Tony Mowbray Discussion

[tomphil]

Just proves what we've been saying all along this guy has no real core style.

That's why his signings are scattergun and he's constantly swapping around. He's trying to copy other teams but he keeps changing his mind which one.

How many has he held up now as the benchmark in the last few years ?  

Problem is he's trys to mould players he already has and the square pegs for round holes he's signed into something resembling what other clubs are doing.

How about sign some bloody players to fit a style instead of the opposite way around.

[BlackburnEnd75]

6 minutes ago, tomphil said:

Just proves what we've been saying all along this guy has no real core style.

That's why his signings are scattergun and he's constantly swapping around. He's trying to copy other teams but he keeps changing his mind which one.

How many has he held up now as the benchmark in the last few years ?  

Problem is he's trys to mould players he already has and the square pegs for round holes he's signed into something resembling what other clubs are doing.

How about sign some bloody players to fit a style instead of the opposite way around.

I think this is an interesting point. He clearly highlighted a move towards a passing style but then he signed Bradley Johnson for example who had struggled adapting to that style at Derby. Hes much more suited to the old 4-4-1-1. When he speaks about players he tends over state their flexibility.  

That's why you end up with a situation where we have played for most of the season with wingers yet have no single natural winger (although downing used to be in his younger days). That's why I'm slightly enthusiastic about the 3 uptop we are trying because it actually suits Armstrong who is our main threat atm post dacks injury.

The main teams I can recall him wanting to emulate are Brentford and Norwich. Now they had a different recruitment approach. Norwich pick up players from abroad on the cheap eg Bundesliga 2 but a lot of Brentford players were picked up as cast offs from the big prem clubs like dasilva and canos. They spread their money around too.

Maybe he thought the likes of brereton and Gallagher could be moulded into the style he ends up on or that having versatile players gives him options if it doesn't work. But you look at those teams have they have an identity and a fixed idea so if they sign a player it's with a fixed idea of where they fit in. And we haven't been doing that.

[tomphil]

22 minutes ago, BlackburnEnd75 said:

I think this is an interesting point. He clearly highlighted a move towards a passing style but then he signed Bradley Johnson for example who had struggled adapting to that style at Derby. Hes much more suited to the old 4-4-1-1. When he speaks about players he tends over state their flexibility.  

That's why you end up with a situation where we have played for most of the season with wingers yet have no single natural winger (although downing used to be in his younger days). That's why I'm slightly enthusiastic about the 3 uptop we are trying because it actually suits Armstrong who is our main threat atm post dacks injury.

The main teams I can recall him wanting to emulate are Brentford and Norwich. Now they had a different recruitment approach. Norwich pick up players from abroad on the cheap eg Bundesliga 2 but a lot of Brentford players were picked up as cast offs from the big prem clubs like dasilva and canos. They spread their money around too.

Maybe he thought the likes of brereton and Gallagher could be moulded into the style he ends up on or that having versatile players gives him options if it doesn't work. But you look at those teams have they have an identity and a fixed idea so if they sign a player it's with a fixed idea of where they fit in. And we haven't been doing that.

Sheff Utd was the other one but we've in no way ever resembled what they'd been building for years apart from flirting with a back 3 maybe.

Preston as well although i think that was more comparing improving finishing position year on year.  There's probably another in there as well but can quite recall who.  Now he's bemoaning the constant not converting chances whilst highlighting Armstrong as our most potent weapon but totally absolving himself of the signings of Gallagher, Brereton and Samuel. The one's most guilty of missing chances but also the one's nobody else is surprised they do given their lack of goals before HE paid money for them.

I'm done listening to him now he's a total waffle merchant and to be honest some of it is insulting now really. However we have a director who'll always have his back because he basically works for him and owners who swallow any old guff by the bucket load if they like you.

We are still on course for our best ever Championship finish under this lot even if we miss the play offs so for that he deserves credit if we manage it. However it's always tinged with a large dose of a feeling we are blowing a good opportunity that might very soon evaporate and some of that is down to him as well.

Edited June 29, 2020 by tomphil

[JHRover]

3 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

I wish we have the Brentford model of scouting and finding these gems. Its something the club should have implement years before Mowbray time. We have a good scouting network under Hughes then after he left we seen to go backwards in terms of scouting. Hopefully we are heading back to having a good scouting network and knowledge 

I suspect that after Mowbray leaves we might end up going to the Sporting Director and head coach structure route. With Damien Johnson taking over as head coach which i would be happy with. Others wouldn't. We have tried this director of football/sporting director thing 3 times with Shebby Singh or Paul Senior or Simon Hunt. 

Am I right to think JHRover that you would like Mick McCarthy or Chris Hughton type of manager ?

If we needed a new manager then yes, McCarthy and Hughton would be at the top of my list. As would Neil Warnock. I think all 3 are 'achievable' managers for us and all 3 with some reasonable support and backing would have us in or around the promotion picture. I anticipate all 3 will be in work in the Championship by this time next year and will be proving themselves as skilled operators. 

As i said earlier, i think our best chance of promotion out of this league isnt via Mowbray's fairytale ambitions of us emulating Bielsa's Leeds or Bilic's West Brom or unique club Brentford. It is going to be through emulating Warnock's Cardiff, Bruce's Hull, Hughton's Brighton or Dyche's Burnley. No frills, no ideals of nice possession football or outplaying the opposition and talking about how many chances we had. It will be through being defensively tight, really tough to beat, nasty, streetwise and being built upon having a settled XI who know themselves inside out, back to front and only changing things when we need to.

Sadly I don't think Mowbray is the man to every deliver that, because he isn't capable of organising a defence along those lines, confuses himself with what he is trying to deliver and has these fanciful principles of football purity. It worked for him 12 years ago at West Brom because they were the best squad in the division. It won't work here, in my opinion, if we want promotion.

But ultimately it depends on which way we want to go as a club. The above would be ideal if we wish to stick with a 'traditional' approach of allowing the manager to run the show including recruitment and essentially manage the club on the owners behalf as Mowbray has done. Many managers of the older school variety would relish such conditions, the freedom to run things as they wanted, dictate recruitment and not have to accommodate interfering directors.

I've no problem if the club does want to go down the head coach route but I'll take some persuading that throwing experienceless Damien Johnson into the madhouse of the Championship tasked with delivering results under a 'head coach' structure will work in any sense of the word. Rather than following some grand plan of succession a la Brentford it will simply be the easy, cheap and popular in-house route that the likes of Waggott and Venkys would relish to avoid having to conduct a proper search and pay accordingly. 

The talk of copying Brentford is nonsense because as a club were are simply a million miles away from being able to implement such a structure. What Brentford have now has been almost a decade in the planning, a result of their owner having a well thought out plan of how to grow them whilst balancing the books and overcoming their small size, crowds and pulling power. To that end they have assembled a very well structured backroom staff and are the envy of the division. If it was as simple as jealous clubs wanting to copy them then everyone would have found out how to by now.

We are just about as far away from that as any club can be. Rather than have a thought out strategy from the owners down and employ staff to deliver it, we have no idea at all from the owners, a manager who likes to tell people that we are copying Brentford but is ill equipped to deliver it. 

As Brentford showed with the ruthless sacking of Warburton after they got into the play-offs, if the manager doesn't fit the plan you get rid. Imagine if that had been here,

You credit the scouting network under Mark Hughes as being good and having regressed since then. I would agree although i think we also brought in some good bargains under Allardyce using his contacts which did well for the club. The trouble is that i believe the excellent recruitment under Hughes and Allardyce were due to those managers, their contacts and skills in the market in conjunction with their team of coaches and scouts, rather than a result of Rovers and their structure. The only credit anyone above the managers gets is that they appointed those managers and backed them when they asked for the players. 

Brentford is completely different as the 'club' takes centre stage in identifying and recruiting talent, and that process continues uninterrupted whilst the head coach does his job on the pitch. Head coach moves on or gets fired - find a successor yet the plan and recruitment continues without disruption. 

I appreciate Mowbray's efforts at rebuilding scouting from the shell it was a few years ago. But I stop short of believing he has installed some super duper Brentford-rivalling network that is going to benefit the club with brilliant signings for years to come. My view is that he has assembled a scouting department, which is an improvement on what the owners had left us with before he arrived, but i don't think we are remotely near to most other clubs at this level and won't be any time soon. I also think when Mowbray goes there will be no plan for succession and the next bloke may well have a different view entirely and have to spend years changing things again. 

The 'European scouting' system Mowbray has talked about since his arrival and is now more than 2 years in the pipeline still hasn't delivered a single hidden gem signing to suggest it is working. The only 'European' signing we've made was Holtby although he was well known around the country already. There's more to it than that. It shouldn't take 2 years to deliver.

I don't criticise Mowbray in that respect, nor do i want to give the impression I don't like the bloke. He has done well all things considered and if we go close but fall short this season i think it probably represents a decent season. But I've little faith in things going to the next level, more to do with the lunatics upstairs than anything else.

Edited June 29, 2020 by JHRover

[DeeCee]

Great post ?

[tomphil]

Its been touched on before but spewing 12 million on 2 'investment' types and selling your homegrown keeper for a few million to the club who's formula you claim you want to emulate is actually a million miles from it. This is why i find some of the pure waffle insulting it's just backside covering at worst and straw clutching at best.

Both Brentford and Sheff Utd put their building blocks in place years ago and have stuck to a formula. In the last few years alone we've changed tack several times and look like doing again. Ok there's a transitional period but from what to what  ? Unless you buy quality footballers you won't achieve quality football consistently enough to be at the top.

Unless you spend your money on an actual goalscrorer or two you won't get the chances put away in tight games to make that extra bit of difference. You can't be surprised when the types we have miss the chances they do.  All this needs building on a reliable regular keeper and a solid pair of regular center halves not changing every season or window.

Where actually are we on all this  ?  Surely that's how you build a successful team over a number of years.

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Warnock obviously was " achievable " but the powers that be thought Coyle was a better bet ! That fact alone tells me all I need to know about the people running the club. He's at 'Boro now and I expect he'll be successful there.

As I've said before I would have replaced Mowbray after the promotion season. You have to be ruthless to succeed in football, as Brentford showed with Warburton. His stock was high at the time, he would have got another job easily, and more importantly we could have got somebody in to build on that position of relative strength. 

As it stands now the chances are other clubs will be looking at our better players. The better players may decide they've had enough of being at a club with no real ambition and want a move. The loanees will go back. We'll be left with a squad of old timers and younger guys who aren't up to the required standard. In real terms we are going backwards.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[47er]

10 hours ago, JHRover said:

I don't criticise Mowbray in that respect, nor do i want to give the impression I don't like the bloke. He has done well all things considered and if we go close but fall short this season i think it probably represents a decent season. But I've little faith in things going to the next level, more to do with the lunatics upstairs than anything else.

 

I agree with most of what you say but Venkys surely didn't insist that Mowbray sign Gallagher for £5m and Brereton for £7M?

Nor do they insist he plays Gallagher on the wing!

[chaddyrovers]

13 hours ago, JHRover said:

I've no problem if the club does want to go down the head coach route but I'll take some persuading that throwing experienceless Damien Johnson into the madhouse of the Championship tasked with delivering results under a 'head coach' structure will work in any sense of the word. Rather than following some grand plan of succession a la Brentford it will simply be the easy, cheap and popular in-house route that the likes of Waggott and Venkys would relish to avoid having to conduct a proper search and pay accordingly. 

 The talk of copying Brentford is nonsense because as a club were are simply a million miles away from being able to implement such a structure. What Brentford have now has been almost a decade in the planning, a result of their owner having a well thought out plan of how to grow them whilst balancing the books and overcoming their small size, crowds and pulling power. To that end they have assembled a very well structured backroom staff and are the envy of the division. If it was as simple as jealous clubs wanting to copy them then everyone would have found out how to by now.

We are just about as far away from that as any club can be. Rather than have a thought out strategy from the owners down and employ staff to deliver it, we have no idea at all from the owners, a manager who likes to tell people that we are copying Brentford but is ill equipped to deliver it. 

 As Brentford showed with the ruthless sacking of Warburton after they got into the play-offs, if the manager doesn't fit the plan you get rid. Imagine if that had been here,

Brentford is completely different as the 'club' takes centre stage in identifying and recruiting talent, and that process continues uninterrupted whilst the head coach does his job on the pitch. Head coach moves on or gets fired - find a successor yet the plan and recruitment continues without disruption. 

Firstly, your post is of great detail, knowledge and enjoyment to read it.  

Brentford as a club is a model of how the sporting director and head coach does work similar to Norwich under Stuart Webber. 

The owners of Rovers have not invested in a proper management structure for a number of years since Allardyce, Williams and Finn left the club. We have tried director of football 3 times but never committed properly to the structure and way forward in a great detail plan ever. The club have a perfect chance to do this. I spoke to Paul Senior, he wanted to bring in the structure needed but I always felt the owners never wanted to invest the money need. Just imagine if they had 5 years ago or ever when they took charge of the club, we could have been similar to Brentford or Norwich in finding these gems. Instead we have wasted money on 2 strikers who so far not produce the quality or produce on the pitch to justify the fee paid. 

We knew about the Brentford model 5 or 6 years when we played there and they were a number of articles about them since then on the recruitment and identifying players with proper investment. 

13 hours ago, JHRover said:

I appreciate Mowbray's efforts at rebuilding scouting from the shell it was a few years ago. But I stop short of believing he has installed some super duper Brentford-rivalling network that is going to benefit the club with brilliant signings for years to come. My view is that he has assembled a scouting department, which is an improvement on what the owners had left us with before he arrived, but i don't think we are remotely near to most other clubs at this level and won't be any time soon. I also think when Mowbray goes there will be no plan for succession and the next bloke may well have a different view entirely and have to spend years changing things again. 

The 'European scouting' system Mowbray has talked about since his arrival and is now more than 2 years in the pipeline still hasn't delivered a single hidden gem signing to suggest it is working. The only 'European' signing we've made was Holtby although he was well known around the country already. There's more to it than that. It shouldn't take 2 years to deliver.

Yes Mowbray is building the scouting from nothing and so far we haven't seen any end results from the European scouting yet. I get the feeling that we have only really had this working properly in the last few months before the pandemic hit the country. Why it has taking so long to bring in the network or people with the experience need to scout overseas.is the lack of funding from the owners that we only seen to have structure come in the place last 6/9 months? 

 Mowbray talks about signings players from overseas at the Supporters consultation meeting and from his comments I would expect the bulk of signings to be from overseas. I 

 

13 hours ago, JHRover said:

You credit the scouting network under Mark Hughes as being good and having regressed since then. I would agree although i think we also brought in some good bargains under Allardyce using his contacts which did well for the club. The trouble is that i believe the excellent recruitment under Hughes and Allardyce were due to those managers, their contacts and skills in the market in conjunction with their team of coaches and scouts, rather than a result of Rovers and their structure. The only credit anyone above the managers gets is that they appointed those managers and backed them when they asked for the players. 

Both managers have good knowledge of the overseas but have good people around them in recruitment areas. But when the current owners take over they allowed our scouting and recruitment departments became none existed until Mowbray has rebuild them to a point. Investment in these departments could have saved The currents owners millions in wasted signings over the years. 

 

[phili]

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

Firstly, your post is of great detail, knowledge and enjoyment to read it.  

Brentford as a club is a model of how the sporting director and head coach does work similar to Norwich under Stuart Webber. 

The owners of Rovers have not invested in a proper management structure for a number of years since Allardyce, Williams and Finn left the club. We have tried director of football 3 times but never committed properly to the structure and way forward in a great detail plan ever. The club have a perfect chance to do this. I spoke to Paul Senior, he wanted to bring in the structure needed but I always felt the owners never wanted to invest the money need. Just imagine if they had 5 years ago or ever when they took charge of the club, we could have been similar to Brentford or Norwich in finding these gems. Instead we have wasted money on 2 strikers who so far not produce the quality or produce on the pitch to justify the fee paid. 

We knew about the Brentford model 5 or 6 years when we played there and they were a number of articles about them since then on the recruitment and identifying players with proper investment. 

Yes Mowbray is building the scouting from nothing and so far we haven't seen any end results from the European scouting yet. I get the feeling that we have only really had this working properly in the last few months before the pandemic hit the country. Why it has taking so long to bring in the network or people with the experience need to scout overseas.is the lack of funding from the owners that we only seen to have structure come in the place last 6/9 months? 

 Mowbray talks about signings players from overseas at the Supporters consultation meeting and from his comments I would expect the bulk of signings to be from overseas. I 

 

Both managers have good knowledge of the overseas but have good people around them in recruitment areas. But when the current owners take over they allowed our scouting and recruitment departments became none existed until Mowbray has rebuild them to a point. Investment in these departments could have saved The currents owners millions in wasted signings over the years. 

 

With Brentford, it is not just about a Director of Football (although they have 2) but a whole philosophy that the owner has implemented into the club based on Brentford not being able to compete with other London clubs. They have taken the strengths they have and blended these in such a way as to be competitive and self sustaining. 

Also their owner owns several data analytics and sports data companies that they also use to guide their recruitment process.

This is a relatively old article but it covers most of the philosophies and why they implemented their approach. Also goes into a lot of detail on their scouting approach and data file they create on each signing. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2718752-. With this approach i can buy into a long term strategy and taking 5 years to get to the premier league with a structure built to keep us there but the Mowbray longterm approach is just a waste of 2 seasons and 4 transfer windows so far with no end to our mediocrity insight.

I would agree that we should go down a similar route to Brentford if we had good owners but we haven't a chance with Venky's, our best bet would be to get Warnock or Mick McCarthy in with a £m promotion bonus and let them get to work now. The only problem would be that we would be a yoyo club for a couple of seasons.

[philipl]

I know we have had injuries but how often has Mowbray put the strongest team onto the pitch from the squad available in the last two seasons?

I am really struggling with this.

[DeeCee]

44 minutes ago, philipl said:

I know we have had injuries but how often has Mowbray put the strongest team onto the pitch from the squad available in the last two seasons?

I am really struggling with this.

Or in their proper positions?

[Darwen Rover 007]

The Tonyasauras needs to be replaced 

[RV Blue]

Does anyone think he should still be our manager next season?

[tomphil]

If anything sums him up it's the last 3 games and i don't for one min think the guy is that muddled. He's absolutely effing coasting it here, maybe he has an eye on next season and the short summer and doesn't want to beast them. When you are a few points off the play offs though and in with as good a shout as anyone you need to give it a right go.

He's no intention whatsoever of that though despite what he might say. I seriously question his motives now.

His absolute dogshit signings of Brereton & Gallagher cost us time and again and SAmuel ?  Well iv'e been saying it since i first saw him the guy is just not, never has been and never will be a goalscorer. Another of Tony's 'nice guy' projects though.

#### off !

Edited June 30, 2020 by tomphil

[Darwen Rover 007]

Push the boat out get Chris Hughton in now set us up for next season..

Mowbray = Mediocrity 

[G Somerset Rover]

He’d have slung his hook for me for spunking £12 million up the wall with signing two absolute dollopers in Gallagher and Brereton alone. There’s simply no plan. He doesn’t know his best team, his tactics are muddled at best, he consistently plays 3-4 players out of position per match, the football is largely p*sh despite what the pundits will tell you. He has to go - it’s simply not good enough.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Gavlar Somerset Rover!

[philipl]

Get rid- simple.

[Darwen Rover 007]

Mowbray has not addressed fundamental problems with the team..

1.  CB issues 

2.  LB issue 

3.  Wasted £5m on Gallagher 

4. Gk issue.

5.  Plays players out of position all the time - why??? I don't get it.. 

6.  Always plays his favourites even though they're not good enough.

7.  We ALWAYS BOTTLE it when we get close this is Tony's mindset! 

Utterly frustrated with this man.

Time to roll the dice Venkys 

Ps forgot to add the waste of £7m Ben... 

Edited June 30, 2020 by Darwen Rover 007

[Preben]

He has to go immediately, we need to start again and build a squad.

Which players have improved under TM.

Mulgrew, Bennett and Samuel in our first team wtf!?

[RoverDom]

Got to go for me now, sick of how many times we've got within a sniff of the play offs and then gone an abysmal run of form. I've found it really hard following rovers the last two seasons, rarely excited by a starting line up and not excited by a win because it ultimately counts for nothing when we throw away all the hard work down the track. 

[Silas]

Enough's enough. 

I don't wanna end up disliking the guy, but much more of this, and that's where it's heading. 

[Ewood Ace]

Groundhog day. Get Rid of him Now!

[rigger]

25 minutes ago, RV Blue said:

Does anyone think he should still be our manager next season?

ToMo

[DE.]

Every manager has a lifespan at whatever club they're at and Mowbray has reached his. He had a big chance this summer to seriously get us into playoff contention and he completely blew it. We've been left weak in numerous positions across the pitch, either because the players brought in aren't good enough or have never been used in the right way. I fear for what comes next under the idiots in charge, but Tony is done here. Unfortunately I'm not convinced he or anybody above him realises that yet.