Don't know what to think any more, does TM simply not care any longer and is thumbing his nose up at the supporters and the younger players by just picking his old mates regardless of form and results? What in the name of god is he doing starting Conway? Is he trying to get his appearances to the point where we are obliged to give him another new contract?

How can TM have the bare faced cheek to say we need to "win some games with the players we trust and know"? It's precisely because those very same players have been stinking the joint out that we have 4 points from 30 and something like 22 points from 24 games and why tbe youngsters deserve their chance! I'm starting to change now from unfortunately TM needs to go to he needs to go as a matter of the most utmost urgency.

It began away at Preston.

I find it extremely odd that Wharton has never been given a chance here. I thought he looked excellent all things considered when Coyle gave him a chance but then he got relegated down the pecking order after the useless Wes Brown was signed. He must be suffering from Jack O' Connell syndrome. It's even weirder he never even saw the light of day here.

Wasn't the excellent Paul Bradshaw second in line towards the end of Sir Roger's time here? Can't remember who would have been his deputy when he first arrived. Any Club in the Country would kill for just one keeper like that these days. Bit like having Banks and Shilton. On the flip side of the coin John Butcher was pretty terrible so his number two can't have been all that. Although I thought at the time Butcher needed to be axed so maybe the number two at the time was passable.

He would be if he could move these days.

People have spoken about "the holiday camp mentality" on here and I think it's essential we break up the cartel of Tony's trusted lieutenants who seemingly by TM's own admission seem to more or less run the gaff (whilst underperforming week in week out). Highest on the list are Conway who should never have been handed a new deal, Williams who is so bad it's almost like a spoof, and Evans and Bennett who have been s***e almost from the moment they joined the Club but who keep getting picked irrespective of performance. I wouldn't be at all upset either if Mulgrew and Smallwood narrowly failed to make the cut. Mulgrew has been great for us but appears to have declined markedly very quickly and even at his best has never been a particularly good Championship defender, he just gets a free pass because of his goals. Smallwood I like as unlike Evans he's got a bit of grit and determination but he's not going to push us to the next level. Graham in my view isn't good enough as main striker and imo a lot next season will ride on whether we're willing to replace him as doing so will be very expensive and if we are how much we're willing to spend as top strikers at this level can now command £10m plus. He could probably do a job as back up striker or coming on for 25-30 minutes though. There are obviously others who probably won't make the grade like Samuel and Gladwin. That's potentially nine players out right there. Do I think anything remotely approaching that will occur? Not under TM. He'll probably not give Conway a new deal then talk emotively about how heart wrenching it was to have to let him go and that will be it.

The only thing to be drawn from that is that neither are much cop although I thought Lambert was even worse than the bare stats suggest. He got a reaction out of the players when he first came in and managed eleven points from his first five games before they appeared to fall out with him. Bizarrely, he also got two wins from the final two games after he announced he would be walking out. Perhaps the players were glad to see the back of him and/or knew he wouldn't be staying, or alternatively felt guilty they hadn't been pulling it out for him. Either way, inbetween it was 21 points from 23 games and beyond dire.

Agree that Rothwell, Dack and Chapman behind a quality new main striker who doesn't need the ball hoofing high and long would indeed be worth watching. Can you honestly ever see TM playing that way though? I'd say it would also be dependent on having a proper defensive midfielder behind them instead of Evans who generally goes through the motions. Can't see Evans being fired off (which also desperately needs to happen) either whilst TM is in charge though.

By "actual current manager" I take it you mean Lambert. I'm pretty sure that like Mowbray he was not a "current manager" but out of work when we appiinted him. Talk of Hughes is interesting. I have no idea about whether he still has "it" but what he would do, like when he took over from Souness, would be to revise expectations for the better. There'd be no more talk about survival or maintaining our position as there was under Souness or nonsense about slow burns and gradual improvement as there is under Mowbray. He would set the target for success i.e. promotion as soon as possible and players wouldn't be able to turn up at half time or reach relative safety and clock off for the rest of the season. Whether he can achieve his targets these days obviously would be a bit of a gamble. Would take him over Mowbray though.

Have made my position very clear on this over the months, our demise is no surprise whatsoever to me and I think he needs to go now. This isn't a situation that has just cropped up, it's a complete mess 9 months in the making since TM refused to strengthen the starting eleven in the summer and again to a lesser extent in January. I really struggle with Parson's view that TM "deserves" the chance to bring players in in the summer. He doesn't "deserve" anything, it's due to his negligence that we find ourselves in the situation whereby we're going to have to try and rebuild almost the entire starting eleven in summer whilst being hampered by the fact that a lot of deadwood was rewarded for past performance by being awarded new contracts. Maybe if you'd been relegated and had a complete clear out and come back up with a young hungry side you could give them a chance to see if they they could do it at the higher level. It seems obvious to me that you can't do that when the core of the players you're relying on are either past their best, or got you relegated in the first place, or both. And I hope no-one argues he hasn't been backed, he's wasted or alternatively allowed £7m to be spent on Brereton who he refuses to play and wasted loan fees on the likes of Rothwell and Palmer (both decent players imo) who he presumably won't or wouldnt play because he doesnt want to upset the old guard.

He's right though.

I think that's ridiculously harsh on Magloire. You talk as if the senior players never make any mistakes. In general people tend to scrutinise young players' performance to the nth degree when senior players are making far more basic mistakes again and again week in week out and dont receive the same level of criticism. As for Magloire specifically tonight I thought he did really well on an exceptionally difficult night due to the wind. He only made minor mistakes and when he did he looked like he had the speed to recover. He also put his body on the line where necessary which we haven't seen too much of recently. I thought he performed far better than Mulgrew and Williams in that position recently and maybe even Lenihan and Rodwell. Can he do it again or on a consistent basis? Who knows? But he deserves the chance to show us imo.

Great post. It shows how badly the senior players have been performing when a young lad comes in for his debut and we keep a clean sheet for the first time in forever. We got the rub of the green tonight with all three goals, which maybe we deserved after the Preston game but Sheff Wed. will provide a much clearer idea of where we're at as Bruce seems to have sorted them defensively. Unusually for him TM made some bold changes, handing Magloire his debut and dropping Evans and Smallwood and putting Reed and Travis where they should be in CM and it paid dividends. The way forward for me would be to allow Magloire to keep his place until results or fatigue dictate otherwise and I'd like to see us start on Saturday with Reed and Travis in CM and the attacking personnel that finished the game so fluently. That may be a possibility as Graham was feeling the back of his hamstring on 55 mins and went off 5 mins later.

Sorry den, seems strange to say about someone who scored twice but I didn't think Graham had a particularly good game. Scored a penalty and did well to anticipate the freakish flight of the ball on the wind for a fortunate second. However as EwoodAce perceptively points out we actually looked much better once Graham went off and we started playing football as opposed to attempting to hammer long balls towards Graham. In particular Dack came into his own and started dictating play and looked the player we know he can be for the first time in months.

As Waggott would be fairly unlikely to ever sack TM hopefully the decision is well and truly out of his hands. Can't see that the chain of command is that much different to when the Walker Trust were in charge. Any ultimate decision lies with the owners and Pasha is their eyes on the ground in the same way that David Brown was for the Trust. The only difference is that the Trust would probably have given a lot more weight to the opinion of Williams than the Venkys would Waggott. Nevertheless Williams frequently got it wrong as well, hanging onto Souness far too long, failing to back Hughes and appointing Ince.

Seems somewhat convenient that a player who has coincidentally missed the entire season through injury is now being touted as not a TM signing. Same sort of thing ihas been mooted about BB even though TM himself has said exactly the opposite. Seems as though there is an agenda from some quarters to blame the owners for any signngs that have been flops.

We're a million miles off being a good team imo. It's easier to see if there's anyone good enough going forward. Raya (maybe) Nyambe, Lenihan (maybe) Travis, Chapman (maybe) Dack (if his head's in the right place). Arguably we need a LB, 2 x CB, one top class central midfield player, another decent wide player and at least one main striker to replace Graham if not two proven strikers at Championship level. Absolutely massive rebuilding job required.

I've never yet known the world cave in because we handed a young player his debut, in fact they're usually amongst our better performers on the day. Shame TM doesn't think like that.

How dare he risk losing possession by shooting from so far out. We'll not see him this season then, he'll be having that coached out of him and be being taught about not crossing the half way line and keeping the team's shape.

Leaving aside whether one bloke is a nice guy and the other one isn't, results aren't good though. Eighteen points from the last twenty games I think it is currently.

Hard to disagree. This season is turning into a desperately disappointing one which, given the lack of attention paid to improving the first eleven, merely looks to be laying the foundations for an inevitable relegation next season.

Imo you're not looking at the long term picture. If we'd brought in 2-3 first team quality players and blooded a load of youngsters and looked promising going forward and barely survived that would have been a lot better than where we are now, plummeting like a stone having given out a load of new contracts to various has beens who should have been fired off.

On that basis, no young manager would ever make the step up. Little or no risk for us until the end of the season, if we didnt get another point we still might not go down. One thing's for sure though, something has to change, it's all gone horribly stale.

Mowbray out. Johnson in until end of season. Blood youngsters. Pay off Conway, Williams, Bennett and Evans. New main striker and reassess in summer.