Aye, realistically if we're going to have a chance of promotion with Mowbray as manager than it's inevitable we will need better players across the pitch. The man himself has said so. The only other option is to get another manager, but that doesn't seem to be many people's preference, so we'll be waiting on Venky's benevolence to see whether we're in with a shot of a playoff place next season or not (no way we'll be good enough to go up automatically). Personally I'm expecting a relegation struggle next season, as I believe Dack will go and we will seriously struggle to replace his contributions. Graham and Mulgrew will be another year older, and both are already showing signs of being on the wane, although Mulgrew far more than DG. I would obviously love Tony to prove me wrong, but his recruitment over the past couple of years doesn't give me much cause for optimism.

As Merce mentioned a few pages back, at Mulgrew's age form and effectiveness can disintegrate almost overnight. Although in this instance I don't think that's the case, as he's been suspect most of the season. It's just getting even worse now. It's a bit of a catch-22 as whilst his defending is now a liability to us, his goals from set pieces are vital. He's only a couple of goals behind Graham/Dack. Hardly any of our other players score goals, so taking Mulgrew out of the team puts an even heavier burden on Graham/Dack to score in every match.

Yep, all except Rhodes sold by the time he was sacked though, with practically no reinvestment due to the transfer embargo. Bowyer obviously had a good squad at his disposal, but ultimately he was a reserve team manager thrown in at the deep end. We're lucky he was somewhat competent or even with that team we could have ended up in League 1 a lot sooner than we were. Steve Kean nearly relegated a team with the likes of Nelsen, Samba, Jermaine Jones, Santa Cruz, Dunn, etc. A team who had finished 10th only a season earlier. That's a very poor manager - and Bowyer wasn't that. He just wasn't good enough for what we needed either.

Considering all fees from sales under this lot disappear into a black hole never to be seen again I wouldn't be so sure of that!

Mulgrew's reaction after both goals worries me. Head down, moping, negative body language. Not how I would want my captain responding to conceding goals.

Unfortunately, I don't think many of us do anymore.

PS Store sale on at the moment. Ended up picking up Tales of Berseria, Tales of Zestiria and Disgaea 5. Not really heard of any of them before but they have good reviews, so will get around to them at some point in the distant future.

In a position only a couple of places lower than we are right now. I wanted Bowyer to leave by the end, but getting promoted out of League 1 doesn't make Mowbray better than Bowyer. We were never in L1 to begin with under GB and even when he was sacked we weren't in the relegation zone, we were 16th. I wouldn't say Mowbray has done anything yet to prove himself a better manager than Bowyer for Rovers. The only way he'll do that is by getting us into the playoffs. He's spent £7m on one striker and has the likes of Dack, Graham and Mulgrew on hand. He's not exactly working in poverty.

Probably unlikely at this point, a shame for them that they had such a terrible start to the season. Some great signings in January though - guess there was value in the market after all.

If he was a very poor manager we would have been in relegation trouble. He was if anything distinctly average, not good enough to get us into the playoffs but not bad enough to take us into serious trouble. If you take his lack of experience into account and the lack of support he had above him I think it's really harsh to shit all over his tenure. His best wasn't ultimately good enough but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. One thing I have noticed is that Mowbray gets cut a lot more slack than GB.

We rarely if ever come out fired up. I don't know why it always takes a half time team talk before our team wakes up. It's been the same since day one, Mowbray simply cannot prepare or motivate the team to be up for it from the first whistle. Our only hope is that the opposition are similarly blasé or overcautious and we cancel each other out (which leads to the all familiar 0-0 HT scoreline at Ewood). It's really weird that we only seem to be able to play properly for 45 minutes at a time. You can't even put that down to fitness as it's usually the second half where we're better, not the first. That's a bit disingenuous. We finished 8th and 9th in Bowyer's first full seasons, we aren't going to get anywhere close to that under Mowbray this season. We're looking at 18th or 19th which is lower than Bowyer even when he was sacked (we were 16th at the time, with a significantly worse team than Mowbray currently has).

Not a bad result in isolation, but it's still just 1 point from the last 15 available. Unless our form picks up quite dramatically in the next dozen games I'm going to be quite concerned going into the summer. There is a lot of work to be done to make us serious playoff contenders. Based on our recent form and the amount of upgrades needed across the park I think Tony might have to lower his and the owners' expectations for next season. As it stands we'd do well to be solid mid table next season. I just can't see us having enough to spend in the summer to strengthen from Dack's likely departure combined with what will need to be a fairly heavy influx of new players.

A staple of the Mowbray era I'm afraid. Anyone who is happy to give him another ten transfer windows or whatever simply can't complain when this happens. It's been two years, it ain't changing no matter how many more Ben Brereton's Tony is allowed to bring in this summer.

Considering how poor most of our team is at scoring goals, Mulgrew's set pieces are vital. 9 goals for the season now. Meanwhile Corry "new contract" Evans hasn't contributed a single goal or assist. Even Smallwood has one assist to his name.

Considering we had our first two shots in the dying minutes of the half hopefully the latter!

Considering our form for three of the last four months I imagine he'll have one eye on the exit door by now. He won't want to have to put up with a relegation scrap next season.

Roughly where we should be with our current team and manager if we are being brutally honest. Still think we've got further to fall, unfortunately.

Feels like these players have given up. 7 shots to 0. Embarrassing.

Steele and Emnes' best moments in a Rovers' shirt combined into one:

Entirely likely we would have been looking at the playoff lottery last season rather than automatic promotion. I don't think anybody can hand over heart say our football was good enough to take us up whether Dack was in the team or not. He was so important to everything we did last season (and still is this season) that I'd genuinely say by himself he may have been worth 15-20 extra points.

11 goals and 5 assists from Dack this season, isn't it? Compared with: Jack Rodwell - 1 goal 0 assists Charlie Mulgrew - 8 goals 0 assists Darragh Lenihan - 1 goal 0 assists Ryan Nyambe - 0 goals 0 assists Amari Bell - 1 goal 0 assists Derrick Williams - 0 goals 1 assist Elliott Bennet - 0 goals 3 assists Lewis Travis - 0 goals 0 assists Corry Evans - 0 goals 0 asists Richie Smallwood - 0 goals 1 assist Harrison Reed - 3 goals 5 assists Joe Rothwell - 0 goals 1 assist Adam Armstrong - 4 goals 3 assists Ben Brereton 0 goals 1 assist Danny Graham - 10 goals 3 assists Joe Nuttall - 2 goals 0 assists But yeah, let's get rid of by far our most impressive goalscorer and creator (whilst our joint best creator in Reed goes back to Southampton) and build around players who rarely score or assist, let alone do both at once. What could go wrong?

Overall sensible comments from TM and mostly stuff we would all agree on. You have to find a balance between being loyal and making sure the squad is prepared quality-wise for the next level, and I think Mowbray has erred on the loyalty siide of that equation a little too much. Suggestions of selling Dack concern me hugely as Dack is the only creative player thus far that TM has bought and successfully integrated into the team. If Dack goes we'll have absolutely no creativity unless Rothwell starts, and that's a bit of a gamble to say the least. Seems like this season has been effectively written off by the manager, and he also seems to think he's coached this current team as far as he can and will now be relying on money from the owners to improve us - again, concerning to me as relying on these owners for funds and stable support is asking for trouble. I also think we could and should be far better defensively, even with the players we currenty have. I don't accept that we need to buy a bunch of players to be better than fourth worst goals conceded in the division and joint most long balls played. But anyway, it would appear TM is essentially putting us in a holding pattern until the summer. Hopefully he's taking note of some of the worst offenders on the pitch and planning to cull accordingly. I just hope he'll get the backing he seems to believe he'll get, because if he doesn't and Dack is also sold then we will be looking at a swift return to League 1.

Some interesting stuff there, anything said about our appalling defensive record?

https://www.infogol.net/blog/analysis/championship-promotion-race-assessed-23012019 An article from last month predicting eventual finishes, based on xG. We're slipping pretty quickly towards the 18th we were tipped for in the article (we were 10th at the time).

I'm not sure if it's intentionally playing to our strengths or just a result of our weaknesses. Playing the long ball game is OK if it's part of a strategy but I don't really get that feeling when watching us, it seems more like hit and hope a lot of the time. In theory we have the players up front in Dack, Armstrong, Rothwell, Brereton (?) and Reed to hurt the opposition as and when we win knock downs, but I'm unsure as to whether that is our actual strategy or not. If so then I think our form from November-December and now through February suggests teams might have found us out!