Hi Southside, I generally appreciate people having different opinions. It is one of the things makes the message board a good read. I come on here most days - and have done for years - to get my fix of Rovers news. I accept you’re not a WUM for having opinions that stray quite some distance from the board consensus. However, you have wound me up. You don’t work 17 hours a day. Don’t be silly, it makes everything else you say lack credibility. Unless you’re stitching trainers in an Indonesian sweat shop or have been illegally trafficked down to the south of England to work in a cannabis farm you ain’t usually working 17 hours a day. If you were you certainly wouldn’t have time to come on here and debate. I don’t work 17 hours a day, but I am busy and I won’t have time to respond.

Is he from the HSH agency? I fear that’s the only place our next manager is coming from. Does anyone know what washed up old out of work has beens they currently have on their books? Just so we can be prepared.

I didn’t bother paying a tenner to watch. Instead I half listened to the commentary whilst strumming the guitar. I’ve amused myself since Barnsley scored by composing a little ditty called ‘Tony Mowbray Death Spiral Blues’. I’ll tune back into reality when he’s gone.

Sorry, I just think he is a horrible man. I appreciate others don’t see it like this, but I don’t actually understand how anyone can listen to him and not take an intense dislike to him. Please don’t take that as a measure of being satisfied with Mowbray though. Also - I thought the foundation of Leicester’s title win was the discovery and subsequent respectful re-burial of the remains of Richard III?? Did I miss something??

Yeah, I was thinking the same. I couldn’t remember where Matteo had been played though, so I never mentioned it. It’s probably too much to hope for another out of the blue appointment to rescue us, like Newcastle so weirdly did with Souness. We also don’t have a Tony Parkes guaranteed safe hands no more. We’re going nowhere this season though, so I’d take Johnson over this dead end of a situation for sure.

Very, very strange. When centre-forwards start playing at right back, it is a clear sign that the manager’s reign is coming to an end (or rather, it should be a clear sign in a normal run club). Unfathomable selections and substitutions indicate that a manager is out of ideas. They don’t know how to turn things around so they make increasingly odd decisions in the hope something will change.

I really, really, really do not like Nigel Pearson. He is an absolute prick IMO. I do not want to get into an online argument about it. I just want to register my voice and this is the only place I can. The man is a turd. Just watch his interviews and the clips of him choking a player. He is an obnoxious bully and clearly a total fucking looney too. As a personality I think he irritates me more than Owen Coyle. At least Coyle was pre-dominantly just thick and incompetent. Pearson is unhinged and bizarrely aggressive. If Pearson was appointed as my boss I would be handing in my resignation. We have already had the ordeal of having a total arsehole running our club. I do not want to go through it again. I accept Pearson may not be a corrupt liar like the previous rat we once had in charge, but he is a similarly dislikable man. Nigel Pearson is just about the only possibility I can think of that would make me prefer sticking with Mowbray. Eddie Howe, btw, would be an appointment I was absolutely delighted with. If he were to be interested it beggars belief that anyone could consider sticking with Mowbray as manager. Likewise, Alex Neil and the scores of other managers that might be interested would be infinitely preferable to sticking with the Mowbray project. How difficult can it be to pick up the phone to some agents and find out who would be interested? Just not to Pearson, please!

Yes! Working at last, just need to keep trying!

Not working here either. My wife is now suggesting I can paint the bannisters whilst listening to commentary instead. Thanks ifollow, come on ... ... ...

Mowbray could not out-think a peanut, let alone Tony Pulis. I don’t know if anyone else is familiar with the Bowie song ‘Always Crashing in the Same Car’, it was apparently written about Rovers under Mowbray.

Fair enough and I never meant to blame fans for the team failing. Similarly, with regards to tomphill’s comments - I certainly don’t mean to detract from the poor management if the team fails. The buck stops with Mowbray and his team NOT the fans - ever! Maybe I came across more critical than I meant to of supporters. Mowbray’s criticism of younger players bothers me far more than paying fans venting their frustrations. His management of the best crop we’ve had in years has not always been good. His fault - not the fans. However, I have in the past felt Wilcox, Pederson (not our youth I know - but a loyal servant to the club all the same) Nyambe, Raya have had abuse that wasn’t helpful to them or the team and I get a bit angry when I feel Buckley might be getting the same. I don’t have specific examples to hand, so feel free to dismiss my opinion if you wish - but if, for example, you don’t think Raya was treated in a rather unforgiving manner for a young keeper, then I disagree. I think he sometimes was. If we play lots of our kids next year - personally I’m looking forward to it. Apologies if my expectations have gradually fallen to such a low level that this should seem exciting to me, but promotion under Mowbray seems a pipe dream tbh, a team of our own is at least something refreshing and positive for the club. I just can’t help feeling optimistic about building a side around our own academy players. I hope there’s going to be some real positive breakthroughs this year. I’m not on happy pills, I just think there are some reasons to look forward to the season. Not too positive mind - anyone with eyes can see the manager’s weaknesses, but academy players throughout our first team - we’ve been waiting long enough - I am looking forward to seeing it and I hope it happens. Of course, it would have been better had we never sold our maturing and promising Spanish academy keeper, but poor management again. In many ways we are where we have been for years. Poor decision making, poor leadership: The manager is a dope (IMO) but an honest and well meaning dope all the same. At least I don’t loath him like some of our previous managers under Venkys. Our signing and ability to scout seems very poor and instead of having a competent DofF to oversee signings we have the aforementioned dope making sometimes dumb decisions. However, as luck would have it, this year does seem different to me. We seem to have a really promising bunch of kids, and despite the negatives at the club I still am hoping for good things from them. We won’t go up (the manager can’t drill the team to defend properly), but it may be a season with excitement, break throughs and a team that is developing and is our own.

I seem to be on my own with this, but I’m hoping for a season where a lot of our young players break into the team. Buckley & JRC could become starters. Wharton could be getting games and maybe one of Fisher or Hilton will be given a chance to claim the number one spot. There maybe others breaking through by the end of the season too. I know playing kids does not necessarily bode well for promotion. I know it could all go wrong and we could see ourselves looking like we are regressing - but such is the way of things when clubs give their youngsters a chance. The truth is that playing kids is a gamble, but personally I would love to see OUR club play OUR kids and it be OUR team. I felt that way with Duff, Dunn, Jansen, Taylor. I also did with Wilcox, Atkins, May and Hendry the first time we went up (I know Atkins and Hendry were not our kids - but they sure felt like OUR players - like Dack does now). So I do have some optimism. I don’t think we’re going up, I think we have a manager who is fundamentally compromised by not being able to organise a defence, but I am hoping we can have a team that is truly a Blackburn Rovers team again - packed with our youth team players and the dark days of foul smelling mercenaries like Best, Orr, Murphy, etc, but a distant memory. Hell, I’ve even got a secret hope that Brereton might come good. If we make all the signings of £1million & £500 grand journeymen that everyone on here seems to be clambering for - the kids are never going to break in to the team. I’m prepared for the criticism, tin hat is ready, but I’m looking forward to tuning in to ifollow and cheering on a Rovers team that is, at the very least, with a few less meaningless journeymen and with a few more ‘proper’ Rovers players. I’m not looking forward to reading the relentless and unforgiving criticism that our kids sometimes get on this board as they set about learning their trade though. We all hate it when Mowbray bad mouths a young player, so it irritates me when fans go OTT with criticism of youngsters too. If we do end up with Fisher or Hilton in goal, Wharton at CB and Buckley trying to pull the strings - lets not purposely set about destroying their confidence when they inevitably come on here to read what the fans thought of them. Please.

More to fear from midges than Covid at this particular point in time. It’s actually more likely that the team isn’t allowed out of East Lancs, rather than any perceived threat from up here, thank you.

More from the continuing adventures of Paul Senior. Within days of him being discussed on here, he has resigned. He lasted as Highland Education Chief for ten weeks - five of which were during the summer holidays, the other five weeks schools were already closed for coronavirus. As someone said - “Keep talking, keep moving” ... ...

I think Hughton has the CV to match our current predicament. However, that said, can you imagine the buzz if Hughes returned? It would be awesome, fans would return. Hughes would put some fight back into the team and start organising the ‘defence’ day one. Please be reading someone in Pune. Please.

And not to forget the needless comments regarding Magloire, which seem to have been forgotten after the flurry of activity with the Mulgrew and Cunningham deals later in the day. Mowbray’s handling of the youth players has been poor - openly criticise them in public - but generally protect the senior players in public. Neither policy has worked. This tendency always struck me as being the actions of a manager who was too scared of losing the dressing room. Like he was desperate to keep the senior players on board. However, it is beginning to look like he is managing to lose the dressing room anyway now. I recently came across this quote from Scott Brown, former Celtic and Scotland captain “But listen, I had Tony Mowbray as a manager - that was a crisis”. https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/celtic/in-full/scott-brown-tony-mowbray-now-that-was-a-crisis-1-3888920 Seemingly Mowbray has previously managed to make other debacles out of choosing the captaincy at his clubs. If it’s true that he’s losing the dressing room - combined with big money signings that are not firing and players routinely being played out of position - the writing is on the wall. I am no expert on football but we all know what the end of a managerial reign looks like.

I thought exactly the same after the substitutions - actions of desperation and panic - seemingly not the actions of a man who has all the time in the world to slowly build his team and find the best combinations. Added to rumours - from an established and reliable poster - of dressing room bust ups earlier in the week. It looks like Tony is feeling the pressure and pressure at this club doesn’t come from the terraces and social media. Ultimately it comes from the people who just had to inject another 9million to keep afloat a club that is sitting bottom of the table. Not that their actions always are readable of course, but perhaps Tony’s actions are.

So did I!

Hmmmmmmmm. I think that perhaps you mean you don’t understand the difference between a location that lies in an administrative centre, a location that lies in a historical county, or a location that lies in both. I think perhaps that is the real reason you “couldn’t give a toss” about it. Personally, I struggle sometimes a bit with string theory, but I think it would foolhardy of me to consequently conclude that it is therefore rubbish or that it’s implications are something that “I couldn’t give a toss about”. The borders of Lancashire County Council do not represent the borders of the true County of Lancashire. That is a fact by the way, not opinion and there is a difference.

He hardly needs to. He is so very, very cautious when adding new signings to the team, the older more established players are almost guaranteed their game time whilst he waits half a season waiting for the pricey new talent to establish itself. For example, if the Bell/Williams situation is how it is going to be with Reed, Rothwell and Brereton waiting to get in the side then they will have to wait for injuries before they get an uninterrupted run to prove themselves. Mowbray’s a good man and should not be compared with the parasites. He does make team selections based on loyalty to established players though.

See it here Thanks for the link. No point in arguing with that then!

This was the match that really turned me into a rovers fan. I was about 12, my Dad always struggled to find things to do with me at the weekend (stayed with my Mum Monday - Friday). We lived in Lancaster we went to a few Morecambe and PNE games but never got hooked. We had been to a couple of Rovers home games before (I remember Millwall 0-0 from the previous seasons). I was hardly a die hard fan but I enjoyed it more than deepdale! This match we missed the first goal queing up outside. It was us who went 1-0 up after a few minutes. Eventually we got in behind the goal - right at the back - at the corner near the old entrance. I can't remember all the scorers but we were 1-3 down at half time. I'm surprised to read folk left at half time because I remember so clearly everyone around me saying there was more goals in the game. At some point earlyish in the second half - as I recall - we scored 3 goals in 5 mins!! And in my head Palace equalised with maybe 10-15 minutes left. I am fairly sure that the winning goal was nearly the last kick of the game and was a Howard Gayle penalty (not Col). One of the guys near by picked me up in the air, and ran with me to the front of the stand, just behind the goal. It took me a few minutes to find my Dad again!