Oh, and welcome back!! ?

I sit row 12 seat 125, near the top of the "E" on the blue seats. The pillars are on my row, the nearest one being around seat 118. The pillars are about 20 seats apart. Hope this helps.

Ipswich's third goal against Leeds yesterday was a thing of comedy beauty ?

I thought he did well after a slow, unexpected introduction at a time when the tide changed in the game. Once we got our shape back, he was really good. Showed for the ball, showed a good range of passing, showed good ball retention & close ball control in tight spots, and great technique for that half volley. Very promising debut, really pleased for the lad as I bet he's been really frustrated since he signed. Really hope he can kick on now and be a big part of what we aim for next season. Far too early to say if he'll be a good signing but I can certainly understand what qualities TM saw in him.

Joe Hart is a no from from me. As is Leutweiler, but good luck to him. I rate Raya, or at least the pre-West Brom version. Yes he's made basic errors (which experience & better coaching should iron out) and his distribution is erratic, but he's also won us points with some worldie saves that any top flight keeper would be proud of. Our defensive problems & lack of a reliable back 4 will not have helped him and he is well worth persevering with at least for another couple of seasons. I hope he comes back after summer fully refreshed & with his confidence renewed. He needs proper coaching & good competition. I like the Darlow shout but feel it's a long shot. Bialkowski might be more realistic, being proven at this level over a few seasons.

I'm very much in the "very satisfied" camp, if there is one on here! Yes there have been dark times; 2 runs where it seemed hard to see where the next win was coming from; too much loyalty to below-par players; some very inept defending & lack of intensity offensively; a failure to kick on after January. But I'm extremely heartened by the young, creative, pacey forward options we have, and TM's acknowledgement that we need new 1st 11 defenders. We've a number of forward-thinking players who will cause defences huge problems next season, and our style of play is definitely showing signs of evolving into something less direct. What the manager now needs to do is find a proper team identity that is founded on hard work & team spirit but is more than that, which finds the right balance between being solid & competitive whilst also being dynamic & pleasing on the eye. It's not an easy task but were it not for several poor late goals earlier in the season & some eyewatering individual errors scattered across the season, we could quite easily have finished on 70 points. If we can cut half of those out, I don't think it would take as much change / overhaul of what we have as others have suggested to enable us to hit 75 points plus next season. 75 points qualified for the playoffs in all but 2 of the last 10 seasons.

And this messageboard is no place for silly debates is it...?! ?

He's nailed his colours to the mast there; good luck to him, it bodes for an interesting summer!

I tried, but it seems like they had better things to do with their day than try to reason with you... ? https://ibb.co/BC2PKjh

The one transfer of BB distorts everything and becomes (perhaps understandably) a focus for criticism and polarised opinion. I'm quietly confident he'll become far more influential next season and wasn't bought with the intention of firing us up this season. If you're taking that view, Norwich got lucky because as Sky were at pains to point out, Pukki was 3rd on their list of striker targets, so they clearly weren't expecting 30 goals from him. I think also 2 others of their team were youngsters who'd not seen first team football prior to earlier this season either. So it hardly seems like they spent the 17/18 season prepping an assault on the title in 18/19 which is how as it has panned out. Hence the league is unpredictable. I'm not saying we can't learn some things from them, we clearly can. But it's not as black and white as "we spent more money than them so should do better" or "our manager's rubbish, theirs is great". Sorry, got a zoo trip to get ready for now, might be back on later!!

We were outclassed last night no doubt, they ought to have been 4 up after 20 mins & we should've been down to 10 men. But credit where it's due, we got one back quickly and I think that contributed to them reining in their ambition for the remainder of the game. On that performance alone we're miles off Norwich, but one performance doesn't tell the whole story. Half our team was out of sorts yesterday as opposed to the usual 2 or 3, and as someone above pointed out Norwich were no great shakes at Ewood in December. Clearly we need strengthening, with 5 or 6 first team ability players needed this summer. Mowbray seems to acknowledge that so it should be interesting. Norwich & Sheff U are something to aspire to and we absolutely should be aiming for a proper promotion push next season. But at the same time they ought not necessarily to be used as a stick to beat Mowbray with as this league is so unpredictable. I think it's clear that our style of play is evolving into something more dynamic than long balls to DG, so it'll be interesting to see what direction his recruitment takes us the summer.

Happy enough with that team overall, should cause their defence some problems if we're on our game. I'll be watching via a now TV day pass, so we'd best turn up!!

"He doesn't regret coming (to Bolton)" I think something might have got lost in translation there...

2-0 Armstrong

BB!!!

Can't disagree with much if what's been said over the last page or so, though I would add that perhaps the confused structure of the club brings into sharper focus what a decent job TM has done in spite of it all.

So if he'd said "Next season we're aiming for the playoffs" you'd have been happier? I doubt it; more likely his critics would have asked "What, only playoffs? Why not aim higher?". He just can't win with many on here, his words get over analysed (as I guess happens to all managers). Also your view of his comments depends on interpreting what he means by "top end". You've clearly interpreted it as 1st-6th (fair enough but that's quite a thick end, being a quarter of the division), but in TM's head it could mean 1st - 3rd (which is probably a more accurate interpretation of "top end" of a 24 team division). This is why it's not binary, other than in the sense of he stays or he goes. However, I do agree that now we're safe we ought to now be actioning pre-formed plans for next season, both in terms of recruitment & ST sales etc., not trying to finalise ambitions. Hopefully it's not a case of last season's lessons not being learnt. That though should be a criticism of the owners & Waggott, not TM.

Maybe I've tried too hard to show how balanced I am there! I'm conscious that on here there's an expectation that an opinion should be backed by examples (rightly so), and if I ignore TM's downsides whilst preaching about being balanced in judgment of him, then I'm not practising what I preach! I take all your points on board. He's frustrating at times and seems overly cautious, but also to be fair to him he's had to cope with different challenges each season. The last part of 16/17 was firefighting to try to prevent relegation, 17/18 was solely about getting promoted from L1, and 18/19 about re-establishing ourselves in the Championship. Each of those challenges required a different tactical approach, different personnel and different styles, which might explain why his stated desire to ultimately play a more attractive style has had to take a back seat, because it doesn't save you in a relegation dogfight (ask Big Sam) and nor does it get you promotion from L1; there are too many "agricultural" teams there. Next season will be the first season TM starts with us in the same division we competed in the season before. That consistency allows him to build on what he learnt from the previous season as to what works in this division, what doesn't work & where he needs to improve. I guess ultimately many of us will have to agree to disagree. I think we all accept, grudgingly or not, that he is staying, so maybe this thread should be closed until 10 games into next season when the direction things are heading in will be a lot clearer!

I'm not one whose afraid of the alternative choices (though historically those choices have been poor; McLeish is on the market I see, would any of us wish to take the risk of his appointment?). I just think Mowbray has done well overall, achieved realistic progress comfortably in his time here, and therefore deserves the chance to kick on with his development plans for the club.

But that presupposes that had we achieved a bang average run of results in those months, we would still also have won 4 in a row in January and 3 in a row in April so far. It's a prime example of criticising the bad (fair enough) but not giving credit for the good (unfair). Had the wins in Jan & April been spread out evenly amongst the win, defeats and draws in Dec, Feb & Mar, that would be the absolute definition of a "bang average run of results" that you refer to across 5 months, but would leave us in exactly the same position as we're in, though arguably with less criticism of the bad results. You can't say we should have avoided many of the bad results, whilst presuming we would have still got all the good ones. Football doesn't work like that!

C'mon, seriously?? We're no better off now overall than we were in Feb 2017? That's a very hard opinion to justify...

Brereton - 3.5 - he won a penalty, got an assist and can tie his bootlaces in under 90 seconds flat, but mostly been played out wide rather than centrally where he apparently prefers. Not seen much yet to justify even a quarter of his price tag, but one for the future I feel. That said, the next 3 games could be critical for his future here. Disappointing to date. Rothwell - 7 - showed glimpses of promise early on but seemed naive; only in last few games has he realised some of his promise with 2 v strong performances in particular. Exciting bum-off-seat type of player. Has v good potential, needs to push on tho to achieve it. Armstrong - 6 - the height of inconsistency and probably represents our season in a microcosm; sometimes unplayable (like today) but not often enough), too often seems uninterested & is frustrating. Much better value for money than BB though, to date. Overall a moderate success. Rodwell - 5 - showed class, but needs a strong CB alongside him or yo be moved into midfield. Has obvious talent, but is his heart still in it? Was certainly happy we took a punt, would like to see him get another 12 months. Davenport - unclassified. No-one's fault, just injuries. Sounds like a progressive-thinking player from what I hear but nothing to base that on other then hearsay. Chapman - 2 - only because he's not featured yet. His potential is clear from last season, his pace will frighten most defences. What I am impressed with is that he's had a good long & effective run with the U23s, which bodes well for next season. Reed - 8 - been great for us most games, though went missing a little in Feb / March (not alone there). Still think there's a chance he can come back he clearly fit in well with the group - see his celebration after Rothwell's goal v Derby. Palmer - 3 - just didn't work, end of. Perhaps not the type of player we needed at that time. Overall I'd give Mowbray 5.5 for his 2018/19 transfers to date, but that could massively improve should BB, Chapman & Davenport shine.

I see what you're driving at (!) with your motoring analogy, though I'm not sure that it transposes well into football management. Managers get judged on results across the season, that's the long & short of it. The rest of your post I agree is fact, but ignores / glosses over the many positives he's brought. He's galvanised the club, stabilised it, got us looking up instead of down, signed gems as well as flops. It's not fair to just look at the negatives and say he's not good enough for the next stage based on those. It's important to have a balanced view of his tenure here; I think overall he has done more good than harm and therefore has earned the right to try to take us on still further. There's real attacking flare & promise within our squad, which I might add is down to his transfer dealings (Dack, Rothwell, Armstrong, Chapman, and hopefully BB in the longer term). His job now is to supplement them and find the right style of play to get the best from them.

Yes it's my opinion that he ought to be given the chance to further improve us, but it is supported by the fact that improving the club overall as a whole is precisely what he's done throughout his time here, despite there being many bumps in the road along the way to where we are now. I started my involvement in this thread stating that I didn't expect many to agree with me, or people to change their minds on the back of my opinion. And so it's proved, which is fine. One thing is for sure, over the next 3-6 months it'll be interesting to see what he does to put his plans to further develop our club into practise. I'm sure there'll be plenty to discuss!

Cracking win today, well done all concerned (bar Leutweiler it seems). Really heartened to read about the effect that Travis, Williams, Rothwell & Armstrong in particular had today. Starting an unchanged team (nearly) after 2 wins can't be criticised really (many have cried out for consistency of selection all season). I don't think TM had a choice in playing Evans today given the Reed situation, tho like most I was disappointed there was no youth on the bench, but I guess that will come on Monday at home against "easier" opposition. I know there's a U23 game the day after but giving a Buckley, Butterworth or R-C 30-45 mins ought not to stop them from playing a part on Tuesday too. Great to get a third win on the spin, with a good chance of a 4th on Monday. There is definitely lots of potential already at the club to work on going into the summer & prepping for further progress next season, with the right additions. Over to you Tony; may the Force be with you!