Bradley Dack

[champs95]

TM says he had a tight hamstring. Yet he was down in Bournemouth on Thurs picking up his new £99k motor. And on Fri it was announced the little prick had broken up with that slapper off love island. And when it came to match day, our manager has seen his head isn't right. And let him have the day off. Brilliant. We where pathetic yesterday. Dack can follow Mowbray out of the door.

[robinrover]

Got to admit he has lost his edge and fear factor he produced.
We sell him now and unfortunately will struggle to hit 5 million
Back in January it was 15-20 million
He has done little since then so maybe we should of cashed in when we had a chance.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[AucklandRover]

The explanation for his absence was very unconvincing, but perhaps we will find out the truth when we are given Tuesday's line-up.
In the current circumstances, any conspiracy theory will have thousands of takers, so I prefer to wait and see.

[Acido]

Ive said before lads that Ive admired Dack and I couldnt understand why he was stuck at Gillingham in Lg One for so long.
But if hes been mucking about like Champs says this weekend, and if his head has been up in the clouds, then maybe thats a big reason why no big clubs are queueing up to sign him eh ?.
Do you all want Mowbray out then at the moment, have things really got that bad ?.

[robinrover]

Not so much Mowbray out but as stated on another post,we could possibly go down still and could he really produce a turn around next season with peanuts to spend?
His likability factor is fading fast to a vast amount of our fans.
If he did go,who would we replace him with?is a bigger question.

[AucklandRover]

Not so much Mowbray out but as stated on another post,we could possibly go down still and could he really produce a turn around next season with peanuts to spend?
His likability factor is fading fast to a vast amount of our fans.
If he did go,who would we replace him with?is a bigger question.

Robin and Acido - it's Robin's final point that gets me. Some fans simply don't care. They haven't learned from previous examples, so we've now reached the point where "Anyone would be better." That's where this myth of "It's all down to the manager" inevitably leads you.
Total bo**ocks, of course. Look at Lambert replacing Bowyer: a three-match "bounce" and then he did worse than the man he replaced.
Meanwhile, some of the names that HAVE been mentioned wouldn't touch Venky's with a barge-pole.
We may well be entering "Be careful what you wish for" territory.
Please, please, please...not Warnock...please!

[champs95]

If this little southern tosser left in summer, I would welcome it. The sad thing is we wouldn't get more than £3/4m at the very most. I'd still take it and let him be some other clubs problem. But he echoes everything that has gone woefully wrong.

I do see your stance about managers, peaks and troughs. But we are in big trouble if we got relegated. Much worse than last time. The club can't lose another £16.8m by being down at that level. It would be catastrophic. So even you surley can see we have to at least go with the notion we could go down. Its ok insisting we cant go down. But its not mathematically clear we will stay up. We cant just sit here and see it all fall apart and do nothing. We could suffer for years off the back of this decision.

I'm not of the mindset, anyone will be better longterm. That remains to be seen. What we will need is some points before the season is out. And I really don't see TM being the man to find them. He is lost. Anyone, or whoever, probably could get the few points we need in the short-term. Long-term, TM has proven that he isn't the man. I would not let him carry on signing dross, instead of playing good young players who come from our own academy. So I think we take our chances after tomorrow nights final nail in the coffin, and go with another voice. At least we will likely get a few points, and see a few of our young lads. Everyone is pretty much fed up of Mowbray now. He has ruined all his good work. And Sat showed me we are now going backwards.

[AucklandRover]

But take that one sentence of yours, "He has ruined all his good work."
That is exactly why I don't go with this simple, generalised notion of "good" or "bad" as an inbuilt characteristic of a particular man.
Elsewhere, I've used the example of Pulis this season. On results so far, he has gone from bad to very good, and back through bad to terrible.
Which is it?
You were criticising people for not praising Mowbray enough in January. Now he is a rock-bottom manger. Seriously??
I think he will probably go now, because the animosity towards him has become too strong, and I will never know why he fielded that team on Saturday. Talk about signing your own death-warrant.
All the same, I think it is nothing short of ludicrous that he is receiving such a pasting. I strongly suspect that if Lenihan had not got injured, we would have picked up three to five extra points, and would be in 14th place now - precisely what I predicted pre-season, and as good as you could expect with our squad.
Incidentally, it IS utterly improbable that we will go down, because of the bizarre set of other results that would have to occur. Sky Bet are offering 1000/1 against if you are interested.

[champs95]

But take that one sentence of yours, "He has ruined all his good work."
That is exactly why I don't go with this simple, generalised notion of "good" or "bad" as an inbuilt characteristic of a particular man.
Elsewhere, I've used the example of Pulis this season. On results so far, he has gone from bad to very good, and back through bad to terrible.
Which is it?
You were criticising people for not praising Mowbray enough in January. Now he is a rock-bottom manger. Seriously??
I think he will probably go now, because the animosity towards him has become too strong, and I will never know why he fielded that team on Saturday. Talk about signing your own death-warrant.
All the same, I think it is nothing short of ludicrous that he is receiving such a pasting. I strongly suspect that if Lenihan had not got injured, we would have picked up three to five extra points, and would be in 14th place now - precisely what I predicted pre-season, and as good as you could expect with our squad.
Incidentally, it IS utterly improbable that we will go down, because of the bizarre set of other results that would have to occur. Sky Bet are offering 1000/1 against if you are interested.

I'm not getting into I said, you said stuff. Its counter productive. And changes nothing. Everyone can say this with hindsight.
Yes we have already discussed where I was wrong. In Jan I got too carried away. I have already admitted I did. I have already said I was wrong to do so.
If you can say one reason why you think he should stay now, then I am all ears.
But where I was wrong, and can see that, are you still maintaining we will finish mid-table? Because we wont.
You can show me all the stats and odds. But we are now 8 points away from relegation. Tomorrow we could be 5 points. On sat it would be 2 points. You can't sit here and tell me we will be fine because of anything we are doing.
Its because of the fact there are at least 4 worst sides than us. That's NOT moving forwards. That's NOT finishing mid-table. That's not bedding into this league and showing signs of pushing on. 3 of those woefully poor sides are going to go down. Meaning next season, we will be relegation candidates. What odds are Sky Bet giving us next season? I'll bet you £5,000 that it isn't as high as 1000/1. I'll bet we are odds on favourites to drop. And for good reason. The rest of the sides (other than QPR) are all involved in a fight, and are battling for points. You keep mentioning (to me) about what I said in Jan? Since then we have lost 9 games in 11. That's pathetic.
And if you think a few free transfers will change this over summer, you're wrong.

And back in Jan, he wasn't making such basic, bad decisions. Back in Jan we hadn't lost 9 in 11.
He is taking us backwards. He is regressing. I have sat and listened to his *******s. And that's all it is. You learn nothing when things are going well. You learn exactly who you can depend on, who is trustworthy, when things go wrong. Things have folded so badly. And TM's answer to the crap performances, and terrible results? Play Evans, Bennett and Smallwood who have all been given more than enough chances to prove how poor they are at this level.

I know a Boro season ticket holder. Its funny, he tells a completely different story about Pulis. They spent a huge amount of money in the summer. Having got into the play off's. While they were getting results, the crowds where dropping. Because (exactly like at WBA and Stoke) the football was turgid at best. People will just about put up with that if its going ok. The win but a woeful performance. That's been the case all season for Boro. Even when they win, folk were not happy. Their attendances show you that. So nobody was in the world of football, saying Pulis was any good back in Sept. Like they aren't now. They are just woeful and going nowhere now. Before they where woeful, but found ways of getting results in the most painful way possible.

I'm not saying he is a rock bottom manager. He is what he is. He got us promoted. Nobody can take that away from him. 4 weeks ago we where 16 points from relegation. Now its 5 points.

I don't believe he will turn this around. Not now, not in summer, not next season. And I think deep down you know that too. You just cant ignore defeat after defeat. My biggest concern is, who will actually sack him? I do always have this notion in the back of my mind. Be careful what you wish for? We could end up with worse? I thought we would never see as bad as Owen Coyle. We are witnessing it right now. And have been experiencing that all the way back to Jan. When you keep reminding me I was pretty vocal about his merits.

The way I see it, we are screwed either way. Sack him, we will only get another person of his ilk in. And we may get lucky for a season, that he performs well. But we are a club heading nowhere. I was happy to accept mid-table in a very average division. It turns out we are well below that level. So its fair to see him go. He is taking us backwards now. And this is Owen Coyle tactics, performances. And we will CLEARLY finish this season than less points than what we got relegated last time. Progression is important. Regression is what is happening. The only way of stopping that, is getting shut. Long-term is irrelevant, we will only get someone else who is equally as poor.

[AucklandRover]

Sorry, Champs - a lot of that simply flies in the face of all I have experienced in football.
What a manager has achieved in the last six months is NOT a good predictor of what he will achieve in the next six.
If that WAS the case, I would happily sign up to this media-led nonsense of good-manager/bad-manager, full stop!
Do you know, I keep asking on the Telegraph the following question, and not one person has answered me, although it is quite simple:
"Are Ranieri and Mourinho 'good' or 'bad' managers?"
And these are not isolated cases. I bet that if you went through the careers of all those men who have managed football clubs for more than 15 or 20 years, you would find that 90-95% of them have had major ups and downs in that period. Sometimes, it's even with the SAME club - like Ranieri, in fact.
I believe Mowbray is doomed now, and I accept that as a fact of footballing life. It was an act of crass stupidity on his part to put that team out on Saturday, as he must have known what was coming if defeat followed.
All the same, it is the purest nonsense to me to say that a man who took our D.1 squad to within reach of the Championship play-offs - after the Hull game - has suddenly become completely and irredeemably incompetent in the following nine weeks. There is no logic in that argument at all, especially as it seems to carry with it the even greater load of tosh that no other factors at all have been (or could be) involved.