If the issue is that he hasn’t literally fallen on his sword, we should bear in mind the rumours that started this thread - he apparently offered to resign at the beginning of the season. The Club apparently refused and said he’d have to pay out his contract. Worth bearing in mind the nature of football contracts where compensation is the norm, due to the inherently competitive nature of the industry. I think we can both agree that buying out your own contract to not work, with no future guarantee of work isn’t something that makes sense (and especially at or around the quoted “£500k-750k” buyout clause.

Then I congratulate you on the circumstances you find yourself in and applaud your moral standings. Unfortunately, I - and the overwhelming majority of working people - wouldn’t recognise that position.

So on that basis, anyone who has ever stayed in a job with undesirable working conditions until a perceivably “better” opportunity comes along is not - in your view - “a man of moral standings”? Believe me, if you’ve managed to live your life in such a way, you’ve lived a charmed one.

Don’t really need to be patronised and told to “calm down” by someone who can’t understand why a football manager would change jobs mid-season, given all of the variables I’ve outlined to you already. Your whole argument is “loyalty” or “but that’s not what he said he’d do” and while that is frustratingly contradictory to how you decided to patronise, I must thank you for letting me use one of my favourite response images AND invoke Godwin’s Law…

because he’s just gone through a lacklustre transfer window (despite allegedly being promised significant funds if he kept us up last season) and after publicly acknowledging the uncertainty of whether contracts are going to be renewed, he’s been given an opportunity to take a more stable job (which if we compare the back room operations - it is) with employers he can probably meet, will probably turn up to his place of employment and engage with what he will be trying to do. As a “manager” in any business, it’s kind of the least you’d expect. He’s got a good hand here, he’s done extremely well, absolutely everyone in football is falling all over themselves to point it out. He can leave with his stock high with the likelihood that he’ll be backed, give a proper timeline and project to work with. Take a step back from being a fan and consider what it must be like working underneath Waggott, Pasha and Venkys. He’s done a year and they’re constantly pulling the rug, moving the goalposts or ignoring requests. I personally think he’s telling them to improve his conditions and the conditions at the club or he’ll go, but if he does go, it’s not an indictment on him, it’s the fuckwits running is on fumes so they can get a bonus every year.

Disagree. He’s trying to improve the conditions in his existing job or taking a job that probably suits him down to the ground on every front except what’s happening on the pitch. Even still, Derby will bounce straight back up, I imagine and he’ll back himself to do that in style and stay in the championship season after next, at a club he finished his career at and is nearer his home. He often mentions being away from home, clearly it’s important to him. There’re a lot of midlands clubs about, but he had one of the jobs and lost it, has missed out on the WBA one (rumours abound that he applied for it) and who’s to say the Derby one or any other will be there in the summer? He’s essentially doing the right thing, we’d do different because we basically wouldn’t want to manage any other club, but once you’ve played for or coached a few, those loyalties aren’t so strong.

I’ve noticed how well-regarded in football John Eustace is as a person, so many of the pundits on Sky or elsewhere comment on him as a person. Doesn’t seem impossible that Mowbray has had a quiet conversation explaining exactly how you get the budget out of the owners. But I agree with your observations and - for his, the team, the club and all of our sakes - hope he gets his way.

Eustace is putting the ball in the club’s court, by name-checking “Steve” and “Suhail” (just as JDT did) he’s pointing to where the turgid blockage of putrid shit is in the club. He’s apparently never met or spoken to the owners, he’s now suggesting he’ll have to speak to the owners about it, unless that’s a shorthand for Pasha being the conduit. Essentially, he’s saying to the fans, “I’ll stay if I get the resources the club deserves and that I was promised, but if I end up going, you all know what happened.” Ultimately, he and we know that isn’t going to happen. Venky’s could sling £20m into the club tomorrow and place an equal amount into the bond account with their govt and he’d probably stay. But they won’t, obviously.

That’s disappointing, but from memory, pies are relatively aerodynamic

Well, positives - Ribeiro looks very tidy and I’d be more than happy with him starting. Kargbo looks like he has a thing we don’t currently have, which is pace and a desire to travel with the ball. Dennis has visible quality but looks a long way short of full fitness. Hopefully he can apply himself and get up to speed. Finally, at least we don’t have to go home to such a godforsaken place as Wolverhampton, which is - along with Coventry - just one of the most pointless places I’ve ever had the misfortune to visit. Negatives are obvious, but not least how thoroughly ineffectual the “cavalry” were when coming on, aside from Gueye. Hedges a never-man, Dolan a bundle of wasted potential. Woodrow looked game but played out of position. Weimann an earnest professional but really should be a bit-part player in a team looking by for top 6. Post-match from Eustace is now appointment viewing, but we’ll not learn anything until the deal is confirmed tomorrow. Pasha and Waggott looking all too comfortable in the JW Upper. I don’t understand how they’re not covered in Bovril, beer or meat pie up there.

Woodrow filling in at CM, instead we have aerial giants Hedges and Weimann bouncing around Gueye for the crosses into the box.

It’s weird to see a footballer where you wonder if there ever was “a player in there.” If you told me he was a midfielder and we were in an injury crisis, I’d believe you.

Forshaw just stopped fucking running then as he reached his own box.

Forshaw has the same energy as someone’s dad being called as a ringer for Sunday football.

‘Kinell, something about seeing the word “Woodrow” across the back of the blue and white really upset me then.

Hasn’t played at this level in 9 months, the adrenaline has probably burned out. He’s doing well to be as active as he is.

Athleticism of an unfit Dennis contrasted with the gangly take-off procedure that Gueye has when he starts to run is crazy. Gueye looks like a newborn foal by comparison. Could be an incredible double-act, though.

JRC really is a shocker. Massive drop off. Possibly the definition of a confidence player and he really doesn’t look like he has the confidence at all anymore.

Comments from the Blackburn End have included “Forshaw wouldn’t get into the Waddington FC first XI”

And while I’m at it - if Eustace is off, he can take Cantwell with him. Been very patient and was a fan of a lot of his early work for us, but he’s somehow looking worse and worse over time.

Can safely write Toth off now. Wasn’t great in his last game but the first is an absolute howler and the second - his confidence keeps him glued to the line, could’ve come out to meet it more and be bigger.

That’s a penalty in the Premiership

Shocking offside call. All three of the new signings look very game. Would expect none manage more than the hour, but I think they can get up to speed quickly on this viewing. Buckley nailed-on for a red. The pre-window players all seem fired-up, (“one last dance”??) but let’s hope they’re not too fired-up.

I think the thing you might need to consider is what the existing morale among the squad is, if Eustace feels comfortable leaving. People leave places of work for lots of reasons, but very rarely do their colleagues look down on them for it. Players can’t apply to other jobs and exit their situation outside of a transfer window, but I reckon a lot wish they could. I don’t think we can underestimate the effect on the squad of Siggy being left out against (apparently) his and the manager’s will. It looks like the final straw. It might go some way to explaining performances recently.

Pasha, Waggott and Gestede will be sauntering around the fan lounges today, maybe the more expensive ones. I wonder if any of our fan group leadership will express the dismay of the fanbase at such news on the morning of an FA Cup fixture against Premiership opposition? No, surely the wise folk “representing the interests of their members/the wider fanbase” will see the wood for the trees, that £500k is a sensational deal for the club and that we never really wanted Eustace anyway, this was all to bide our time until Ryan Lowe was sacked by Preston. After today, all three should be made to feel as though their positions are untenable and the only option they have is to resign.