On the basis that we keep Smallwood (and his no 6 shirt kind of confirmed it) that sentence should apply to Mowbray. He has learned nothing from last season or is incapable of addressing it.

Please don’t.

Wonder if their fans will rally or have a silent boycott? What an awful position to be in, and what on earth is taking so long in the negotiations? Can’t work out if that hotel will be the death of them or become their saviour. I certainly wouldn’t want new owners who would put a hotel ahead of my football club in terms of value. Eddie Hall must be spinning in his grave.

Exactly right. It happened after our first win in that “sack run” from February.

We should still try. We need an entrepreneur at the club and we only have administrators.

So how do we turn ‘passing interest in football / bragging rights over my mates’ into ‘watching live football even if we lose is great’?

Just watch them sell tickets though...

That’s not football crazy, it’s image conscious.

Me too. Sadly I think we will both be disappointed. It would be unbelievably foolish to sign another forward or midfielder at this stage. I fear our incoming business is done.

He’d have my endorsement. Don’t care if that makes people laugh. Odd though that those people most likely to roll their eyes at Johnson probably thought Bowyer was a good ‘un despite being the same progression. Teams that do well in this division have a solid centre back pairing and and attacking philosophy. Mowbray has attacking players and a defensive approach. After nearly 5 windows, and excluding recent U23 potential graduates, our outfield squad is as follows: Attackers - Graham, Brereton, Dack, Gallagher, Armstrong, Samuel, Midfielders - Rothwell, Bennett, Mulgrew, Downing, Johnson, Smallwood, Evans, Davenport, Chapman, Travis* Defenders - Nyambe, Bell, Williams, Hart, Lenihan* Is it any wonder we have a problem? Which is why spending £5m on Gallagher while looking at that squad was a ridiculous move. Presumably he was a good laugh and got on with The Group. And people still talk about “one game”! (*converted successfully)

Bell, Williams, Downing. Our record buying full back is poor. If we could only bring in one player between now and the window closing it would be a hard as nails, no-nonsense centre back. Right now Hanley would do. Mulgrew should be a champagne midfielder at this stage of his career, not our last man.

Interesting that there has been no speculation about any other clubs wanting our better players. Dack and Lenihan mooted in previous windows. Not a murmer this time.

I get their point but Bolton need every penny they can get right now. “Club on the brink of extinction” vs “you own me £10”

What will change though? I agree that it could be more welcoming but it needs to not be at the expense of existing fans - which is more difficult than it sounds. Without wanting to take this down a particular path, religion needs to be left at the gate and for 90 minutes everyone puts their football club ahead of everything else. 90 minutes. Sadly that seems to be very difficult and we end up installing ‘multi faith rooms’ and having to have special nutritional requirements. To borrow the vernacular of the millennials, football needs to be a safe space from other things in life: work, school, family, etc, and not brought into the ground.

For both parties. Rodwell is not the answer. We have enough midfielders. If Mowbray agrees to take him back at this stage then there is no hope for him.

Injection of cash, or more lending?

Ironically I think our biggest ROI since Venkys arrived had been on selling defenders...

It does make you wonder. On the face of it Bury are trying very hard to do all the right things and being penalised. Bolton are, under the administrators, taking an age to sort out the hotel ownership issue while the PFA pay wages to keep their games on. Still can’t believe there seems to be no punishment for Bolton not fulfilling a fixture. Weren’t Steve Gibson’s Middlesbrough relegated on the strength of a missed game?

What’s your suggestion for increasing the gate, odb? Because Waggott’s is to increase prices/charges and then continuously blame feckless fans - that’s really going to work, eh?

There have been some good points on this thread. One on particular is the generation problem. We don’t have enough of those generational hand-me-down fans to support Waggott’s current model - and he isn’t looking to attract new fans. Tell you what though sign a Muslim player of Indo-Pakistani heritage and that could change. If we can’t do that with Venkys USP then nobody can. Alternatively we go cheap/subsidised and get people into the ground. Right now, the hardcore notion of “I pay £400+ therefore so should everyone else and I’ll oppose any scheme to make it cheaper” is going to kill us. Third option is completely unpalatable to fans, (despite it making the most sense) because of tribal notions from those 150-year traditions. Someone needs to buy Bury’s league share, relocate to Leyland, and create Lancashire County FC, á la MK Dons. That will be a tough few years for them though. North west club either need to adapt or die, regardless of their position on the ladder.

This point is really difficult to ignore. And none of that money was spent on Graham or Dack who score 90% of our goals. Looking at it right now our recruitment budget has been wasted.

Stolen from BRFCS twitter feed but come on how do the stewards let people in dressed like this... Lee Cooper went out in the 80s FFS!

Good post. If I may have a small observation though, it’s notable that there are certainly more positive or at least more... open-minded... opinions from people who don’t sit through games and see just how awful the football can be at times under Mowbray. It’s one thing putting up with Allardyce tactics but walking backup Bolton Road with three points. It’s a whole other experience when we lose and ship soft goals (usually in pairs) while seeing our better players on the bench.

There needs to be a new terrace chant: “it’s only one game”. We can just sing it after every defeat and forget anything else apart from being fully-focussed on not reacting badly to the one defeat. If we had started it last season then the reaction when we had 9 “only one game” defeats in a 11 matches it would have been much more positive around here. Of course when we win one game the chant has to be about how we are going to get promoted... ...or, for a change, how much we “hate Bumley”. Of course, in reality, everyone has their final straw, no matter how insignificant that final straw would be in isolation.

Thing is, Bryan, it has to. Our only hope is lucking out on a shrewd, successful manager like Bumley did. I don’t expect players would cross Dyche, whereas I can well imagine certain players playing Mowbray for a fool and others bewildered by him at times. For instance, Brereton under Mowbray is like is microcosmic version of Rovers under Venkys. They must think they’ve made an expensive mistake and won’t do enough to make them successful yet they won’t admit it and sell them. Like Rovers fans, he must wonder why he was ever bought in the first place. Personally - despite being a Nuttall fan - I’m rooting for young Ben. I just hope Mowbray doesn’t ruin him like Venkys have ruined Rovers.