It's been a long time since I've really had any confidence in any of our set pieces (and I'll include throw-ins in that mix).

Over the past few months, we've spent more and more time discussing Mowbray's preferred formation, tactics, and set-up. So I thought it might be interesting to post an interview that we just did with Thomas Gronnemark, a freelance throw-ins coach that currently works with Liverpool and a number of other European clubs. It was really interesting to talk to him about how undervalued throw-ins are, what makes a good throw-in, and his career in general. He spoke about working with the likes of Brentford in the Championship, but it might be something that a club like us should think about in the near future. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2qiXtfqsvV3dOj3iTu4F2b?si=_R9ztrxCQJyF3Alc-ZIPFg

The answer is clearly yes. Anyone saying otherwise is delusional. The real question is - given the player development, the budget available, and the squad that he has had at his disposal for the last two or three seasons - should we be closer to going up.

I can't really speak for the Brazilian or German press as anything I read would be translated and taken from an outsider's perspective, but I can tell you that the French press are decidedly kinder. Now, they've also won 2 World Cups and a Euros in the past 20 odds years, as well as losing a final in each competition, so any criticism would have to be against that backdrop, but they are generally far more forgiving - and they've had a lot to forgive (the 2002 debacle, the 2010 debacle, losing a final to Portugal at home when overwhelming favourites). I would say that manager's in those countries are typically given much longer as well. Southgate faces the reality of knowing that his position is very-much judged tournament to tournament. Anything short of a quarterfinal appearance (no matter the side that knocked them out) would certainly see him go and even a quarterfinal appearance might not be good enough Now, one could hope for managers that care little about their own careers and instead want to go down shooting playing the football that they like, but that can't realistically be expected from someone who will probably view this as one of their dream jobs. Many managers would probably opt for a more defensive approach that they thought would limit risk and reduce matches to moments of luck, brilliance, or incompetence and hope that they faired the better. No one can doubt that Southgate has turned England into a side that will consistently beat sides when they are clearly the more talented - tonight proves that and the only real blips in that regard have been, crucially for him, probably in his biggest moments (the World Cup and Nations League semis). I have my fingers crossed that he will embrace a more attacking approach in the summer and be won over by the young, aggressive, pacey side that this England team could be. I won't be holding my breath.

This is a fair point. I don't want to overstate the impact of the press (and the supporters) on the performances of the England team, but it is fair to say that the constant scrutiny and level of negativity cannot help. Southgate is too negative in his style of play, but, overall, the England team has performed fairly well under his management. He will ultimately be judged by the Euros, but I can't imagine how England supporters would be reacting if England were losing matches in the style that France or Germany are at the moment.

It was a gamble. We decided that it was worth taking the chance on a player with obvious talents. Clearly the risks were his attitude and his injury problems and neither has improved. We can't slate Mowbray for that. I would encourage him to take similar risks in the future and one or two of them will pay off.

I never care much about reviews from old clubs. There are plenty of players that we've sold who would have had bad reviews but then went on to better things. Equally, there have been plenty of players who would have left with rave reviews, but who then went on to be flops. He should be judged on what he does once he starts here, not on what some Belgians on Twitter think.

I'll also apologise in advance for my lack of knowledge when it came to Roy Wegerle.

So, going to shamelessly plug one of my own projects, but recently started a new podcast with a couple of colleagues and I thought I would just see if it might interest a few of you. For now, it's a light discussion on a range of sports (football, NFL, NBA, horse racing...just about everything), but we'll be expanding into some decent interviews in the future. You can give episode 1 a skip as we had some sound issues and it should get better over time, but the first 3 episodes are already out. Happy if you give it a listen and subscribe. Available Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/the-big-chill-podcast/id1525439798?l=en Or on all devices here: https://thebigchillpodcast.podbean.com/ We'll be on Spotify after another 2 episodes. Thank you if you do listen and share.

We can't be overly dramatic. We had chances to take the lead in both matches, especially the Barnsley match, and it is clear that we will pick up points over the remainder of the season. We certainly deserved at least a point or two from the last two fixtures, but that isn't me trying to ignore how bad the performances were in the context of us having a realistic chance at making the playoffs. But we look irrational if we start saying that we aren't even a competent Championship club when we end up finishing 9th-12th and a few points off of the playoffs - especially when considering the fact that one of the teams that just beat us has just gone into administration and will surely go down.

It's a bit harsh to say that when we are comfortably midtable.

I have officially moved to the Mowbray-out camp. The tinkering with the side in the past two games and the baffling approach to tactics in must-win situations has just been too much for me. We need someone new in this summer. It wont happen, but we need it.

I think Hart would be great. He's definitely a good enough keeper to be an improvement and he will bring in a wealth of experience and the chance to have a genuine leader at the back - something that we haven't had since Robinson (at best). It all depends on his attitude, but if he sees this as an opportunity to come back and prove himself then it is just the type of thing we should be going after.

We had 3 very good chances to score before they took the lead - to not take 1 of 3 very good chances is just inexcusable. I'm as despondent tonight as I have been in a while. We all sort of knew it was coming, but to completely blow any chance of promotion against two bottom-half teams, albeit it two bottom-half teams in relative form, is just not good enough. We lack quality out wide and we lack leadership all over the pitch. We've several players away from being good enough for promotion, but it isn't an impossible task in a single-window if we approach it wisely and don't make the mistake of signing a player like Gallagher who addresses none of our problems and doesn't really fit into our approach. Season over. Play the youngsters from here on out and see if they can step up. If one or two of them can really impress over the next few games it could drastically change how we approach this summer.

3 out of 6 isn't great? Please name a manager with over a 50% strike rate on signings. And I'm not implying that two thirds can be duds, just simply not signings that you would classify as good. Johnson hasn't been a dud, but I wouldn't call him a good signing yet. Big difference between a good signing and a failure. To use your squad analysis approach. If we assume that our squad of 23 players can be supplemented by about 6 homegrown players, say 2 of which are good enough to start (basically the position that we are in now), it then requires that we have 17 other players, 9 of whom are good enough to start. Now, you can't do a perfect analysis of squad building as you're not starting from scratch at any point, but I would be perfectly happy with any manager who signed 3 players, one of who was considered a good starter, one a good squad player, and the other a player who will not make it. That's not fantastic, but as a general rule of thumb, I'm fine with that. The challenge then becomes applying another 1/3 rule to those starters and squad players. I'd want to see a further 1/3 of the players that are good enough to start developing into 'star' players and a further 1/3 of those squad players developing into players who genuinely challenge for places in the first team. We're not able to go out and sign £50m finished products, but if I wouldn't be overly critical of any manager who hit that sort of ratio over a longterm basis. You might have the odd window where everything is great or where everything is awful, but you have to view things over an extended period of time.

It's a lot easier to do good transfer business when you are at a huge club spending huge money. There are generally not as many unknowns when signing a player for 20m+ as there are when signing a player for 10m or less. As for Klopp's record, it's pretty good, but there are still some duds in there. How many would pay £50m for Keita now? Even £35m for Oxlade-Chamberlain is questionable. £30m for Benteke? He's done well and he's had some key moves work out really well, but, for the most part, they haven't been cheap. Again, it's all balanced out by the fact that he could sell Salah, Robertson, Mane, etc. for far more than he paid for them - even given some of their relatively high transfer fees, but you'd have to expect that there will be a lot of failures in there. The reality is that 1 star player is worth failing on 2/3 other transfers. Mowbray has hit on just enough of his transfers to call his approach a success. Dack is an overwhelming success. Armstrong a very good signing. Downing very good (although there won't be a profit there). There are then a number of players who may develop into being seen as good signings (the likes of Holtby, Rothwell, and Samuel, for example). And even Tosin justifies our approach in the loan market.

I'd resign Armstrong in a heartbeat on the basis that his current contribution on the pitch is at a level far above the average £3 million player and knowing that I could certainly sell him for a profit. I wouldn't sign Brereton for the fee that we paid for him, but I wouldn't be opposed to gambling on him as I think there is a degree of potential there. I was against signing Gallagher as I just think that we didn't need that type of player and that his style is actually not that easy to fit into modern football. My point isn't that I would do everything that Mowbray does, it is more that if 1/3 signings are good to very good we will have to view that as a success. That's football. Even the best manager or director of football would take a 33% strike rate on their signings - especially when you aren't at a top club and any signing comes with additional risk.

You're right, but as a club that has always relied on turning a profit on our transfer dealings, we can't ignore the fact that one motivation for buying players is to hope that we sell them on for a higher sum. This will undoubtedly be part of the logic behind the policy of signing young English players. A few will fail and not contribute on the pitch or to the bottom line, but if one or two turn into something quite good we will see improved performances on the pitch and the possibility of selling them for enough to repeat the process again. As for Armstrong's value, we will have to see how transfer fees adapt to the pandemic, but it would be a safe bet to assume that this will not be enough to stop the trend of transfer fees steadily rising. The dot-com bubble bursting didn't stop that trend. The 2008 financial crisis didn't stop that trend. I very much doubt that this pandemic and possible recession will do so either. In that case, it is hard to imagine a world in which Armstrong would be sold for anything less than £8-10 million and I am sure that most supporters would be disappointed if he were sold for anything shy of 10 million.

It always fascinates me when people assume that a comment in a thread is entirely, and solely, directed at them. My posts so far have been a general reaction to the overall theme within this conversation.

Are any of those who signed up to ifollow for the season pass at the beginning of the year managing to get it to work now? I can't log in. Can't change my password. Can't do anything. Are we expected to register again?

But the fact that we may lose money on Brereton or Gallagher doesn't mean that our recruitment policy is awful. They aren't all going to be great signings and they aren't all going to turn into a star player or a huge profit - even when signing expensive (relatively speaking) players. That's all. Look back through this thread and you won't find a lot of people truly weighing up our recruitment policy, they simply should 'BRERETON AWFUL. GALLAGHER AWFUL. MOWBRAY OUT'. And, yes, if we sign 3 players and a few years later we've made a profit on those three dealings I think we can say 'ah well' to the fact that we lost money on one of them.

People are very selective when being critical of our recruitment policy. The £12 million for 2 forwards line gets trotted out pretty regularly, but this fails to include Armstrong as part of that analysis. I get the Brereton gamble, I didn't really get the Gallagher deal, and the Armstrong deal looks like a bargain - so overall I wouldn't say we've done terribly. The reality is that we've spent £15 million on 3 forwards and there is a good chance that we would get almost all of that back selling Armstrong alone (and maybe even more for just him if a couple of clubs got interested at the right time). That's not an awful recruitment policy. Equally, Armstrong is a good example of why we need to show Brereton a bit of patience. Armstrong was a headless chicken for much of his early spell here (and elsewhere for that matter). Brereton needs more time to develop. More time in the side. And an opportunity to get some confidence. He may end up being a failure here. He may end up being a failure wherever he goes next. But we should at least get off his back enough to give him the chance to succeed. This time without a crowd could be just what he needs, but it does often feel as if many are hoping for him to fail so that they can say that they were right. I just don't get that.

Michael Jordan level is a bit extreme, but he is a huge figure in the sport and in world sport. I'm not someone who gets particularly impacted by celebrity deaths, it is always sad, but then it is not as if they are my friends or family. That being said, as someone who grew up in America, Kobe Bryant was the first young athlete I really related to. Up until that moment, everyone had always seen so much older, but I was 9 when he came into the league straight out of high school and so it was the first time that I felt as if an athlete was young/similar to my own age. That has made his death rather odd to think about.

Our last stint in the Championship should have told us that you don't get that many chances to go up. There are a lot of seasons where you aren't in and around the playoffs. Look at Derby. They've gone from being arguably the second-best side in the league to a team that needs a small miracle to even make the playoffs. There's no guarantee that we will be a win or two off the playoffs next January. Other sides might get better. All 3 promoted sides might perform well. We might have more injuries. We are there now and there is every chance that the right player or two could significantly increase our chances. Anyone arguing that we should keep our powder dry might well find that they have saved our resources for a rainy day.

I thought he was totally decent. Too many people have their minds made up about him and it would take a run of 20 incredible performances to change that. I thought it was a good return from injury and, hopefully, he can keep improving. Not sure why so many want to see him fail. Will be end up justifying the fee? Don't know. Could we have done something better with the money? Probably. But does he look like he could be a useful player to have a round? Quite possibly.