If that's not what he expects then he clearly doesn't see the problem. Hopefully that's just public bravado. I can't imagine anybody could be stupid enough to not take notice of the fact we repeatedly crumble and concede again very soon when a team scores against us. vs Reading - conceded on 12 and 25 minutes vs Stoke - 79 and 80 minutes vs Sheff Utd (@ Ewood) - 66 and 79 minutes vs Swansea - 64, 68 and 85 minutes vs Preston - 2 and 10 minutes, 74 and 85 minutes vs Birmingham - 78 and 80 minutes vs Leeds - 91 and 94 minutes vs Sheff Utd (@ Brammall Lane) - 73, 77 and 82 minutes That's eight matches this season where we've conceded a second goal less than fifteen minutes after the first one went in. Often it's literally only a few minutes after. It's clearly a pattern and something that seems to be getting worse rather than getting better.

Nobody would have said he played well though. I'm not sure how Brereton could have played well if he was involved so little in play. It's not necessarily his fault, but still.

4-0 or 4-1 to WBA. WBA are the highest scorers in the division and our defence is one of the shittiest. WBA concede a fair few goals too so we might get one or two back, but a drubbing here is highly likely.

Some of our boys from the 2014/2015/2016 era... Matt Kilgallon - left on a free transfer to join Bradford in League 1. Was their player of the season in the 17/18 season. Contract then cancelled by mutual consent and now he plays for Hamilton Academical in the Scottish Prem. Lee Williamson - left on a free transfer to join Burton, who were in the Championship at the time. Made 14 appearances with 8 starts. Released at the end of the season with Burton having stayed up whilst we got relegated. Most recently assistant manager of Belper Town, but was sacked in April 2018. Chris Taylor - left on a free transfer to join Bolton. Made 16 appearances in two years, but only 3 starts. Was loaned to Oldham between Jan-May 17. Released by Bolton at the end of the 17/18 season, currently playing for Blackpool. Reg - loaned to Ipswich, then joined them on a permanent in December 2015 after rupturing his achilles tendon in the playoff semi-final in May 2015. Overall scored 5 goals in 56 appearances for Ipswich. Contract was cancelled in January 2017 and he joined Burton. Scored one goal in 33 appearances before being relegated with Burton in the 17/18 season. Released and now plays for Cheltenham Town in League Two. Josh Morris - left on a free transfer to join Bradford. Only stayed for one season, making 13 appearances and scoring once. Released at the end of the 15-16 season and then joined Scunthorpe, where he's become one of their better players. He's scored 34 league goals in 103 appearances (with 101 starts). Leon Best - career gone right into the toilet, to the surprise of no one. After we released him he spent most of the 15-16 season at Rotherham, scoring 4 goals in 16 appearances. Rotherham decided against extending his contract. He joined Ipswich with a lot of fanfare but as usual screwed it up, and after a particularly shit display in Jan 17 against non-league Lincoln City Mick McCarthy said Best would never play for the club again. And he didn't. Released at the end of the season. Signed a two month deal with Charlton but after 5 appearances and no goals he picked up a serious knee injury and is currently available on a free transfer. Sacha Petshi - remember him? No, me either. Now playing with Creteil in the lower leagues of France. Bengali-Fode Koita - ah, that one time he hit the post... memories. Has been playing in Turkey for Kasimpasa since 2016. Wiki claims 6 goals in 42 appearances but no idea how up to date those stats are. Jake Kean - surprisingly joined Norwich in the PL after being released by Rovers. Made no first team appearances and cancelled his contract a year early in May 2016. Joined Sheffield Wednesday, made no first team appearances. During his time at Norwich & Sheff Weds was loaned out to Colchester, Swindon, Mansfield and Grimsby. Only made regular appearances for Mansfield, who he signed for on a short term deal in December 2018, having been available on a free since August 2018. Since August 2015 Jake has made 28 first team appearances at all clubs. Somehow he was in nets 37 times for Rovers. Amazing. Danny Guthrie - played briefly for Oakengates Athletic in the Shropshire Premier League (seriously, wtf) before joining Indonesian Liga team Mitra Kukar in Jan 18. I think he's still there. Nathan Delfouneso - played a season for Swindon in League 1. Scored one goal in 18 appearances. Currently plays for Blackpool, scored 19 goals in 80 appearances. (No) Hope Akpan - helped Burton get relegated in the 17/18 season. Joined Bradford where he remains today. Simon Eastwood - signed for Oxford United and won their players' player of the season and supporters' player of the season for the 16/17 season. Has made 106 apperances for Oxford in two and a half years. Seems to have done better for himself than Jake Kean, although I'm guessing Kean earned more during his time at Norwich & Sheff Weds? Tommy Spurr - signed on a free for Preston after we released him. Has made 23 appearances since July 16 and had injury problems. Currently on loan to Fleetwood. Chris "Browny" Brown - joined bury on a free in August 16 but didn't make a first team appearance. Had injury and fitness issues. Scored the same amount of goals for Bury with 0 appearances as he did for Rovers with 37.

Yeah, I was going back to 14 Dec to get the four games. If you look at the purely festive fixtures it was indeed 0/9. That was a pretty miserable time. After beating Rotherham on Dec 11 we didn't win another game until Feb 16. 9 games without a win, 4 points out of 27. Still ended up staying up pretty comfortably in the end.

Hanley always needed a smarter, cooler head beside him to be fully effective. I think that's why he's ended up back in the Championship rather than making the step up to the PL. Hasn't quite got everything he needs mentally to be a top player. He was a good centre back for us when his big head was on straight though. Mulgrew could be a good fit beside him.

We got 1/12 under Lambert.

Apparently Brereton only had twenty touches yesterday, so did he actually do well or were people just seeing what they wanted to see?

Good post. Mowbray talks a good game and is obviously very passionate about his ideas, but those ideas don't seem to be translating onto the pitch at all. It often looks like a patched together combination of hoofball and counter attacking play. This is no knee jerk reaction, either. It's frustrating to see certain posters call this "knee jerk" when a lot of us were bringing up the same concerns last season, but were shouted down and ridiculed because we were beating terrible teams. Now we're facing better teams and the same criticisms come out, it's suddenly knee jerk.

In the article I read he spent two or three paragraphs complaining about the referee, then added at the end "but it wasn't the ref's fault we conceded three". Begs the question of why he's going on about it so much. Seems like deflection and desperation to me.

"“The outcome of the game, especially when we went down to 10 men...no-one would have seen the result coming.” Wouldn't be so sure about that.

He needs to focus more on the positives and complain about the ref.

Ridiculous tackle from Smallwood. What a fucking plank. Their red looked very harsh.

Needs to win both for me, considering our recent form and assuming we'll get beaten by West Brom. Losing to either would be unacceptable at this point.

The teams we've beaten this season: Hull 0-1 Rovers - quite a close match but a clean sheet and a goal from open play, so pretty good. Rovers 1-0 Brentford - another clean sheet, but we were lucky in that we scored with our only shot on target. Brentford largely dominated. Stoke 2-3 Rovers - we all remember this one. 3-0 up and everybody confused by what was happening. Two goals in two minutes suddenly makes it 3-2, Stoke then win and miss a penalty. Again, very lucky to get three points from this one. Bolton 0-1 Rovers - another clean sheet, but it was a poor match and Bolton actually had double the amount of shots we did. They just couldn't score. Rovers 2-1 Leeds - probably our best performance of the season so far. Matched Leeds and won the match after being pegged back just before half time. Rovers 1-0 QPR - direct quote from Mowbray - "It was a pretty poor horrible football match I would have to say I don't think we should be trying to disguise that fact". Terrible match decided by a late penalty. Rovers 4-2 Sheff Weds - a good performance against a very poor team. Sheffield Wednesday is the only match we've won by more than a one goal margin.

Go back to November and it's even grimmer. Hard to believe at one point we were all discussing the possibility of a top six finish - some more seriously than others. Now we're looking far more likely to end the season in the bottom six.

Technically, but he's played a significant portion of his career at CB so I don't think we can really say he's out of position. He just needs a certain type of defender beside him - Lenihan is not that defender.

No clean sheet in 9 games now. We've shipped more goals than Wigan, Brentford, Millwall, Reading and Bolton, and the same amount as Rotherham. All of these teams are currently below us. It's very clear that we are a defensive shambles. Mulgrew/Lenihan is not the answer, neither is the pairing of Evans/Smallwood. Not sure any of our full backs are realistically good enough either. Severe surgery needed long term. Short term bringing in a decent CB and a competent LB (Williams & Bell are both L1 standard) might be enough.

His post match interviews over the past few weeks are sounding increasingly desperate. They don't give me any confidence he has a handle on the situation. It feels increasingly like he's burying his head in the sand and waiting for something to magically change. Very concerning.

50 points seems a long way off at this juncture.

I'd take 21st right now if offered as a final position. This team is a shambles. Hard to explain how we got as many points as we did before November.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Time for big Ben to show us what he's all about.

It was just a vague comparison based on their attributes. Emerton was supposed to come in as a top quality right winger, but it never really worked out for him there. He always looked far better at right wing back and I'm sure I remember him giving good performances in centre midfield as well. I can see similarities with Bennett in that regard, although Emerton was obviously a much better player.

The results with Bennett in the team versus Bennett being out of the team speak for themselves really. I don't think it's a complete coincidence that this shocking run of form has coincided with Bennett being injured. I think the only match he's played in since we beat QPR 1-0 is Preston? And he was playing with a fractured foot in that one too. Obviously one player doesn't make a team, but I think his influence is underestimated.

Evans and Reed would be my preferred CM pairing. Nobody can question Smallwood's determination and commitment, but it's obvious he isn't on the same level as most of our other players in a technical sense. His passing is really bad at times. No issue with using him as a harrier to come off the bench and disturb the opposition if we're in the lead, but that's generally what I would limit his role to.