[Archived] Paul's Progress

[imy9]

Then he wants to make his mind up.

When has Ince said "I think a mid table finish is what I expect"?

I have seen a lot of his interviews and may have missed that, so any links please share them.

[briansol]

Out of interest what is Hughes' net spend at City, they have conceded 18 goals (we are only 2 ahead) and they have lost SIX games to our FOUR.

www.soccerbase.com:

Robinho 32 mill

Jo 18 mill

SWP 9 mill

Kompany 6 mill

Ben Haim unknown 3-5 mill?

Zabaleta unknown 7-9 mill?

So at least 70+ mill pounds spent to make the side much worse than under Eriksson. No wonder City fans wants him out.

[T4E]

Out of interest what is Hughes' net spend at City, they have conceded 18 goals (we are only 2 ahead) and they have lost SIX games to our FOUR.

Yet they're still above us, have won FOUR to our THREE and have scored TWENTY THREE to our THIRTEEN.

You can spin it either way, but the fact of the matter is comparing ourselves to them is a useless exercise. We need to get our own house in order and keep it that way, sod the rest of them.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

Replying to 1586 - sorry but everyone of the points is highly contentious.

- Robinson is a more than fair swap for Brad and I've given Once credit for that but imy is obviously very unhappy by Ince's move there; that's his perogative.

- Hughes had a net spend of £7m in 2006 but overall his transfer spending was a net nil. I am absolutely absolutely certain that Ince had a transfer budget of AT LEAST £10m on his appointment as Manager

- Ince had plenty of time between the appointment and closure of the transfer window to assess the outfield defence; he chose to stick pretty well with the Hughes personnel and is getting much much worse performances from them.

Re tcj, we are NOT too good to go down.

Look around the division and tell me who isn't putting up a good fight to stay up or who is manifestly weaker as a squad. The relegation fight this season is going to be about character and at least 40 points. Next week-end could well see every club having at least as many points on the board than Derby accumulated all of last season.

If I were being dispassionate, I would have Rovers as one of the more at risk sides because of injuries, low scoring, uninspiring midfield and a deeply leaky defence plus a young manager who is clearly struggling. Elijah is spot on- Ince is vacilating all over the place.

Ince's overall transfer spend is currently in the black - leaving some spare cash for what could be an interesting transfer window.

Though I don't agree with the doom and gloom around some posters on the MB (yourself included) - I do agree that we aren't too good to go down. But I would extend that to many teams in the EPL. There is a good chance that at least one of the established clubs will be relegated this season - could be us or probably any one of about 10 clubs.

Ince has been unlucky with injuries so far - but we are still in a reasonable position. Keep the faith

[imy9]

The worst thing is the abysmal performance against Bolton (who we drew with), a lack of creativity and a seemingly solid defence has begun to leak goals.

Biggest mistake Hughes ever made was leaving us.

Yet they're still above us, have won FOUR to our THREE and have scored TWENTY THREE to our THIRTEEN.

You can spin it either way, but the fact of the matter is comparing ourselves to them is a useless exercise. We need to get our own house in order and keep it that way, sod the rest of them.

Spin taken out, they are on the same number of points as us.

I agree with getting our house in order, hopefully its sooner rather than later.

[92er]

Biggest mistake Hughes ever made was leaving us.

As with Bellamy and various other people.

The Directors' biggest mistake might have been not to have backed him to a greater extent.

[T4E]

Hughes' biggest mistake was where he went and when. If he'd done it the right way at the right time he could have genuinely gone on to bigger and better things. Even if he'd stayed in the Summer, he'd be at Spurs now I'm sure.

[philipl]

£50m on the two brazilians weren't Hughes' decisions.

Selling Corluka wasn't a Hughes decision either.

I agree that City are doing woefully for the outlay but then every season there is at least one PL club that spends a bomb and would have been better off keeping what they had.

City have the problem of having every opposition club raise their game dramatically against the moneybags opposition whilst being nowhere near the quality necessary to withstand that sort of continuous pressure.

I am glad to see them struggling and will be elated if ADUG decide the first investment needed is in a manager who sets his transfer top target on someone other than RSC.

Although any rational assessment of City indicates they need strength from keeper through central defence to centre midfield- apart from that they are a bit tasty!

[briansol]

Yet they're still above us, have won FOUR to our THREE and have scored TWENTY THREE to our THIRTEEN.

You can spin it either way, but the fact of the matter is comparing ourselves to them is a useless exercise. We need to get our own house in order and keep it that way, sod the rest of them.

It's a valid point regarding the criticism levelled that money was not spent in the summer. "Imagine what Hughes could've done with the money". I guess that question is answered.

So our own house is not in order. We're leaking goals, and not scoring. In other words we should and can perform much better. Still we're in 13th place and with a points pr game ratio that should easily avoid relegation if we perform to the same level.

[T4E]

It's a valid point regarding the criticism levelled that money was not spent in the summer. "Imagine what Hughes could've done with the money". I guess that question is answered.

I'm not sure about that. On a modest budget with full control, Hughes is excellent.

With fantasy football money, he's struggling. To be fair, most managers do.

[briansol]

As with Bellamy and various other people.

The Directors' biggest mistake might have been not to have backed him to a greater extent.

I think Hughes had the backing that the club was good for. The club needs to be sustainable because we're not Iceland.

[briansol]

I'm not sure about that. On a modest budget with full control, Hughes is excellent.

With fantasy football money, he's struggling. To be fair, most managers do.

You're probably right. It seems easy to be at a big club with big money but it takes a big manager to handle it. Not sure if Hughes is that. It seems that he doen't like to be dragged out of his "comfort zone" according to Garry Cook. Going back for Santa Cruz when he has the whole world to pick from, suggest Cook has a valid point.

[DingleBaiter]

www.soccerbase.com:

....

So at least 70+ mill pounds spent to make the side much worse than under Eriksson. No wonder City fans wants him out.

An obvious factor why there is a large element of City fans wanting Hughes out is exactly the same reason for Ince at Rovers - they didn't want him there in the first place, and they're using current form to as confirmation of that bias.

I think Hughes had the backing that the club was good for. The club needs to be sustainable because we're not Iceland.

Dunno about that, seen a few frozen faggots around......

[92er]

I think Hughes had the backing that the club was good for. The club needs to be sustainable because we're not Iceland.

I think it was last season that the Directors decided not to contribute their normal £3mil, which restricted transfer funds.

If you take the Robinson fee as a net £1mil, Grella as £3.2mil, Andrews £0.8mil?,Carlos £5mil put to one side?? , and the fee ( £ 5 mil??) available for the deadline signing that didn't happen, Ince has had a lot more cash that he could use compared with the budget ever allocated to MH.

I am certainly not in favour of spending money we don't have. But there does seem to be a contrast in the transfer budgets of the 2 managers that I don't understand.

[1864roverite]

"too good the go down"

famous last words.

There are only four teams in the Premiership to which that sentence applies

Manure Liverpool Arsenal and Chelsea

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

I think it was last season that the Directors decided not to contribute their normal £3mil, which restricted transfer funds.

If you take the Robinson fee as a net £1mil, Grella as £3.2mil, Andrews £0.8mil?,Carlos £5mil put to one side?? , and the fee ( £ 5 mil??) available for the deadline signing that didn't happen, Ince has had a lot more cash that he could use compared with the budget ever allocated to MH.

I am certainly not in favour of spending money we don't have. But there does seem to be a contrast in the transfer budgets of the 2 managers that I don't understand.

You don't understand the difference in budgets ?????

Rovers have always given the vast majority of any incoming transfer fees to the manager - Ince was lucky (or unlucky as I would view it) that two players forced transfers that realised approx £18m - we also had approx £4m in manager/playing staff transfer surplus. I think Robbo was actually around £3.5m - so Ince actually spent in the region of £13m (incl Carlos) - in theory we have approx £2 - 4m still to spend (without any existing funds or the £3m additional trust money, depending on the Arsenal sell on clause).

Hughes biggest out going transfer was Bellamy (approx £6m) that paid for an aging Dutch centre half and McCarthy. (I think Samba also came around the same time.

[92er]

You don't understand the difference in budgets ?????

Rovers have always given the vast majority of any incoming transfer fees to the manager - Ince was lucky (or unlucky as I would view it) that two players forced transfers that realised approx £18m - we also had approx £4m in manager/playing staff transfer surplus. I think Robbo was actually around £3.5m - so Ince actually spent in the region of £13m (incl Carlos) - in theory we have approx £2 - 4m still to spend (without any existing funds or the £3m additional trust money, depending on the Arsenal sell on clause).

Hughes biggest out going transfer was Bellamy (approx £6m) that paid for an aging Dutch centre half and McCarthy. (I think Samba also came around the same time.

What I meant to say was the comparison between the Directors contribution of £ 3 mil to the transfer budget; apparently withdrawing it from MH and adding it to Ince's budget.

[DingleBaiter]

What I meant to say was the comparison between the Directors contribution of £ 3 mil to the transfer budget; apparently withdrawing it from MH and adding it to Ince's budget.

It's not a Directors contribution; it's from the Trustees.

One of the problems of the logic of comparing budgets is it's only ever an estimation; look back over threads on here and there is no consistency at all about sums, transfer revenues, accounts etc. Another fact overlooked to some degree is that Ince's perceived warchest is potentially swelled by outgoing transfer revenue - NOT money promised from the Board (such as the mooted 10 million JW allegedly promised MH). That is of course that the board would allow access to both?

I think the only way this can be judged sensibly would be the obvious one - how much he spends (if at all) in January. Personally, I find it ironic and a refreshing change for a manager to be slated for NOT spending money, as opposed to managers historically being panned for wasting money on big-money flops.

[philipl]

Hughes was helped by the directors pushing the overdraft up to £21m in the summer of 2006 ahead of the increased Sky deal. That overdraft increase got recovered from the Sky deal in 2007/8 but even so the Sky deal transformed Rovers from perenial loss makers to a (probably) very profitable operation.

So Hughes would have had, and Ince did have, that profit to play with this summer and I keep coming back to the point that something went horribly wrong for Rovers to come out of the transfer window with an £8m net profit on transfers.

There was no transfer of donations from Hughes to Ince by the Trustees.

In 2006/7 they saw that the club was raking in so much cash from Sky that their contribution was not going to make a material difference and took a pause. This summer with a change of manager, they obviously wanted to make a difference to the transfer budget being made available and came back in with an extra £3m to back the new manager seeing this as an important time of change for the club. Again, for whatever reason (and I caused a riot by reflecting others' suggestions at the time suggesting there was a loss of confidence in Paul Ince), it has not been spent.

[Parsonblue]

"too good the go down"

famous last words.

There are only four teams in the Premiership to which that sentence applies

Manure Liverpool Arsenal and Chelsea

Totally agree with that. I well remember those very same words being spouted in 65-66. How could a team with the likes of Douglas, Clayton, England, Newton, McEvoy, Ferguson etc possibly go down? We kept being told by independent observers that we were too good to go down - but down we went and we were out of the top flight for a quarter of a century. Anyone who thinks we can't be relegated this season is clearly deluded.

Personally, I think it's time to put a stop to the Hughes-Ince bickering. We are in a relegation battle and everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction. We had some great seasons under Hughes in terms of League positions, reaching Cup semi-finals and achieving our best run in Europe. What he achieved is now part of the club's history and will be looked upon as one of the more successful periods in the story of Blackburn Rovers. However, Paul Ince is now the manager and will remain so until he decides to move on or the Club decide it's time for him to go.

As with all new manager's it will take Ince time to build a team that is his own. Just as Hughes will take time to build a City team that is his own. All manager's approach the job differently and Ince has a different approach to Hughes. If we could match some the of football that Ince is trying to adopt with the 'in your face' aggression that Hughes instilled we might have a successful team.

[jim mk2]

. We are in a relegation battle .

Quite right. And we have been since the first Saturday of the season.

Clayton, Douglas and others were past their best in that 1960s Rovers team and good players were being replaced by inferior ones.

Sound familiar eh ?

[vintageadidas]

TO55ERS!

[Tris]

It's bloody depressing reading this messageboard just now. There are too many people who have lost the plot - I don't know if it's down to overblown expectations, or simply that Paul Ince's face doesn't fit - but the basic concept of supporting the football club is being eroded.

What's happened to us? I've been proud following this team, and proud living the ups and downs. We've been there and we've done it, and made the noise. So I can't understand why this messageboard is full of people who are determined to shout the club down.

If you were to trip over this site as an outsider, you wouldn't think it was a supporters site. It reads like a bad selection from the Points of View mailbag. A group of loud mouthed losers constantly whinging and whining. Thank goodness trench warfare is history - I wouldn't want to face adversity with any of the gobshites on here, great at sniping from the sidelines but no stomach for the fight.

"Sack Ince" we read on the WBA match thread. Pathetic. This is our football club and it's time to support the manager and the team. What are you lot going to do if we DO get dragged into a relegation scrap??? Celebrate because you called it back in July, or line up behind the blue and white shirts and shout the lads to safety? I honestly think there are some people on this MB who would celebrate before they mucked in.

If all of the post match criticism which has been levelled at Paul Ince these last few weeks was cashed in, Rovers would be top of the league by some distance. Nelsen would be better than Carragher, RSC would be fitter than Rooney and Tugay would be 10 years younger. What did people expect from this season?? Finishing top? Champions League?

Mark Hughes has piloted his moneybags outfit to the same 13 points as Rovers have, even with a player who cost more than our entire 1st team squad. We're right there in the mix, but an outfit like Rovers needs everyone onside, everyone supporting, everyone pulling in the same direction. That's not happening, and that's the biggest regret for me this season.

People are putting personal dislike of Paul Ince miles in front of collective support of the club - that is the first thing which needs to change for the good of BRFC.

[47er]

It's bloody depressing reading this messageboard just now. There are too many people who have lost the plot - I don't know if it's down to overblown expectations, or simply that Paul Ince's face doesn't fit - but the basic concept of supporting the football club is being eroded.

What's happened to us? I've been proud following this team, and proud living the ups and downs. We've been there and we've done it, and made the noise. So I can't understand why this messageboard is full of people who are determined to shout the club down.

If you were to trip over this site as an outsider, you wouldn't think it was a supporters site. It reads like a bad selection from the Points of View mailbag. A group of loud mouthed losers constantly whinging and whining. Thank goodness trench warfare is history - I wouldn't want to face adversity with any of the gobshites on here, great at sniping from the sidelines but no stomach for the fight.

"Sack Ince" we read on the WBA match thread. Pathetic. This is our football club and it's time to support the manager and the team. What are you lot going to do if we DO get dragged into a relegation scrap??? Celebrate because you called it back in July, or line up behind the blue and white shirts and shout the lads to safety? I honestly think there are some people on this MB who would celebrate before they mucked in.

If all of the post match criticism which has been levelled at Paul Ince these last few weeks was cashed in, Rovers would be top of the league by some distance. Nelsen would be better than Carragher, RSC would be fitter than Rooney and Tugay would be 10 years younger. What did people expect from this season?? Finishing top? Champions League?

Mark Hughes has piloted his moneybags outfit to the same 13 points as Rovers have, even with a player who cost more than our entire 1st team squad. We're right there in the mix, but an outfit like Rovers needs everyone onside, everyone supporting, everyone pulling in the same direction. That's not happening, and that's the biggest regret for me this season.

People are putting personal dislike of Paul Ince miles in front of collective support of the club - that is the first thing which needs to change for the good of BRFC.

I don't know that people personally dislike Ince cos none of us actually know him. I think most would have wanted Hughes to stay forever and any successor was bound to cop it if we didn't have a reasonable first couple of months and we haven't had from a results point of view. Stil we could go in any direction from here and its vital that we all support the club, as you say

[Mr Creosote]

It's bloody depressing reading this messageboard just now. There are too many people who have lost the plot - I don't know if it's down to overblown expectations, or simply that Paul Ince's face doesn't fit - but the basic concept of supporting the football club is being eroded.

What's happened to us? I've been proud following this team, and proud living the ups and downs. We've been there and we've done it, and made the noise. So I can't understand why this messageboard is full of people who are determined to shout the club down.

If you were to trip over this site as an outsider, you wouldn't think it was a supporters site. It reads like a bad selection from the Points of View mailbag. A group of loud mouthed losers constantly whinging and whining. Thank goodness trench warfare is history - I wouldn't want to face adversity with any of the gobshites on here, great at sniping from the sidelines but no stomach for the fight.

"Sack Ince" we read on the WBA match thread. Pathetic. This is our football club and it's time to support the manager and the team. What are you lot going to do if we DO get dragged into a relegation scrap??? Celebrate because you called it back in July, or line up behind the blue and white shirts and shout the lads to safety? I honestly think there are some people on this MB who would celebrate before they mucked in.

If all of the post match criticism which has been levelled at Paul Ince these last few weeks was cashed in, Rovers would be top of the league by some distance. Nelsen would be better than Carragher, RSC would be fitter than Rooney and Tugay would be 10 years younger. What did people expect from this season?? Finishing top? Champions League?

Mark Hughes has piloted his moneybags outfit to the same 13 points as Rovers have, even with a player who cost more than our entire 1st team squad. We're right there in the mix, but an outfit like Rovers needs everyone onside, everyone supporting, everyone pulling in the same direction. That's not happening, and that's the biggest regret for me this season.

People are putting personal dislike of Paul Ince miles in front of collective support of the club - that is the first thing which needs to change for the good of BRFC.

Tin hat time for you Tris. The gang wont like that post.