Tony Mowbray Discussion

[DE.]

Just now, Neal said:

No disrespect but I couldn't give a flying f*ck about his relations at Rovers. He gets judged by us by what he puts out on the pitch. He is absolutely putnofnhis depth. All of a sudden we look like a side capable of a relegation battle rather than top 6 contenders. 

Tbf I wouldn't say it's all of a sudden, we went through two periods last season where we looked like a relegation side. February to April in particular we lost nine out of eleven games. Fortunately those down periods were countered by periods where we got results that made us look like playoff contenders, and it ultimately balanced out to leave us relatively safe. 

Last season we were able to get ourselves out of those nosedives - the problem comes when yanking back on the stick stops working. Eventually it will. Lurching between very good and very bad form is not the sign of a team ready to make a serious push for promotion. Quite the opposite. 

[RoverAbroad]

The thing is, these issues are not only after one game, are they? They're the same problems we had last season. Some go back to the League One campaign.

Is TM going to change now or is he going to be stubborn and keep playing Bennett & Mulgrew while benching Nyambe, Rothwell, Ben and so on?

I'm just surprised there was no Richie today. Back in for the Fulham game?

[Waggy76]

Just now, RoverAbroad said:

The thing is, these issues are not only after one game, are they? They're the same problems we had last season. Some go back to the League One campaign.

Is TM going to change now or is he going to be stubborn and keep playing Bennett & Mulgrew while benching Nyambe, Rothwell, Ben and so on?

I'm just surprised there was no Richie today. Back in for the Fulham game?

That's my biggest fear Smallwood and Evans back in at Fulham !

[DE.]

Just now, RoverAbroad said:

I'm just surprised there was no Richie today. Back in for the Fulham game?

Travis out, Evans in. Gallagher out, Graham in. Rothwell banished to the u23's, Smallwood replaces him on the bench. 

[roversfan99]

11 minutes ago, 1864roverite said:

I can’t be arsed reading all the posts but my take us simple UTTER RUBBISH we don’t need posts like this after 1 game show some support and get behind the team. Mowbray out? FFS get a grip

There was plenty of support and noise at the ground, this is an internet messageboard, if you expect such a drab performance and poor result mainly due to the same repeated mistakes is going to be greeted positively on an internet messageboard then you really are deluded.

[Neal]

20 minutes ago, 1864roverite said:

I can’t be arsed reading all the posts but my take us simple UTTER RUBBISH we don’t need posts like this after 1 game show some support and get behind the team. Mowbray out? FFS get a grip

 

I've got a firm grip, based on the countless sh*te performances of last season and the same utter garbage back 4 which he has failed to address. If you don't agree then that's fine. I got behind the team today like always do, so I haven't a clue what you're going on about there fella. 

[Tormund]

Neal is spot on. 

The problems have been there for a long time, it’s crazy that the same defence still exists.

[DE.]

If at the end of last season Mowbray would have come out and said "defensively we're alright, we're going to be starting the first game of next season with the same defenders", I think the calls for him to leave would have been numerous - because it would be an utterly ridiculous statement to make.

This is pretty much where we are now. So I don't see this topic as reactionary, more a response to the fact we were essentially lied to last season by the manager and he's now backtracked on everything he said and we're still leaking goals and losing games because of it. Generally speaking I like Mowbray, but he has made a critical error of judgement and only has a few days to rectify it. His inability or outright refusal to act on fixing our defence has already cost us three points today. It'll likely cost us more at Fulham. IMO supporters have every right to be angry over this. There's no excusing it. He told us in no uncertain terms last season that "defenders are coming" - he lied. We've got one, and he's a 21 year old loanee who has been brought in so late he may not even feature until six points have already been potentially flushed down the toilet. 

In fairness if this was put to Mowbray privately I think he would hold his hands up and admit he's made a mistake. Doesn't change anything though. 

Edited August 3, 2019 by DE.

[Mr. E]

Is Tony Mowbray an absolute and complete utter clown or what.

The SAME defenders he starts after all this. The same defence and on top of it Charlie Mulgrew who cannot possibly cut at it this level and was a massive liability all last season - he starts him and drops Danny Graham.

He drops our sharpest attacking strategy yet continues despite all logic and reason to start someone who the pigeons know is past it. Mowbray is the only person in the world who can't see it yet we all have to suffer because he refuses and refuses to drop this man.

I don't care how many midfielders he's signed. I don't care if he bloody signed Ronaldo and Messi along with them. He had one fucking job all summer - to improve our defence, or for God's sake at the very least not start with Mulgrew. One fucking job and he **** all over it. Lennihan was screaming at him our supposed captain to get his act together. And rightfully so though he should have been screaming at the clueless manager. Embarrassing shambles.

He has no clue what he is doing. New manager needed tomorrow. Anyone with a drop of common sense. This is not loyalty to his players that Mowbray is demonstrating. It is dim witter stubborn insanity.

I want this man gone from this club immediately and that's that. Nothing can help him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[alcd]

Decent results in the last few meaningless fixtures last season papered over an awful second half to last season and now with the same personnel (in a so-called "defence") the same trash is being served up. This and the relegation thread will be top of the posts until or unless Mowbray is potted.

[Silas]

2 minutes ago, DE. said:

 

In fairness if this was put to Mowbray privately I think he would hold his hands up and admit he's made a mistake. Doesn't change anything though. 

I wouldn't call it a "mistake", more a failure.

A mistake would be not trying to get defensive reinforcements. Surely to God he must have tried. It would be madness not to.

So he's failed to do the necessary recruitment. Now there could be all sorts of reasons for not getting deals over the line, and I'm sure many excuses are lined up behind the scenes.

But failure is failure regardless of any mitigating circumstances. Bosses don't give a crap about reasons, they care about results. And that's in normal business let alone football.

And this ain't in a short timespell. He's had 3 windows now since we got promoted from League 1 and it was obvious we'd need to strengthen at the back to compete. 

That's continuous failure over a prolonged time period. 

5 days TM, please make me eat those words. 

[DE.]

Just now, Silas said:

I wouldn't call it a "mistake", more a failure.

A mistake would be not trying to get defensive reinforcements. Surely to God he must have tried. It would be madness not to.

So he's failed to do the necessary recruitment. Now there could be all sorts of reasons for not getting deals over the line, and I'm sure many excuses are lined up behind the scenes.

But failure is failure regardless of any mitigating circumstances. Bosses don't give a crap about reasons, they care about results. And that's in normal business let alone football.

And this ain't in a short timespell. He's had 3 windows now since we got promoted from League 1 and it was obvious we'd need to strengthen at the back to compete. 

That's continuous failure over a prolonged time period. 

5 days TM, please make me eat those words. 

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear, I meant that he would admit his comments at the end of last season about defenders coming were a mistake. I think if he could go back in time he would almost certainly stop himself from saying that.

[Silas]

Ah, that makes more sense.

Yeah,  he should definitely  keep his trap shut more often.

Empty promises.

Someone should teach him the theory of underpromise but overdeliver. 

Because the reverse is painful as hell. 

[1864roverite]

We are all sore at losing it’s like the opening game away at Southend a few yrs back and home v Doncaster and Wimbledon I am certain we have the players and know how to be top 6 even as bad as today went. Now it’s time for a beer

Edited August 3, 2019 by 1864roverite

[DE.]

It's not the same as losing to Southend. We were confident that we had a squad capable of competing in that division, so losing to them on the opening day was disappointing for a completely different reason. Today's disappointment is down to our terrible defence not being rectified for the entire summer, despite the manager promising to do so at the end of last season, and it costing us three points today. There is justifiably a very real fear that this will continue for the rest of the campaign if something isn't done in the next few days. 

[Silas]

Just now, 1864roverite said:

 I am certain we have the players and know how to be top 6 .....

I see absolutely no signs of that personally, but each to their own. 

[1864roverite]

We all have different opinions so let’s see how it pans out ??

[Exiled_Rover]

He's nothing more than an average manager, which is obviously a damn sight better than a lot of the blokes that have paraded through Ewood in recent years.

That said, the Rao family are still in charge so I don't trust them to hire a better one should Mowbray be fired. We're in limbo as a club until they sell.

[Neal]

Just now, Silas said:

I see absolutely no signs of that personally, but each to their own. 

Exactly. Doesn't matter how good we are goinng forward when we have a league 1 back 4.

[Neal]

Just now, Exiled_Rover said:

He's nothing more than an average manager, which is obviously a damn sight better than a lot of the blokes that have paraded through Ewood in recent years.

That said, the Rao family are still in charge so I don't trust them to hire a better one should Mowbray be fired. We're in limbo as a club until they sell.

I'd genuinely rather have Johno. 

[DE.]

An interesting read six months later. "Targeting 25-28 year old men"...

Johnson - 32
Downing - 35
Gallagher - 23
Tosin - 21
Walton - 23

Nope.

I just wish he'd stick to his word. I'd really like for a supporter to do a podcast interview or something with him, discuss these things he's said and ask what has changed. He may still come out with nonsense but right now it just feels like he's continually lying about doing things, then failing to deliver and saying it's okay. 

Edited August 3, 2019 by DE.

[Tormund]

Damo Johnson as manager, now that would be good.

[Neal]

4 hours ago, DE. said:

I was willing to give him this window to see if he had learned from last season's mistakes and had something new for us, a bit of courage and bravery.

But no. Same old shit. I don't necessarily think we'll go down under TM but we will never, ever crack the top six with him in charge. I'm 100% sure of that. We'll be lucky to get into the top ten, frankly. His recruitment is questionable at best, his team selections make me want to slam my head against a wall and his tactics are incredibly uninspiring. 

He has his good points - he's a good bloke, he's brought unity and togetherness to the club, he pulled us out of the pit when we were at arguably our lowest ebb in the last decade, he's the only manager in the last decade who has had a vision for the club that goes beyond the immediate future (although he shouldn't be the person doing that). Full respect for those things, but if we want to progress Mowbray is just not the man for the job.

Realistically though he is going nowhere any time soon - and to be honest even if he did I am sure our owners would get in somebody worse. It's not just that we aren't going anywhere under Mowbray, we aren't going anywhere under these owners until they realise how important the managerial position is and what the manager's responsiblities should actually be - hint: not running 80% of the club. They don't appear to have learnt this with nearly a decade of experience though so I'm not exactly hopeful anything is going to change in the near future.

Exactly my thoughts. 

[Neal]

1 hour ago, DE. said:

If at the end of last season Mowbray would have come out and said "defensively we're alright, we're going to be starting the first game of next season with the same defenders", I think the calls for him to leave would have been numerous - because it would be an utterly ridiculous statement to make.

This is pretty much where we are now. So I don't see this topic as reactionary, more a response to the fact we were essentially lied to last season by the manager and he's now backtracked on everything he said and we're still leaking goals and losing games because of it. Generally speaking I like Mowbray, but he has made a critical error of judgement and only has a few days to rectify it. His inability or outright refusal to act on fixing our defence has already cost us three points today. It'll likely cost us more at Fulham. IMO supporters have every right to be angry over this. There's no excusing it. He told us in no uncertain terms last season that "defenders are coming" - he lied. We've got one, and he's a 21 year old loanee who has been brought in so late he may not even feature until six points have already been potentially flushed down the toilet. 

In fairness if this was put to Mowbray privately I think he would hold his hands up and admit he's made a mistake. Doesn't change anything though. 

Abso-bloody-lutely. Pretty much nailed my thoughts on the subject again there. This is DEFINATELY NOT reactionary, most of you know my thoughts particularly of his treatment of Joe Rothwell from last season. This is a culmination of all the things mentioned in my first post. I think he somehow thinks he has a free reign at saying anything he wants without the fans questioning him because of him getting us back out of league 1 and it generally being a low pressure job, especially in comparison to other genuine promotion contenders... It's almost like he thinks we'll lap it up and trust him without question. He's absolutely blagging it at the moment and did so far the second half of last season. Our promotion momentum ran out and he's left without the skills to push us on. It's a shame really to see someone so decent just not be up to the job. 

Edited August 3, 2019 by Neal

[Blue blood]

The problems as people say have been there for many years. His positives combined with a raft of utter dros,s in the managerial seat before him, means that TM will not do terribly and therefore always look favourably compared to recent managers. He isn't terrible but my word he isn't good. For me the issues are as follows - and most significantly all go back over a season at least. 

- Defence is a shambles/badly organised. Has been the last 3 years though got away with it in League 1. Especially not having tough defenders after 6 windows suggests TM doesn't really get defending. 

- Playing players out of position for some or all of the game. The alarming thing is this happens rediculously often. Reed  wasted out wide. Bennett poor at right back. Gally & BB ineffective on the wing. Rodwell ar cb. It is hurting us significantly and regularly. The experiments aren't working. 

- Having favourites who keep their positions regardless of how they play

- Made worse by regularly throwing young talent under the bus and/or not playing them. 

- Not getting the most out of young talent - Nayambe, Rothwell and Raya all have the potential to become premier League players. Not a guarantee but to waste such potential is really poor. Any of these who developed in line with their talent would be beyond what we could afford to buy at a developed stage. 

- Unbalanced recruitment. Tons on strikers nothing on defence. Even in League 1 we had positions that looked thin on the ground. 

- Mixed recruitment - Whittingham and Bereton at a costly amount but the likes of Caddis and Harper show there were as many misses as hits. 

- Poor use of the loan market. Each year has seen as many flops as successes. 

- Finally on recruitment - predominantly players he knows. Granted all managers use this to their advantage but it's a straight jacket that is hurting us. 

- Taking too long to change things - the start of the league 1 campaign, the 19 game winless run sans Rothwell - change only comes at a slow pace  

Just get rid. He's not useless but my word TM isn't good. His flaws mean he'll never be very successful and any club with a modicum of professionalism or ambition would pot him. Not being a shower as bad as Coyle does not warrant someone doing a mediocre to poor job.