2 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Yes, he has got better, but that was until very recently in a back 5 were there’s less temptation to be drawn out.

That's a fair point. I don't think he's looked too different when played in a four this season either, which he was for the first months of the season and from time-to-time since, but I accept that's a pretty small sample. 

4 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Sometimes he goes in for challenges when he shouldn’t. He gets carried away with natural enthusiasm. He leaves the guy he’s marking to fire fight, does quite make the challenge and his guy is left un marked. He should have learnt years ago  “ do your job and let the other players do theirs ”.

I think that's right, but it's much less a feature of his game than it used to be. He seems much more disciplined in his decision making now than he was even 1-2 years ago. I think the penny might've dropped a little earlier had he been paired with a wiser head in defence earlier in his career. I know Mulgrew was experienced but he was never really a defensive leader in that sense. 

13 hours ago, riverholmes said:

Definitely, agree about Beattie. Forgot about him and what a deal that was for Southampton to sell Davies and get Beattie as part exchange, albeit, the former did eventually prove his worth in the Prem. A shame Beattie didn't make it at Rovers.

 

I still occasionally get angry about that deal, up there with the worst in our history. Arguably the worst.

£7.5 million was a lot of money for a player in 1998. How much in today's world? Around £50 million perhaps? To not only pay that sort of money, but to also throw in a future England international & Rovers fan into the bargain in exchange for Kevin bloody Davies. Dreadful. 

15 minutes ago, joey_big_nose said:

I reckon like Shane Duffy Lenihan is a better player than people give him credit for. Out of the trio who are leaving (Lenihan, Nymabe, Rothwell) Lenihan is the one who will get a modest Prem career in my opinion.

Agree with this. He seems to be sensing danger and reading the game much better this season - I always thought he was one of those defenders who look the part when going in for challenges, but they often only need to do that to make up for lapses in concentration.

Nyambe and Rothwell both have important aspects to their game which will be hard to replace, but Lenihan is the best player of the three by a decent margin for me. 

1 hour ago, patrickvalery said:

I'm not looking for a kind response. Couldn't give a toss either way to be honest. I just struggle to understand how anyone can hold Mowbray to account with what he has been working with. Not saying the tailspin in form was acceptable but personally I think there are logical reasons for it to some degree. 

The way I see it the club is at fault for most of our issues rather than TM. And now he's off we're left in their hands once again. In my opinion that's the elephant in the room. This is the litmus test. Have the club and the owners learned any lessons? I have my doubts. So maybe all TM ever did was paper over the cracks. But ignorance is bliss and I'm not looking forward to the next chapter because I suspect it'll be a shit show. 

I definitely worry that whoever replaces Mowbray could be worse. There were things to like about Mowbray and, whilst some on here won't agree, I wouldn't see there being any danger of us going down in the medium-term with him in charge.

The man thing I disagree with though is the highlighted bit. I think there are logical reasons why any manager might find Rovers a tough gig at present, but it's really hard to come up with any logical explanations about why we (and crucially, Mowbray's other clubs) go on these horrible runs of form every Christmas. It's such a specific pattern which has been replicated over multiple seasons with multiple groups of players, and as we've seen is enough to completely undermine a promotion bid. 

I'd be happy to say there's been progress of sorts under Mowbray, but these runs of form will always put a ceiling on our ambitions so long as they continue. That's why he needs replacing, but I accept that we could easily get this wrong like we did with Coyle and suddenly Mowbray wouldn't seem so terrible. 

Just now, glen9mullan said:

Not surprised Farke being backed in, heard on 19th March that he was very much in the frame, just hope they don't cock it up, as there is a genuine desire to get it done from both sides

Pleasantly surprising. I won't get my hopes up too much until I see him holding a Rovers scarf above his head though.

I know that sacked managers often can't be too picky about their next move - even Dyche is vanishingly unlikely to get another prem job - but I'd have thought there would be a bit of a queue for Farke. Hopefully the sign that he's interested is an indicator that we're willing to back whoever takes over. 

Just now, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Mm, would we be interested if he wasn’t an ex Rover ?

Probably not, so that worries me a bit. That said, there are a growing number of examples of the 'apprentices' of certain coaches getting gigs elsewhere and doing well. Wagner and Critchley have both worked under Klopp. Arteta and Vieira under Guardiola. The guy at Huddersfield under Bielsa.

Wouldn't be my first choice, but there's a logic to it. 

6 minutes ago, RoversClitheroe said:

Kamy reckons one of the people we are looking at is Jason Wilcox.

Not sure what to think about that. On the one hand obviously a very highly rated coach for City to give him that role. Perhaps not too similar to Neil Critchley before he went to Blackpool. His CV couldn't be more different to the likes of Ainsworth in terms of their different strengths and weaknesses, at least on paper.

Obviously a massive risk though. I'd have him in front of plenty of the names you can get decent odds for, but if we can get Farke with two recent promotions to his name, Wilcox shouldn't be getting in the conversation for me.

56 minutes ago, Ossydave said:

Farke now the bookies favourite on sky, its probably on the back of what Nixon said though, only takes a couple of bets to sway a small market like this.

Yeah, nothing much to be gained from those sorts of markets until the odds are frightening small or they stop taking bets. 

Farke would be brilliant though, even if I'm not convinced just yet that his/our interest is serious. 

39 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

A few stats from this season…

When Nyambe is on the pitch we concede a goal on average every 109 minutes.

When Nyambe is off the pitch we concede a goal on average every 60 minutes.

 

Goals conceded with Nyambe - 23*

Goals conceded without Nyambe - 26

Nyambe has played 62% of total minutes this season

*This includes 7 in one game against Fulham

 

In the 21 games where Nyambe has played the full 90 minutes we have taken 38 points.

In the other 24 games we have taken 28 points.

 

Clean sheets with Nyambe - 11

Clean sheets without Nyambe - 1

 

Borderline premier league quality at defending, no question. 

14 hours ago, simongarnerisgod said:

nyambe should be an absolute machine down the right,if tony had ever bothered with wide players in their right place he could have had nyambe bombing down the wing on the overlap,with his running power we`de have had a right weapon,he never got the best out of ryans attributes

Think Nyambe has to take his share of responsibility for this too. He's not that young anymore, has been played as a wingback with licence to get forward this season, and his attacking output has been appalling. 

Don't get me wrong, I'd be happy if he did a 180 degree turn and signed a new deal, but Nyambe's been given every chance to contribute going forward and hasn't taken it. His performance against Stoke justified him being dropped for me, and it speaks volumes that Lenihan as make shift fullback put in better deliveries than Nyambe has managed in all his time here. 

Expect to get completely shot down for this, but I'd be open minded about Appleton in the unlikely event that either i) we'd want him and ii) he'd come back.

I've not forgotten how poor some of those games were - the Millwall replay was an unbelievable low point - but to be fair to him the club was absolutely rancid at that point. We needed the summer clear out before we saw some improvement, which he wasn't allowed to oversee.  Not saying he'd be at the top of my list by any means, but I wouldn't judge him overly on his last spell at Ewood.

I'm really undecided about Ainsworth. On the one hand, getting Wycombe promoted twice, almost staying up in the Championship and getting them in the play offs again with a club that size ha been a minor miracle. He obviously has something about him. Having said that, being a manager of a club like that in L1 & L2 is a world away from competing towards the top of our league. Probably the best of the names at the top of the bookies list anyway. 

I'm 30, which makes this thread a bit tricky. Too young to remember the title win. Too spoiled to realise that the Souness/Hughes years weren't going to carry on forever, although they still contain amazing memories. 

As a recent 'high' of sorts, I was genuinely quite emotional at the Oxford game in L1. Glorious sunshine and full stands of blue and white in every direction. An important reminder of what this club can be. 

6 minutes ago, JoeH said:

Sorry but I'm not having this as a story of morality. There's a lot more to this and I don't think it's accurate to describe it this way. 

To clarify Joe, I wasn't really making a moral point. It was more how you can look at these two recent cases of clubs choosing to get rid of key personnel, and see that the differences between them reveal differences in how professionally they conduct themselves. 

I accept the circumstances are wildly different, but in one instance there's a club that have provided all the professional and support they could to an employee, before a line was crossed and they got rid straight away, and in such a way where they still made very classy and magnanimous public statements about the player. I think this shows a level of professionalism, decisiveness and shared strategy amongst the club's hierarchy that shows Rovers up in how they've dealt with Mowbray as far as we can tell.

I think the lack of professional curtesy is an issue too to be fair, so I guess I'm making a bit of a moral point in that sense, but I mainly worry about what it suggests about how the club is run. 

Horror session for Lancs this morning. 105-7 at one point.

Bit of a recovery from Salt and Bailey now, but still 90 odd runs behind Hampshire's total.

2 minutes ago, LeftWinger said:

They weren't preserving the culture of the club when they took a chance on him after his drugs bans....especially when he was involved in another police incident just after starting training with the club.

Quite right, it was a mistake to sign him in the first place in my view. 

Still impressed with the way they dealt with his departure though. I suppose that's the point I was trying to make when comparing them to Rovers. They've sacked a player for ill-discipline, but were still very classy about how they dealt with the situation in public and have obviously got the balance right between a duty of care to an employee who has clearly needed support, and making a difficult hard-headed decision in the best interest of the club. Suggests that the decision makers are proactive, treat their employees fairly and are capable of taking difficult decisions. 

Contrast that with Rovers and Mowbray - it seems to be the polar opposite, at least as far as we can tell. 

Just now, Miller11 said:

Despite the huge reservations I have over who they will replace him with, I’ll be glad to see the back of Mowbray. That doesn’t mean that the owners shouldn’t treat him with a little bit of respect and common courtesy.

I’m more concerned though about the complete disconnect between the owners and the people they employ, and that’s completely on Venky’s. There is no way this uncertainty hasn’t had an impact on results either. Their arrogance knows no bounds, they will never learn, and ultimately they don’t give a toss.

I'm concerned about how employees are treated by the club, even if it's an employee who ultimately should be replaced.

The lack of professionalism is more concerning though. Fans of championship clubs often looked at the Brentford model in terms of how to have sustainable success at this level. Usually this is more about player trading and spotting value in transfers, but more fundamentally it's about looking at all aspects of how the football club is run and looking for where you can make improvements, large or small. That sort of care of detail and making sure the club is operating at its' maximum is completely at odds with how Rovers are run, outside of possibly the Academy, and the way that Mowbray's future has been handled appears to be the latest example of that. 

For those who don't follow Rugby League, Wigan have just sacked a player for repeatedly failing to meet their professional standards, and they're taking a hit on losing a quality player in order to preserve the culture of success that they're trying to build, shared by players, staff and directors. Wouldn't it be nice to think a similar level of thought has gone into the setup at Rovers. 

10 minutes ago, Paul Mani said:

Here’s my take / opinion based on a few bits I’ve heard and reading between the lines…

So, I KNOW that the training ground was rife with rumours last March that TM was gone at the end of the season, everyone knew. I also heard whispers that they’d interviewed and had maybe chosen one - I suspected Wilder or Neill but never had any confirmation.

For some reason, it didn’t happen. Maybe it was the candidates choice, maybe the clubs choice in terms of the timing for FFP or maybe Venkys decided against it? Who knows? But I do think there was a plan (of sorts) hatched then…

The cutting back, not investing in the summer or in particular at Christmas and the lack of any contact with TM was telling especially with the sale of Arma and the training ground money which puts us in a much better situation from this summer.

I also recall the conversation I had with Waggott after the Forest game when he openly said TM would’ve been sacked if we’d capitulated again like Fulham. Those conversations are signs that the relationship is dead really.

Then we had our hiatus and with it, Waggott and Venkys went quiet. Tony isn’t in the circle of trust anymore.

So, my take is that there’s a plan to restructure this summer, new manager, new regime and money to spend (FFP clear).
 

How good that plan is, who will take it forward, how much money will be spent and how successful it will be are anyones guess. But I do feel the next few weeks will be interesting, if nothing else!

 

It's the hope that kills you!

2 minutes ago, Neal said:

Was the Duncan Ferguson rumour I've heard started on here? 

It was. Can't say I'm overly enthusiastic about that one, true or not. 

I really like Ainsworth, and I wouldn't be dead against his appointment. Wycombe are a small club even by L1 standards (weren't they at the bottom of L2 when he was first appointed?) so he's obviously worked miracles there to get them and almost keep them in the Championship.

All that said, going from a club like that straight to Rovers is an enormous leap in terms of expectations, the sorts of players that you deal with, budgets and generally what the job entails day-to-day. I'd feel much better about someone with a track record at a club more similar to Rovers, either here or abroad if we've actually done our research. 

13 minutes ago, Mellor Rover said:

Agreed with this. We had the best 11 in the league on paper for 2 years.

Very close to it, although I think considering we set up as a standard 442 we were badly lacking in quality midfielders. Cairney was there when we played him in his proper position, but if Jason Lowe was the best option to play alongside him then that in itself shows how badly lacking we were in that dept. 

Other than that, I agree though. Two strikers scoring over 20, plus Cairney, Josh King, Hanley, Duffy, Marshall when he had his head screwed on. Not to mention how under used Dunn was, and Alan Judge and Jack O'Connell just before then. Ridiculous that we only ever flirted with the play offs.m

17 minutes ago, roverandout said:

We were in contention under bowyer and more than just one season 

We'll probably end up finishing very close to where we did under Bowyer in the season where Rhodes & Gestede both scored over 20 goals. 

Although I seem to remember that this was very much a late charge that we made in the Spring onwards and before then we were some way away, so I'm not sure that I'd class that as really in contention. To be honest given the players we had, I'd say we underperformed more in that season than we ever have under Mowbray.

17 minutes ago, tomphil said:

Had this argument on twitter the other night with another TM denier.

One of the lowest incomes in the Champ blah blah...

Yes but ownership who make it a competitive midtable budget every season by covering the losses for that compared to the income.

But hes had nothing to work with....

Not a lot true, apart from the midtable budget, a 7 million pund and 5 million pound striker, loan fees and wage contributions to Prem clubs for their talent, a Cat A academy production line that most others don't have.  Oh and ownership who ignore bad results and basically let him do and say what he wants within reason.

Did i mention not being forced to sell ANY player in 5 years !

Ok, you don't just expect top 6 off all that but he has also been outdone by managers and clubs with less every season. Including injuries to key players and bad refs.

Some very fair comments here, especially on the quality of the academy (god knows where we'd be without it).

One thing I'd say in his favour (at least when it comes to transfers) is that the squad he inherited was almost completely without assets. Possibly we could've fetched a couple of million for Lenihan at a push. No other player would've fetched anything beyond a derisory transfer fee, and so something to consider when looking at budgets etc. is that we could well be comparing Rovers with squads which already have had quite a lot spent on them over time.

He can't plead poverty for the reasons that you mention, but once you take the Armstrong & Raya fees into account, his spend over five years is very small beer. He's generally done well in growing assets for the club too, it just so happens that the club has been pretty poor at protecting these assets with securing them to longer contracts!

I think generally he's managed the squad well with the budget available to him. Sadly he's not been able to get the most out of it consistently enough. 

9 minutes ago, den said:

He might be proud, but I would want more from the next manager in less than 5 years. 
 

Mere championship existence interspersed with record winless runs and frequently being reminded that we can’t expect to compete with most of the teams in this league, doesn’t do anything for me.

Me too. I suppose I'm feeling a lot of trepidation of who might come next, and I'm suddenly much more conscious than you can be looking downwards as well as upwards. Treading water in the Championship isn't good enough for Blackburn Rovers, but we were probably saying the same under Bowyer until a lot worse came round the corner!

Just now, den said:

I’m not sure that he’s done well during his time here. 
 

I wouldn’t have settled for what we’ve seen for the last 5 years. 5years is a long time in football and for a manager getting that long I would have expected far better than that. Wasted years in my opinion.

Would anyone settle for another 5 years of the same?

No, but then again if you'd have said in the Autumn of the L1 season that in four years we'd be furious by just missing out on the play offs, we might have taken that. Or at least realised that it could be plenty worse. 

He's not a great manager, and there have been at least one too many post-Christmas slumps to want to keep him. But taken in the round, I reckon he can look back with a fair amount of pride at the job that he's done.