Whilst Mowbray hides behind his defensive injuries and mentions players coming back, its important to remember that we had the same debate a couple of weeks ago when 2 of his 3 injured "centre backs" in Rodwell and Mulgrew also proved incapable of defending crosses. His recruitment with over 12m and 4 windows has left us still with one defender capable of heading a ball. Unacceptable.

Agreed, the poll is flawed. Back, back until the summer, and sack would be 3 simple options.

Only watched the second half, although I have seen the first goal too. Mowbray will point to the fact that we have defensive injuries, but hes orchestrated us into a situation where we only have 2 very injury prone centre backs to begin with. He signed a midfielder (as an alternative to Bauer) who has almost exclusively looked out of position playing at centre back. He let Downing go, a competent League 1 defender (possibly no more) because he was 5th choice in Mowbrays mind. If that was the case, fair enough. If he thinks as a centre back, Downing (who is actually willing to head a ball) is worse than Williams and Rodwell, then he is talking out of his arse. To compound matters, Mowbray doesnt understand that versatility is all well and good but you cant play a player in 2 positions at once. Williams is also our (probably) second choice left back. All the while, he has a 7m striker who he dropped into the reserves to get his confidence up and has not played a minute since. His recruitment this season simply cannot be defended. The defensive mess we see at the moment, he will probably put down to injuries, but its down to him. Ultimately, Magloire is nowhere near up to it, hes been thrown in miles above his level and he can't head a ball. Shouldn't be anywhere near our first team. Williams is much more experienced but equally hapless. An absolute coward of a defender. Raya is nowhere near good enough, hes edging towards Jake Kean levels of being out of his depth and costing us directly on an almost weekly basis. Mowbrays words the other week have proven to be hollow and empty ones. Bennett was ok and finally scored a bloody goal but hes never a left back in a million years. Nyambe cannot head a ball either. As part of a settled back 4, id suggest he would be fine. Evans I thought had a shocker and Reed may as well have not bothered. Armstrong didnt look like he could be arsed when he came on either, and Dack had a frustrating day but superb footwork for the second. Positives, Rothwell was at times frustrating but ultimately constantly trying to create goal scoring opportunities, which he did for our first. He should be given a run of games. Thought Travis was ok, and Buckley looked very composed albeit he is as soft as shit, and showed his naivety when letting them counter at one point. But technically looked very able and promising.

Again, you randomly brought it back up, not someone still aggrieved by it. You are making out as if the main thing people were taking from the season was the title surrender, which is blatantly untrue. Again, you can criticise the manager for discounting a potential league title, which he blatantly did both with what he said and the team he picked, whilst being complimentary about the overall promotion.

People didnt criticise us for not winning the league, they criticised the manager for not appearing to be arsed about winning the league, big difference. Again, your line about automatic promotion suggests you are purposely being obtuse. The main criticism has been about the failure to significantly improve a League 1 team with a very big net budget. This is where expectations are irrelevant, and mutually exclusive. You can meet expectations and totally waste a hefty transfer budget at the same time. You've staunchly defended the Brereton deal but we are nowhere near a top 6 team, which is the long term goal to get promoted, so we simply cannot afford 7m sub strikers who is at best 3rd choice and yet to get a goal, regardless of potential which I have yet to see. There is plenty to build around and look forward to, players like Rothwell and Chapman are genuine projects (low cost, high reward without seriously impeding our overall budget) and we have a very good academy. The Brereton one is high risk, and so far no reward. If we finish around where we are now, between mid table and relegation, I would consider it an underwhelming but far from disastrous season. With the finances available I was never of the opinion that we would be relegated, in danger of doing so or should be happy with simply avoiding relegation.

Why is there no point in playing Chapman?

,I would have to disagree on that, Mulgrew was very good last season and as @BlackburnEnd75 said his reading of the game made it look easy at times for him. Out of curiosity, how easily accessible was it to watch games last season? Is every game live on ifollow? Yes I have watched Mulgrew defend, I have at no point suggesting that he has been good enough this season, but my comments about him being able to keep clean sheets in some of the games he missed is more suggesting that the defenders who did play had very easy games and were protected against very poor attackers. I think Mulgrews biggest issue has been that his injuries have been much more frequent, and age seems to have somewhat caught up to him. He also has struggled to put together an extended run without succumbing to injury. Rodwell looked good on the ball but ultimately he had a run in the team against poor, toothless opposition, and I think Mulgrew could have looked easily comfortable, but ultimately Rodwell is not a capable Championship centre back either as he has proved in games with any difficulty posed to him. I dont think people are being harsh on him this season, although suggestions that Magloire should be over him in the pecking order would be in my opinion incredibly premature. I am saying he has been a good defender for us overall in his time at the club. I am of the opinion that we need 4 defenders in the summer.

Its important not to be too harsh on Mulgrew, I think injuries and his age may have caught up with him but hes been excellent overall for us and hes not always been a poor defender, obviously we was a league below but he was one of our key players last season and to an extent dragged Downing through half of the season. The stats also fall around a favourable run of fixtures in January that we got 3 successive clean sheets in against really poor attacks that im sure we may have still done had Mulgrew played. Ultimately, he is another who was given a new contract far too early. Its not on the same page as the likes of Williams and Smallwood who simply are nowhere near good enough and giving them new deals as "rewards" is not the sign of a progressive, ambitious club. But there was no hurry baring in mind his age.

I do like Armstrong, but ultimately I don't think hes been a particularly good signing so far, save for an incredible month in January of course, he has been poor far more often than good. Plenty to work with, so quick and direct and a good finisher, but his numbers need to improve next year.

Critiquing individual performances or aspects of a performance is not failure to support the club. Wigan and Rotherham are not the sort of barometer we should be comparing against, both have far less resources than ours. The fans are behind the team on match days so I am not sure that your post is fair. Very much enjoyed the result last night as did all fans.

Nuttall doesnt look up to the quality required, was really poor when he came on. Surely Brereton has moved up the pecking order without playing? Ultimately we need a viable alternative to Graham as we dont have one at the moment despite spending 10m on strikers during Mowbrays reign, and Graham has been our player of the season so lets hope hes fit and we dont have this dilemma come Saturday.

No one has said that, he has been almost exclusively praised but he looks raw round the edges and its only fair to comment on that. For me you are unfair on the Smallwood and Evans axis, not in terms of its admittedly lack of effectiveness but in terms of how often its used. Since Travis' emergence, when we all presumed the status quo would be resumed, Travis has in the main retained his place (his levels dipped after an excellent first few games) and the Smallwood and Evans partnership has rarely been used really. Id agree that it shouldnt be used again but its also unfair to group the two together, Evans has been one of our better players this season and certainly shouldnt be banished. Smallwood is short of the required quality but lets not group the two together. Its playing Smallwood especially with Evans that is the problem. Last night against a poor team Reed and Travis had good second half but were both poor in the first, especially Travis. Evans certainly has a role to play going forward.

I know I was just saying we could play that football with Graham at the heart of it if we chose to. If hes injured for Saturday then id probably go for a front 3 of Dack and Rothwell behind Armstrong.

For me, whilst its not necessarily untrue, its incredibly harsh to drop Graham for that reason. It doesnt suit him to constantly hoof it aimlessly in the air and hes far better on the floor than Nuttall, he played a couple of superb passes v Preston and in general he links up better than anyone with Dack. Its up to Mowbray and the rest of the team behind Graham to come up with less brainless tactics to play up to him rather than the lazy and thoughtless lump in the air knowing that he makes treasure out of very little at times with excellent hold up play. I was really unimpressed by Nuttall last night and find the whole Brereton situation confusing on the back of 3 goals at an admittedly poor level.

I also feel like it would be controversial to say, but Mulgrew would have had an equally comfortable day as Magloire last night, even after his rotten form following his latest injury. Magloire did himself proud but he was very well protected and also massively aided by a very poor Wigan. Might be a far bigger test on Saturday against an in form Steven Fletcher who will bully him.

What in particular did you disagree with? I dont get how you can describe Rothwell as the most talented man at the club and the man of the match based on yesterdays cameo. Hes undoubtedly talented but he gets better by being on the bench. Definitely deserves more minutes with Armstrong deserving to be dropped. But hes done nothing substantial enough in his cameos to warrant such a tag either. Dack is undoubtedly the most talented player we have.

Thought 3 nil was a very flattering but welcome scoreline against a horrendous Wigan side. Dack deserved his goal, for 80 minutes he was so obviously out of form but he kept plugging away and that lucky goal may be just the ticket for a hot spell. Graham again is superb with such poor service to him, first half we were shite but he took his 2 goals very well and we have to pray hes not injured. Magloire did well enough at a level far above his station at the moment, one superb recovery tackle and one or 2 blocks, says alot for our organisation and/or their lack of quality meant he was barely involved but looked a bit flimsy especially in the air. Felt Williams and especially Nyambe also did a decent job in unfamiliar positions. They should have taken advantage of a back 5 as bad on paper as I can remember but fair play, collectively, cant grumble at all. Reed and in particular Travis were poor first half but were much more on the front foot in the second and ran the game through a high press. Rothwell is like a dog chasing a ball in whatever direction it goes and it can be risky to dribble in the wrong areas but hes undoubtedly a threat and perhaps deserves a chance over Armstrong on Saturday who was really poor. Nuttall I felt was very disappointing and if he is higher in the pecking order than Brereton then we need to worry.

The players are undoubtedly part of the problem but the reason that Mowbray takes the blame is the length of his tenure here and the resources and time hes had to rectify these issues. Its ok slagging off our defenders for example for not being willing and able to head balls away into the box but how have we manufactured a situation whereby we only have 2 centre backs, both of whom are injury prone and even one of those 2 in Mulgrew is not someone who is best at dealing with aeriel balls. Any manager would struggle with this so called set of defenders. He had 10m in the summer and signed 7 players, none of them natural defenders. If Mowbray had just inherited them then he would have an excuse. There is absolutely no excuse for us having such an imbalanced squad at this point in his reign. Both the quality and balance of his recruitment has not been good enough and at the monent we are really feeling that. That may appear to be a "cop out" but at this point in his tenure the blame falls with Mowbray.

Downing is a bog standard League 1 centre back who did well for us initially, partially by not being Elliott Ward, but as time went on his limitations became more and more clear and indeed Lenihan was instantly back into the team upon his return. The fact that he has been missed and that he would walk back into the side says more about the neglected mess of a defence we have rather than anything about Downing himself.

Thats as good as anything Kean said.

Thought again the performance and result alike were really poor and I am now of the opinion that progress is not being made and that we need a managerial change. His squad is so imbalanced, his loyalty to certain players is badly hindering us and our results are getting worse as time passes. Shake his hand, hes done well overall but we need a change now. Our crossing was again, as the stats prove it has been all season, absolutely horrendous. Bennett was as bad as any, to be shoehorned at left back summed up everything that is wrong with Tony Mowbray. Im sure Bennett is a nice guy and he tries his best but hes nowhere near good enough. His crosses every time went over everyone. Preston were nowhere near their best today but I never felt that we were gonna equalise and Williams defending for their goal summed him up. Dack and Armstrong also may aswell have sat in the stand with the again impressive Graham doing at times very well with our horrendous service up to him.The midfield duo that puts fear into Rovers fans minds again failed to deliver. Fancy that.

Hope not. Reed, Travis and Evans are all better than them 2. Some people CANT go because of the needless kick off time which you havent justified and neither has the club. Its not that they are saying "nah dont fancy a 12 o clock kick off" they cant go. And some people dont go through thick and thin, they go when it suits them like any other club. I will be going like you but we stick our noses up at these people at our peril.

Even though i didnt agree with some of the post you quoted, is there any need for such an ignorant reply? I am going as per usual tomorrow, but I have empathy for those who cant. I dont agree with his points about team selection etc I must admit. The main valid point was that his son has a tennis lesson and therefore he will be unable to attend Rovers. Hes far from the only one in such a situation, Ive seen many people mention other committments, work, kids, doing sports either themselves or for their kids, and this needless decision at best gives them a decison to make. Yes theyve had notice but some people will be unable to stop their other committments, and some less obliged to go "through thick and thin" will choose whatever else they have on, and you can either look down your nose at that or realise its only to the clubs detriment based on Waggotts decision. If the game was moved for TV ie out of the clubs hands, then fair enough. As it was, the club moved it for valid reasons yet to come to light, blamed it on the police making the decision and when it became clear that wasnt the case, released a phoney statement still not addressing why it had to be moved. The point about pricing is very fair too. I noticed that Wigan have had a game against Norwich moved which is out of their control. They have responded with a deal, £15 tickets no strings attached and unbelievably under 18s for free. Superb deal.

There is perhaps far too much over-analysis of Mowbrays words but ultimately I dont hold much credence towards what a manager says, even when we was winning every week in League 1 and folk blew smoke up his backside about his "refreshing honesty." Ultimately he has brought on such nit picking within his interviews towards what HIS team is doing on the pitch. Whether he chooses to protect and defend his players at all costs or call them out for the mistakes is his personal choice but ultimately it all boils down to his management. With Raya, we are in a position where he is making big errors on an almost weekly basis but id still be unsure whether to change simply due to a lack of competent alternative, Leutweiler has barely played football (even in the cups he doesnt play) in a good few years and his CV is incredibly underwhelming. The issue is not what Mowbray is saying about it, its asking whether hes actually developing under the current setup (questions have been asked about the goalkeeping coach) and also why has Mowbray not seen fit yet to bring in a more established and competent goalkeeper. Likewise with the defence, ultimately he can call them out all he wants but they simply are neither good enough individually defensively nor well organised enough and that is the issue. He can say "they need to feel it in their bellies" and question their bravery but its HIS choice to have signed a midfielder to try and convert into a centre back rather than just signing a defender. Hes been here more than long enough and given more than enough resources (which he has chosen to use almost exclusively on attacking players) for me to look at the situation and not give a shit what rubbish he is saying in the media, or where he is apportioning the blame elsewhere, but judge him on what I see from HIS team on the pitch.

We only have such a poor defence due to a negligent attitude towards spending barely any of the considerable resources the manager has had in his time here on it.