RevidgeBlue

Difficult to disagree. Same thing happened last season if I recall. We were desperately short of centre halves and our solution was to send Magloirr and Wharton out on loan!

Obviously was never a City fan but Colin Bell was one of my favourite ever players. Different class. As another poster said above, RIP Nijinsky.

Question wasn't directed at me, but I would understand your reservations over Pulis and Hughes. We're in such a rut however I think that we need a new face, to an extent any new face to being a semblance of a plan and to snap the players out of their complacency and comfort zone. Don't understand your opposition to Neil, I think he Rowett, Wagner and Cowley would be big improvements on Mowbray and Ainsworth and Cook slightly less sure fire guarantees of improvement but still likely to be better. As regards the HSH list, I think Robins would be very interesting and a near certain improvement and I think Bellamy could be interesting, possibly with an experienced older head alongside him initially. He would certainly knock a few heads together! Then of course there's no guarantee at all we'll appoint from HSH anyway. My choice would still be to offer a top name like Pearson or Bilic a short term deal until the end of the season with a massive bonus for promotion. Either way a change is needed now if we're to salvage anything out of this season.

Happy New Year to everyone and let's hope that 2021 is substantially better than the hellish one that's about to expire. On a personal level I'll be hoping for the Government to develop a bit of backbone and return us to normal as opposed to "the new normal" at the earliest possible opportunity before we all go bust and there's nothing left to go back to. And on a secondary note a new manager and CEO at Rovers before this season becomes yet another dead rubber. (If it isn't already) We can but dream eh? All the best to everyone.

Based on what exactly? Happy New Year by the way.

Yes, Lee vastly superior to Mowbray as well. I wasn't a fan of Saxton but he was working with buttons and even he had us top of the equivalent of the Championship one Christmas before we completely imploded. Mowbray can't even get us in the top six for more than a week or two near the start of the season.

Hi Mike. Hands up, I was totally in favour of Ince being appointed. It turned out fairly disastrously but sometimes you have to take a gamble. Against that arguably our best pound for pound manager ever Howard Kendall had no managerial experience prior to coming to us, and arguably our best ever manager King Kenny had no prior experience prior to getting the gig at Liverpool of all places. So I don't think you can rule suggestions like Terry out altogether but you have to factor in the lack of experience and make a judgment call.

Spot on.

Agreed. I didn't think Coyle ever lost the dressing room either. He just couldn't set teams up to defend and you knew that if we'd need to score three to win or that if we had a lead going into the last quarter of games it would probably end up a draw.

Liverpool are still top though.

I actually think it set in under Allardyce and his ethos of prioritising games. Works for him and ok if you're in survival mode but not good if you're targeting a promotion.

I think hypothetically Terry is a very interesting suggestion. No idea whether or not he could automatically cure the defence on the basis he was a superlative defender but he doesnt strike me us someone who would accept second best or players playing well for a few games then going through the motions for a few more after that.

Worst possible idea. We need to rid the Club of this holiday club mentality of doing the bare minimum. Plus as I posted above I think his recruitment has in general been extremely poor.

Yep, Armstrong/ Dack obviously, Tosin/Elliott loans which won't leave us in any better position than before they arrived, and Reed who he wasted. The rest, fairly dire.

Exactly. It's like stumbling around in a darkened room after the light bulb has gone but refusing to buy a new bulb because you bought a faulty one once.

Wasn't a Saxton fan but other than that agree completely. And before that Ken Furphy had to rebuild an entire squad with no money whatsoever relying solely on player trading and his nous in the transfer market. We subsequently finished third in the old 3rd division the last year before it went from two to three up three down and then were handily placed the season after that when the manager was poached by then top flight Sheffield United. Mowbray doesn't know he's born in comparison.

You're not falling for that load of old bollux from Mowbray are you? He's signed a player around the 30 year old mark who has hardly played in 2020 and who has a history of being injury prone and/or unreliable. Bit of a gamble (probably a very expensive one by our current standards) and to date it hasn't worked out. Nothing to do with different systems.

Don Mackay did far better than Mowbray on a fraction of the resources. There's no comparison between the two for me.

The manager's the problem, we'll see no particular improvement until he goes. Not sure what the obsession with a big man in the middle is, if you get the ball out wide and the delivery is good enough a low ball in is far more effective.

Like Mowbray you mean?

You still giving Mowbray until the summer Chaddy?

We'd better hope, Elliott doesn't pick up an injury otherwise we'll be treated to Mowbray telling us how he does his job so much better than Klopp as well.

That's even more shameless than blaming Travis's absence and cracking on as though any deficiencies in the team's performance are "nothing to do with me guv". He's signed a turkey in Ayala and he knows it and is just trying to cover his arse with some ludicrous excuse. Wonder what Pulis would make of those comments. He may have his faults but he's had a bloody sight more success than Moggasaurus in recent years.

I'd wager that Swag doesn't even consider there's a problem and that any positive action would have to come from above his head from India on this. I'm with JH Rover on this, we need a change NOW to try and salvage the rest of the season. Get Bilic or Pearson in on a short term deal until the end of the season with a massive bonus for promotion like Allardyce gets for saving Clubs from relegation. If we were going for a longer term option straight away and the above wouldn't come permanently, I'd be tempted to look at the Cowleys they'd probably walk here on their hands and knees.

Mowbray went stale two years ago though which for me makes the situation all the more annoying and galling. He could and should have been sacked on any number of occasions during that period. Never mind though, as Swag pointed out to us in his Christmas message, Bennett and Evans will be back soon!