Lee Johnson at Bristol City 2 years ago - a very similar situation to us, newly promoted, started the season very well and then went on a horrible run over about 15 games, only just staying up (at our expense) after looking like playoff contenders at one point. Lots of calls for him to be sacked by their fans, but the club stuck with him and they’ve improved each season and I imagine their fans are now glad they didn’t get what they were calling for. Let’s hope that in a couple of years we’re looking back on this current run in a similar way

The guy can't win. Get's asked a question about Raya in an interview - if he says that he's not concerned, that Raya is doing just fine, that everything will carry on as normal, then he'd be accused of being a clown who can't see what is obvious to everyone else. But if, as he has done, he's honest and says that, yes we expect a better level of performance and that Raya's place is under pressure, then he is accused of publicly shaming a player to deflect from his own mistakes (which he admits to making in the interview btw, so a pretty lousy job of deflecting and hiding them). You can start to understand why Mourinho would just sit and refuse to answer questions in his press conferences - we all want answers to questions, but whatever answer is given we want different ones.

That isn't what he said happened though. The players voiced an opinion (pre-game) on tactics that they thought would give them a better chance of being solid and competing. Mowbray listened and agreed to give them a go. When he saw that they weren't working, after about 20mins, he told the players to revert back to the gameplan and tactics that he has been coaching them in for the past 18 months. Seems like decent man-management to me - suppose he had not listened to the players and just insisted that he was right and they had to play his way. Particularly given that we are not a great run of form at the moment, I'm not sure the players would have fully bought into that - plus if we had then ended getting beat, it perhaps further undermines Mowbray in the dressing room. Better this way, that the players can see that a) they are allowed some input and b) that the managers tactics actually do give them the best chance to compete. And for those saying that no other manager allows this kind of thing - I seem to remember a documentary about Italia 90 where it was said that Lineker and some other senior players went to Bobby Robson after the first game against Ireland, and asked him to let them play the sweeper system, which allowed them to give Gazza a more free-role in the midfield. It worked out pretty well for them (that semi-final is still one of my most upsetting football memories) and Robson didn't do too bad in football management either - when you hear ex-players, like Lineker, Shearer, Gascoigne etc talk about him, it is obvious how much they liked, respected and wanted to work for him - perhaps that wouldn't have been the case if he had had a more dictatorial approach, who know

He said it’s not really a full English, just sausage and beans and a bit of toast. I seem to remember a former Rovers player saying he had chicken and beans before a game, which isn’t too dissimilar, and I think he did ok

I had this argument once with Robbie Savage via Twitter. I get that for players and clubs playing at the highest level possible is the be all and end all, however for fans surely winning (and maybe even playing well) is just as, if not more, important. For example, I enjoyed our trips to Rochdale, Bury & Fleetwood last season far more than my last visit to Old Trafford under Big Sam when we got tonked 7-2. As another example, does anyone truly believe that Fulham fans are enjoying this season more than last season?

Always interesting to see how people see the game differently. Personally I’d have taken Travis off at halftime, and not because he was on a yellow card. I thought he had a poor game, wanted too much time on the ball and gave the ball away cheaply time and again - I think potentially it showed just how important Evans is in there alongside him. He wasn’t alone though. Reed also was below his usual standard and Dack looked off the pace. And the less said about Williams the better. As someone else has said, unfortunately we’re not a good enough team to win if we’re not all on our game and it showed today

Or 3) The right player wasn't available at the right deal - fee + wages And whilst some of the money that may go toward a fee went on Brereton, I suspect it is the wages that is the actual stumbling block for us in regard to BA and Austin and there is no way that Brereton is earning anything like what we would need to spend on those players

By the way - can you imagine the uproar on here if the striker we brought in in this window was some unheard of lad from the non-leagues??

Plus a 21 year old Irish lad who seems to be holding his own so far on loan in the Scottish Premiership. Before that we picked up a young striker called Joe Nuttall who had been released from Aberdeen and seems to have a decent future ahead of him. And before him there was a young lad by the name of Lewis Travis who we picked up from Liverpool's academy (maybe you've heard of him?) But, no, of course it's right to say that our recruitment is flawed and we don't ever pick up bargains or potential stars of the future. We only ever pay over the odds for flops don't you know??

Not saying he will definitely come good, rather that, at 19, he has the time and opportunity to develop and so it’s worth baring that in mind when making a judgment on him. I’d wager that most professional players, outside of the very top ones, would have looked out of place in the first team at 19 - even Fergie’s ‘kids’ at Utd were around 21 when they became regulars. So - yes to an extent - maybe it is just blind hope - but going off last nights game - if you watched that in isolation, you’d say that Brereton had more going for him than Conway (and probably Bennett). Plus Mowbray must presumably see some potential in him, and I assume he’s a) seen more of Brereton than I have and b) knows more about what makes a good footballer than I do

Grayson had played for the U23's on Monday evening. I'm sure if Mowbray had known that Rodwell was going to be ill and unable to play, he wouldn't have played on Monday and may have featured last night. However, expecting the lad, no matter how young and fit he may be, to play 2 games in 24 hours probably isn't realistic. Not saying that Brereton played well, but I don't think he was the worst player on the pitch for Rover last night. In fact, we looked much better with him on than Conway, who did very little. Now that may not be particularly high praise, but if you try and forget the fact the price tag and remember that he is only 19, it gives me some hope, as rovers11 said, that he will come good given time. How many players currently in the championship (or even the Premier League) were the finished article, or even featuring in the first team regularly, when they were 19? I think (and hope) that Ben will continue to develop and we will see some real improvement over the next 2 or 3 years. Now, obviously that still raises the question, why pay the money that we reportedly have on him now, if he's not really ready, but Mowbray obviously sees some promise in him and believes he will flourish. If that's true, then £7m may eventually be a bargain considering how much even half-decent English strikers go for in the current transfer market. For us fans I think the best thing is to, like I say, try and forget the price tag and view him almost as one of our home grown youth players. For example Lewis Travis is getting a lot of credit for how he's playing at the moment, but I dare say that 2 years ago, when he was 19, he probably wouldn't have done quite so well. My only hope is that his confidence doesn't get knocked so much at the moment that it stunts his progress going forward.

I thought Nuttall did well, especially in the first 20 minutes or so. Faded a bit as the game went on and I was surprised that he wasn’t one of those who went off, but then he did really well to get himself into the right position to score - albeit a bit luckily. But I remember in games against Rotherham and Norwich, Armstrong getting into similar positions, putting those kind of balls across the box and there being no one gambling on getting in there, so it was nice to see Nuttall doing that, especially from the wide forward position. By no means a perfect performance, or even a brilliant one, but certainly one that showed promise and gives me hope that there’s a decent player in there that can be developed

Can't get into the team? Rather than buckling down, working hard and impressing when you get your chance, just call your club's loan manager and he'll sort you a move out to another club. Seems wrong to me, and surely can't be good for the players longterm development. No wonder players such as Palmer, Izzy Brown & Todd Kane are still being shunted out on loan to clubs rather than having made it into the Chelsea first team (or that of another Prem team) - compare the situation of these loan players with that of someone like Dele Ali, who had to actually impress the manager in order to get himself some game time at MK Dons, and you can see why they don't develop the mental fortitude and determination needed to succeed at the highest level.

But then the argument must be that, if so many of our players are so terrible (as is often suggested on here), we must be performing miracles to even be in with a chance of taking something from games. You’d think, given how crap we are, that we would be getting spanked 3 or 4 nil every week. The fact that we’re not makes me think that we’re not too far away - maybe it is just a fitness issue, maybe a confidence thing, maybe just one or two players away - I don’t know. But I also don’t think it’s quite as bad as it’s sometimes painted as being on here

The other way of looking at it though is that, despite a run of games against tougher opposition, in each game we’ve been in the game and could, and probably should, have taken something from each of them. Of course it’s disappointing/frustrating/unsettling/insert your own verb of choice here/ to keep throwing away leads and conceding late goals, but I think the fact that we were in decent positions late on in each of those games suggests that there’s not a massive amount wrong and, like Mowbray says, it’s just fine margins and a bit more quality (and maybe experience) needed. I know, I know - I’m just a happy clappy, Mowbray apologist and I need to give my head a wobble - but I just thought it might give some balance to the sky is falling stuff that fills 90% of the board

I don’t disagree, but I’m sure you know as well as I do that momentum is a huge thing in football and that’s the reason that 2-0 is often described as a dangerous lead, as if the team behind score 1 they often then go on to get another. As others have said that game was about the most comfortable I’ve seen Rovers in a number of years - we were coasting and the game was drifting, Birmingham didn’t look like creating anything let alone scoring 2. However, a completely needless penalty gave them a foothold in the game, put us on edge and suddenly the momentum was all with them. That’s not to excuse the rest of the team for failing to hold out at 2-1, but Raya’s mistake was the catalyst for the collapse and to my mind that makes him, in the words of Alan Sugar, ultimately responsible for the failure of the task

That’s not what I said, is it? I said that Brereton wasn’t to blame for the goals that we conceded. Do you disagree? Which of the mistakes that led to the goals would Graham have prevented if he were on the pitch? I’m not saying that Mowbray doesn’t get things wrong (although I feel that they are highlighted on here far more than the things he gets right), but to lay the blame for today’s dropped points at his door is just plain wrong imo. Yes, you can say that the players who f**ked up were selected by him, but as I’ve pointed out, they were also the same players that got us 2-0 up and bossed the game for the most part - so it’s not just as simple as saying if he’d chosen other players we’d have won

Mowbray did pick them and they got us into a comfortable 2-0 lead with 15 mins left to play. If these players were as bad as some on here are making out then surely that would never have happened - we should be getting rolled over week in week out if you believed the pundits on here, since we have no decent full backs, no proper wingers, no central midfield, no creativity going forward, no commanding centrehalf - it's a miracle that we not 20 points adrift at the foot of the table really ? Raya cost us two points today - not Mowbray, not Brereton, not a mentality of sitting back or anything else. It was a brainfart moment from the goalkeeper which gifted them a way back into a game that was all but won up to that point. And if anyone thinks that Mowbray didn't read him the riot act after the game then they obviously don't sit as close behind him as we do - he was absolutely livid on the touchline in that second half

I’m not convinced that Mowbray or his tactics made Raya come charging out and give away a ridiculous penalty, nor made Bell and then Evans give the ball away cheaply and Smallwood completely sell himself instead of covering round. And, for however poorly Brereton did when he came on, he too had no effect on those things either. And without them we’d have cruised to a comfortable 2-0 victory - maybe Mowbray should get credit for coaching us into such a commanding position in the first place

Exactly. Hence the phrase ‘I think...’ - it’s not rocket science is it? As to your other points - Armstrong played wide in virtually every game I saw last season, which was most of them. But I do agree he looked good at times. And, whilst winning more than we lose is not in itself an argument for playing Armstrong out wide, it is an argument to say that Mowbray is getting things generally right and perhaps deserves more respect than posters on here saying he’s lost the plot or implying he’s stupid. Anyway, I’ll leave it there. I only came on to get a sense of how we’d played as I had to miss the game and I got riled by the disrespect shown to,imo, a decent manager. But I guess it’s just further reinforcement of why I no longer come on here as much

I’d argue, once again, that you are confusing your opinion for fact. Since football is a team sport, and since we’ve won more games than we’ve lost this season, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that playing Armstrong wide is a ‘failed experiment that isn’t working’. By all means state that you don’t like Armstrong playing out there, or that you think someone else could do a better job, but be clear that that is your opinion and not a fact. And be clear also that 100 times out of 100 I’d choose the opinion of a man who has been involved in professional football over that of a nomark on a messageboard. Btw, I think the dropping of Armstrong for Conway is more down to attitude than level of performance. Mowbray was very critical of the team as a whole for their attitude on Wednesday and he knows, as do we all, that Conway will always give 100% effort, even when he’s not playing particularly well, and - especially with Bennett missing - I think that’s why he was chosen rather than it being an admission that we need ‘proper’ wingers.

I’d suggest that 29 points from 20 games, sitting just 5 points outside the playoffs at the start of December, arguably a better start than most of us expected this season, means that it must work to some degree, no? Add that to my earlier point about Armstrong being our most threatening attacking player in at least 2 recent games and maybe it’s less a discussion of ‘an experiment that just doesn’t work‘ than ‘something blueboy3333 off of BRFCS doesn’t like’. There seems to be a dislike of Mowbray from a few on here (and you’re the most vocal) that I just can’t fathom. After the last 6 or 7 years he is like a breath of fresh air and has more than surpassed my expectations, but yet a number of posters on here seem to delight in bashing him when we lose and belittle his involvement when we win. To read some of the comments on here you’d think we were battling relegation, getting hammered week in week out, with a manager trying experimental formations that no one else is ‘stupid’ enough to try. But thank God it’s not negative on here, eh?

I don’t want to rain on your ‘Mowbray knows nothing’ parade, but just a couple of points that I think need making: 1) Conway’s last appearance was against Derby (I think) where he was, rightly, taken off halfway through the first half. I don’t recall many on here (including you) demanding his reinstatement to the team following that game 2) Whilst it’s true that Armstrong isn’t a natural winger and he has struggled at times, he was also arguably our best player in the games against Leeds and Rotherham playing from that left wing and, again, I don’t recall many on here demanding he be dropped or moved from that position following those games.

I was counting the 2 games this week as ‘one’ occurrence - I can’t yet bring myself to accept that we were that shit twice! Also I can’t agree on the Rotherham game. The result was disappointing, but I thought overall we played quite well and created enough chances to have won the game comfortably. Had we taken one of them and won 2-1, I don’t think anyone would have been suggesting that it was a poor performance

The difference being that this was a one-off (hopefully), or very rare at least, whereas under Dumb & Dumber it was a weekly occurrence