Mowbray’s Future

[JHRover]

Different for players and managers though. Players are assets that will be picked up by rivals if we don't keep them. Plenty of clubs collect players and generally speaking with your better players the longer the contract the better in terms of keeping them and getting a big fee if we sell them.

Managers very different. Nowhere near as much demand elsewhere for managers, nowhere near as much pressure to have a manager tied down long term, much lower financial incentive to do so as compensation wise it won't be anywhere near what we get for a player.

[tomphil]

Nobody in football is infallible so talk of 5/6 year contracts is daft you've got to keep the incentive going for both parties and the number of times this club has been stung i'm amazed anyone suggests it.

What would've happened had we given Souness such a deal when he was doing good things then 12 months down the line if you wanted rid you'd be looking at monumental payouts or his wages on the books for years.

Bit by bit is the way to go, same with the players and hopefully he is here for another 5 years as that would mean we are doing well but let him earn it as he goes along, if he wants to leave he'll leave.

[Mercer]

Pluses and minuses for me.

Firstly, I think he should have kept us up the season we were relegated - his negativity resulted in too many wins turning into draws and too many draws turning into losses.

Brought us back at the first time of asking - job done, well done.

Decent start this season - still not convinced though, last two matches (despite win at Bolton) worrying.

Transfer record mixed.  Big plus Dack.  Brought in some duds.  His 'big investments' (Brereton and Armstrong) are a concern.

A very decent chap but wouldn't get carried away with a lengthy contract.  In my opinion, big question mark as to how far he can take us (with or without investment).

Not a believer in long term contracts.  Too often, managers get new long term contracts, things go sour  and within months clubs are paying fortunes to get rid.

To me, I'd give him a lucrative one year rolling contract plus heavily incentivised bonus based upon league position - jackpot time if her gets us up to the PL.  Would also give him a bonus based upon collective net profit on player trading (ie what we sell them for compared to what we bought them for).  Payment by results is fair and focuses the mind - failure should not be rewarded in any shape or form.

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Mercer

[Crimpshrine]

2 hours ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Give him a 6 year year deal. We won't get a better man to manage the club. He is a good fit for us, and vice versa. A hammer blow would be if he gets us top 10 and then another club poached him. His stock is rising here. 

A 6 year deal is of benefit only to the manager not the club.

If the manager is sacked he will receive a massive pay off.

If he fancies a different job he simply resigns from his current post. He doesn't have to commit to staying the full 6 years.

3 years is enough to give security for the manager and continuity for the club. If that then leads to another 3 years then thing must be going really well and everyone is happy

 

[Crimpshrine]

4 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Would also give him a bonus based upon collective net profit on player trading (ie what we sell them for compared to what we bought them for).  

 

Managers should never be rewarded for selling players at a profit.

How would anyone trust that their transfer activity was for the good of the club and not self motivated?

[K-Hod]

I think the talk of a six year deal is a bit OTT. He's done a good job on the whole, but he's not Sir Alex Ferguson! Things can change very quickly in football.

[Bigdoggsteel]

24 minutes ago, Crimpshrine said:

A 6 year deal is of benefit only to the manager not the club.

If the manager is sacked he will receive a massive pay off.

If he fancies a different job he simply resigns from his current post. He doesn't have to commit to staying the full 6 years.

3 years is enough to give security for the manager and continuity for the club. If that then leads to another 3 years then thing must be going really well and everyone is happy

 

I don't think its as simple as just being able to resign if you have a contract 

I hope it's a long term deal anyway. We need to let him plan

[Mike E]

I'd offer him til 2021 with a remit to get us promoted in that time.

From everything I've read and heard of the guy since he got here, I believe TM considers Rovers his personal project. 

I'm not saying we'll get a dynasty akin to the greats like Clough or Fergie, but I get the feeling he wants to REALLY drive us forward into the PL and possibly Europe. Everything he says is geared towards progress imo.

[SBlue]

IMO, at the moment Mowbray is the biggest asset that we have. A nice improved contract for 2 or 3 years is well deserved and overdue.

[davulsukur]

4 hours ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Give him a 6 year year deal. We won't get a better man to manage the club. He is a good fit for us, and vice versa. A hammer blow would be if he gets us top 10 and then another club poached him. His stock is rising here. 

Pardew got an eight year deal once. 

Cant have been cheap to sack him.

Edited October 9, 2018 by davulsukur

[JHRover]

30 minutes ago, davulsukur said:

Pardew got an eight year deal once. 

Cant have been cheap to sack him.

He walked out of Newcastle, which tells us a thing or two about that club, so that he could join Palace. Presume they must have paid Newcastle some compo.

[roversfan99]

4 hours ago, Mercer said:

Pluses and minuses for me.

Firstly, I think he should have kept us up the season we were relegated - his negativity resulted in too many wins turning into draws and too many draws turning into losses.

Brought us back at the first time of asking - job done, well done.

Decent start this season - still not convinced though, last two matches (despite win at Bolton) worrying.

Transfer record mixed.  Big plus Dack.  Brought in some duds.  His 'big investments' (Brereton and Armstrong) are a concern.

A very decent chap but wouldn't get carried away with a lengthy contract.  In my opinion, big question mark as to how far he can take us (with or without investment).

Not a believer in long term contracts.  Too often, managers get new long term contracts, things go sour  and within months clubs are paying fortunes to get rid.

To me, I'd give him a lucrative one year rolling contract plus heavily incentivised bonus based upon league position - jackpot time if her gets us up to the PL.  Would also give him a bonus based upon collective net profit on player trading (ie what we sell them for compared to what we bought them for).  Payment by results is fair and focuses the mind - failure should not be rewarded in any shape or form.

 

Think thats a fair post in the main. 

His first season is usually overlooked and totally disregarded. Obviously Coyle was the protagonist behind our relegation but for all the talk about where we would have finished if you stretched out his results, and appreciating that the balance of the squad he inherited and the points total we had made the task very difficult, he ultimately failed in his first task, to keep us up. That said, safe to say he has very much made up for that and more since.

Agree with you on the signings. Mixed but I do think overall, the feel of the squad is so much better, even if some of the individuals he has signed in his time are very questionable indeed. (Some of whom have already left) Too early to judge the 2 you mentioned properly.

Talk of a 6 year deal is absurd, but a yearly one would not be agreed by him and would be too short. Also to financially reward him for potential net spend is a massive conflict of interest and is ludicrous. A 2 or 3 year deal would give us a strong element of stability whilst hopefully giving us an out down the line if all doesnt go to plan.

[DE.]

In fairness to Mowbray, that first half season was a far from easy task. He had to take a group of completely demoralised, unfit and disorganised players and get them picking up points very quickly. For the most part he was able to do that, and if not for a freak season in terms of points needed to survive we would normally have stayed up fairly comfortably. I don't place any blame on him for our relegation - all blame goes to Venky's and Coyle for that.

Our season in League 1 was questionable at times in terms of performances, but the quality of our squad alone meant we got promoted without too much to worry about in the end. Had it not been for Shrewsbury having a once in a lifetime season us and Wigan would have been promoted with months to spare.

This season so far is similar in many ways - questionable performances at times, but we're still picking up a good amount of points. We have weaknesses but it seems like the entire division has the same inconsistencies. 

Mowbray's main positive attribute is his ability to foster an incredible spirit amongst the squad. The team obviously have a huge amount of respect for him and we always fight until the end.

Thumbs in the middle for his transfer dealings and tactics. Hit and miss for both imo. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, usually somewhere in the middle. You could argue that this is the case for the vast majority of managers, though, so I'm not going to come down on him too hard for that.

Negatives are an over-cautious approach when it isn't always necessary, and an inability to solve defensive issues which have plagued us for years. We struggle to see out games and set piece vulnerability has never really been addressed. I don't think it ever will be. 

All in all I think he's done a good job and would be happy with him being given an extra 2-3 years to build a squad capable of competing for promotion. Any more than that would be irresponsible imo. A lot can change in a year, let alone six. 

[roversfan99]

11 minutes ago, DE. said:

In fairness to Mowbray, that first half season was a far from easy task. He had to take a group of completely demoralised, unfit and disorganised players and get them picking up points very quickly. For the most part he was able to do that, and if not for a freak season in terms of points needed to survive we would normally have stayed up fairly comfortably. I don't place any blame on him for our relegation - all blame goes to Venky's and Coyle for that.

Our season in League 1 was questionable at times in terms of performances, but the quality of our squad alone meant we got promoted without too much to worry about in the end. Had it not been for Shrewsbury having a once in a lifetime season us and Wigan would have been promoted with months to spare.

This season so far is similar in many ways - questionable performances at times, but we're still picking up a good amount of points. We have weaknesses but it seems like the entire division has the same inconsistencies. 

Mowbray's main positive attribute is his ability to foster an incredible spirit amongst the squad. The team obviously have a huge amount of respect for him and we always fight until the end.

Thumbs in the middle for his transfer dealings and tactics. Hit and miss for both imo. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, usually somewhere in the middle. You could argue that this is the case for the vast majority of managers, though, so I'm not going to come down on him too hard for that.

Negatives are an over-cautious approach when it isn't always necessary, and an inability to solve defensive issues which have plagued us for years. We struggle to see out games and set piece vulnerability has never really been addressed. I don't think it ever will be. 

All in all I think he's done a good job and would be happy with him being given an extra 2-3 years to build a squad capable of competing for promotion. Any more than that would be irresponsible imo. A lot can change in a year, let alone six. 

Very good post. Agreed on the majority.

Totally appreciate that he was dealt a bad hand, a poor imbalanced squad in 23rd place and all not well. It was a difficult task, a difficult task he ultimately failed. He wasnt the main person to blame for relegation, far from it, but he failed in his initial rescue, albeit just. Thats factual, even if there were mitigating circumstances.

[DE.]

6 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Very good post. Agreed on the majority.

Totally appreciate that he was dealt a bad hand, a poor imbalanced squad in 23rd place and all not well. It was a difficult task, a difficult task he ultimately failed. He wasnt the main person to blame for relegation, far from it, but he failed in his initial rescue, albeit just. Thats factual, even if there were mitigating circumstances.

Yeah agreed, but I think he did the best he could within his capabilities. Considering where he came from and the trajectory of his career before he joined us, I have to say he performed significantly above my expectations even though we ultimately took the drop. I'm not sure any manager within our reach at that point in time would have kept us up. 

Regardless, it's all about the present. He's gotten us back to where he found us, and we're now in a similar position to where we were under Bowyer in the first couple of years of his reign. We can only wait and see as to whether he can push us further. Bowyer was considered a failure for not getting us into the playoffs, and I don't think we're in any weaker of a position than we were back then. Arguably we're in a stronger position as Bowyer never had £7m to spend on a single player. 

[roversfan99]

Just now, DE. said:

Yeah agreed, but I think he did the best he could within his capabilities. Considering where he came from and the trajectory of his career before he joined us, I have to say he performed significantly above my expectations even though we ultimately took the drop. I'm not sure any manager within our reach at that point in time would have kept us up. 

Regardless, it's all about the present. He's gotten us back to where he found us, and we're now in a similar position to where we were under Bowyer in the first couple of years of his reign. We can only wait and see as to whether he can push us further. Bowyer was considered a failure for not getting us into the playoffs, and I don't think we're in any weaker of a position than we were back then. Arguably we're in a stronger position as Bowyer never had £7m to spend on a single player. 

There were plenty of games during the run in that we could have picked up that additional point to survive, the task was not impossible by any stretch. Im speaking purely matter of fact in terms of objective failed, I do appreciate the difficulty. Hes proven his worth since and then some to be fair.

I also dont think we are in a stronger position than we were at our peak under Bowyer, not in terms of the team. We had 2 20 goal a season strikers, one of whom did it with enough consistency that he made people on here under appreciate the value of goals! I think there is less crap in our current squad, and also the manager now I trust more in terms of getting results.

[DE.]

12 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

There were plenty of games during the run in that we could have picked up that additional point to survive, the task was not impossible by any stretch. Im speaking purely matter of fact in terms of objective failed, I do appreciate the difficulty. Hes proven his worth since and then some to be fair.

I also dont think we are in a stronger position than we were at our peak under Bowyer, not in terms of the team. We had 2 20 goal a season strikers, one of whom did it with enough consistency that he made people on here under appreciate the value of goals! I think there is less crap in our current squad, and also the manager now I trust more in terms of getting results.

Easy to forget the kind of squad we had back then. Some top players in Robinson, Hanley, Duffy, King, Dunn (albeit coming to the end of his career), Rhodes, Gestede, Olsson, Cairney and Conway in his prime.

A few decent 'squad' players - Spurr, Kilgallon, Marshall, Kane and Evans. Possibly Taylor as well.

A lot of absolute tosh though - Lowe, Jake Kean, Eastwood, Varney, Williamson, Etuhu, Feeney and Henley. We also had a lot of players out on loan who were on huge wages which we were probably paying most of - DJ Campbell, Best, Rochina, Orr, Goodwillie...

Overall we should have been able to get into the playoffs with the team we had imo. A fair few of our better players went on to play in the PL, and others have become solid Championship players. Robinson only being able to play roughly half of our games meant we had a huge weakness in goal playing Jake Kean or Simon Eastwood. We'd be in a similar situation if Raya got injured now, though. Centre-midfield was obviously a graveyard too. Dat Lowe/Williamson pairing. Still gives me nightmares.

[Butty]

Just now, DE. said:

Easy to forget the kind of squad we had back then. Some top players in Robinson, Hanley, Duffy, King, Dunn (albeit coming to the end of his career), Rhodes, Gestede, Olsson, Cairney and Conway in his prime.

A few decent 'squad' players - Spurr, Kilgallon, Marshall, Kane and Evans. Possibly Taylor as well.

A lot of absolute tosh though - Lowe, Jake Kean, Eastwood, Varney, Williamson, Etuhu, Feeney and Henley. We also had a lot of players out on loan who were on huge wages which we were probably paying most of - DJ Campbell, Best, Rochina, Orr, Goodwillie...

Overall we should have been able to get into the playoffs with the team we had imo. A fair few of our better players went on to play in the PL, and others have become solid Championship players. Robinson only being able to play roughly half of our games meant we had a huge weakness in goal playing Jake Kean or Simon Eastwood. We'd be in a similar situation if Raya got injured now, though. Centre-midfield was obviously a graveyard too. Dat Lowe/Williamson pairing. Still gives me nightmares.

That Lowe/Williamson/Evans pairing in the centre was made worse by Bowyer playing Cairney on the right of midfield so much. Every man and his dog could see he was miles better in the centre of the park. We were at our best with Cairney and Evans in the middle with Marshall and Conway on the wings and Gestede and Rhodes up top. That team should have finished in the play offs. Those two losses to Burnley and Bournemouth really did us in. Not to mention that 0-0 at home to Yeovil which still gives me nightmares. 

[davulsukur]

4 hours ago, JHRover said:

He walked out of Newcastle, which tells us a thing or two about that club, so that he could join Palace. Presume they must have paid Newcastle some compo.

Ah, my bad.

I seem to remember Newcastle's form was in the gutter for a while under him and the fans were going mental calling for his head, I thought he got canned.

[JHRover]

54 minutes ago, davulsukur said:

Ah, my bad.

I seem to remember Newcastle's form was in the gutter for a while under him and the fans were going mental calling for his head, I thought he got canned.

Think even he had reached the end of the line there with unrealistic expectations, moaning fans and working for Ashley, so jumped at the chance to move back to London to a more conventional club where he was popular from his playing days. Remember the rumours that he got the Newcastle job because he met Ashley in a casino or something like that.

[JacknOry]

Deserves a couple of years plus the option of another in my opinion. Six years is a little on the crazy side though.

Long and short - could probably have done a little better in keeping us the year before but ultimately his points record would have had us safe over a season so will not blame him on that. Just disappointing that 1 point found from somewhere would have been enough.

L1 - Did what was asked really, we were favorites, spent more than anyone else and eventually went up. Was expectation and he delivered it - so good job.

Ill admit that he baffles me sometimes with selections, being a little negative at times (okay, a lot of the time) but if there was one thing alone that he deserves a new contract for, it is the type of player he has brought in. The dressing room he has created and the way the players connect with the fans has not been seen since long before the Venksters. A never die atattitude, hard work and a keenness to improve is what TM wants to see from his players and so far, it is hard to argue that it is not bearing fruit.

 

[Mattyblue]

Good insight into the world of management with Mogga:

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2018/october/tony-mowbray-life-as-a-manager/

What did that bloke say in the LT, ‘he doesn’t speak well’ or something. Rubbish! Love listening to him.

[chaddyrovers]

I could listen to Mowbray all day long. 

[SBlue]

Give him a knighthood, the keys to the town and his own lucky bucket.

5th.

[Bigdoggsteel]

More important that we hold onto Mowbray than Dack. What an epic job he has done here. Sometimes it just clicks with a club and manager