and the decision being made to postpone the surgery, I suspect that the mask wont be going any time soon. If hes comfortable wearing it then we may as well play him otherwise it makes postponing the surgery a strange decision.

You cant say give him the season and hell to the consequences because if they fall further away and their issues are not rectified it would get to the point where a change is the best course of action. Thats a big if and he may turn it around but you cant just say "give him the season." I think you are overestimating the quality of the League. Dont get me wrong it is great to watch but thats not necessarily because of the quality.

Agreed on last season but hes still got some very good Championship players at his disposal. West Brom fans seem to be losing patience at his inability to stop them conceding, his stubborness towards playing a system that doesnt suit his solid but limited centre backs and also his excessive loyalty to the experience players such as Brunt who is too old to play in a midfield 2. With their squad they should be expected to be in the top 2 but they have hit the buffers so he will need to get a couple of wins or the fans will continue to get restless.

Its not because they are in the Championship, where the standard is obviously worse than the Premier League. All 3 players are/were just past it in general. Whittingham was let go by Cardiff after a season on the fringes, and struggled to meet expectations even in League 1. Brunt was hopeless in the Premier League last season, and Murphys game time at Fulham had decreased before he joined here, which was at a time when our club was in turmoil and Murphys motivation had gone. Look at Pablo Hernandez and Stewart Downing. 2 old players playing key roles for their respective sides in the Championship. The Championship is a great league to watch due the competitiveness, not necessarily the quality.

Did he though, quotes suggested the only thing stopping him joining on the last day of the window was a lack of a replacement at Boro?

For a player who came with the reputation of an attacking wing back, he cant attack at all.

Williams looks more comfortable at left back in my opinion, as @BlackburnEnd75 rightly said he made an awful mistake against West Brom and against QPR he had nothing to do defensively. We also need him at left back as Bell is often a bit of a weak link.

Raya Nyambe Lenihan Mulgrew Williams Rodwell Reed Palmer Dack Rothwell Brereton Subs: Leutweiler, Bennett, Smallwood, Armstrong, Graham, Downing, Bell Ive assumed Raya and Mulgrew are going to be fit. Id like to see the shackles off as this is on paper almost as winnable a game as we will get. 50/50 between the striker, opted to satisfy the want to see Brereton played centrally but would be equally happy with Graham.

Surely no one still holds the opinion that we should sign him in January?

Waggott came in after wed just won 6 in a row last christmas, Mowbray is the one who had already charged us forward and his results are tangible proof of that, he has already made plenty of signings including Dack, nothing to me suggests Waggott has improved that side of things individually. In terms of decisions we know he has made. His increased pricing strategy has obviously not been the success he intended it to be otherwise we wouldnt have fallen below his own targets. No one is asking for them to be given away so thats a meaningless comeback. The fact that there were neither home fans (something I disagree with) nor home fans in the lower tier of the Darwen End had a negative impact on the atmosphere in my opinion. Surcharges existing in the past is irrelevant, hes chose to keep them thus is open to judgement on them. His choice is to milk the fans who will go anyway rather than pursue getting increased attendances. Thats an approach thats up to him but one he will be judged on. You think thats a good idea but I disagree. My main point is that its unfair on Mowbray to couple him and Waggott together in praise for our recent resurgance. Mowbray had been at the club for nearly a year before Waggott showed up, which was when Mowbrays work was really starting to bear fruit, hence the 6 wins in a row. Saying they are both responsible is disrespectful and unfair to Mowbray IMO, only Mowbray deserves the praise for that.

I think in the last week or 2 most people have agreed that he has shown glimmers of promise, hence the debate moving very much on to how to use him to get the best of him, with the common conclusion that it is in his natural position as a central striker. Its impossible to remove the fee from the judgement whether people like it or not, simply because there is always the opportunity cost to consider, what else could we have got, has he fulfilled what we needed. Quotes from Mowbray saying we are lacking a striker when the one hes signed for lots of money has been earmarked as a wide man are always going to provoke a reaction. Then he played as a striker and had his most promising cameo with work in central areas. The last point you are totally right, no matter what rubbish people say contrary, everyone will be happy if he does well.

They did about the individual players. When Ferguson signed Djemba Djemba and when Jose signed Steve Sidwell, the fans undoubtedly questioned why their otherwise successful managers had signed those individual players, just like when Mowbray signed Ben Gladwin. I think that Mercers opinions on Mowbray and Brereton are very harsh but at least they are explained and constructed, whereas your arguments are not, points such as "Parson agrees with me" "stop moaning for the sake of it" "I'll trust Mowbray more than you" and "youre never happy." And you still havent said what Waggott has done to turn the club around personally. "Best chief executive since Williams" is not only the lowest benchmark you could ever set, but totally unsubstantiated. Mowbray, yes I agree hes turned the direction of the club around.

My main point is that you've blamed everyone but the manager. Why sign Kyle Bartley when you need a right back more pressingly? Even if the assistant manager is having an impact, he isnt making the final decisions, it is up to the manager at the end of the day.

Whilst @Dreams of 1995 has replied with a very well written response. I dont understand, going off on a tangent, why you have lumped Mowbray and Waggott together. What Mowbray has done to turn this club around is tangible and clear. In the shape of results, promotion win percentage, signings such as Dack. Hence the fact that regardless of the crap you peddle to the contrary, the job he has done has been met with unified appreciation. Waggott on the other hand has not done anything tangible to my knowledge to be thrown into the same sentence regarding turning the club around. Hence the mixed reputation he holds.

The thing thats costing us isnt necessarily last minute goals, but watching Villa on Friday and we are joint top for points lost from winning positions so there is mileage to that. Felt good scoring late on Saturday.

This constant crap about trusting Mowbray in an attempt to defuse any conversation on him is really counter productive. Ben Brereton will be judged on what Ben Brereton does or doesnt do. (Obviously factors such as playing out of position will be taken into consideration) Ben Brereton wont and shouldnt be judged based on Mowbrays record prior to this season because it has nothing to do with it. Ben Brereton wont and shouldnt be judged based on what Mowbray says in his interviews either.

Why do they need Hoolahan and Sako when they have Field and Burke getting splinters in their backside on the bench, or not even that? They had big bids for them 2 players and turned them down. Look when we went down, Mowbray said some of our big players wanted out but he got them motivated. Im not saying that others havent got their share of the blame but the manager isnt totally blameless, far from it and pinning their problems with setting up in a formation that doesnt suit them on Moores assistant is ridicilious. He makes the decisions, not the assistant. Brunt certainly is not a Championship central midfielder in a 2 along with Livermore, especially at his age. Moore is playing him in a way that exposes his weaknesses.

Think this is a good post. Teams who get relegated and have an urgent requirement to get back into the league they have fallen from, with obvious exceptions I admit, should tend to lean towards a manager that knows what he is doing and is proven to do so in order to get back at the first attempt. Rowett is maybe proving otherwise but I'm not convinced he is all that as a manager anyway. People may point to Swansea but it seems that theyve gone down a different route, stripping their squad of most of its experience and seemingly tried to go more long term and rely on its youth players, accepting that they may be in the league for more than one season, and feel they can afford to do that. Theyve not just appointed a former stand in like Moore, who has literally nothing to prove that he can get them back up bar a very brief caretaker spell, but someone in Potter who has a specific style that he has shown working abroad, and the whole thing there screams the word project, because he doesnt have experience of promotion either. With West Brom, they have kept many of their big players, so I like to compare to us and Wigan last season, albeit in a lower league. Cook and Mowbray have track records with promotion on them, and both took over similar situations. People are always quick to praise Mowbray for the signings hes made, but if he was to pick his first 11 if everyone was fit, I would suggest that Raya, Nyambe, Lenihan, Mulgrew, Williams, Bennett, Evans and Graham would all feature in it even now. I think this proves that the key to Mowbray getting success last season wasnt him working wonders in the transfer market, it was very much a mixed bag, it was getting the best out of the players he inherited who had the ability but im sure were not particularly keen on a season in a lower league. He has looked to develop the younger ones and motivate the older ones and thats been the key, getting them working in a structure and a consistent formation. The same with Cook, he inherited Burn, Powell, Morsy, Grigg, Jacobs etc but he got the best out of them as previous managers had failed to do, rather than totally re strip the squad.

The thing is, 19 year old prospect and 7m signing dont really go hand in hand, those defending him can point to the former and those critical can point to the latter. I dont agree with Mercers comments, especially the total disregard to age based on extreme examples such as Mbappe and Duff, but we are entitled to at least expect to see some positive signs from our expensive signing, after all he has over a season of experience under his belt already at this level as a striker, otherwise he wouldnt have this reputation and price tag to begin with. Most of the grumbles are about positioning, and most of the questions are about how differently the money could have been spent and whether we could afford such an expensive project. In regards to his ability to draw fouls is something that Forest fans seemed to be most critical of when reading up on Brereton, often suggesting that he goes down far too easy, with many people straightly suggested he is a "diver." I must say during his cameos already, I have noticed a strong tendency of his to throw himself to the ground often and in quite an exaggerated manner, as we saw yesterday for the penalty. If that is the case hopefully he will reign it in somewhat, that being said, drawing fouls is an important part in itself, Conway is an absolute master in winning free kicks and its all about knowing when to do it and not doing it all the time.

It was a rhetorical question about a point that me and you agree on (heaven forbid!) that Brereton is best as a number 9, with an example of his finest hour (and a half) in that position.

They were, hence him pulling out manager of the month level form and still going down by 5 points. You seem to be blaming everyone but the manager, even his assistant even though regardless of his ideas, he isnt the one picking the team, if Mowbray picked a wrong team people wouldnt start blaming Venus! The manager has to take the blame for aspects of their slight underachievement, an overbidding loyalty to past it, experienced players, and an inflexibility and stubbornness to play a formation that leaves 3 centre backs that are not particularly good on the ball exposed. Hoolahan was exactly what they didnt need, an experienced, 36 year old, immobile central player. Him and Sako have gone above Field and Burke in the pecking order. He didnt need to rip the team up and spend 40m. Loans such as Krychowiak and Sturridge and big egos such as McLean, Chadli and Rondon all leaving still left them with a squad consisting of some top players at this level (Rodriguez, Dawson, Hegazi, Phillips etc) as well as an undercurrent of youth that has the potential to give the team much needed legs. Why is Brunt a good player and also a player that nobody wants? Hes certainly not a player that youd want playing alongside a fellow immobile midfielder in a 2 man central midfield. I'm not necessarily saying that Moore needs to be instantly sacked, just that I can understand the West Brom fans concern and would be surprised if a change wasnt asked for sooner rather than later if it continued. He needs to take the brunt (ironically) of the blame, or the praise, dependant on how well they do. Target has to be top 2.

I think the league table defined that the last sentence is incorrect and perhaps slightly biased! To be fair to Wigan, they are missing Powell, Grigg, Jacobs and Massey amongst others. Take away Graham, Dack, Armstrong and Palmer for example and wed struggle too! Recent history shows that both teams are pretty close though, not much to seperate them at all when they have clean bills of health. Both with experienced managers too, neither should be anywhere near the bottom of this league. We've both improved on squads far too good for League 1, theyve spent much less but Windass in particular looks a good signing, building around 2 very solid spines. If I recall correctly too, they didnt "fluke" their way back into the game at Ewood, we dominated the first half and likewise them with the second. Hope Powell is still missing at the end of the month. Big blow for him to be out.