How hard would it be to put a real ale stall up in this new 'Jack's Fan Zone'? A temporary bar, do a deal with 3 Bs or one of the many other local breweries who produce cask ale. Provide us with 3 or 4 ales, a few barrels of each, every home game, charge no more than £3 a pint. I know for a fact that ale from there costs about £1 a pint to buy from the brewery so £2.50 or £3 a pint is more than enough to make money on. I'd drink a few pints every game and go there rather than the pub. I'd sooner my money go to Rovers. But I'm not being made a fool of with the prices and choice available at present. Other clubs are realising that tastes are a changing, but seems we are in the comfort zone and that's all there is to it. On a bigger scale I'd like to see the redundant Darwen End lounge converted into a 'pub' for pre and post match food and drink, again reasonably priced and good quality. Can anyone tell me what the new fan zone is? Other than 2 or 3 banners I cant see any difference to last season?

Walking past the ticket office at 2:20pm yesterday there must have been 3 people buying tickets for the game. Something very wrong there but sadly nothing will be done about it.

Stanley can make those prices work with 2000 turning up for games. We can't with 12,000-15,000. Doesn't make sense.

Brighton have set up a real ale bar in their ground in conjunction with Harvey's brewery. Presumably there's 'no demand' for such a thing here. Or it's too much effort.

Good important win to get that 3 points under our belts and hopefully the clean sheet will do us some good. Thought the game was desperately short on quality with two teams struggling so far this season. In the end I don't care but feel we have a lot of work to do. Thought Mowbray's changes with 15 minutes to go and us on the rails were bold/foolish. The Armstrong introduction was fair enough but taking off Graham and Downing's experience and bringing on Buckley and Rothwell was very brave but in the end it worked.

So we get a point today. Next up is Hull away, and all the talk before that will be about a point being good away from home. Then its Cardiff at home and West Brom away. Very few will be pinning their hopes on us winning those. All the people saying today isnt must win will also be saying the next 3 arent must win because they are away from home or against fancied sides. Suddenly you are 6 games in, only a couple of points on the board and adrift looking for a first win. Got to get it sooner or later and today is a better opportunity than the next 3.

As far as I'm concerned it is a must win game. But expect attempts to portray a draw as a good result. No doubt if we get a point it will be 'we're up and running' or if we are behind and salvage a draw it will be all about showing good fighting spirit to recover a point with a few references to Middlesbrough being a really good side, massive club etc. Need a win. No excuses.

Why were Oldham fans downstairs when they only brought 500ish? Surely Waggott didn't expect them to bring thousands?

Only 2 fit outfield senior players for their game at Tranmere tomorrow. Concerns also being raised by some about the welfare of the kids playing 3 or 4 games a week. Something has to give soon so expect the League to pay players to join them or invent a new transfer window to assist.

Probably about right. I also suspect that is more or less what we are sending Cardiff's way for Cunningham. When we go though and deduct off wages for Raya, Nuttall, Reed, Conway, Rodwell and balance out with Gallagher, Johnson, Walton and Downing I suspect we've stood still on wages.

I keep hearing about these. If we are committed to paying substantial 'fees' to borrow those players then that makes our transfer policy even more ludicrous. The only benefit to going down the loan route is that it avoids the need to shell out a substantial transfer fee, if we're still shelling out substantial fees just to borrow those players for 12 months and will have to spend again to replace them next summer then it becomes even more bonkers short termism. I saw someone say that Tosin was costing £1 million+ to borrow from Man City. If that's true then I wonder what the hell we are playing at. I am certain for £1 million+ we could have found a CB of good standard who we could own and build around for 2-3 years.

What has actually happened at the club since Waggott arrived other than attempts to increase income? No I don't take Mowbray's word for it on the Waggott appointment. At the very least he put in a good word for him which led to Waggott getting the job. Too much of a coincidence otherwise. I cant really remember what you said about what you would like to happen. Our opening games are tough - Fulham got beat by Barnsley and only just edged us out, Cardiff lost at Wigan and narrowly edged past Luton, Middlesbrough have one draw and two defeats from Luton, Brentford and Crewe. West Brom have drawn and lost home games against Millwall this week. Why are they 'tough games' when Luton, Millwall, Barnsley and Wigan all did ok out of them? Are they going to be 'tough games' too?

Charlton, Hull, Middlesbrough will all be bottom half of the table. Default setting with some is to label every club as tough when that isnt really the case.

At any other club there would be a post-mortem inquest into the window and how it unfolded. It clearly didn't go as planned so there should be a root and branch investigation into how it could be approached differently to enable progress in future. As it is there's far too much of this self-pity 'we cant compete' or 'we tried our best' 'We'll go with what we've got' stuff. Not good enough. Trying and failing wont get the progress required. Doing does. So if the existing structure can't deliver the personnel needed to make progress it needs changing or replacing. I have to say the revelation that Venus is negotiating contracts and deals with new signings is far from reassuring. Quite why the assistant manager is spending his time doing that is a worry. The more time that goes by and the more missed targets and boring excuses I hear the more fed up I get with things. I feel we have a low budget management structure throughout the club primarily concerned with saving cash and doing things on the cheap. We've a chief executive who appears to have little power other than to put prices up in his quest to increase income. We've a manager and assistant who appear to have too much power and responsibility for a club of this size and level. Time we joined the 21st century. No more 1960s 'I am the manager and run the whole club' stuff. We need an overarching approach driven by an experienced administrator. Not the managers mate who will agree with everything he does. How long does this cycle continue? Every transfer window we talk the talk, set expectations high, promise x, y and a and then turn around at the end of it to a disappointed fanbase and say 'oh well, we tried our best and we'll go with what we have'. Can carry on for another 10 years doing that. More to it than that.

Worry not, different rules for that lot so they'll presumably be able to sign players outside of the window and on matchday if they need to.

I don't think it is as simple as that. To begin with, when we've such a lack of depth at CB unless we had new players coming in, which they didn't, then Mulgrew should have been retained until January at least. Even if he wasnt in the managers future plans or wasnt expected to play many games, he should have been kept as an insurance policy and told to fight for a place. It is a gamble with our season. We don't have enough depth in the defence to allow departures like that without replacements. Then there's the assumption that he is going off to Wigan who are going to give him more minutes than he would get here. I don't.know where that assumption comes from given they've more defensive depth than we have and given Mowbray started Mulgrew as captain against Charlton. Paul Cook is a horrible individual but isnt a mug and has a good record. He isnt going to commit himself to guaranteeing games and won't play Mulgrew unless he performs. Meanwhile under Mowbray certain players are guaranteed starts irrespective of performances. Something not right here.

There was more than just a whiff of foul play with the Mulgrew exit. Whatever your views of Mulgrew and his performances his exit, the timing and manner of it just doesn't sit right with me. It brings back unpleasant memories most notably Tom Cairney who was suddenly and unexpectedly ushered out the back door to a rival club who probably couldn't believe what we were doing. Certainly not the behaviour of a well organised, happy club. Go through the transfer business on the final day of the window and the Mulgrew one sticks out like a sore thumb. Sending your captain out on loan to Wigan at that stage suggests something unhappy behind the scenes or alternatively extreme financial pressures and a desperation to raise funds from his wages. Anyhow, Mowbray's talk of 'trying' for Harrison Reed and 'wanting a few' on deadline day then loaning two out and one in looks like a very poor joke. Especially now he's moaning about injuries.

The rule wasnt enforced at Fulham where from memory every sub left the pitch by the bench rather than behind the goals or the far touchline. Mind you that was the least of Stroud's faults.

There's nothing worse than seeing your own manager wandering around his technical area with his head in his hands. If I was a player and saw my manager doing that I'd be fuming. A common Mowbray act to try to absolve himself of responsibility as the players aren't delivering what he expects.

Yeah, don't think either are ready for the level we are at. I agree with Mowbray they need to go and get games but that simply can't happen with the numbers we have.

Insipid and thoroughly miserable game which only started to come to life in the final 20 minutes. As expected Mowbray brings back the Evans/Smallwood axis. If there was one lesson to take from last season it was that those two shouldn't be starting games together at home, yet against 4th division opposition there they are, devoid of any creativity. I'm struggling to remember a worse half of football than that first half today. It was embarrassing. Mowbray chucks on his big guns and the pressure eventually builds. Dack's introduction is the spark to get Graham playing and they drag us back into it. More of the 'gung ho' chuck loads of attackers on in the hope they'll rescue him from Mowbray. Ending up with Chapman, Downing, Rothwell, Brereton, Graham and Dack all on together something had to give and that came with them scoring with their first effort of the 2nd half. Nearly blew it but got away with it. Good to see Chapman make an appearance. Other than that I'm struggling for positives. Cunningham ok. Thought Buckley had a bit of a nightmare though appeared confused as to what he was meant to be doing. Don't think Platt or Grayson are remotely good enough for Championship football.

Mowbray got out of jail tonight. He got his team selection wrong, was saved by the ability on the bench, went his usual way of chucking on attackers and ignoring the defence, lo and behold they get a second out of nothing and in the end we just got away with it. Against sides even marginally better than 4th tier Oldham we'd have been out of the cup. Have to say I've come away from tonight more concerned and with less faith in Mowbray than when I set off. Got the job done in the end but I'm far from happy with what I witnessed tonight.

Think this could be the lowest attended competitive 1st team fixture since Ewood was rebuilt.

Only have to look at folk on PNE and Wigan websites throwing wobblers and moaning about a lack of investment in comparison to Rovers. Heck even some Prestoners wishing they had Venkys rather than Hemmings. We are mid way on wages according to Waggott and net spending wise must be up there. Truth is with this lot it's less to do with what budget they sanction and more to do with how they operate. What we've had in hard currency others make up for in having a coherent plan and consistent approach with one ambition in mind. Here we have all sorts of cooks spoiling the broth with different aims, targets, investments to protect, expectations to manage etc.

Agree with most of that but then we look at what Warnock did with Cardiff. Less money than what Mowbray has gone through yet got them up in his first season through his expertise for hauling teams to promotion. Wilder at Sheff Utd similar. Both succeeded in getting their clubs up within a couple of seasons on restricted budgets so it can clearly be done. I think Mowbray ties himself in knots with inconsistency in recruitment and selection, never really sure how to approach things from one game to the next.