“How important is one player missing for six weeks? Pretty important I’d say when he’s your main defender. We’re trying to get by. Nyambe is a young boy who is doing his very best.” Piss off Mowbray. Nyambe is nearly 22, a full international and has nearly a hundred appearances for the club. He’s been treated pretty shabbily for the last year and this isn’t the first time Mowbray has appeared to blame him. Can’t comment on the Leeds game, but I thought Nyambe did great against Wednesday. Against Huddersfield he was great, in his actual position. As has been mentioned already, Lenihan is injury prone, and him being out for 6 weeks should shock no one. He’s also nowhere near as good as Mowbray is making out.

From people in the club. Don’t ask who, because I’m not enough of a dick head to tell you. Cant you? I’m not surprised. I can’t see that our entire defence and all our goalkeepers combined cost as much as Dominic Samuel.

I’ve been very vocal about the fact I believe this sort of policy to be the case for a long time. Before Mowbray came along. The last couple of years have just made me believe it even more. I’ve gone into detail before about the fees involved in signing defenders. Scott Dann is rightly pointed out as the one major fee that has gone on defensive reinforcements. He was a last minute buy in silly season following N’Zonzi starting the season at centre half, and they lost a fortune on him. Perhaps the approach was a little different when Kean and his agent were around. Since then we haven’t paid more than £250k for a defender. We have picked up several freebies, converted several midfielders, borrowed, and relied heavily on the academy, and since Samba, Nelsen, Salgado, Jones and Givet were jettisoned for varying fees and in various farcical circumstances, we’ve had a defence lacking in both depth and quality. Add to this the early claptrap the lunatics came out with about “exciting attacking young players”. It also ties in to things I hear from people who work at the club. If anyone believes that Venkys or their “trusted advisors” haven’t had input in signings, you’re deluded. If you believe this isn’t still happening you are, in my opinion, naive. I’m not suggesting there is a written rule that states “DEFENDERS SHALL NOT BE PURCHASED”, but there is plenty to suggest that funds are not made available for players who don’t fit a certain profile. I’ve asked Mowbray, Waggott and Cheston about this pretty directly. Of course they denied it. Probably the thing that convinced me there’s something to this more than anything is having heard Mowbray at the last consultation meeting. He ridiculed his defenders and spoke so passionately in the now infamous “defenders are coming” speech. I honestly can’t see how anyone who witnessed that (nevermind the additional conversations at the end of the meeting) can believe for a minute he just changed his mind. There are plenty of reasons to despise Venkys without the need for a fictitious stick. I’d call this a theory with a fair bit of evidence to suggest it’s true. Oh, and from what I hear, it extends to goalkeepers too.

January. Very clever. ”Tony, I thought you said defenders were coming?” ”Oh, We nearly got Bauer, but never mind, just you wait til the end of this month. There’s money to spend. The owners are very supportive” Plenty of people will absolutely lap this up. Anything other than blind acceptance of this will be spun to be negative, impatient and unrealistic. When we line up against Middlesbrough on the first of February with a back four containing Bennett, Lenihan, Williams and either Adarabioyo, Nyambe or Bell, and fluke a 0-0, all we will hear is how anyone who thought we needed new defenders rather than the 3 midfielders we will inevitably bring in is an idiot. Two games (and about 5 goals conceded) further down the line the argument will be along the lines of “Well, who could we have got? We tried our best to get Bauer in the Summer!”. This will continue until Downing is firmly entrenched at left back, where his continued inclusion will be justified come May when he provides the assist as Ben Brereton opens his account for the season against Luton... “I love his versatility, that’s what Stewart Downing brings at full back”.

Yep. You won’t find a bigger fan of Mark ATKINS than me. Definitely a great player, instrumental in our title win, and under appreciated. So much so I’d always make sure I bother to spell his name correctly. I didn’t hear him claim that a German international wasn’t a Championship level central midfielder on commentary today. What I did hear ATKINS say is that him and Tim Sherwood managed to play in a two in midfield and that it wasn’t rocket science - If one went the other stayed, hinting at the fact he thought the system was needlessly complicated. On Evans, I see a limited defensive midfielder. Not useless, but not great. I’ve seen Nyambe play the entire right hand side of the pitch, several false 9s at a time, a back 4 with wing backs “2 and a half strikers”, no strikers, 1 midfielder, a target man on the wing, and all sorts of other over complicated nonsense. You are talking about a man who has named an unchanged lineup once all season. Burnley play it. Leicester won the league with it. Liverpool don’t, but Adam Armstrong isn’t Mo Salah. I can name literally hundreds of players I think we should’ve signed.

That’s your opinion. In mine Raya is 10 times the keeper Walton is. Raya’s continued mistakes don’t seem to be doing Brentford much harm - I presume he is still making the same top drawer saves he used to as well. If Holtby isn’t a Championship central midfielder then Bennett and Evans are not North West Counties central midfielders. Personally I think he’d be absolutely fine and more than capable there in a proper 442 instead of this stupid nearly formation Mowbray plays. Swap Byram and Jansson for any number of players and you’ve got a top 6 back 4, not sure what your point is apart from saying you think they are better than Bennett and Lenihan, which isn’t hard.

. Raya Nyambe Bauer Adarabioyo Cunningham Rothwell Travis Holtby Downing Dack Graham That’s a top 6 team for me. Bauer Surprising me by looking a real signing for North End. The loss of Cunningham is unfortunate, the lack of a better centre back and replacing Raya with Walton is negligent. Constantly picking underperformers over good players is infuriating. Playing players out of position is stupid.

Heard the argument again that Gallagher is still a young lad learning the game. He is the same age Shearer was when we win the league.

I fully expect the narrative of the next couple of weeks to be making out that Lenihan and Brereton returning from injury will be an end to all our problems. Of course it won’t be anything of the sort. We will stumble on until January picking up the odd result along the way, and be told there is money to spend. We’ll all be disappointed when it isn’t. We will do well not to be drawn into a relegation battle with a weaker back line than the one which went on that abysmal run last year and a bunch of misfiring forwards.

Armstrong would have to lose a leg to not play every minute of every game. Mowbray is utterly obsessed with him. A liability on the pitch for me, and a complete tosser off it from what I hear.

Just on my way back from Manchester. Sacrificed seeing the fiend to save waiting an hour for the next train. Enjoyable, but 4 hours is a long slog. I think from what I saw in person both Raw and Smackdown should be solid if unspectacular. Highlights for me: seeing Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster on the big stage, Randy Orton and Charlotte Flair - both just megastars, Fury was fun, and Walter. Rovers shirt representing on the front row, along with Elliott Bennett’s best pal.

Not heard of that Joe, but I think I’ll give it a whirl. Who hosts it? I listen pretty religiously to Cornette and Prichard’s and fairly often to Bischoff’s. A couple of BritWres ones too. Like a good podcast!

Hearing very good things about Cody’s promo on AEW this week, looking forward to seeing that. A mate of mine has managed to get me a comp ticket to the WWE tapings in Manchester tomorrow, so I’m going to have to do some catching up before then.

Is your surname Rao? https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2272514/amp/Nick-Harris-Why-wont-FA-tell-whats-going-Blackburn.html

Some really harsh comments regarding Bennett’s performance today. Harris was a constant threat and Wednesdays main outlet, but Bennett stuck to his task well. He’s obviously not the long term answer at full back, but he’s dealt with a good player well enough today. Said it time and again, whoever is at right back is going to be up against it when Armstrong is the winger in front of them. I’d play Bennett on the right hand side of a flat 4 in midfield and Downing on the left. Neither ever fails to put in a shift and both showed today they are capable of a decent delivery, with a Downing cross being the only time Gallagher really threatened. For me that’s far more effective than Armstrong’s selfish head down dribbling and cutting in.

Wednesday have played a mix of 4-4-2 and 4-5-1 this season. Personally I think they would be mad not to go two up top tomorrow as that would mean playing 6’5 Nuhiu. Big, limited, physical - and the type of player who always causes us massive problems. The depth of attacking options they have is frightening. Harris and Reach on the wings with proper full backs in behind guarantees a torrid afternoon for whoever is at fullback for us, particularly whoever is on the right (probably Bennett) who will be offered zero support from Armstrong. Mowbray has already bigged up Barry Bannan, so I expect he will want Evans attempting a man marking job, which won’t work. All that said, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if we got a win to paper over a few cracks and give some “I told you so” ammunition to some of the prominent tweeters. The only things I am certain of are Bennett starting out of position, Armstrong playing the full 90, supporters making out there is a referee conspiracy against us, and the team showing an alarming lack of character.

“I would say most of the technical, creative footballers don’t have those leadership qualities because they are more ‘go with the flow’ with their nature, happy-go-lucky, fun-loving. “We have a few people who lead. And that’s the balance. “When I talk about recruitment It’s one of the things we need to recruit, but it’s very difficult when you go and watch a footballer, you see his talent, how fast he is, how big and strong he is, you can assess on the pitch whether he’s a communicator or whether he’s reacting to situations. “But it’s difficult until you sit down and meet them whether their personalities are what you want. “Of course until you’re given permission by the club he’s playing for you’re not allowed to meet players so it’s difficult to sign players knowing 100 per cent whether you’re buying a leader and someone with character. “You get them in the building and situations arise and then the true nature of people comes out.” A bit of today’s drivel. That last bit is interesting. Who could that be a thinly veiled dig at I wonder?

You only need to look for a minute at what the Brentford fans are saying about Raya. He’s getting rave reviews for everything from his command of the defence to his distribution. Still making the quality saves we became accustomed to. Walton is a massive downgrade purely on ability, let alone the fact he isn’t even our player.

I’m going to watch both later today. NWA power dropped off a little this week I felt. The first two shows were incredible though and it’s still my show of choice. The ‘war’ between AEW and NXT is interesting. It’s largely just silly online arguments between staunch fans of each brand. I don’t think either company is really pushing the other, or worrying about what they do... yet. They are just doing their own thing. Meanwhile the main WWE programmes appear to be doing nothing but annoying everyone.

There’s more than a little deckchairs on the titanic about that survey. I was hoping to follow up with Waggott after the last consultation meeting, and we should’ve been due one about now. I guess some long winded responses in this will have to do instead.

Would you really pick that team though Chaddy? Because I don’t think a single Rovers fan would’ve done on Saturday. You could make the argument of fielding an unchanged team if we had put in a blinding performance, but we didn’t. It seems like you have got over your momentary doubts in Mowbray, which is fine, but it honestly seems as though you are trying to make his bonkers decisions appear logical by saying you agree with them. Some sort of preemptive defence for the criticism he will likely face tomorrow.

I don’t begrudge Preston their “success”. I am disgusted by what Venkys have done to us. We were light years ahead of the Dingles and North End before they rocked up in every way possible. Just highlights the damage they continue to inflict.

This is what I think the team will be, not what I’d pick. Everyone else in the world except Mowbray recognises the value of balance and playing your best striker.

Same. Which makes the fact they have finished above us for the last 3 years even more irritating.

So we started with 2 centre backs, 2 holding midfielders, a right winger at left wing back, a left winger, one player to occupy the entire right hand side, three false 9s and no striker. Penalty? In this day and age they are given sadly. The rules seem to have been rewritten so any contact entitles a player to jump on the floor and win a foul. Not exclusive to this ref, game or player, just a symptom of the modern game. They gifted us a way back in with a stupid ball across the back 4, another scourge on the modern game that any player attempting to do 20 years ago would’ve been roasted for. Their generosity didn’t end there as they collapsed for the remainder of the first half, and we looked like we could capitalise. Holtby and Nyambe were really impressive. I doubt either would have been near the pitch if we didn’t have the injuries we do. Same goes for Adarabioyo who looks a huge upgrade on Lenihan. The amount of ground Nyambe was expected to cover was ridiculous - he did the job of two players. He was also the outlet for the long diagonal ball with Graham and Gallagher not selected. Holtby is just pure quality. Expect one or both of these to be dropped next week. Had we took off Armstrong (ha, as if Tony ever would) and replaced him with Graham on 60 mins I’m confident we’d have won the game. Instead they made a substitution to change the game, while Mowbray waited and reacted with his trademark head scratching changes that do more harm than good.