Tony Mowbray Discussion

[Upside Down]

I don't really care about finishing first I just don't want to be in the lower leagues anymore.

We should have never been here in the first place. 

[Dreams of 1995]

28 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Is it?

1992 and 2001 are memorable as promotion winning seasons, as that is the aim of a club in a non top flight division. Not winning the ‘title’ in either of those years didn’t matter one jot to me as we ended up in the Premier League! The whole point, a means to an end as your club transforms. 

If other folk were upset that we didn’t collect a tin pot trophy on the way out of the third division, fair enough, but I don’t remember the Oxford occasion or the relief and joy on sealing promotion at Doncaster being any lessened by not possessing it…

I think it is yeah 

Even when I used to run in the egg and spoon race at primary school I wanted to win 

I would like to go up as Champions here but as you say I would be over the moon at going up. It didn’t lessen my joy at promotion at all but it would have been nice to take the trophy too

[Mattyblue]

Ah you see, there’s the difference. The point of said egg and spoon race was to win it, nothing came out of being second, there was no play off to reach the Elite Egg & Spoon League.

Whereas, that isn’t the aim of being in a non top flight football division - promotion is the prize.

[Rogerb]

Has he reverted to type with square pegs in round holes?

[BRFC4EVA]

I don't see why he didn't just keep everything the same, except like for like swaps. Travis out (for Davenport or Johnoson). RN out for Lenihan and then Ayala in like in the previous game?

[booth]

13 minutes ago, BRFC4EVA said:

I don't see why he didn't just keep everything the same, except like for like swaps. Travis out (for Davenport or Johnoson). RN out for Lenihan and then Ayala in like in the previous game?

The main problems, referee aside, were moving Buckley deeper and the right side being completely benign. In the first half most of the attacks came down the right. Gallagher was jogging about waiting for the ball to come to him and JRC was incapable of keeping up and didn’t have a tackle in him. And for some reason Mowbray thought that was acceptable for over an hour.

[ben_the_beast]

43 minutes ago, Rogerb said:

Has he reverted to type with square pegs in round holes?

He did do last night. All Mowbray has to do is not fiddle with things and we stand an outstanding chance of promotion.  

He reverted to Tony Tinkerman last night. He'd best revert to our normal formation moving forwards or it will be the biggest failure of his management to date.

[RoverInverness]

I have thought this for some time. Mowbray might be better as DofF rather than first team coach. His acquisitions have been more positive than negative - no manager’s purchasing record is perfect. He has overseen/been in charge whilst there have been significant improvements in scouting and production of players from the youth team. He is not the worst ‘manager’ in the world.

However, please can somebody else be given responsibility for selecting and setting up the team on match day. Why, after finally coming across a winning formula, did we abandon it last night and drop Buckley in to replace Travis - when we pay a wage to Johnson and Davenport to provide back up in Travis’s position?

He’s not terrible, but please can somebody at the club, do the tactics for him. It’s such a debilitating weakness for him.

 

[rigger]

2 hours ago, RoverInverness said:

I have thought this for some time. Mowbray might be better as DofF rather than first team coach. His acquisitions have been more positive than negative - no manager’s purchasing record is perfect. He has overseen/been in charge whilst there have been significant improvements in scouting and production of players from the youth team. He is not the worst ‘manager’ in the world.

However, please can somebody else be given responsibility for selecting and setting up the team on match day. Why, after finally coming across a winning formula, did we abandon it last night and drop Buckley in to replace Travis - when we pay a wage to Johnson and Davenport to provide back up in Travis’s position?

He’s not terrible, but please can somebody at the club, do the tactics for him. It’s such a debilitating weakness for him.

 

I too think Mowbray could do a job, I just wished it was at a different club.

[roversfan99]

He got his team selection wrong yesterday, he was without a key player and our depth is very weak, Davenport has never totally convinced and Johnson is past it so I understand to an extent why he avoided their selection but it was to the detriment of the teams balance. He is performing brilliantly this season though so lets hope that we get back on track on Monday night.

I have never understood this idea of putting Mowbray as director of football, once he is deemed not suitable for the managerial job, then he should leave the club entirely. Similar to the constant calls for ex players to join as coaches, pure sentimental nonsense most of the time.

[Wheelton Blue]

Let's hope that he can steady the ship and keep us on track.

My fear is that his tinkering etc was always just under the surface.

He's had little choice but to stick with mainly the same team and formation, which luckily for us has got us to where we are and fair play to him in that regard.

The moment that he has to make key decisions, though - like last night - he invariably makes the wrong ones.

[tomphil]

7 hours ago, Wheelton Blue said:

Let's hope that he can steady the ship and keep us on track.

My fear is that his tinkering etc was always just under the surface.

He's had little choice but to stick with mainly the same team and formation, which luckily for us has got us to where we are and fair play to him in that regard.

The moment that he has to make key decisions, though - like last night - he invariably makes the wrong ones.

I think those are the things that separate the good managers from the average.

Tony' got a real chance to prove himself the former now but he also needs a bit of luck over the season with those useless barsteward officials.  I think we'd have got out of jail last night with a remotely competent ref.

Edited January 20, 2022 by tomphil

[47er]

10 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

He got his team selection wrong yesterday, he was without a key player and our depth is very weak, Davenport has never totally convinced and Johnson is past it so I understand to an extent why he avoided their selection but it was to the detriment of the teams balance. He is performing brilliantly this season though so lets hope that we get back on track on Monday night.

I have never understood this idea of putting Mowbray as director of football, once he is deemed not suitable for the managerial job, then he should leave the club entirely. Similar to the constant calls for ex players to join as coaches, pure sentimental nonsense most of the time.

Davenport has never really had a chance to convince.He certainly hasn't been as inadequate as Gallagher whom TM is ruining. But its TM who signed him? Why if he doesn't feel he can play him even in an emergency?

We didn't have any other option in mid-field for mine, but Tony knows best!

[riverholmes]

If you look at the first Hull goal, especially, I think you see three of the key problems that Mowbray faces for the remainder of the season (aside of the ones of his own making by poor selections). Firstly, the three forward players stand off the defender in possession of the ball, allowing him the time to play a long ball.  A major point of playing those three, I thought, was to press the opposition into losing possession.

Secondly, the long ball is played in the space behind the full back and test the pace of the centre backs, who are, generally, not the quickest. And the efforts by JRC to stop the winger are poor. Lack of pace and positioning of the full backs will be costly in our attacking set-up.

Finally, the scoring Hull midfielder ghosts in behind Rothwell who isn't looking around to track runners. A central pairing of two is a vulnerable one, even more so with Rothwell and Buckley who are defensively not that strong.

In other words, we are playing a high risk, "top heavy" formation that can easily get outnumbered if the press is beaten. It puts a lot of onus on the team, from the forwards onwards, to defend as a team and close down defenders, to prevent the passes into the inevitable gaps. 

It seems to me, based on the limited highlights, that the lack of press up front may have contributed to the amount of time Hull to play balls to their tall strikers and this panicked the team - resulting in ending up with a back six defenders in the box trying to stop the goal that Eaves finally scored. If you look at the footage of that goal, the positioning of the team is embarrasingly bad. Three defenders marking one player and Lenihan marking two - and Hull even had a couple of unmarked wingers they could have played it to. Smacks of the organisational and psychological collapse against Fulham.

Edited January 21, 2022 by riverholmes

[ben_the_beast]

21 hours ago, Wheelton Blue said:

Let's hope that he can steady the ship and keep us on track.

My fear is that his tinkering etc was always just under the surface.

He's had little choice but to stick with mainly the same team and formation, which luckily for us has got us to where we are and fair play to him in that regard.

The moment that he has to make key decisions, though - like last night - he invariably makes the wrong ones.

If we go back to the tried and tested for the rest of the season and regain form Mowbray may have cost us a shot at automatic promotion with his selection against Hull. Though the ref was atrocious that defeat lies with Mowbray. The selection was ill thought out and it certainly wasn't forced upon him. There was a like for like replacement with Davenport. 

His job for the rest of the season is stop fiddling with things. We've got a system that works. We've signed a couple of players thus far who can slot into it. I await the lineup vs Boro nervously. As there's a huge fear he's going to get himself way too involved.

Teams generally get promoted from this division based on solid defences. As clunky as we've looked at times, we always looked solid. Keep that going with the formation which suited our players and we will always stand a very good chance. 

[RoversClitheroe]

Mowbray out

[roversfan99]

3 hours ago, RoversClitheroe said:

Mowbray out

Out of interest, as I was certainly like you and most others in wanting him gone last season and did not forsee what has happened since so im gauging how things change.

Im guessing that if you would agree to give him the job until the end of the season, ie if you became CEO today you wouldnt sack him considering our season so far?

And could he possibly earn a new deal in your eyes? With automatic promotion? With promotion through any means? Through a top 6 finish? All of which would be impressive.

[RoversClitheroe]

2 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Out of interest, as I was certainly like you and most others in wanting him gone last season and did not forsee what has happened since so im gauging how things change.

Im guessing that if you would agree to give him the job until the end of the season, ie if you became CEO today you wouldnt sack him considering our season so far?

And could he possibly earn a new deal in your eyes? With automatic promotion? With promotion through any means? Through a top 6 finish? All of which would be impressive.

I'd give him until the end of the season, but the minute he reaches 5 games without a win or 3 losses in a row I'd get rid of him.

With a promotion which is a BIG IF, as a Good CEO, I'd be looking at Managers with form for keeping teams up and get rid of Mowbray, he isn't good enough for the championship as seen last season let alone the Premier League.

A season is 46 games not 20.

[roversfan99]

Just now, RoversClitheroe said:

I'd give him until the end of the season, but the minute he reaches 5 games without a win or 3 losses in a row I'd get rid of him.

With a promotion which is a BIG IF, as a Good CEO, I'd be looking at Managers with form for keeping teams up and get rid of Mowbray, he isn't good enough for the championship as seen last season let alone the Premier League.

A season is 46 games not 20.

You say that a season is 46 games, not 20 and obviously I agree but you chose to constantly focus on 17 games last season rather than the final league position, which to me was damning enough. And also why are you also setting specific buffers for brief runs of form if you truly believe in that 46 game motto? It seems like that only applies when we are doing well.

If Mowbray got us promoted which is less than 50% likely, then how would he be deemed to be "not good enough for the Championship?"

If we went up, big if, then the job overall that he would have done here would go from ok to brilliant so it would be so so hard to justify his dismissal. That being said, I get the scope for a potentially brilliant opportunity regarding a new manager but it would take someone remarkable. 

[Ulrich]

He's earnt the right to see his contract out and you sit down at the end of the season and discuss matters. We're currently in real touching distance of the automatic promotion places, any other choice would be extremely unfair. As fans, we'll be sceptical, we'll see warning signs and God knows we'll all scream and shout on here. I've never been his biggest fan but I wouldn't even consider a change this season.

[1864roverite]

I have been a vocal advocate for change of manager however it is very clear that he has got to be given a huge credit for the turnaround especially after the Fulham game.

I think Rovers need 10 wins to assure a play off spot, after that its a lottery as long as don't finish in 3rd spot!

Anything above 30 points and we can dream of a runners up spot, of course we may see other clubs come from nowhere to make a challenge and we may also see other clubs buckle under pressure. 

Rovers just need a monster of a midfielder and a finisher up front.

[Wegerleswiggle]

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/blackburn-rovers/story/4574368/chasing-premier-league-promotionblackburn-rovers-are-a-success-story-after-a-decade-of-humiliation

Great article and it really highlights how well Mowbray and Waggott have done to turn our Club around. 

[Mattyblue]

Struggling to see how ‘Waggott has turned the club around’ even in that puff piece. 

In just the last twelve months alone this is the bloke that tried to flog off Brockhall, was trying to price some matches for a club that had just finished 15th in the second division at £40 and oversaw our worst ST sales for thirty years. 

 

 

 

Edited January 22, 2022 by Mattyblue

[47er]

21 hours ago, Ulrich said:

He's earnt the right to see his contract out and you sit down at the end of the season and discuss matters. We're currently in real touching distance of the automatic promotion places, any other choice would be extremely unfair. As fans, we'll be sceptical, we'll see warning signs and God knows we'll all scream and shout on here. I've never been his biggest fan but I wouldn't even consider a change this season.

Unless we go on one of those runs eh? The other and more frequent ones I mean.

[Ulrich]

2 minutes ago, 47er said:

Unless we go on one of those runs eh? The other and more frequent ones I mean.

And that's the chance we take, but we're 3rd for a change not within reach, as it normally is. If we nosedive, then he leaves without compo, if he keeps it? Who knows. Don't forget say we do go up we could be really cheeky and look elsewhere.