Tony Mowbray Discussion

[pedrob2014]

15 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

And Smith now...I'd have him here by lunchtime tomorrow 

Well they keep going on about the Brentford model so why not get the manager who started it rolling

[Wheelton Blue]

3 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

We wanted to sell them if they won't re sign so we don't play them forcing them to leave in January 

 

The club can't force the players to do anything; they have a contract of employment to honour.

Why on earth would you bench the likes of Lenihan, Nyambe & Rothwell just because they won't sign a new contract? Who in our current squad would you replace them with? Carter, JRC & Johnson? I'd rather that we played our best players every single game.

[1864roverite]

10 minutes ago, Wheelton Blue said:

I can only assume you didn't attend the Fulham game.

Because believe you me, that was the most embarrassing experience I've had watching the Rovers over 45 years.

We’ve definately had some shockers in my 50 plus years😂 glad I missed Wednesdays game!

[roversfan99]

How the CEO allegedly telling random fans that the managers job was on the line is anything other than totally unprofessional is beyond me. Totally undermining the manager and not something that should happen or would happen at a well run football club.

[Gav]

13 minutes ago, Wheelton Blue said:

I can only assume you didn't attend the Fulham game.

Because believe you me, that was the most embarrassing experience I've had watching the Rovers over 45 years.

I didn't attend the Fulham game no, but lets not pretend we've not had bad results over the years, embarrassing results too, I've been at most of them.

When those goals went in yesterday it was a superb feeling, coming from 0-1 down, the best I've felt for a long time I can tell you. Look at the joy on the faces in Blackburn End when Brereton scored in the link chaddy posted, priceless, absolutely priceless.

[Wheelton Blue]

2 minutes ago, Gav said:

I didn't attend the Fulham game no, but lets not pretend we've not had bad results over the years, embarrassing results too, I've been at most of them.

When those goals went in yesterday it was a superb feeling, coming from 0-1 down, the best I've felt for a long time I can tell you. Look at the joy on the faces in Blackburn End when Brereton scored in the link chaddy posted, priceless, absolutely priceless.

Absolutely, yesterday's game was a joy to witness.

But let's not pretend that Mowbray is some kind of managerial guru who we couldn't hope to better.

[Gav]

Just now, Wheelton Blue said:

Absolutely, yesterday's game was a joy to witness.

But let's not pretend that Mowbray is some kind of managerial guru who we couldn't hope to better.

I've never read anyone claim Mowbrays a managerial guru Wheelton, I'm off the opinion that we will continue to fail regardless of the who the manager is, 10yrs proves that point.

If that offends anyone, I couldn't care less to be honest.

[Wheelton Blue]

6 minutes ago, Gav said:

I've never read anyone claim Mowbrays a managerial guru Wheelton, I'm off the opinion that we will continue to fail regardless of the who the manager is, 10yrs proves that point.

If that offends anyone, I couldn't care less to be honest.

So by that logic, we may as well stick with Mowbray ad infinitum.

[Gav]

2 minutes ago, Wheelton Blue said:

So by that logic, we may as well stick with Mowbray ad infinitum.

I hope it’s not going to be that long until the Pune 3 sod off🙏

Edited November 7, 2021 by Gav

[DE.]

Just a reminder that insults aimed at posters are not acceptable - I'm not somebody who likes to hand out bans, so please consider this a fair warning that whilst debate is encouraged, personal attacks on fellow posters are not. 

[Athlete]

1 hour ago, roverandout said:

Surely with some top managers available like farke wilder etc, the time for change is now

Wilders at boro..

Btw Dean Smith now available

[Wheelton Blue]

With several better calibre managers available, now is the time for the Rovers Board to make a move.

If they dither any longer, we'll be sifting through the dregs.

[roversfan99]

15 hours ago, Mercer said:

Interesting stuff from @Paul Mani

I think Rovers' executive management change their tune so often it's reminiscent of words/meaning to 'Hokey Cokey'.

However, posted earlier this week that I thought even a win wouldn't save Mowbray and I stand by that.  Think that departures of Farke and Warnock (not saying either will replace Mowbray - my money is still on Neill or Wilder in that order) will help focus some minds at Ewood (need for change). 

Wilder obviously has joined Boro today and Warnock implied that a deal had been rumbling on for a while so that guess is wrong. So I am suspecting that all of your money would be on a manager who you said was imminently about to become our manager a year ago!

[chaddyrovers]

47 minutes ago, Wheelton Blue said:

The club can't force the players to do anything; they have a contract of employment to honour.

Why on earth would you bench the likes of Lenihan, Nyambe & Rothwell just because they won't sign a new contract? Who in our current squad would you replace them with? Carter, JRC & Johnson? I'd rather that we played our best players every single game.

Well the club can force the players by not picking them in the 25 man squad meaning they won't play for the next 5 months. 

We have made them good improve contract offers to them. 

How do we replace them by signing their replacements 6 months early. 

[Peter]

16 hours ago, DE. said:

As far as Mowbray is concerned he is obviously doing some things right, or we wouldn't be 7th, we'd be scrapping at the bottom. I don't think TM is useless or completely inept, he just has some deeply-ingrained flaws which stop his teams from overachieving. We have a somewhat solid base which is repeatedly derailed by the same cracks in the foundation.

Top of this list is the constant worrying about the opposition and weakening our own team in misguided attempts to combat the supposed threats of the team we're facing. TM doesn't have enough confidence in his own team and style to just leave it be and let the opposition worry about us. He overthinks things which causes us to lose consistency, especially when we're hovering near the top six positions. 

Secondly I think he struggles to adapt if things are going against us during matches. Today we came back from behind to win, but that's a rare occurance. Normally if we go behind we struggle to get ourselves back into the game. We saw midweek against Fulham that the manager was simply unable to handle the increasingly worsening situation on the pitch, and couldn't even make obvious decisions like get everybody behind the ball and engage in some damage limitation. When things are going our way and we're looking confident it's fine, because he doesn't need to change anything. Even today it's not like we changed anything. Sheff Utd's early goal wasn't because they were set up better than us, it was just one of those things that sometimes happens at the beginning of a match. Overall we were still set up better than them and by the end that was unquestionably proven to be the case. TM's inability to influence matches during the game itself is very reminiscent of Gary Bowyer, and was also one of his biggest weaknesses.

Thirdly, and maybe somewhat related to the above, he doesn't seem to have an answer when it comes to the team losing form. The infamous 'death spirals'. If we lose a couple on the spin we know it's going to be a while before our next win. He eventually finds a way to get us back on track, but usually too late. He just doesn't identify the reasons for our loss in form quickly enough, which means by the time we've started picking up form again we've lost a significant amount of points. Too many to mount any kind of playoff push. It often seems like rather than solve the issue, he simply stumbles upon a solution either through a random team selection or by coming up against a team even worse than us, gaining a win which boosts confidence and masks the underlying issues for a while longer. Although I admit that it may be a little harsh to put this down to luck, but whether it's by luck or design, it takes too long to arrest our poor runs of form. 

I'd say those are his three biggest flaws and the main reason we struggle to overachieve with him at the helm. It's not that he's doing everything wrong, or arguably even a lot wrong, he just has some major flaws which he is either unable or unwilling to improve. Regardless of all of the above he does seem to be able to keep the players onside, which is arguably one of the most important traits a manager can have. Losing the dressing room is the kiss of death for the majority of managers and this never seems to happen with TM, even when we're on a horrendous run it eventually turns around, even if too little too late. 

Is Mowbray a bad manager? For Rovers, probably not. He's just an average manager who is unlikely to improve himself enough to be able to get us to overachieve to the point where we'll finish in the playoff positions. The fact remains that if we have ambitions to get into the playoffs (and with the division as poor as it is there is no reason we shouldn't have that ambition) we need a manager who can impart a proper winning mentality and improve the areas where our current manager is weak. Do Venky's have it in them to find that person? I doubt it. 11 years so far and no sight of a genuine winner in the dugout. Yet at the same time keeping Mowbray means we stay mid-table at best, and that surely can't be the height of our ambition as a club. 

It’s exceptionally difficult to write a fair piece on a manager that has vexed most of us with his mouth this week, as much as with his “performance” on Wednesday, but DE has nailed it here. A thoroughly enjoyable read 

[Exiled_Rover]

3 hours ago, Gav said:

We've take 9 points from the last 12 Rev, just for the record, but carry on.

Even then, during said run we were humiliated on TV. 

Guess which part will live longer in the memories.

[Mercer]

44 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Wilder obviously has joined Boro today and Warnock implied that a deal had been rumbling on for a while so that guess is wrong. So I am suspecting that all of your money would be on a manager who you said was imminently about to become our manager a year ago!

The only thing I would say to you is if someone is looking for a job that person does not put all their eggs in one basket!

I will leave you to join up the dots! 

[DE.]

32 minutes ago, Rolo PB said:

It’s exceptionally difficult to write a fair piece on a manager that has vexed most of us with his mouth this week, as much as with his “performance” on Wednesday, but DE has nailed it here. A thoroughly enjoyable read 

Thanks Rolo 🙂 I've probably been overly critical of Mowbray myself at times, particularly during certain match threads, and his interviews certainly don't help matters. Stripping away the emotion and attempting to look at it objectively, though, I find it hard to argue that he's been a bad manager for us. He's undoubtedly led us through some extremely poor runs of form, and matches like Wednesday are inexcusable, but in terms of the bigger picture he's just been a Bowyer-esque 'average' manager who has strengths and flaws, the latter of which don't improve over time but aren't so deep that they cause the club to completely nosedive like a certain couple of Scots who darkened our doors in 2010 and 2016. 

I'll hold my hands up and say I thought we'd be in a relegation fight this season. I genuinely expected us to struggle. Whilst I do think there is some merit to the suggestion the division is just full of poor teams, credit does still have to go to Mowbray for keeping us above the majority of those poor teams. We can talk about Mowbray getting lucky with BBD's form, but at the same time Mowbray was the one who took the gamble on spending £7m on the kid (still a ridiculous figure), so you can't really hand wave it away by calling it luck. 

He does need to consider the things he says to the media though. Lack of apology aside, some of his comments after Fulham - particularly inciting fans to argue with each other - were completely out of order. He's talked nonsense for most of the time he's been here so that just is what it is, but there's no excuse for some of the things he said on Friday.  

[chaddyrovers]

5 hours ago, Armchair supporter supremo said:

 

If its now as good as set in stone that none of these players are going to be accepting their new contract offers and the club aren't going to budge further on the improving the offers... then really imo there's no point at all playing them from now onwards(never mind from the end of tge year) as the players hearts won't truly be in it especially when their backs are against the wall and also they'll be in sel preservation mode trying to avoid getting injured(pulling out of tackles, ect...)

 

Personally id like to see Brereton and Rothwell sign new deals and they're both worth making them the highest paid at the club if that's what it takes. Lenihan, nyambe I couldn't really care less about although replacing them with(replacing all of them even!) with like for like quality would be ridiculously expensive so surely cheaper just to just give them much improved contracts, which would then also raise there transfer values should they still want to leave down the line. 

We have offered them new improve contracts. Waggott has said they have offered 3 years contracts. 

on Brereton, he is very likely to be moving on this summer, and we have 12 club option on his deal just like Kaminski as well

You could sign 2 players who are out of contract this summer like John Souttar from Hearts and Jon-Joe Kenny from Everton to replace both

[Spartakfenni]

2 hours ago, Wheelton Blue said:

With several better calibre managers available, now is the time for the Rovers Board to make a move.

If they dither any longer, we'll be sifting through the dregs.

Take Smith out of the equation as he’s only just come on to the market. Which other top quality managers are there?

[roversfan99]

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

Well the club can force the players by not picking them in the 25 man squad meaning they won't play for the next 5 months. 

We have made them good improve contract offers to them. 

How do we replace them by signing their replacements 6 months early. 

It would be cutting off our nose to spite our face if we freeze out important players when there is a strong chance that they may not move on.

Our squad is already thin, so if the likes of Nyambe, Rothwell and Lenihan cannot be re-signed, then of course they will need to make them available for transfer. That being said, we cannot take the chance of removing them from the squad altogether in case any of them do not get a transfer that suits them, or no one bids a reasonable amount for them, then what would we do then, considering that they wouldn't be registered?

44 minutes ago, Mercer said:

The only thing I would say to you is if someone is looking for a job that person does not put all their eggs in one basket!

I will leave you to join up the dots! 

I am ok for cryptic, speculative nonsense.

[chaddyrovers]

7 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

It would be cutting off our nose to spite our face if we freeze out important players when there is a strong chance that they may not move on.

I disagree. It would be strong management by Rovers. 

The contract offers are there to be sign or not by them. Time for them to stick or twist. Their choice

9 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Our squad is already thin, so if the likes of Nyambe, Rothwell and Lenihan cannot be re-signed, then of course they will need to make them available for transfer. That being said, we cannot take the chance of removing them from the squad altogether in case any of them do not get a transfer that suits them, or no one bids a reasonable amount for them, then what would we do then, considering that they wouldn't be registered?

Already dress this by saying we sign their replacements 6 months early. 

 

[roversfan99]

5 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

I disagree. It would be strong management by Rovers. 

The contract offers are there to be sign or not by them. Time for them to stick or twist. Their choice

Already dress this by saying we sign their replacements 6 months early. 

 

What if any of the players are not bid for at all by other teams? Or if no teams bid a sufficient amount for us to be willing to accept a bid, especially as our desperation to sell will put us in a poor negotiating position? Or if any of the players choose to decline any offers put their way, especially with the potential of being a free agent potentially able to command a higher signing on fee at the end of the season?

All very realistic scenarios, and ones that could lead to us having important players unregistered and frozen out, but no money to replace them as they are still picking up a wage.

[roverandout]

Until venkys go I don't think any decent manager would come near rovers 

[dallydally]

30 minutes ago, Spartakfenni said:

Take Smith out of the equation as he’s only just come on to the market. Which other top quality managers are there?

Wilder has gone to Boro. Would have been my first choice