3 minutes ago, Ewood Ace said:

How much longer can Woodgate keep his job? Boro 3-0 down at half time at home to Swansea.

Being generous to him, taking over a Tony Pulis squad with the remit of doing better with a reduced budget whilst playing more football was going to be very tough for anyone. Even so, we're well in the final quarter of the season and they're in serious danger of going down. Not acceptable for that club or squad.

2 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Still thrown away a season of his career (at a midfielders late 20s peak too) to sit on a nice contract... which he’s perfectly entitled to do, by the way, especially as he won’t see that kind of deal again, but it has surprised me a little as it always seemed the type that loves playing football and wouldn’t be happy just to train with no sniff of the first team squad at a weekend.

Definitely turned out that way, but I suspect it was less him happy to sit on a contract, more him backing himself to win a spot back. TM has said on multiple occasions that he's not one to fully ostracise the players who are surplus to requirements, so it's possible that he was waiting for his chance to come around. It just turns out that it never did.

Jackson Irvine left Hull on a free.

Pretty well stocked in that area & obviously wouldn't get in front of Travis, but still a good player at this level even if Hull have been appalling since January.

Proof of the pudding will be in the eating, but if it turns out that Dack can return significantly more athletic (seem to remember Robert Pires coming back from an ACL injury in a similar way) then it could be the difference from him being a very good Championship player, to one who is

Perhaps a very optimistic reading of things, but it was only his sharpness that stops him dominating at this level. He definitely has the ability to play in the top league. 

19 hours ago, ben_the_beast said:

Thing is with JRC I'm not sure anyone really knows what his natural position is. He seems technically decent and pretty tall. Still too small in frame for centre mid, not enough creativity for attacking mid and not enough pace for the wing. Sounds damming. He looks alright. But just no idea where he fits in

Agree that his best position doesn't appear obvious, but I wouldn't say that's because it looks particularly unsuited to playing in various positions. He reminds me a bit of Ben Marshall in his versatility & seeming lack of pace, but the only thing stopping Marshall being a brilliant player was his head. 

The fact that he's been tried in so many positions should, if anything, just be taken as a sign of his natural talent in my view. Not too dissimilar to Bentley, he might be a few seasons into his career before he really nails down a position. 

5 hours ago, oldjamfan1 said:

I had totally forgotten that Darren Anderton smacked one against the post in extra time as well - that was actually even closer than Gazza's miss. Also, Spain had a perfectly good goal chalked off against us in the quarter final that would have sent us packing too. Germany also had a 'golden goal' disallowed in the semi final for a push but that one did look the right decision.

Even though I knew the outcome, I still got nervous when we were taking those penalties!!

He was interviewed about that on 'Quickly Kevin Will He Score?' (an excellent 90s football podcast) a few months ago.

Apparently, there was an agreement with the England squad that if anyone scored a Golden Goal, the whole team would have run straight into the tunnel without celebrating the goal.  Amazing to think how different football folklore could be based on such tiny margins. 

Lenihan booked!

Little harsh on Samuel. Thought he fairly ineffective as an outball against Brentford, but that was a tough game and he did well in his previous two.

In any case, I'm seriously bloody nervous now. Don't care how we win, so long as we do. COYB!

3 minutes ago, DE. said:

According to the Beeb Bristol City have lost 9 out of their last 15 Championship matches. Ouch.

I know the score was only 2-1, but by all accounts they were battered against Hudds too. A team not exactly on blinding form themselves.

10 hours ago, superniko said:

Fulham’s next 5 games:

Swansea (H)

PNE (H)

Bristol City (A)

Brentford (H)

Leeds (A)
 

Lovely set  of fixtures, that. Either drags them into a very catchable position or harms several of our other rivals. Possibly even both.

1 hour ago, MarkBRFC said:

Pretty poor that is, and confirms what I have always thought about a Mowbray side, go a goal down and you might as well go home.

To a point it's poor, but it also suggests how much time we've actually spent behind in games this season, certainly in recent months.Since losing to Forest on New Years Day, the only time we've spent behind were the 25 minutes against Fulham. You're much less likely to come from behind to win points if you spend less time losing!

Equally, if you play in such a way that you come out of the traps quickly and score the most early goals in the league, you're a team that is in more winning positions to begin with, so are much more likely to lose more points from these positions.

Not saying the stats are meaningless either, or that we should be satisfied with them, but they are stats which are heavily context dependent.

6 minutes ago, MarkBRFC said:

The next two home games will define how the run in goes I think.

If we are serious contenders we have to win both.

You get silly results in this league. I think if we end up a couple of points behind PNE come the final whistle next Saturday, we're all licking our lips, even if it comes from drawing one of our next two.

No idea how to feel about that. Disappointed not to win from 2 up, but equally Brentford played well, were at home, and relied on a dive and goal of the season contender to draw.

Would have taken the draw before kick off, the challenge is turning this into at least a 5, preferably 7 point week.

I've been, and may continue to be a Bell critic, but that was a very good 45 from him. 

I thought Buckley showed on maybe 3 occasions that he has the ability and vision to make him an exciting prospect. That said, this game may be dictated by how well we can perform out of possession. Would be surprised if he makes it through the 90.

Looking at Fulham at Ewood and now tonight, it's obvious that they have some very tidy players who can keep the ball, but if they lose Mitrovic then they're sitting ducks in the play offs for me.

16 minutes ago, Hasta said:

Derby v Fulham tonight.

Preferred result a draw?

We'll probably only know in a few weeks, but I'd say so.

Really interesting one, as if we assume that we put the sort of form together that could get us to around 6th, then Fulham are on the cusp of being catchable, but equally we're just about catchable for an improving Derby.

Given that we've got Derby away in a few weeks and potentially could face Fulham in the play offs, the best outcome is probably them kicking each other off the park!

1 hour ago, Paul Mani said:

Iv been pretty resolute throughout that Walton is an upgrade on Raya in terms of his all round game. But I don’t remember Raya being THAT bad with crosses. Sure he was prone to the odd rush of blood but he wasn’t terrible. Just play our game. Stifle Brentford and get Arma in between cb’s.

I think the issue was more that he didn't come for crosses, rather than making that many mistakes when he did. He made a few like you say, but I think the extra demands that are placed on our defenders was seen as the bigger issue.

2 minutes ago, Inglorious basturk said:

While I try to resist my curiosity of the protected   Species hypocritiotocus chadomus really my overall feelings with Mowbray are of hope but I just can’t help think that when we have our good spells it’s luck rather than judgement , often it seems his hand is forced . I would be utterly delighted to be proven wrong 

You may be right, but all I'd say to that is that lucky men don't tend to stay lucky forever. After a while the law of averages kicks in, and then it's only right to judge a manager on his record in those circumstances.

8 hours ago, SoldierMo said:

No way duff and jansen a million times better

Duff yes, but as much as I love Matty I'd rate Bellamy higher.

For the season he was with us I'd even put him slightly higher than Benni and Santa Cruz 

47 minutes ago, Ossydave said:

I'd like to refer to it as a must not lose but really nice to win game ?

Either way I can't see me getting much sleep tonight!

I'm not sure I'd even go as far as that. The carrot for winning is massive, no doubt about that. But we can probably lose 3 or 4 of our remaining games and still have a good chance of finishing 6th. If we're edged out in our hardest looking away game, we live to fight another day.

11 hours ago, Husky said:

Does it refer to building Rovers Financially or Team Progression on the Pitch. As those 2 things are contradictory - as 'making money' would imply selling your best players for a profit which would of course weaken the team.

I don't think these ideas are necessarily contradictory. Look at Brentford, they continually invest in good young project players and implement principles about how to play etc whilst occasionally selling the crown jewels for big money, then reinvest. You could argue this was the Hughes model when he was at Rovers.

More I think about it, the more this week coming looks quite a lot like the one a fortnight ago. A 3 game week, starting with a very tough fixture before a very winnable mid-week home game, before a tricky game to round it off.

Like last time, 6 points from 9 represents a successful week as I see it. Brentford away is as hard a game on paper as we have left, so not a must win by any stretch in my view. It does mean that the pressure is heaped on the Stoke & especially Swansea games though.

If we do win, then I'll believe for the first time that we're actually going to get in there this year and not fall just short.

10 minutes ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

Keep the team how it was vs Charlton, we were better in every aspect. They have some good defenders but when we've got corners / attacking free kicks get Lenihan, Johnson and Adarabaiyo on Raya and let's put the little tit under some pressure. He has a drop in him.

It's on Sky which often means a Rovers loss but I'm going to go for a score draw here. 1-1.

Take that result in a heartbeat. I've a feeling that we'll put in a decent performance but be edged out 2-1. Obviously hope I'm wrong, but on paper this looks like it may be the hardest game we have left.

Apparently Jensen went off injured for them on Saturday. Meant to be an important cog in their machine, hopefully means they won't be at their most fluent. 

8 hours ago, Ossydave said:

We haven't missed Rothwell at all, if I'm a bit harsh so be it but in my opinion he's a brfcs enigma and actually average.....

Enigma certainly. Wouldn't call the boy average though. Clearly has the talent to hurt teams, the next level for him is finding consistency.

35 minutes ago, dingles staying down 4ever said:

Last season could you say the same with all the player you mentioned? Even though it was clear that Mulgrew legs had gone last season he started this season. Williams only lost his place through injury but has played this season. Smallwood was used as an example of how to play midfield last season for Travis and Harrison to follow.

There was always a Champonship player in Evans but it took Smallwood's silly sending off to give him a decent partner in Travis to play alongside him.

Mowbray's loyalty to players is no myth. Bobby Saxton also suffered the same.

Last season fair enough. I still think there's a meaningful difference between a manager too loyal to players and one giving a promoted side a crack of the whip to begin with though. 

I'd take issue with a few other things too, Mulgrew may have started our first game but his being sidelined was clearly on the cards. Travis started alongside Richie at Sheff U too, so he was close to breaking through.

In the main though, judging off this season alone, TM has been pretty ruthless with the players who were meant to be his pals. Even Benno, who gets far too much grief from some who have short memories imo, hasn't been starting recently.

Basically, there are fair criticisms of Mowbray, but I think there are a couple of red herrings which people often use and I think this is one of them.