Middlesbrough and Huddersfield were success stories given where they were when he took over. Aberdeen granted a failure but its his Championship record I am interested in. It's 13-16 games and 2-3 months of a job. No more than that. He can return to retirement a bit wealthier in May. We are in no position to turn our noses up at tried and proven operators just because they are getting on a bit. It is taking unnecessary gambles or the dross we are being linked with now that is a bigger risk.

Take out his time at Middlesbrough, and he's managed 134 games across 4 clubs winning 44 of them. His average tenure has been 33 games. Since 2021 he has had 21 games with Granada and 23 games with Maccabi Tel Aviv. I've ignored his Middlesbrough spell as that appears to be very much an outlier, where he was blessed with heavy backing, a stable club and a good chairman. Quite irrelevant to the situation here. I do think he is a fiery individual though and I also don't see him as a desperado who will accept any old rubbish to get a job. Expect he has applied but could quite quickly give it up as a bad job when he realises what they're giving him.

I'll keep on saying it because I believe it is the obvious and correct course of action but I really wish the clowns running the club would just pick up the phone to Warnock, offer him what he wants to take it until the summer, offer him £1 million bonus if he pulls it off and let him get on with it. It is a total no brainer. It buys us 3 months to work out what the hell we are going to do come the summer whilst also giving it to the safest pair of hands available for a shot at the play-offs. What on earth they are doing if they are speaking to the names Nixon is mentioning I do not know but it isn't going to end well. They clearly don't know what they are doing or looking for, too many cooks spoiling the broth and they're going to end up getting a panic appointment or a middle ground that just isn't what is needed.

His win % at RB Salzburg is actually pretty poor given most managers there are at 60-70% and he was at 40 odd %. 40%+ in PL or Championship is very good but when managing RB Salzburg in Austria it is pretty poor. Not sure about his spell in Holland....did he leave that to join up with Klopp at Liverpool?

I agree with 3 down to 6 but can't see O'Neil or Wellens in the running. O'Neil surely too expensive for us even if he'd gamble his career on coming here which I think would be a huge risk for him. Wellens embroiled in a playoff push with Orient and would require compensation. Can see both being hurdles we aren't able to overcome. The other ones all unemployed and Edwards apart would struggle to get jobs in the Championship these days so probably realistic.

I imagine Rovers will have accepted a reduced allocation and won't now be able to get the full 3100 even if they wanted it. See Leeds 'sell out' which was a sell out of the reduced allocation ignoring the fact that they could have had an extra 1500+ in the lower tier but declined. Suspect it will be a similar affair at Derby - boasting about a 'sell out' but won't get the maximum allocation.

The only +ve that I have for Ismael is that he had an immediate positive impact at both Barnsley and West Brom taking over tough situations. At Barnsley they were struggling and he ended up getting them into the play-offs and at West Brom they had just been relegated yet for the first few months at least he had them up at the top of the league. So perhaps there is some reason to think he might be able to come in and see us through to the end of the season. There's no reason based on his CV to think he would be suitable beyond that. He's had a vast number of clubs and jobs and never lasted more than about a year. I can guarantee most of them will have been more stable and professional than Rovers. Perhaps this is the new model - a Watfordesque turnover in head coaches who come in and 'do a job' for 6-12 months before their contracts expire, they resign and we get some compo and then we repeat it again. Suppose it stops any repeats of the JDT and Eustace debacles.

Mentioned by someone on here way back at the very start and has been in the back of my mind as a typical Venky appointment. Another who may be ok until the summer but I'd be very concerned if he was getting any longer than that. A dismal record at West Brom and Watford.

Two years ago we were battling for the play-offs in JDTs first season having put some solid building blocks in place the previous summer and were 7 months into the Broughton/Head Coach/Continental setup. Since then we've drastically cut the budgets, alienated and forced out the head coach, got rid of Broughton, ditched that approach, adopted some sort of half way house approach by employing Gestede in that role, appointed a more traditional manager, forced him out to relegation threatened Derby County, had 3-4 pathetic transfer windows, sold most of our assets, spent nothing, still aren't getting funding from India after over 2 years, haven't renewed a contract in almost 18 months, failed to offer the last manager any assurances on medium to long term plan or investment...... And you think they are going into this appointment with an eye on the long term or 2 years from now? I bet the people speaking to the head coach don't know with any confidence whether there'll still be a football club here in 2 years given the way this lot are operating.

Oh well that must be true then, when have they ever got anything wrong or been influenced by people working for Rovers with an agenda?

How do you know Waggott selected him? Sounds to me like him trying to gain free credit after Broughton the man employed to appoint managers, had left

There is no medium to long term. That's the issue. Only the short term i.e. the next 13 games. I'd be saying that even if we were a fantastically well run club. And we certainly aren't that. The summer and beyond is going to be a total disaster and unless there are cast iron promises on budgets and investment no manager worth his salt is going to get involved with this lot after the last two fiascos. The only thing that avoids that disaster is promotion and the only thing the club should be concerned about right now is ensuring the best man for that task is in place asap. Not drifting around sifting through 100+ CVs working out who looks alright. You headhunt the best candidate for the job whether he has applied or not. That's if you know who and what you are looking for. If you don't have a clue you sit back, wait for applications to come in then work through them until someone ticks your boxes.

He engineered his own departure and it had been months in the making. Same as Eustace, only difference being that Derby's approach may have taken the club by more of a surprise this time. It was abundantly obvious to anyone that both managers were keen to get out of here and jumped at the chance when it came. I suspect we are going to be somewhat disappointed by the outcome of this search because I don't think Waggott, Venkys or Suhail could pick their nose let alone a good new manager. Mowbray came in during Paul Senior's spell as Director of Football, JDT and Eustace during Broughton's time. Outside of that we had a bungled search for Mowbray's replacement when it dragged on for weeks jeopardising pre-season before Broughton quickly sorted it out after his arrival. Not that it really matters either way because whoever they give it to will not be given the opportunity or resources to succeed.

Who says JDT was sacked?

Why did they not run a similar process when searching for JDT's successor and instead got Eustace sorted out very quickly? Did they not have 100+ applicants back then? I suspect the answer to that is that Broughton was involved in getting JDT and Eustace in and both happened quickly and professionally, whereas prior to Broughton arriving and now we see a totally different approach, quite shambolic. In their efforts to make this managerial 'search' appear thorough and professional by referring to interviews and CVs coming in all they are doing is digging a deeper hole for themselves when they end up leaving Lowe in charge or hand it to another friendly face/linked agency client.

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Going to look a bit ridiculous if Swansea have a new man in charge in time for Saturday whilst we are still conducting interviews having had 10 days+ more time to get things in place.

O'Neil would at least be a logical appointment based on past performance. Granted he hasn't managed at this level or with lunatic owners and management but he's clearly an intelligent well thought of manager, you don't get two cracks in two years at PL clubs if you don't have something about you. Not my first choice and I'm not convinced he will be better than JDT or Eustace (and that's the only thing we should be aiming for if we are a serious club) but he's head and shoulders above the likes of Boateng, Boa Morte, Wellens, even some of the others like Carsley, Duff, Lowe and Karanka in the betting odds list. I'm not even particularly confident he'd take it, it will be a massive come down financially and structurally to what he has been used to and I'm sure after his difficulties at Wolves and being ruthlessly sacked at Bournemouth he might fancy waiting for a serious job to come up with long term prospects, which nobody will be getting at Ewood. If he's in the running it really wouldn't surprise me to see a summer termination clause, I'd be amazed if any manager would commit to 2-3 years of this without some serious assurances on future plans. If I was him or anyone else with any decent pedigree I'd be looking at the JDT and Eustace debacles and planning accordingly.

Luke Williams anyone? Not a serious suggestion but now available after getting the Swansea sack

Questions as to whether Rovers could 'tempt' O'Neil or Edwards into the Ewood Park dugout? Good god. What a reminder of what levels this regime has dragged us to. Edwards has set Luton on course for League One 'or if Rovers would like to tempt him to do so' - tempt him? He'd be fortunate to say the least to get a top 6 Championship job so soon after that mess. O'Neil would be a major coup and it remains to be seen whether he could be tempted? Deary me. Of the names I've seen linked he is one of the better ones but good grief, a major coup? Could he be tempted? What small minded nonsense.

I don't think he does 'know' the club. He knows the training ground and area from before but he certainly won't recognise the disgraceful shambles of an organisation behind the scenes compared to what he might remember from over 20 years ago. I'm not really sure 'knowing' the club actually means very much, especially not in our position.

No Championship club and especially not one in the top 6 with less than a third of the season remaining would hand the job to someone managing in Ireland (Duff), Guinea-Bissau (Boa Morte) or recently axed as an assistant at Coventry (Boateng). The fact that all three appear high in the betting list is highly alarming.

There is a potential link between Hughton and Boateng - Ghana. Boateng was born there despite playing a few games for the Netherlands and Hughton was recently involved with the Ghana national team first as an advisor and then as manager. So I've heard less crazy suggestions. My theory is that they'd love to give it to Boateng and that there will have been a 'plan' to do so for some time since he got the job at Brockhall working with the kids. There's been a similar plan for some time to get Gestede into the hierarchy and I suspect eventually he will replace Waggott as the main man down there. This is how these people operate - they love to give jobs out to the cheap and desperate who will accept any conditions in return for a route into management. Probably nice people too just to help them along. But I also think they will recognise that directly appointing Boateng would cause furore especially in our current position. So perhaps their little scheme is to bring someone like Hughton in alongside/above him temporarily just to make it appear more reasonable and then he steps aside and they hand it to Boateng after that.

A club in our position with a PL slot up for grabs within the next 3-4 months and having had a clearly unhappy / disgruntled manager since the start of the season should have a clear plan and idea of what to do next. We're now 10 days on from Eustace speaking to Derby and still doing 'interviews' and if Nixon's list is remotely accurate it seems there is very little method to it other than a ragtag collection of desperate names and friendly faces of Waggott/Gestede. A shambles. They're determined to fritter away the opportunity Eustace has left us with.

There's a difference of course between actively and deliberately taking steps to stop us getting promoted, and just being so utterly indifferent and disinterested that missing out on promotion becomes inevitable after repeatedly failing in January. The outcome is the same either way, so it doesn't really matter, their actions (or lack of) holding the club back and will forever more.