Rumour is that Thierry Henry is likely to be the next Villa manager, with John Terry as his assistant. Huge gamble. Give me McCarthy or Bruce any day over that.

Delighted with the win, important that we got the 3 points before the break after dropping points at home. Always satisfying to beat them. I still long for the day we can relax in the last ten minutes and comfortably see a win out, I know it's easier said than done but for whatever reason we seem to find a way to do it the hard way and it is really difficult to watch at times. Fine margins. That offside flag not raised and penalty scored and the performance and result very disappointing but in hanging on for all 3 points it's happy days. Comprehensively outplayed by Sheffield United and not good at Bolton yet 3 points from 6. Snatch a draw from Sheffield and concede that penalty yesterday and it's 2 points from 6 but we might have felt better about the performances. I'd have given Raya or Reed MOTM personally, seems Sky default setting is to award it to the goalscorer.

Anyone know where he is? Pretty sure he hasn't been in the dugout for our last 2 or 3 games.

I accept that it is included in the terms and conditions and that if I wish to enter the ground I have to go through a search should one be requested. It's not really a question of 'being soft' but something which as a longstanding home season ticket holder who has never been in any sort of trouble I wonder why I am suddenly now being subjected to it. I know the answer - because they've chosen to move the Darwen Enders into the JW Lower and they're worried about flares etc - but why should my match day experience be affected? The people around me are pensioners who have been going for decades - are these people suddenly being searched on arrival before being allowed in? The system for doing it is also flawed - they aren't searching every person every time but are picking odd ones out as they see fit - the difficulty is that queues then quickly build up ahead of kick off as stewards are blocking the turnstiles whilst searching people. I don't notice stewards searching people on the Riverside or Family Stand so again I wonder why I am suddenly being subjected to searches when there is no recent history of any trouble from people in the JW Lower tier.

Can see the Leeds game being absolute chaos for a number of reasons. Them bringing 7,600 is always going to see the people at Rovers struggle to cope. Factor in that there are no trains and the kick off is at noon and the area around Ewood will grind to a halt as they try to accommodate the travelling coaches and cars. Of course with a 30,000+ capacity Ewood and the surrounding area is perfectly capable of hosting such games but the prospect of 20,000+ v Leeds will send them into panic mode. I also predict that to increase the away allocation to 7,600 this will mean that segregation between home and away fans will be moved from the Darwen End and into the Riverside/Jack Walker stands. The 400 or whatever empty seats I think will be the front rows which are usually kept empty. I hope any season ticket holders are not going to be affected by segregation being imposed in the home ends.

Kind of with you on this. If the 'plan' at this club is to build something over a few years ahead of an eventual promotion assault on a limited budget then we need to be trying to emulate Sheffield United who have become promotion contenders without massive spending, using a predominantly British squad of players. Trouble is from what I gather Sheffield United and Wilder don't have Mowbray's caution. He approaches every game to win and won't change his approach to counter the opposition. Sometimes that will backfire and they'll lose games and they'll concede plenty. I don't see that with us. We are a cautious side that worries about the opposition, yet aren't well drilled or organised enough to absorb pressure and keep clean sheets regularly, nor are we a side that does what Sheffield do. As you say it's lovely saying we're building something over a few years but that hinges on certain conditions and we don't know if they exist or not - will our best players stick around for that? Will Venkys sell them? If so it's a never ending rebuild. What about the fact that almost every summer we've had to sign near double figures to replace people who are out of contract and will have to do again this summer when the assortment of loans and contracts expire?

Villa fans not happy? There's a surprise. They could have Guardiola lined up and some of that lot would complain. Championship club appoint man who has spent 15 years in the Premier League and they complain. If he was Portuguese they'd be all over it. Still think I'd rather have Bruce for a promotion push than Moyes.

If you take Rovers' figures as being accurate then we're at around 12,000 home fans. I couldn't help but bite on twitter to that cheeky tweet from Leeds. Anyone would think they've a record of filling their own ground. Whenever I've been to Elland Road recently there have been 10,000+ empty seats. Bet there won't be that many at Ewood when we play them.

Yannick Wildschut, Harry Wilson, Mason Mount, Chris Martin, Andreas Weimann, Oliver Norwood (dingle), Tomer Hemed, Nakhi Wells (dingle), Marley Watkins, Barry McKay. All moved for £2 million or thereabouts or loans. I'm sure Sam Gallagher and Harrison Reed would have been available for those sort of figures too and in my opinion would have been very decent permanent signings who would increase in value. Plenty of others floating around too. Just find the whole thing odd. Completely out of club character to invest big money in one player in one position whilst dealing in loans and frees elsewhere. Conspiracy theory alert again but something not right with the Jacob Davenport signing either. I've already said that I was satisfied with our summer business, and welcomed the Brereton signing, and I'm not daft enough to be labelling him a waste of money or a failure after 4 substitute appearances in the league. Likewise the celebrations we witnessed on here when we signed Kasey Palmer have so far shown to be misplaced.

Yes but then we stuck at it for a couple of weeks and got the deal done in the loan window, so we invested quite a bit of time and money into that deal and there were no rumours of other targets. The whole thing is bizarre really. I'm not writing him on or off at this point but I am perplexed by our transfer dealings and spending. If we truly had £7-8 million to spend on players we'd have been far better splitting that into 4 and signing a CM and CB along with a winger and CF, but I get the impression that there's no way £2 million on 4 different players would have been authorised. I think Mowbray knew he had an opportunity to spend some decent cash and knowing Venkys that cash might never appear again so he had to take the opportunity even if it meant disproportionate spending.

The frustrating thing for me is that we never, ever, seem to be in control of a game. Look what Sheffield United did last night and really other than 10-15 minutes in the second half they were well on top from start to finish. Even when we had our spell of 'dominance' (by which I mean we had plenty of possession, mainly in our own half, and no chances) they were comfortable and weren't troubled. We can't deliver what they did, either because we haven't got the know-how or ability to do it. Even in the games we have won we haven't really been in control. I suppose Brentford and Hull were as close to it as we have been but even then we ended up hanging on to a one goal lead and could have conceded had it not been for good saves from Raya. Games in which we were comfortable and cruising and had done the hard part - Ipswich, Stoke, Villa, Forest - we have thrown it away or very nearly done. That's the frustrating thing for me. I can accept Sheffield deserved the win and were/are a better team than us, but it's the other games that annoy me - where we are in control for periods but end up letting points slip through our fingers because we can't do it for 90 minutes. We've shown numerous times this season that we can compete and can cause problems for teams but poor game management has cost us a lot of points in games we should have been winning. This comes in all sorts of shapes and forms - flukey goals, penalties, free kicks, moaning about decisions or lapses in concentration. The better sides don't give these things away and don't get those sort of decisions against them.

It's like with Bauer. Apparently we were keen on paying a fair bit for him, pursued him all summer, didn't get him but seemingly didn't have any other CB in place, then ended up turning to Rodwell on a short term contract with a view to converting him into a CB. Brereton similar - pursued him for quite a while, a surprising amount of cash - I personally doubt that there were other irons in the fire on that one. I've said before it has similar traits to the Rhodes deal - out of the blue unexpected amount of cash made available for one player - meanwhile the rest of the squad is still being built around loans and cheap deals. I'm not going to slate Brereton yet. I think some are keen to label him as a waste of money, but I thought Dack was poor and unfit in his first couple of months last season and Graham didn't get going last season until December and now look at them.

Two problems here. The first is that there's no way we've coughed up or committed to cough up £7 million on him. It will be half of that or maybe slightly more with addons and bonuses taking it up to £7 million in years to come. The second is that I think a very particular set of criteria would have had to be matched for Venkys to sanction that sort of outlay. It isn't going to be as simple as giving Mowbray 3,4,5,6 million for a striker and he's picked Brereton out of all those available. They would only have put that money on the table for a particular player if certain boxes were ticked, one being that the player had to be young with plenty of time and potential to improve and increase in value. Mowbray's language around the signing and spending the money was strange. Seems he felt under some pressure to get it spent because he doubted whether it would be available again if not. Early days for the lad but he's not exactly had opportunity galore coming on in the last 20 minutes either as we're trying to see a game out and hold on or as we're chasing a game and he's the lone striker.

Must win game this one for me. Some might say that's dramatic or hysterical or an over-reaction to last night or that a draw would be a good point away from home but really given the performance last night, 2 points dropped v Forest on Saturday and with the fixtures coming up later this month we need a win here to fall back on. Leeds home and Swansea/WBA away will be tough, though not mission impossible, but Bolton provides by far our best opportunity of a win. We cannot allow a rot to set in and the wins to dry up as unbeaten spells full of draws won't get you very far. That's why Rotherham aren't far behind even though they've lost 3x the games we have.

I also enter via Turnstile L. I assume that the near 8000 strong Leeds contingent will be all getting searched on the turnstiles before our game against them?

I was also searched on the turnstiles of the Jack Walker lower tier on Saturday v Forest. Not impressed in the slightest. A season ticket for 22 years and for the first time for unknown reasons I am being searched on arrival.

Is that our aim? Who has declared that as our target? I don't know. What is mid-table? Bruce and McCarthy have between them 6 promotions from this league in the last 10 years or so. Not to mention play-off campaigns. McCarthy's football supposedly outdated yet look what is happening to Ipswich now he's gone - they're sinking just as expected. How would you describe our tactics tonight? That was as boring and long ball as I've seen from anyone. Mowbray has done well, but we need to focus on the here and now and results/performances this season. I'm less concerned by our defeat tonight as I am by consistently conceding goals and letting points slip from good positions v Ipswich, Villa, Forest and very nearly Stoke which is a big problem that needs sorting out. Mowbray was praised after last season because he delivered his target. He has been praised this season after some good results. He will be criticised after a poor result and performance. That's his and the players' job. If there wasn't criticism then we would never learn or improve.

Think it would take an unbelievable offer to even begin to make Allardyce think about managing in the Championship. IF he wants to manage again he will have 2-3 Premier League clubs queuing up for him by the end of the year with a massive bonus for survival on offer. Villa may tempt him as he's from that area but from what I gather he's ready to hit the sunbed and stay there. It took a LOT of money from Everton to get him to come back out of retirement.

No complaints about the result. Sheffield better than anyone else I've seen this season. Interesting part being that they were in League One just over a year ago and haven't spent big to get where they are. Mowbray has talked repeatedly about how much money Villa, Derby, Stoke and Forest have. He can't play that excuse tonight so the talk is about how they're a year ahead of us. I think our side cost more than Sheffield's. Wonder what the excuse will be ahead of Bolton. Frustrating that the seemingly inevitable breakthrough for them came out of minimal pressure and at a time we seemed to be getting a grip on the game but that's us all over - conceding when we're least expecting it. They expertly saw the game through which is something else we need to learn quickly rather than keep throwing points away from winning positions. 3 points needed Saturday or it's looking over the shoulder time.

Be interesting to see who Villa go for next. No real obvious quality candidates out there. Very few with successful Championship track records e.g. McCarthy. If they didn't like Bruce they won't like Mick. No way they'll go for a lower division manager. Looks like they'll be going foreign with a marquee appointment but their last couple of foreign appointments were disastrous in Garde and Di Matteo. Would be nice if their billionaire owner made Dyche an offer he couldn't refuse.

Mowbray's modus operandi appears to be to big up the opposition whenever possible. Only today he was telling everyone what big, ambitious fantastic clubs Villa, Derby, Stoke and Forest are. That sort of language has never sat well with me. I'll cut him some slack as it's results I'm interested in but I don't want to hear the manager of Blackburn Rovers talking about what a big and ambitious club Stoke City are. Not only is it wrong but it is quite insulting.

Sounds like Bruce has gone. Good news as far as I'm concerned as I can't see Villa getting anyone better in the Championship. Think they were nailed on for the top 6, now anything could happen.

2,000 sold as of lunchtime. By my reckoning that's the full 4 blocks behind the goal in the lower tier now full. Perhaps another couple of hundred or so left before segregation in the lower tier. Assuming those sell out in the next couple of days will they bother opening the upper tier or will they just take tickets off sale? We usually park at the Barnstormers pub or in that area, coming from the M61 pass the ground on your left and do a right onto an industrial estate.

Four times, twice with Birmingham, twice with Hull, play off final in his only full season at Villa where they lost narrowly to a strong Fulham side. Villa fans weren't bothered about his Birmingham history when he was appointed as they felt he was the best man for the job, even last week when they came to Ewood they were singing his name in the first half. They're a fickle bunch who like West Ham and Newcastle for some reason always think they are entitled to better than they get and always target someone to blame for their position rather than just accepting that is where they deserve to be. They hated O'Leary even though he took them to 6th, turned on O'Neill after he didn't get them into the top 4, hated McLeish before he even started, hated Lambert even though he kept them up for 3 seasons, hated Sherwood even though he kept them up and took them to the FA Cup final and now they're turning on Bruce. Unpleasant with delusions of grandeur. If you set aside their European cup, which when they lifted it was very different to doing it today, and they've won one more trophy in England than we have since WW1 ended. A League Cup. Massive.

It's probably going to hit the smaller League Two clubs before the Championship ones. The likes of Stanley rely heavily on gates and away followings. We're approaching a stage where it is going to be easier and cheaper for away fans to stay at home and watch the match on IFollow for £10 than it is to travel to Accrington midweek, pay £15-20 for a ticket to stand on the open terrace and get home in the middle of the night. They'll get away with it, at least for the time being, in the Championship because the amount of TV cash sloshing around offsets whatever harm is done to attendance and atmosphere, but lower down I doubt it is so easy. Last night a Doncaster fan could sit at home on his computer and pay £10 to watch the match, or take time off work and spend £50+ on tickets, travel and food travelling to Accrington to watch the game in person. Same goes for Swansea v Rovers however I doubt Swansea are going to be too bothered if a couple of hundred Rovers fans don't bother going, whereas that sort of thing will hurt clubs like Accy and Morecambe.