Valérien Ismaël: Blackburn Rovers Head Coach

[Penwortham Blue]

2 hours ago, bigbrandjohn said:

Aparently he is a disiplinarian. All I hope he doesnt throw his weight around and upset the karma of the team spirit. 

Interesting to see what happens to Dennis and him. 

As far as the style of play is concerned if we get to the play offs he can play 10 men in defence. It works well for our noisy neighbors. 

There was precious little team spirit on show at Swansea, dreadful capitulation.

[RevidgeBlue]

Before a ball is kicked I'm completely underwhelmed with this appointment, but obviously I hope he proves me completely wrong.

The one thing that gives me a bit of hope is that he looks the type who might be able to scare the players into playing out of their skins short term for the next 15 games. Which is really all we need.

Longer term if we don't go up, he doesnt seem the sort of bloke to be messed about so I doubt he'll be able to resist chinning Waggott or Pasha at some point and I cant see it ending well in the long run. Much the same as with our last two coaches.

Until then we'll see how it goes. Welcome to Ewood and the very best of luck Valerian.

[KentExile]

2 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Longer term if we don't go up, he doesnt seem the sort of bloke to be messed about so I doubt he'll be able to resist chinning Waggott or Pasha at some point and I cant see it ending well in the long run. Much the same as with our last two coaches.

In which case we need to support him fully

[RevidgeBlue]

One advantage I can possibly see is he might be more inclined to use the January signings than Eustace and Lowe who looked like they'd had them foisted on them and seemingly weren't keen to use them.

Then at least we wouldnt have signed six players for nothing.

[norwichblue]

7 hours ago, Hasta said:

Ok but just states the obvious that a new manager should be saying. Doesn’t give the warmth that Uncle Tony did. In his first interview.

Not sure what you’re expecting? Don’t we want him to say the things he should be saying?

In my opinion it’s a strong interview, and I feel reassured that we have a safe pair of hands.

As for warmth, French people don’t really do warm. Especially men. I’ve worked in France for 3 years now and can’t recall a single colleague that I would describe as warm. Also, this is professional sport, not pre-school. We want someone to call Venky’s out on their bullshit. We want someone to drop players that aren’t performing.

Regardless, I’m going to get behind Valerian, and get behind the boys. Won’t be judging him until we have some results to judge him on. Until then, I wish him the best of luck in his new role - it’s in all our interest that he succeeds and takes us back to the Premier League. RTID.

 

[Ossydave]

I doubt he was anyones first choice but then again if we'd just poached him from Barnsley a few years ago people would have been over the moon. Strange how he's faltered a bit since. It's not like WBA or Watford are huge clubs and the pressure got to him so who knows. WBA fans are very scathing of him but they're turning into a bit of a banter club themselves switching managers. Saturday will be intriguing to see how we line up etc. He's got decent tools at his disposal if he wants to play how he has at other jobs and joined at a decent time as injuries seem to be clearing up.

[pick32]

Not bothered about route 1 always thought that Tica taca Spain team with Fabregas up top was the most boring football I’d ever seen 

[LeftWinger]

8 minutes ago, pick32 said:

Not bothered about route 1 always thought that Tica taca Spain team with Fabregas up top was the most boring football I’d ever seen 

Give me Ripley and Wilcox bombing down the wings any day.

I used to love watching Duff/Gillespie (on his day) as well.

Tica taca is not as fun to watch as a flying winger.

[Penwortham Blue]

5 minutes ago, LeftWinger said:

Give me Ripley and Wilcox bombing down the wings any day.

I used to love watching Duff/Gillespie (on his day) as well.

Tica taca is not as fun to watch as a flying winger.

Noel and Windy, what a joy. Scotty and Howard G, great times.

Edited 10 hours ago by Penwortham Blue

[Cherry Blue]

Still frustrated thinking what could have been this season if we had management and ownership that wanted success and acted in the interest of football.  Like a fool I'll keep going and get behind the lads as we head for the next crisis. I've seen Waggott and Pasha from a distance the other week and how fans around them appear to accept as the laugh and joke but that's how business is. Behind closed doors is far different and I'm sure that's the case here. 

Some good posts on here over the last few weeks. Arguments, agreements but passion. 

[ossyian]

44 minutes ago, Penwortham Blue said:

Noel and Windy, what a joy. Scotty and Howard G, great times.

Waggy and Gordon Taylor with Hird and Bailey the flying full backs. Was a real joy to watch

[Hasta]

1 hour ago, norwichblue said:

Not sure what you’re expecting? Don’t we want him to say the things he should be saying?

In my opinion it’s a strong interview, and I feel reassured that we have a safe pair of hands.

As for warmth, French people don’t really do warm. Especially men. I’ve worked in France for 3 years now and can’t recall a single colleague that I would describe as warm. Also, this is professional sport, not pre-school. We want someone to call Venky’s out on their bullshit. We want someone to drop players that aren’t performing.

Regardless, I’m going to get behind Valerian, and get behind the boys. Won’t be judging him until we have some results to judge him on. Until then, I wish him the best of luck in his new role - it’s in all our interest that he succeeds and takes us back to the Premier League. RTID.

 

I think he just lacked charisma for me. I probably said the same about Eustace. Don't get me wrong. He could just sit there and go "yeah, y'know, erm, y'know" for 15 minutes and if he gets results it doesn't matter.

 

Edited 9 hours ago by Hasta

[USABlue]

10 hours ago, TimmyJimmy said:

A loud pitiful gutteral groan.  A wailing cry of awfulness. I have no real words just sounds. What have we become and where are we going.  Is this club journeying up or down? Not the worst appointment we could make but the best? Really?! Toss a coin, there's two choices. It will work somehow or it won't. Doesn't exactly smack of a firm hand on the tiller guiding the club forward to ever higher achievements. Oh, here's one, he'll do.

Hail Mary ...

The last two were but got cut off by the knees by the owners and upper management here so does it make a difference? 

[MarkBRFC]

You have to get behind him and give him a chance.

Gut tells me this isn't going to work out well though.

Let's see.

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

6 minutes ago, Tom said:

Is Gueye’s native language French? (I did check but Senegal has quite a lot of languages). May help Big Mak as well if so.

Like all Rovers fans I just really really hope it works out

Wouldn't have said it a couple of months ago - but keeping Gueye happy and fit will be central to us having any chance of top 6.

[47er]

20 minutes ago, MarkBRFC said:

You have to get behind him and give him a chance.

Gut tells me this isn't going to work out well though.

Let's see.

It could have been worse but its hardly a step forward. We had a better manager than him.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

1 hour ago, Penwortham Blue said:

Noel and Windy, what a joy. Scotty and Howard G, great times.

I’ve seen them all since 1961 and the two Mikes were the best pair of wingers we’ve had in all that time. Mike Ferguson and Mike Harrison. The perfect combination of real pace in Harrison and ball playing trickery in Ferguson. 

[Torgeir]

2 hours ago, Ossydave said:

I doubt he was anyones first choice but then again if we'd just poached him from Barnsley a few years ago people would have been over the moon. Strange how he's faltered a bit since. It's not like WBA or Watford are huge clubs and the pressure got to him so who knows. WBA fans are very scathing of him but they're turning into a bit of a banter club themselves switching managers. Saturday will be intriguing to see how we line up etc. He's got decent tools at his disposal if he wants to play how he has at other jobs and joined at a decent time as injuries seem to be clearing up.

Seems to be a type of manager that's better suited to a squad with 'mediocre' players. He has seemingly failed once he has a stronger, better ball-playing, squad than before but I think our current squad and how Eustace has set us up is a perfect foundation for Ismael to work from.

We all want intensity and a hard-working team, and we certainly know the current squad's limitations, but if we can keep going from now until the end of the season we have a chance of making the play-offs.

I'd say based on our contract situation and how long it takes us to do deals, that we would struggle to muster anything remotely close to PL standard in the odd case that we gain promotion.

 

Let's try and enjoy this ride eh? 

[CaptainBeanfart]

2 hours ago, pick32 said:

Not bothered about route 1 always thought that Tica taca Spain team with Fabregas up top was the most boring football I’d ever seen 

Nobody (except maybe Pep and a couple of other elite clubs) plays that style anymore, that's a 20-year-old tactic that has been defeated by high-pressing, high-intensity football. Bournemouth, Brentford, Brighton etc. are the best examples of where modern tactics are at. It's actually been called a 'chaos' strategy because it is almost the opposite of that tica-taca you mentioned.

Edited 8 hours ago by CaptainBeanfart

[joey_big_nose]

3 hours ago, Paul Mani said:

Having had some time to read more about Ismael - his methods, past experience etc. I genuinely think it’s 50/50 that he works out. The comparisons between us and Barnsley are good, but there’s no doubt that he didn’t hit the heights at West Brom, and trying to analyse a managers performance at Watford just hurts my head.

It seems that Big Val, is a strict disciplinarian and whilst that’s a brilliant trait in many ways, IF it goes wrong, you can lose a group and it’s basically over. In a dressing room like Barnsley’s, or ours currently, where players aren’t earning what others at rival clubs are and have been written off, then you can forge an ‘us against the world’ mentality which drives everything. That’s what I think the board are hoping for…

Alternatively, if the wheels come off, he’s proven his teams can hit severe death spirals and im not sure we’d survive another in the Championship.

I hope this works out! 🤞🏽

Yeah - a lot will come down to if he gets a good start... If things kick off well with good results and good team spirit then everyone will get onboard. But if its difficult then it is very easy for the players to get the mindset that they wish Eustace was still here, they don't like Ismael, that the owners are stupid, their contracts are running down etc and mentally check out and start thinking about their next move.

[rog of the rovers]

Hoping Ismael becomes the most successful Rovers manager that has a last name beginning with I

Jim Iley and Paul Ince - lamentable company for sure

Edited 8 hours ago by rog of the rovers

[BagManAway]

Albion fan in peace (I hope that's ok), I just wanted to offer a slightly different perspective on Val from a lot of the noise you'll hear on social media. Val came into our club at a time where we'd just been relegated from the Premier League where there was an expectation that we'd bounce straight back. The owners had taken 5 milllion pounds worth of funds out of the club, they had replaced the very popular Slaven Bilic with Sam Allardyce, and were looking to sell Matheus Pereira, who is undoubtedly the best player we've had for at least 10 years. It was pretty clear that they didn't care, and were starting to make poor decisions.

When Val came in, while our fans weren't against it initially, they were hypersensitive to anything going wrong and looking for another stick to beat the owners with. That summer Pereira was sold for a fee perceived to be way less than his value and he was replaced by Jordan Hugill on loan (who both isn't fit to tie Pereira's boots, but plays up front), which was a last minute DOF panic to get a striker in. Despite the squad weakening his start to the season was strong. The first few games was non-stop, high paced football that was getting results. In some ways he became a victim of his own success because those performances weren't sustainable, and when they dropped off the fans turned, but the performances were never as bad as our fans would make you believe. Reading some of the comments online it's as if Val played defensive football, or hoofball, that's nonsense. We didn't have a Pereira in our team so had to try and find other ways to unlock defences which was sometimes more direct, but it was never defensive. Fans just couldn't wait to turn on the manager because of the vitriol to the owners.

The biggest illustration of this was a 0-0 draw against Derby at home. At this point we were undefeated, top of the league, the second highest scorers in the league, we had 64% possession, 25 shots, 9 on target and the fans booed the team off at the end. Cries were "he's too negative" when we absolutely battered them from start to finish, we just couldn't score because we were trying to get 30 goals a season out of Jordan Hugill and Callum Robinson. It's funny how a narrative can spread online.

As the season progressed, results got worse. Val works the players very hard by all accounts, and our players got tired of it. When Val was sacked, our fans were happy and the rhetoric was "if we get anyone half-competent in, we'll go up". In reality we were one of the worst Premier League teams of all time the season before, we limped to promotion 2 years prior having won something like 2 of our last 9 games, and that was with one player that was a million miles beyond the quality of the rest of the team - and we'd sold him.

Val left us 5th in the league, Bruce came in and took us to 10th that season, and then 24th the next season before getting sacked. He signed Mowatt on a free, Molumby for less than 1 million, which is our current CM partnership. I think long term he needs to have players that fit his system, but I think if you're looking for someone to give you a boost until the end of the season then this is a good appointment.

[yeti-dog]

BagManAway. Thanks for taking the time to post. Your comments are well thought out and push back at some of the more negative WBA fan comments.

I do get that all clubs have stories to tell about previous managers. Ask us about Miwbray for instance and you'll get plenty, and that's before we even start on the likes of Kean, Coyle and Ince!

Anyhow, just wanted to say thank as I found it a really interesting post.

Edited 8 hours ago by yeti-dog

[TimmyJimmy]

11 hours ago, yeti-dog said:

A little bit melodramatic don't you think?

Yes a lot so, apologies. I had just finished off a rather fine bottle of red and got to thinking about the VenkyLand theme park aka the Ewood House of Horrors and I couldn't find the right words. Man this supporting lark is a real trial right now. Does the new guy make things better or worse? Just rinse repeat for me. I actually got to believing we had a shot this season, but now, groan, where's that bottle.

[sharpysharps86]

Wishing Ismael the best of luck. He's going to need it working with those above him.

It feels like a short term appointment, but then you look at the length of contract and think how weird it is that they've given him that deal when he's never lasted long anywhere he's been. Trying to figure out why Rovers do the things they do will lead you to a padded room though, so probably best not to dwell on it.

I hope it works out of course, but equally I suspect we will all be back posting on the next 'new manager wish list' thread in a few months time 😂. He doesn't come across as someone that will take any nonsense, so I expect him to run out of patience with Waggott, Suhail, Gestede, etc. by the time the summer transfer window opens.