The injuries will keep coming I am sure, they will to all teams, of course we need to manage and use the squad as best we can but we need to make sure that we dont use them as excuses.

They are only one point below us so if anyone considers them to be dire then they cant think much of us either.

Evans playing led to a very high win percentage last season. Unfortunately when he was played this season, he was used in a way that totally focused on the limitations in his game. He is also a player that Mowbray gave an extended contract to. As of yet we have yet to prove that we are a genuine top 6 side or indeed anything other than an outsider. There is more promise though but until we fully emerge from mid table and break into the top 6, said promise will be unfulfilled.

Has Kevin Phillips worked with Nigel Pearson before or is it just a token "legend" appointment?

I thing you are downplaying the injuries that Norwich have had. Yesterday they had Pukki, Hugill and Idah all injured in the same position so had to play a midfielder up front. They were missing Buendia, Cantwell and Dowell all from attacking midfield and were also missing a couple of full backs so had to play a young midfielder at left back which has been the case for a few games. Their bench was one senior centre back and then just kids. Other teams have also been badly affected and again in specific areas. Preston are currently without all 4 senior full backs as well as Browne who sometimes plays at right back in an emergency, and have also had Pearson, Davies and Johnson out in recent weeks. Watford have had Capoue, Gray, Hughes, Deeney, Dele-Bashiru, Perica etc out at the start, they beat Boro on the opening day with 11 players out, some of whom have recently returned. Bristol City signed Mawson and Sessegnon in defence who have all been injured as well as Joe Williams and Liam Walsh in midfield and Andi Weimann. Stoke have had a bit of a goalkeeping injury crisis lately having to recall a kid from a loan spell with Gunn and Davies both injured. The culmination of our injuries came v Forest when we had to put one kid in Brennan on the bench. Many of our players are injury prone anyway (Ayala, Williams, Evans, Douglas etc) so it is a little illogical to claim to be hard done by when those individuals succumb to further injury. But the side we put out that day was full of experience, the injuries werent really pooled in one specific area and 4 of the absentees where new signings that were either ineligible or simply not selected which is not something that we were hard done by. The main issue for me is I dont think it is fair to imply that injuries and covid are the main reason that we arent in the top 6 because we dont have any evidence of being there prior. Injuries across the board are naturally more common this season.

I do think on the injury front that the main 2 reasons are the fact that we have many injury prone players and obviously fixture congestion and the pandemic. Other teams are really suffering too (see Norwich today who had half a bench and all kids) which is why I am reluctant to put too much stock in the narrative that injuries are a major excuse. I think they are normal at the moment across the board.

Its guesswork (unless Mowbray has publically stated as such which i have missed) to suggest that we had a special and seperate "development" transfer kitty and even if we did, for the first 2 years there were no signs that the development money had been correctly spent.

Echo everyone elses analysis that the performance was poor but it is all about 3 points at the end of the day. Kaminski's save was absolutely brilliant, he is a very good goalkeeper. Some of his kicking was slightly under his usual standards and had a bit of a heart in mouth moment trying to claim a corner near the end but I feel safe with him in net and hope he can keep these standards up as he is a huge upgrade. Nyambe was really good at right back, miles better than Rankin Costello and highlights the avoidable contract situation which could cost us a very promising right back. We need DOuglas back ASAP, Bell is so poor technically and tends to need 3 or 4 touches when anyone else needs 1 or 2 and it slows us down, his clearances and touches are usually loose and cause us further problems. The 2 centre backs again impressed, Lenihan is back to his usual self and playing well and Wharton again was really impressive, Carter admittedly in a difficult situation looked really shaky and it just shows how much them loan spells have pushed Wharton on to another level. Trybull im not convinced by and I thought Johnson coming on improved us, Rothwell anonymous, Holtby is a very technically good player but he doesnt control enough games for me. Elliott I thought was pretty poor today too, as was Brereton really, quiet compared to recent standards. Gallagher finished off a very impressive personal week with a very good goal, Armstrong seemed quite moody but he scores goals at a brilliant rate and you just cant argue with it.

I would but I think he will speed past me like he keeps doing to defenders at the moment.

My post was downplaying the correlation between empty stadiums and his improvement, that comment you highlighted is out of context. Although as I am sure you are aware, even if I did genuinely mean that he used to play like "an incompetent clown" on an internet messageboard, that is not abuse nor would it affect him in a stadium.

Its a bit of a double edged sword, obviously I share everyone's doubts about him as a manager but he is a liability on the pitch at the moment too, so they may suffer either way.

Mowbray did specifically say after PNE that “On my board we’ve got 11 fixtures between now and the new year and players like 17-year-old Harvey Elliott can’t be playing all of them." I dont think there would be any realistic expectation for Elliott to play every single game, and having got a knock I hardly expect that Liverpool would be in any way annoyed should he not start tomorrow, I think obviously its a different matter should he have ever been regularly out of the team and we would have been financially penalised should that have happened. No doubts from me that Elliott is a better player than Gallagher but I think the latter could feel hard done by should he be dropped tomorrow. No need to make any changes to the starting line up.

Im not sure that it tends to work out too often when clubs try to mould Sporting Directors and Head Coach partmerships to try and cover all bases in terms of experience and new ideas.

If his improvement is largely down to the lack of crowd, surely as soon as they return he will go back to what he was as soon as we return? That could be a worry in that case, being good in an empty stadium looking longer term is a fairly worthless trait! Its impossible to allocate how much if any of the improvement is down to that though, I look at a physical change in him looking far stronger, I consider the change in style that we have adopted and the positional change of him being left of a 3, and also much better application and desire, maybe he has realised that he needs to do more. He also changed the game in the Swansea home game just before the lockdown so maybe the lack of crowds and his upturn have minimal correlation and indeed he would have improved regardless? I certainly think it is too soon to be saying things like we will struggle to keep him in the summer. He has that 7m price tag on him still which will probably mean that we wont consider anything under that and there is no way that anyone will bid that sort of money for him at this time or indeed unless his contribution improves further still. With Armstrong, his departure may be inevitable if we dont go up simply because of the sheer number of goals, if Brereton chips in as he has started to do, then im not sure that he will necessarily become impossible to keep.

What tackle has cost us? The injury was fairly innocuous and it is unfair to attach any blame to Morsy. Mowbray said this about him today: "Bradley Dack is probably a week or so away now. He was telling me today next weekend, which is good," he added. "Like any player coming back from a long-term injury, they have little setbacks along the way. It's not the smooth journey back that he wants but he's out there running round and kicking balls again today. He's happy and we have to accept sometimes the route back to first-team football isn't always smooth. "He had an awareness in his hamstring last week but he was back out there kicking balls today and he's a week away."

I would like Holtby to sign on for an extra year or two but I do worry that a potential want to move back to Germany coupled with the owners disinterest making Mowbray struggle to be able to get contracts over the line based on his recent quotes may make this his last season at the club. I doubt that pay as you play contracts exist, why would anyone in their right mind accept a contract in which a spell out of the team would lead to no income?

I really struggle with this theory that Brereton has suddenly turned his performance level around because there are no fans. As others have touched on, Brereton has not been unfairly abused by the fans, in fact we have been very patient with him. No need for our own fans to make us out as a raging mob. Also, if the difference is down to playing behind closed doors then the improvement is worthless if as soon as crowds return, he will return to being an incompetent clown! That theory does him a disservice anyway. His application and effort have gone up lots, the change in style and formation seems to suit him and have found a role for him and he looks like he has bulked up. All more constructive explanations as to the changes in his game.

Theres surely no way that at the moment, he is worth more than 7m. His improvement is stark and very promising but he has only scored 5 goals as it stands in over 2 years so there is no way that anyone would pay that sort of fee for him.

10 would be a decent starting target. Lets assume he gets 10, rather than of course at the moment it being hypothetical/extrapolated, even then does a 10 goal "wide forward" warrant a 7m fee? Not sure it does really. But of course it would be an unexpected and impressive improvement, that is for sure.

Im not sure that Barkhuizen is a "top player" but even so, the one thing that we can be sure of based on his Rovers career to date (and highlighted again at Deepdale last season against Barkhuizen) is that Bell is not a competent defensive full back to face a player deemed as such a threat. Agree that the ability to play it out from the back is massively overstated, its mostly important to defend properly. I would say though that you do need a degree of competence on the ball though and that there have been a couple of times especially v Luton where he has created (usually minor) defensive problems by conceding possession in poor areas so it is important that he improves on the ball but defenders defend first and it is very difficult to expect centre backs at this level to do both sides of it. Wharton doesnt get into our best 11 but I think he has shown to Mowbray that as one of 4 CBs he can be depended upon, which will be required especially as the other 3 are injury prone. Last season we were left short a couple of times, which saw bring Bennett in at RB and subsequently move Nyambe or bring in Carter and it cost us points.

No chance, he will need to do more and for much longer to justify that level of fee. More goals especially. Thats not downplaying how much of a different player he appears to be or a criticism of him, but hes not worth 7m at the moment, If someone offered 7m for him in January, I doubt we would turn it down.

I am a bit wary of saying things like Kaminski is "the best keeper since Friedel" so early although such a title is not the biggest of compliments anyway, I suppose the main competition would be Robinson who was decent at a higher level but of course also had a spell in which back problems, a blood clot and weight issues made him a liability for a while. Aside from him, the likes of Steele, Kean, Bunn, Eastwood, Walton etc, we have had some really poor goalkeepers, even Raya made his fair share of howlers, thats for sure, In regards to him using us as a stepping stone, its easy to forget that a few months ago, he was dropped to second choice goalkeeper at Gent and his stock was low, their fans seemed pleased to see him leave. He has started his Rovers career very impressively and I think especially compared to the 3 games in which Pears played, he gives a real feeling of confidence to everyone. I dont think we need to worry about him being snatched off him by a PL club anytime soon though as it is early.

Has to be the same team in my opinion, there could be temptations to bring in Johnson, Dolan, Ayala if fit, Elliott etc but I would go same again and have Ayala and Johnson over Carter and Chapman as subs if available. Has to be a game we win, if we fail to we are just again back to square one.

The obvious thing with Wharton is that he is definitely a level or two above the other young centre backs that have played in the last couple of years. When Magloire, Carter and Grayson have been given a couple of first team games, they have looked like boys rather than men. Wharton has clearly massively benefitted physically from playing nearly 100 games of senior League football. Regarding Douglas, it was logical based solely on Bell's performances since he signed that he was not a competent option to bring in to try and improve the team defensively as he cannot defend one on one. Especially if it was specifically to negate the threat of a player who he played against in the same fixture last season and said player scored 2 of 3 goals! Whether Douglas is good enough defensively, we cannot be sure at this stage but he certainly appears (as did Cunningham) to be levels above Bell who is lucky to still be at the club.

Now the key is consistency and also winning games we are less comfortable in, your season doesnt tend to be determined by how you play on your very best days. We are still down in 10th and 4 points from the play offs with a game extra played and I dont feel like we are genuine contenders while we have such a deficit so we need to put an elusive run of wins together. We have won 5 from 13, none of which we won by a single goal and maybe slightly less so v QPR but in the games v Preston, Wycombe, Coventry (who all went down to 10 men) and Derby we blew them away. In the other games we have been poor and/or have always felt at arms length from our opposition yet havent been able to ever add further wins and indeed seldom even single points.