I never said that, it just seems illogical to consider teams fancied in pre season "underachieving" and teams not fancied "overachieving" both as top 6 rivals seems a bit contradictory.

But if that is the case, Reading surely arent? Not sure its fair to class games as "top 6 contenders" for both those not expected to challenge but currently in the top 6, as well as teams that are struggling but were predicted to do well. We faced Forest when they were pointless, not sure that can be classed as a defeat v a contender!

Notts Forest are in 21st and Cardiff are in 14th. Not sure that they can be classified as contenders.

I do find this very strange. Not an innocent young Birmingham fan and recent junior journalist asking the question on the back of a decent window on paper but one in which we (understandably) didnt actually spend much at all. But the replies. I still cant grasp that not being out of business is reason to be thankful, the lowest of expectations.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/18833297.no-lasting-defensive-tactical-concerns-rovers-boss/ Seems that Mowbray is naive to the vulnerability we currently have against anyone half decent on the counter attack. He doesnt think it is anything that he has done. Play with 2 full backs as wingers and 2 of 3 central midfielders high up in the current manner and we will keep conceding against half decent sides.

No chance that Pearson comes here sadly, unless we somehow got promoted.

Too much can be made of the formation, even within a 433 both full backs dont have to play so high. People often mention a midfield with Holtby and Rothwell in it, it doesnt leave much defensive protection. Ultimately all a 4231 does is flip the midfield around.

Because it clearly doesnt hence the poor start in terms of results, or at least it hasnt done to date. I think its all about perception. If a manager isnt getting adequate results but hes trying to attack, people tend to give them more patience because they think it seems like its about to all fall into place. Im not convinced it will, not without some serious tweaks. We need to compromise because everytime we have played a decent team we have come up short especially in terms of vulnerability to counter attacks. A lot of the time we only have the 2 centre backs and the holding midfielder against counter attacks. I would consider switching the midfield back to 4231, that way we have 2 holding midfielders in case of a counter attack. We can still press with the 4 attacking players but we can have more confidence in the lesser risk of being open on the break. The positioning of the full backs also needs to adjust, having them both as wingers leaves us open, if one goes forward the other should stay at home.

Im not necessarily saying that we should abandon it right now but when does the point come when we have to compromise and not play so expansively when we dont have the players to do it against anyone half decent? Essentially just leaves the sitter and the 2 centre backs to fend for themselves.

For a bit of context, he missed 9 games last season in which we lost 6, drew 2 and won only 1, conceding 18 goals. Hes undoubtedly had a couple of poor games this season but he certainly isnt a "terrible player." He needs to accept some personal realsponsibility for his form as does the manager for playing a style of play which exposes the centre backs v better teams.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/18831726.rovers-duo-self-isolating-mowbray-delivers-team-news-update/ Not good news on the injury front, we do seem to tend to have a lot of doubts for one game who tend to then be unavailable for much longer, Ayala and Kaminski still out. Nyambe for Rankin Costello would be a definite change, sadly I am not sure what other changes we could make. In midfield, I suppose Rankin Costello could move there at the expense of Evans, but I would be tempted to play Evans and Trybull together a bit deeper in more of a 4-2-3-1, we still have Holtby, Brereton, Elliott and Armstrong in attack and it gives us a bit more stability and protection in front of the defence.

Lenihan has not had the best start to the season but I think on Tuesday Williams was just as bad if not even worse than Lenihan. The thing with Lenihan is that he is one of very few players whose importance to us since we got promoted is absolutely unquestionable. The points accumulated with him compared to without him is stark, I would suggest that in those 2 years, he was the only proper leader back there who could deal with the physical side of things, Rodwell, a past his best Mulgrew, Adarabioyo and Williams all struggled with that side of the game. I remember when Lenihan missed a few games culminating in Preston away last year and there was a void of leadership and desperation to keep the ball out and we just imploded. Maybe with Ayala here who is also a leader who wins the ball in the air, that Lenihan's availability and selection might not be quite as important, but I still think that those 2 are our best 2 centre backs and that calls in the LT to suggest that Williams could be first choice of the 3 are premature. Williams has proven that he can be a capable short term stand in when played alongside Lenihan but over the course of time I am not sure he has the quality. Lenihan does undoubtedly need to improve his poor form and he never has been perfect, he does have that tendency to be rash and he isnt the best on the ball (none of our 3 centre backs are) but the manager also needs to look at reducing the exposure to the centre backs, especially against half decent sides. Is a side with 2 of 3 central midfielders and both full backs constantly playing really high sustainable in terms of keeping clean sheets? Possibly not.

Very much so. The narrative is that we have struggled with unavailability which you can not argue but it is common across the league, so we cant feel too hard done by.

I never said that, but it is being made out as if that time under Coyle (in which he scored 1 in 4 across the season, its very respectable but its nothing amazing) was a time in which his potential was limited. That was the best spell of his career. If he had then gone to Birmingham and scored more or even the same, then maybe there would be some merit to the point, but I cant see where he has shown enough to suggest that he could get 15 goals+. I certainly wouldnt be changing the attack round, we have a striker who is the top scorer and the attacking side of things is working. Gallagher should just be second choice striker and only ever considered for that position, whether it be with Armstrong when we need a goal or in his absence.

I dont agree that playing under Coyle hindered him. It hindered Rovers, but not Gallagher personally, it benefitted him. Had he bettered that goal tally since or even come close, then maybe there would be an argument that having Coyle as his manager was a hindrance.

He might do, but I think thats a big assumption and not something that correlates with the Sam Gallagher that I have seen, in my opinion.

Again, I took that as being willing to accept "crap" performances if it meant getting consistent results. I am almost certain that no one would prefer crap football over entertaining football assuming the results are the same, and I suspect you are aware of what was meant.

I wouldnt say thrive, more do ok, average. I certainly agree that the choice to play him out wide very much hinders him, but I dont think that he would be able to take over from Toney and start scoring with similar regularity. Gallagher is not a goalscorer, he doesnt sniff out chances, I dont think he would be prolific regardless of the team he was put in because of that. Armstrong is obviously prolific in this team but if you swapped him for Gallagher he wouldnt carry on as Armstrong is doing or even close. For me, the best you would ever get out of him is maybe just about hitting double figures as he did in the season that he was "a breath of fresh air" which I feel is a little bit exaggerated, for me he was ok, nothing more. He lacks the intelligence that Graham had to start thinking about being his successor. Graham could hold the ball up, he could use his body brilliantly, he could link play and he could anticipate where the ball would fall, I think Gallagher is massively lacking on all of those fronts. Gallagher is more mobile (without being particularly fast) and has a better leap to win headers compared to Graham, although again it falls down to intelligence, Graham could use his body to create an angle to nod the ball down intelligently whereas Gallagher rarely can manage that. I feel that his role should just be as very much a Plan B, I dont think he is anywhere near good enough to be playing week in week out for a top half Championship side. Armstrong may get injured at some point or we may want a second striker if we need a goal, in which case by all means bring on Gallagher.

"In a Coyle team" actually involves playing in a very attacking side with 2 wide men and 2 forwards, wrecklessly so without any thought of defending. People often use that season as an example of how he did well under mitigating circumstances but if anything he benefitted from being "in a Coyle side" because it was attacking, and even then his goal record was 1 in 4, so average at best. He also had a really poor spell at Birmingham.

The thing is that this is now very much Mowbrays squad. If the players he has assembled make too many individual errors, even without considering whether that is due to exposure based on style of play, then that is still on him.

To be fair we finished above 16th in both prior years under Mowbray. 12th is about right though and still is miles off target.

I interpreted that not as that we should specifically aim to play crap football, just that its impossible to enjoy the football very much when the results arent good enough.

Im not too sure that anyone has suggested that we should put in crap performances in hope of sneaking a 1 nil.

Is the goal conceded yesterday the earliest in our history? Also has to be difficult to beat in terms of a goalkeeper debuting and letting in his first goal.

Do you think thats there any chance of getting him to agree a new deal. Essentially since he signed as we were promoted, we have been continuously in mid table, and show no tangible signs of pushing beyond that this year. Armstrong after 1 and a half very underwhelming years has started to go from strength to strength and if he continues to score prolifically, after a year and a half of goalscoring and having just turned 24, he could be in a very strong position assuming we dont go up this season with only a year on his contract to go. If I was his agent or indeed even him, I would advise to hold off and wait and see, his position will only grow stronger.