Tony Mowbray Discussion

[Mattyblue]

Of course you should expect a CEO to have a level of competence, nous, initiative etc etc, especially on that wage - but it is clear he has none of those qualities, yet they continue to employ him!

The buck stops with them, always.

[islander200]

4 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Of course you should expect a CEO to have a level of competence, nous, initiative etc etc, especially on that wage - but it is clear he has none of those qualities, yet they continue to employ him!

The buck stops with them, always.

Aye iv never argued against the statement that our owners are incompetent.

My only argument is in the Mowbray and Waggott tenure they have been provided with sufficient funds for the squad not to ve in the state it is in.They have had plenty of money leading up to this season.

[Mattyblue]

So presumably they’ll be both out of a job by May?

[islander200]

4 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

So presumably they’ll be both out of a job by May?

I dont think they will be here next season 

[Parsonblue]

1 hour ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Will you get it through your head, the contract situation is nothing whatsoever to do with the owners!

Everything is to do with the owners.  If they want these players to sign surely they would look into why they are not signing.  Clearly they aren't sufficiently interested to look into it and that, for me, is why we will never progress with this bunch owning us.  Mowbray and Waggott will go but someone else will be brought in to manage the decline - the buck stops at the top and that's in Pune not at Ewood Park.

[islander200]

3 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Although to be fair, if the owners allowed a competitive reinvestment of the transfer fee and huge wage savings of the summer, at least some of them could be signed longer term and be considered assets.

Rothwell has one year left on his contract.

Contract negotiations should have been taking place last summer not this one.

Money was available to give Pears a 4 year deal and to sign Ayala.If Mowbray wanted Rothwell tieing down then he should have been going to the owners for the money for that not giving a Boro reserve goalkeeper a 4 year contract.

[chaddyrovers]

7 hours ago, Wheelton Blue said:

Thinking ahead to the position the club will find themselves in at season end:

We'll likely once again end up somewhere in the bottom half.

Mowbray maybe gone, or maybe not. Who knows?

It's possible that we'll have lost some, if not all, of Nyambe, Rothwell, Lenihan for next to nothing.

It's possible that Brereton and Kaminski will be entering their final year, with a similar risk of losing them for nothing.

If a new guy does come in to take over, he'll likely be in a position where the squad once again needs significant investment and a massive overhaul.

Considering the fact that Mowbray will have been here for 5 years, but to be basically back where we started with him, is nothing short of pathetic. What a terrible legacy that would be.

I fully expect Mowbray will leave this season whether in the summer or sack during the season. Yes the new manager/head coach will need to make signings but that could attract a manager cos they will have decent budget and scope squad wise to bring in their own signings from day 1 of them coming in. Don't expect Waggott will leave either

I fully expect that Nyambe and Rothwell will be gone in January transfer window and Brereton and Kaminski will be sold in the summer. 

4 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Although to be fair, if the owners allowed a competitive reinvestment of the transfer fee and huge wage savings of the summer, at least some of them could be signed longer term and be considered assets.

Haven't we been over this before with yourself and others several times already now? 

Yes Rovers have slashed the wage bill this season and I would guess around 30 to 40% given the players we released and the loans we had last season. But thats doesn't mean you over paid players and we have no idea what the players demands are but we know from the club has offered them new improved deals. 

You know the reasons why we couldn't reinvest the Armstrong's money! Do we need to really to go over that again?

Edited October 26, 2021 by chaddyrovers

[Bigdoggsteel]

1 minute ago, chaddyrovers said:

 

I fully expect Mowbray will leave this season whether in the summer or sack during the season. Yes the new manager/head coach will need to make signings but that could attract a manager cos they will have decent budget and scope squad wise to bring in their own signings from day 1 of them coming in. Don't expect Waggott will leave either

I fully expect that Nyambe and Rothwell will be gone in January transfer window and Brereton and Kaminski will be sold in the summer. 

Haven't we been over this before with yourself and others several times already now? 

Yes Rovers have slashed the wage bill this season and I would guess around 30 to 40% given the players we released and the loans we had last season. But thats doesn't mean you over paid players and we have no idea what the players demands are but we know from the club has offered them new improved deals. 

You know the reasons why we couldn't reinvest the Armstrong's money! Do we need to really to go over that again?

We don't know if they will have anything to spend and most recent signs aren't good. The fact we can't tie down our best players and will end up losing money on them wouldn't look great to potential new managers? I think you over estimate our attractiveness to potential managers. We might get an Ainsworth, but could we attract a really exciting one? One who has other options. I have serious doubts. 

[chaddyrovers]

31 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

We don't know if they will have anything to spend and most recent signs aren't good. The fact we can't tie down our best players and will end up losing money on them wouldn't look great to potential new managers? I think you over estimate our attractiveness to potential managers. We might get an Ainsworth, but could we attract a really exciting one? One who has other options. I have serious doubts. 

Like I said before, we lose the first year of our championship spending where we spent nearly 10 million pounds plus I expect Brereton and Kaminski will leave this season. 

I think we would be attractive option to a Chris Wilder given the scope he would have for his own signings, the stadium, training facilities and He would be allow to bring in own staff. 

Yes I think Ainsworth would be able to attract signings that would fit into his tactics and style of play.   

 

[Gone to seed]

Shock, horror, send for the head-doctor - I may be about to revise my opinion of Mr Tony Mowbray...

I was talking to none other than Mick McCarthy today, and commiserating with him about his very recent experience with the Bluebirds. We chatted about the 5-1 reverse they'd suffered at Ewood, and he was saying that football is a strange business, as Cardiff had hit the post and had Nyambe clear off the line before we went on the scoring rampage at the other end, and if their two chances had been converted then maybe the score would have been reversed.

Anyway, he seemed very chilled at the prospect of having more time with his grandchildren now, and quite unconcerned about whether the phone would ring again with another club offering a job.. and then he talked at some length about TM, and how he is well regarded in the game as being a good coach, and how he is being asked to walk a tightrope at Rovers, but with his hands tied behind his back and blindfolded to boot... I asked what he meant, and he said that despite the outward appearance, things at Ewood are definitely not what they seem, and TM is only making the best of what is a very poor set up - just like any of us would do if given an impossible task, with frequent curve-balls served from remote places to make things even harder. He wouldn't go any further in saying what this meant in concrete terms, but just said sagely, TM says things sometimes to wind people up behind the scenes, and is just as powerless in terms of the future of the club as any of us as ordinary fans.

I'm going to put two and two together here and get an odd number .... but my guess is that the whole thing is a complete charade (still) run for the benefit of folk far away, who gain benefit when results go a particular way. That is just my view, but it fits the model that the newly unemployed but very chilled Mick McCarthy set out.

So, for now I'm going to pot the juvenile name calling and gurn-referencing and concentrate on the bigger picture, to see if any patterns, any clues, any obvious questions emerge. Perhaps TM isn't the real scapegoat after all, but just another passenger on the bus like the rest of us (albeit with a better paid job!).

[Gav]

Good read WIR.

This is what some of us have been saying for a while now, the clubs setup to fail and will continue to do so until the owners leave the club, doesn’t matter who the manager is.

That said, Mowbray doesn’t have the ability to get this club promoted, nobody does in my opinion, so I have no problems with him being sacked if that’s the road the club wants to go down, until then he’s a safe pair of hands until new owners save us from this nightmare. 

Edited October 26, 2021 by Gav

[AllRoverAsia]

If the reading of McCarthy's veiled opinion is accurate then surely a man of open and honest integrity could not (continue) to work on behalf of chicken shit.

So he's only in it for the money? I can accept that oddly enough.

I will not go too deep into the EFL Managers Lunch Club, the second rater to the PL version of chancers meeting up for a bevvy and to compare their bank balances.

[RevidgeBlue]

53 minutes ago, WIR Second Coming said:

Shock, horror, send for the head-doctor - I may be about to revise my opinion of Mr Tony Mowbray...

I was talking to none other than Mick McCarthy today, and commiserating with him about his very recent experience with the Bluebirds. We chatted about the 5-1 reverse they'd suffered at Ewood, and he was saying that football is a strange business, as Cardiff had hit the post and had Nyambe clear off the line before we went on the scoring rampage at the other end, and if their two chances had been converted then maybe the score would have been reversed.

Anyway, he seemed very chilled at the prospect of having more time with his grandchildren now, and quite unconcerned about whether the phone would ring again with another club offering a job.. and then he talked at some length about TM, and how he is well regarded in the game as being a good coach, and how he is being asked to walk a tightrope at Rovers, but with his hands tied behind his back and blindfolded to boot... I asked what he meant, and he said that despite the outward appearance, things at Ewood are definitely not what they seem, and TM is only making the best of what is a very poor set up - just like any of us would do if given an impossible task, with frequent curve-balls served from remote places to make things even harder. He wouldn't go any further in saying what this meant in concrete terms, but just said sagely, TM says things sometimes to wind people up behind the scenes, and is just as powerless in terms of the future of the club as any of us as ordinary fans.

I'm going to put two and two together here and get an odd number .... but my guess is that the whole thing is a complete charade (still) run for the benefit of folk far away, who gain benefit when results go a particular way. That is just my view, but it fits the model that the newly unemployed but very chilled Mick McCarthy set out.

So, for now I'm going to pot the juvenile name calling and gurn-referencing and concentrate on the bigger picture, to see if any patterns, any clues, any obvious questions emerge. Perhaps TM isn't the real scapegoat after all, but just another passenger on the bus like the rest of us (albeit with a better paid job!).

Well the only opinion of mine that that load of old codswallop (not aimed at you WIR)  has changed is that of Mccarthy. And not for the better.

If things are that intolerable for Mowbray, why doesn't he just leave?

Old pals act. Then again dinosaurs did use to roam the earth in packs.

[Wheelton Blue]

Presuambly then, if Mowbray was potted and the gig offered to McCarthy, he would dismiss the offer out of hand?

Nah. Didn't think so.

[islander200]

Tony pulis was in the papers when at sheff Wednesday saying how lucky Tony has been being given the time to build his own team.

Id agree with Mcarthy it cant be the easiest working under this set up, but he has  had decent money to work with and a lifetime in the job in the modern era.

[RevidgeBlue]

3 minutes ago, islander200 said:

Tony pulis was in the papers when at sheff Wednesday saying how lucky Tony has been being given the time to build his own team.

Id agree with Mcarthy it cant be the easiest working under this set up, but he has  had decent money to work with and a lifetime in the job in the modern era.

In fact it's so bad he'll have "put up with it" for five and a bit seasons by the end of this one and only a few weeks ago his mate Swag was talking about hopping on a plane to India to sort out a new contract for Tony.

Pull the other one Mick

[matt83]

1 hour ago, WIR Second Coming said:

Shock, horror, send for the head-doctor - I may be about to revise my opinion of Mr Tony Mowbray...

I was talking to none other than Mick McCarthy today, and commiserating with him about his very recent experience with the Bluebirds. We chatted about the 5-1 reverse they'd suffered at Ewood, and he was saying that football is a strange business, as Cardiff had hit the post and had Nyambe clear off the line before we went on the scoring rampage at the other end, and if their two chances had been converted then maybe the score would have been reversed.

Anyway, he seemed very chilled at the prospect of having more time with his grandchildren now, and quite unconcerned about whether the phone would ring again with another club offering a job.. and then he talked at some length about TM, and how he is well regarded in the game as being a good coach, and how he is being asked to walk a tightrope at Rovers, but with his hands tied behind his back and blindfolded to boot... I asked what he meant, and he said that despite the outward appearance, things at Ewood are definitely not what they seem, and TM is only making the best of what is a very poor set up - just like any of us would do if given an impossible task, with frequent curve-balls served from remote places to make things even harder. He wouldn't go any further in saying what this meant in concrete terms, but just said sagely, TM says things sometimes to wind people up behind the scenes, and is just as powerless in terms of the future of the club as any of us as ordinary fans.

I'm going to put two and two together here and get an odd number .... but my guess is that the whole thing is a complete charade (still) run for the benefit of folk far away, who gain benefit when results go a particular way. That is just my view, but it fits the model that the newly unemployed but very chilled Mick McCarthy set out.

So, for now I'm going to pot the juvenile name calling and gurn-referencing and concentrate on the bigger picture, to see if any patterns, any clues, any obvious questions emerge. Perhaps TM isn't the real scapegoat after all, but just another passenger on the bus like the rest of us (albeit with a better paid job!).

Interesting read. But at a few occasions Mowbray has gone out of his way to praise the owners when saying nothing would have sufficed. He’s very much on their side and if it’s true things aren’t all well and he still publicly sucks up to them it makes it worse. 

[Silas]

1 hour ago, WIR Second Coming said:

 ...and TM is only making the best of what is a very poor set up - just like any of us would do if given an impossible task, with frequent curve-balls served from remote places to make things even harder. 

I'm just reading that as issues with finances and transfer dealings.

Which we kind of already knew.

Line a player up, agree fee, agree terms, only for the numpties in India to blow it all last minute by refusing final sign off.

Would be frustrating as hell after all the effort has gone in previously. 

But I genuinely don't see how the owners can be massively influencing the club on a day to day and week to week basis. They appear to just leave TM and his staff to get on with things.

Interesting story though. 

[Gone to seed]

I guess we will never know, but if it was any of us, on a fabulous wage and very little pressure to do anything other than told, then perhaps we'd just keep the head down and carry on until the gig ran out.

As for Mr McCarthy, he looked the picture of health and relaxation, and was under no duress to express an opinion one way or the other about TM to me. 

Anyway, I've done my bit - I've let you lot hear what was said when I spoke face to face to a real ITK today. He isn't as tall as I thought! Does he tell tall tales about his 'mates' in the game? Who knows!  🙂

[Silas]

9 minutes ago, WIR Second Coming said:

I guess we will never know, but if it was any of us, on a fabulous wage and very little pressure to do anything other than told, then perhaps we'd just keep the head down and carry on until the gig ran out.

Pretty sure I would, no doubt.

But here's one for you, if I did, I certainly wouldn't be slagging off the fans, because I would understand why they were angry, as I knew what a shambles it was behind the scenes. 

That's what doesn't add up to me. The way he attacks us and defends them is way beyond 'towing the party line'. It would be easy enough to do a few token gestures, put on a bit of a show for the bosses.

He does it with real gusto and passion (probably the most he shows on any topic). If you were constantly having the rug pulled out from under you, you'd cash your paycheck, say yes sir, no sir, whilst secretly giving them the finger behind your back.

Does Tony strike you as someone in that position? Definite no for me. 

[DE.]

I mean, it's no secret the club's structure is a joke. I've been banging on about it since the Bowyer days. The #1 issue at the club is not the manager, it's the inability of the owners to implement any kind of coherent foundation for any manager to have any success with. Mowbray has been financially backed to some degree, that much is true, but there is so much more to running a successful club at this or any other level. Being allowed to throw £7m or £5m at the odd player, regardless of ability, doesn't mean much when the fabric of the club itself is so obviously flawed.

With that said there are things the manager does that are ridiculous, irrespective of how the club is structured. If Mowbray is regarded as a top coach by people in the game then good for him, but that doesn't excuse the way he speaks about some of our players in public, the bizarre formations and choices of personnel in certain positions, digs at the fans regarding the past or nonsense about formations not being important or not looking at the league table. At a normal club Mowbray would have been out on his arse some time ago after some of the horrendous runs we've endured under his watch, so whilst it must be difficult working for Venky's, he's also been very lucky in being allowed to continue here for as long as he has. In many ways he's benefited from the owners' inexplicable management style - even when getting the job in the first place.

So, for me it goes both ways. The club is a basket case no matter how 'stable' things appear on the outside, and I do not foresee us ever being successful with the current owners at the helm. However, Mowbray has made plenty of big mistakes even taking that into account. His overall performance can be debated until the end of time, but there's no question he has gone stale here and like any manager who has been at a club for a long period of time, it eventually comes time to move on and try something else. The frustration comes from that obvious fact not being acknowledged by those in charge of the club, despite them acknowledging it before with the likes of Bowyer and Coyle. It leaves the impression of a rudderless ship being helmed by people who know their time is up but are willing to cruise along as we slowly sink beneath the waves.

Although, with the amount of players out of contract this summer, we may not be too far away from suddenly capsizing completely.

[islander200]

The likes of Lenihen, Nyambe and Rothwell the players with only a year left should have been sorted with new deals last summer.

We can blame the owners for the contract situation due to the budget being slashed back this season but the money was there to get at least one or two of them sorted last summer so to me as much as Mowbray moans about it in the media he is as much to blame as anyone.

I just cant get my head round why the owners would allow him to bring in 11(granted half of those were loans but they still cost)  players last season 12 if you include Pickering but wouldnt allow new deals for the 3 mentioned.

Ayala was given a deal and going off his previous wage and speculation at the time he would be top end of our wage ceiling, Pears was given a 4 year contract, Downing was resigned purely as a voice in the dressing room it seems as he hardly played.Dack got a new deal.

We sign a left back for 650k and then leave him at Crewe for the second half of the season despite both our left backs proving sub standard in the first half of the season.Second season of paying Mulgrew near 14k a week for playing his football elsewhere.

Yes overall blame lays with the owners for not taking any interest and in their reign never once putting competent people in charge but this contract situation Mowbray and co on the ground have screwed us big time.I just dont believe they were pushing the owners for new contracts last summer when it should and could  have been done with the money wasted.

 

 

[Sparks Rover]

1 hour ago, islander200 said:

 

I just cant get my head round why the owners would allow him to bring in 11(granted half of those were loans but they still cost)  players last season 12 if you include Pickering but wouldnt allow new deals for the 3 mentioned.

That's assuming they want new deals.  I believe they will leave for nothing.

[Bigdoggsteel]

17 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Like I said before, we lose the first year of our championship spending where we spent nearly 10 million pounds plus I expect Brereton and Kaminski will leave this season. 

I think we would be attractive option to a Chris Wilder given the scope he would have for his own signings, the stadium, training facilities and He would be allow to bring in own staff. 

Yes I think Ainsworth would be able to attract signings that would fit into his tactics and style of play.   

 

We spent that money pre-covid. Surely you see that will impact and spending won't be the same? In fact it could be non-existent going off the fact we can't get key players to sign new deals. 

He might get players to fit his style of play, but far, far from guaranteed that would get us anywhere unfortunately , particularly if we lose keep players and don't reinvest. In fact , it could be very bad. For all Mowbrays faults and even with Ainsworths links to the club, the reality id Mowbray is possibly the one who would keep us up in the division 

For me to be positive , we need to start signing key players to new contracts

Edited October 27, 2021 by Bigdoggsteel

[Bigdoggsteel]

13 hours ago, islander200 said:

The likes of Lenihen, Nyambe and Rothwell the players with only a year left should have been sorted with new deals last summer.

We can blame the owners for the contract situation due to the budget being slashed back this season but the money was there to get at least one or two of them sorted last summer so to me as much as Mowbray moans about it in the media he is as much to blame as anyone.

I just cant get my head round why the owners would allow him to bring in 11(granted half of those were loans but they still cost)  players last season 12 if you include Pickering but wouldnt allow new deals for the 3 mentioned.

Ayala was given a deal and going off his previous wage and speculation at the time he would be top end of our wage ceiling, Pears was given a 4 year contract, Downing was resigned purely as a voice in the dressing room it seems as he hardly played.Dack got a new deal.

We sign a left back for 650k and then leave him at Crewe for the second half of the season despite both our left backs proving sub standard in the first half of the season.Second season of paying Mulgrew near 14k a week for playing his football elsewhere.

Yes overall blame lays with the owners for not taking any interest and in their reign never once putting competent people in charge but this contract situation Mowbray and co on the ground have screwed us big time.I just dont believe they were pushing the owners for new contracts last summer when it should and could  have been done with the money wasted.

 

 

Nah, it's totally on the owners imo. 

You don't understand why we would bring in 11 players, am because we needed them? As for Pickering, not ideal, but Douglas didnt work out and Crewe might not have done the deal without us loaning him back. Pears is on peanuts, but ya he doesn't look great. Small fry really though. Downing wasn't a crucial signing at all, but the owners ended up complicating that deal and leaving a bad taste. Would you not have given Dack a new deal?? I don't understand that point...

What could we do about Mulgrew? His form disintegrated. It happens. 

Ayala has been arguably our best player when fit, no issue with him being top earner. Lenihan must want more though and not paying that isn't Mowbrays choice.