Undoubtedly he was better.

He was important and certainly a success, I dont doubt that. (Although I am not sure his presence would have jeopardised our promotion chances too much, we went up 9 points clear with a massively superior goal difference) He shouldnt have been "rewarded" with a new deal as that was short sighted and he is now deadwood but he undoubtedly did what we needed from him. Again, as a short term deal, Antonsson was a good signing, not brilliant but chipped in and played a part. I said Johnson is between average and flop. In most of his games he has been poor and I thought he was far and away our best summer signing (bar Cunningham who obviously got injured) but aside from 2 or 3 very good performances notably Bristol City away he has IMO been poor more often than not and often a liability with his inability to take the ball off the defence often seeing him regularly dispossed, and also his mobility is questionable. He cant argue with being dropped as he has been.

Smallwood and Downing were essentially temporary signings, who contributed when we needed them, in terms of the squads shape at the moment, Smallwood overall was a success as part of the initial process to get here but is now lingering as unwanted deadwood for the next 6 months, of no use to the first team as many of the hangers on where when Mowbray returned. Antonsson too. In terms of a squad rebuild, add Reed who has gone and Adarabioyo and Downing who are short team deals and you would say all 6 are fairly successful to varying degrees in terms of doing a job short term but dont contribute towards a rebuild. @JoeH most of them look correct, Leutwiler has been a definite failure who has let us down basically everytime he has come in, Bell has been a weakness throughout his time here and Samuel (some for reasons out of his control) has not scored a League goal for 2 years. All 3 have to be failures for me. Rodwell had a few decent games but would do well to cling on to average status. Johnson has been a big dissapointment but has had 2 or 3 good games so is perhaps in the grey area between average and poor. Rothwell is similar, has talent but an enigma with no end product, and Holtby I think should be a regular now but again as of yet hes got it all to prove.

ITK War!

We will never know on the latter.

No, he initially went on trial at Sheffield United and I suggested that we had a look at him.

I think him not getting the sack is fairly obvious, under his mate he has a cushy long term job. Regarding skint, are you sure? https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/18132327.no-treasure-chest-rovers-spend-january-window/ "But we’re not sat here sitting here with a treasure chest to be able to bring lots of players in."

Dack has been an absolutely and uniquely brilliant signing by Mowbray and I am always keen to give him the credit for that. He is very unfortunate that Dacks long term injury has massively reduced his worth, meaning that when he returns from a very serious injury, he will only have half a season on his contract left. Whilst you should never have all of your eggs in one basket, which I felt Mowbray did in Dack due to his failed signings elsewhere. The squad is better but not massively and nowhere near as much as it should be considering the funds and time available to the manager. Something you have essentially agreed on in fairness. It may seem unfair to exclude the Dack deal when analysing the current squad but he is unavailable for 12 months and I have been keen to state that while I have lots of sympathy for Mowbray in that Dack is injured, my analysis is without him being available. You have echoed my views on the Gallagher and Brereton deals, indeed with their woes they have become liabilities rather than assets, no one would take them and their wages off our hands, for a fee in a million years. We are lumbered with them. I also dont think that any of the other players Mowbray has bought, Rothwell, Chapman, Bell, Davenport, Samuel, Leutwiler, Hart etc, have any of them done anything at all to warrant a team paying money for them? I would suggest not. And Armstrong I think we might break even on. People blame Gallaghers inadequacies in front of goal on Mowbray quite rightly in that he shouldnt have been signed. I was far from in a minority thinking that he shouldnt have been re signed. He was ok here, 1 in 4 goal ratio, not too bad, and that was his best season to date by far, one people look back with more fondness than it warrants. Since, he had a dreadful spell at Birmingham and a further season of stagnation. This season comes as no surprise really. Regarding Travis, Mowbray deserves plenty of credit for his development, one of the main successes of his reign and one he is often not given the praise for, indeed one or two even harshly suggest he has gone backwards. Nothing to do with his transfer failures though. Aside from the now injured and rapidly diminishing in value Dack, Mowbrays record with shorter term deals, whilst still being hit and miss, has been better than his investment in players to potentially develop and grow, as I have mentioned earlier, Rothwell, Chapman, Davenport, Samuel, Bell, Hart, the now departed Gladwin and of course Gallagher and Brereton have all either massively depreciated in value or at best in terms of possibly only Rothwell, perhaps stood still, doing nothing much of note. Shorter term, Armstrong was a brilliant loan signing at League 1 level, his time in the Championship baring in mind the fee has been very average in comparison. In League 1 he mainly relied on the players he had and rallied them (and of course Dack) with Smallwood, Armstrong and to a lesser extent Antonsson adding to that. In the Championship, the loans of Reed and Adarabioyo and the free transfer of Downing have been 3 of his best signings but are all short term fixes. Johnson has been a big dissapointment and the likes of Whittingham, Caddis and Palmer all failed, with Payne and Downing in League 1 and Rodwell at Championship level both ok as squad players. The one good thing about that relegation squad is that most of the crap was out of contract. If a new manager came in now, would he be excited with what he had to work with? I dont think so. The 3 main points of excitement would come around 3 academy players.

@JoeH @Bigdoggsteel this was my analysis on our squad development. We have some players that we have brought in, notably the obvious 2 that I dont consider as assets. You can attach an arbitary and random figure to them but for me they are liabilities because we are stuck with their long contracts as there would be no chance of anyone buying them. Weve also added some new deadwood of a different type, younger players to be fair but none of whom have done anything to warrant a buyer coming in for them. We had plenty of deadwood but their contracts were soon to expire and they were in addition to what we have now. We had Lenihan and Williams and Mulgrew then, Adarabioyo now. As bad as Hoban, Greer, Brown and Ward were, they were not instead of Lenihan etc, they were in addition to what we already had and have. Our squad I will concede is worth slightly more now but that is mainly the players who we already had who have obviously continued to get experience. For 20m worth of spending our squad is nowhere near where it should be I am sure you would both agree.

I did an analysis on the whole squad yesterday on this thread. I concluded that the squad is perhaps slightly more valuable but it is nominal either way. Most of our poorest players back then had deals which were about to expire, sadly now that is not quite the case. What you have done is selected 4 players, one of whom was already here, 2 of whom have done nothing to warrant becoming sellable assets, and a 4th who I would be sceptical as to whether we could break even on. You have then unfairly compared them to 4 of our worst players in that squad, 3 of them whose contracts were nearing expiry. Ward who numerically was in addition to Lenihan, Williams and Mulgrew/Adarabioyo. I feel that your valuations are too high and unrealistic, quite a few of those players are almost liabilities rather than assets. Gallagher for example is on a long contract I suspect as one of if not our highest earners. Theres not a cat in hells chance that someone would take that wage on in full AND pay 1.5m (Which would make a loss of 3.5m) so we are stuck with him. Likewise Brereton, who in their sane mind would pay 1m (a 6m loss) and take on his wage. Neither are even assets to us really at this moment. 13m of your 20m (totally fabricated but to be fair its incredibly difficult to accurately value players not being sold) is based on players we had at the club when Mowbray appointed, I couldnt see anyone paying 1m for Buckley and am unconvinced about the other 3 but Lenihan and Nyambe were in the team back then so we havent gained them in comparison, and whilst Mowbray has brought Travis through he was technically already at the club. I doubt anyone would come in for Rothwell, Chapman and Bell at them prices either. It certainly doesnt bode well considering how much we have spent under Mowbray.

You interjected into a conversation that I was having where I stated that I felt describing his best season as "very good" was a massive exaggeration on a 1 in 4 season which I felt was ok, satisfactory, average, no more than that. That season has been followed by a really, really poor season, then a non existent one, and finally this season an embarassing one where he has the worst goal rate in the league.

Wilder signed Egan, Norwood and McGoldrick. A whole spine for a similar total fee, all very good players. Our recruitment under Mowbray is night and day!

Gallagher and Bell?!

Yeah, 1 goal every 4 games, not bad. But not "very good."

I personally dont think Gallagher "did very well" here by any means, he did OK. Likewise Brereton didnt do "very well" at Forest, he was scoring infrequently and eventually couldnt make the squad. I dont doubt many of your points to be fair, I do agree with player misuse and stagnation and questions about his coaching staff but I think Mowbrays main failing is his really poor transfer recruitment. I dont think any manager could get that much from these 2 players.

V Bristol City, Birmingham and Huddersfield, started up front in a 2, and scored in none of the games. Whilst it doesnt account for examples such as Huddersfield away when he did play a small chunk of the end of the game wide, @JoeH backed up what I was saying with some stats that proved that he plays mainly central. Playing him wide at all is a bizarre idea that Mowbray thinks works but still it doesnt excuse his incompetence even when he is down the middle. Another poor signing by Mowbray.

In 2 of the 3 games we crossed less than our opponent. As an aside, we got 1 point from these 3 dismal performances!

Yeah it was, I am a bit surprised considering in particular the influence of Adarabioyo but it does show that perhaps old habits die hard and a move to a more possession based approach has not been a smooth one!

According to whoscored, we put in the 23rd highest number of crosses per game in the League, and the 12th this season. Hardly remarkable. Unsure if thats successful crosses or just crosses in general. Downing is our best crosser undoubtedly, but sometimes plays central. Bennett, Nyambe, Armstrong, Rothwell and (although he did put one good one in yesterday) Bell couldnt cross if their lives depended on it! Smith would have been better than Brereton (as would you or I) but so would most. Surely we can do better than either them 2 or Gallagher with 12m! Interesting to see that behind Preston we have the 2nd highest number of long balls per game this season. Hardly a passing masterclass!

I thought we was supposed to be playing passing football, and trying to control games? Im as confused as I was yesterday when Mowbray said we had too much possession and it made us relax! (Im not saying we should play passing football or not, my main issue with Smith is that he is not particularly good. Hes just a lump really)

I remember it. Graham, Evans, Williams, Lenihan, Nyambe and Bennett were all here. Raya for all of his faults was better than Walton, and he was ours. Mulgrew was here, pre decline, Adarabioyo is perhaps slightly better. We had Greer, Hoban, Ward and Brown, none of whom were up to it and only played in an emergency, but all of whoms contracts were close to expiry. In terms of numbers, they were all in addition to what we have now, no depth at all. We have added Bell since who is shockingly poor. So goalkeeper and defence, we are pretty similar. Raya and Mulgrew, swapped for Walton and Adarabioyo. 4 dreadful hangers on as back up on short term deals then, only 1 dreadful longer term player who plays quite a lot. Midfield, Evans played regularly until injury (pre Mowbray) and is a regular now. We had Lowe, Guthrie and Akpan, a dreadful trio, again all of whom were on their last year. Travis is the main improvement, someone who Mowbray hasnt signed so someone who would have been either without him, but he did give him his chance and keep him in the team. Johnson is an obvious improvement on the dross but has still been a huge dissapointment here. Davenport has done nothing. Holtby has a good pedigree and has impressed in flashes but has yet to do anywhere near enough to be considered a success. Out wide, we had Conway (heading towards a decline) and as a short term deal Downing is definitely an upgrade. Mahoney was overrated due to being local, and Feeney wasnt up to it. That said, neither Rothwell or Chapman have produced at first team level here. Our midfield is definitely better, but not as much as it should be. Up top, I would suggest that we are worse off. Emnes scored 4 and assisted 8 in his loan spell, Armstrongs stats arent too disimilar but I would rather have the latter, plus he is our player. Gallagher we had on loan and he has actually regressed since his average loan spell (often painted as being better than it actually was) plus we are lumbered long term with considerable wages. And Joao on a loan deal is much favourable to a dud like Brereton on a long term deal. Plus we have Samuel too, another waste of time. I would say we havent developed as a squad since then, if we have, very little. Considering most of our deadwood was on contracts about to expire, and Mowbray has had 3 years and 20m to re-mould it, it really is unacceptable to have the squad we have now.

I am not sure we do without Dack. Slightly at best. Travis is undoubtedly an internally generates upgrade. Adarabioyo and Downing are good short term signings. Armstrong perhaps. Johnson, Holtby, Rothwell, Chapman, Davenport, Samuel, Hart, Brereton, Bell, the first 2 could perhaps, but have they as of yet improved us?

A below average striker with a poor goal record?

One things for sure, he doesnt play in any of the 3 positions you have prioritised! I dont see a player in there at all. Goalscoring (both anticipating and finishing chances) certaintly not a strength and wont be prolific as long as he has a hole in his arse, technically poor, deceptively passive in the air, fairly quick but seldom breaks the line and is often offside, cant hold the ball up, I am struggling to find a player! You could look at it like that, alternatively you could say in 3 years and with plenty of money, unfortunate injury to the one gem he has found in Dack aside, is our squad any stronger now really with all the crap he has added? I would say no. So surely it is time to give someone else a chance.

Them 2 being our first 2 choices is like being presented with which bollock youd like to be kicked in!