Can't we? Stability would appear to be one of the few common factors when it comes to successful football clubs. Yet fans regularly advocate for handing managers short leashes. Absolutely nothing wrong with our owners giving a manager time. That shouldn't allow them to lower expectations or to go into an entirely stagnant mode, but we shouldn't expect immediate results, nor get rid of managers because they haven't delivered incredible results within 18 months.

But how can you possibly be certain of what those parameters are? He had a healthy summer budget, had no pressure to shift players out, and is now in his first season in charge. Do you want him to appear under pressure? Do you think we could have brought a good manager in by telling them that they could face the chop within their first season (or even their first few months)? In order to make this job attractive it has to be seen as a project. The chance to take a couple of seasons to build a squad and challenge for promotion. Not only is that realistic, but it means that we get a manager - and players - who are actually committed to something beyond this season. I would be tremendously worried if he was talking about the need for immediate results. Implying that some window of opportunity was closing.

How can you possibly judge that based on a handful of appearances? My guess is BBD would have been high on that list after his first few months? Jansen didn't look great at first. Kevin Davies was terrible here, but great elsewhere. The list is long. Judging players after a few matches (and even months) is a bit ridiculous.

Gosh, some of you are hard to please. I know we've all grown wary of words like 'project', but this isn't an overnight affair. Look at some of the best managers in the world in recent seasons (Pep and Klopp included) and they took time to find their feet, build their squad, and install their system of play. To think that we will be able to do it in 6-12 months is simply unrealistic. But, who knows, maybe we will get lucky and sneak into the playoffs. The difference I want to see between the Mowbray era and this one is that I don't want us talked out of the playoffs by our own manager. Expectations can change and adapt over the course of the season. As for why we are sticking to this style of play? Well, it is sort of the dominant approach to playing football these days. Some of our players are unsuited to it, but many aren't. I would rather have a mediocre season because we have a few square pegs playing in round holes than waste 12 months of development for our younger players on a system that they'll never use again. As for the value created by ball retention? Holding onto the ball is not the be-all-and-end-all, but intelligently moving the ball across your own backline and probing for holes will help you to create chances. We're not really there yet and we often choose the wrong pass and go backwards to avoid losing the ball, but in the long-term it could reap major rewards. Basically, he's got 36 months for me unless something goes catastrophically wrong. Time to build a squad, time to implement a system, time to fail. We have no divine right to succeed, but giving up on managers after only a few months is a one way ticket to a divine right to fail.

Think it will be more about FFP and squad registration issues. They'll be loaning him out knowing that he is either a good asset in the Championship or a player that they can resell next summer if they need to.

I do agree that Dembele would have made this a great window and made our squad undoubtedly stronger than last season. As it is, we're in decent shape and it's a decent window, but it will rely on a lot of young player (including signings) stepping up.

I'd bet on him to never score 20 goals again in a season in any division (and I think he will end up back in the Championship).

The highs and lows on this messageboard are more extreme than the crypto markets. Most expected a defeat here, most would have taken 9 points from our opening 5 matches. Our squad is too small, we're playing 3 matches in 6 days. What did everyone truly expect against one of the better sides in the division? I'm choosing to see this as a positive and hope that it reinforces the need for signings.

IF, and it's a big if, he stays, then have to agree with this. I simply cannot imagine Mowbray convincing someone to stay. The change in tone and optimism that is coming from people in leadership roles has to be felt throughout the team.

I don't want the transfer topic to turn into the contract renewal topic, but there's no way we could have offered Brereton big money before last season. I was always a Brereton optimist, but we could never have seen this sort of upturn in form coming. I think even the biggest believers were hoping that he would simply be able to establish himself as a viable option to start up front. This messageboard would have gone into meltdown had Brereton signed a 20k+ longterm deal in the summer of 2021. I'll also add, even as someone who was a Brereton optimist, I'm still not a complete believer that this current for is truly sustainable.

You (some people) think that his stock is very high right now. It's unclear as to whether or not there are top division clubs that agree with that. He's been linked with a few moves, but he's got a good PR team behind him now. I'd say his stock would be significantly higher as a free agent. I'm not sure many clubs will be willing to risk 20m(ish) on the basis of 6/7 months of good form.

Or, we can just assume the following. 1 - A player has signed for a new club and has to talk up how excited he is to join a bigger and better team/project. 2 - A manager has lost his job and has to try and explain why he had such a horrible second half of the campaign and why he was no longer wanted/wasn't the right person for the job. 3 - Who knows. Players join clubs for a variety of reasons.

Of course I do, certainly not my first rodeo when it comes to Rovers and that issue. But 3 weeks is a long time in a transfer window and the season isn't decided in 3 weeks anyway. I'll judge the window when it is completed.

Patience, as usual, is in short supply on this MB. Yes, we've lost some players. Yes, some clubs have made moves. But there are still plenty of deals that will be done and plenty of time for us to take part in them. No need to be too desperate now and judge things every 6 hours.

I feel part of the problem is that so many people add too much weight to what is said in the press - even in public statements from the club - and also try to fill in gaps in information that we will simply never have access to. Of course a new manager and DoF are going to take a bit of time to assess a squad before they start signing players. Would we want them to do it differently? Even if they did their research coming into the job and have an idea of what is needed, I'd still want them to take a closer look before signing new players. As for how many players we are signing. Do you want a new regime to come out and say that we need 10 players? 15 players? How do you expect the existing squad to take that?

In spite of their many flaws, I don't think Venkys have ever shown themselves to be overly concerned by the thought of losing money on transfers. If someone at the club tells them that he might make the difference and if he doesn't force a move, I think we could well see him stay until at least January. Given the current economic markets I don't think that there will be too many clubs in a rush to spend 15m+ on what still represents a massive gamble.

I think he may well stay. It's unlikely to be the type of summer where middling clubs are likely to feel all that cash rich and I'm sure that there will be plenty who are quite happy to reserve judgement and see if he can keep his form going into next season - with the possibility of a knock-down price in January or a free transfer next summer. Brereton himself may also be in no rush as he may feel being a free agent puts him in the most powerful position and in line for the biggest payday.

As someone who has spent all but 4 years of their adult life living outside of their home country I can tell you that you've being a little bit dramatic and you'll find plenty within expat communities, including those with families, who love living abroad. Factor in that JDT has lived in England before and spent his professional life living outside of his home country, it all seems like a total non-starter as a negative.

His body language, as always, is awful. But I have zero sympathy for him. I'm not going to be made to feel bad about a manager who's contract is running down when he's allowed multiple players to run down their contracts. I know that isn't entirely his own decision and he might be barely involved in that process, but he's been willing to tow the line in the media about how there's time to sort things out for others, so why should it be any different for him?

Not to piss on the Buckley parade, but Twitter trends are determined by your own interests and the number of mentions and the particular hashtag used will vary greatly depending on what you set your location and language to be. So, not that surprising to have Buckley trending if you're a Rovers supporter and follow a fair number of Rovers, Championship, and football accounts.

I'm actually less concerned about his body language and demeanour in interviews and more concerned by how he presents himself on the touchline. He is often just lifeless, head in hands, sitting with a thousand yard stare. He's supposed to a be a motivator and it's impossible to think that (at least some) players will see that and think it is an assessment of their chances or, possibly even more damagingly, the capabilities of their manager. I also think that his overall demeanour contributes to a lack of accountability and that probably permeates every area of the club. I can think to my own work and know how much it means when a senior person takes the lead, takes accountability, and sets a real example.

I find it very difficult to place all of my thoughts on Mowbray's reign into a concise summation. He does deserve a tremendous amount of credit for stabilising the ship after relegation to League 1. Yes, some managers might have been able to avoid the drop in the first place and relegated sides are always promotion favourites, but many sides have struggled to go back up and it was essential that we do it at the first time of asking. Since promotion, he has managed to reestablish this club as a solid Championship team, but after that the positives stop. His inconsistent tactics and inability to get the best out of most of his players has been tremendously frustrating. His signings have been mostly questionable and he seems to be a poor judge of talent. Yes, he gets some credit for our form in the first half of the season, but he was unable to regain momentum once the luck ran out and things started to slip. He feels very much like a manager who struggles in the face of adversity and who is unable to adapt. Each season has been plagued by major drops in form (particularly towards the backend of Championship seasons) and the fault has to be placed firmly at the doorstep of management in that regard. But my biggest criticism of him has to be in his demeanour. I cannot imagine having a boss who carried himself as he does. Who'd body language and messages were so negative. It's impossible to think that this has had no impact on the team. He won't go down as our worst manager, but it is his time to go (and has been for some time) and we can hope for someone to come in with more energy and more creativity.

A lot of people on here are talking about mismanagement when it comes to the contract situations that we find themselves in. Many have even alluded to the fact that they don't believe that we would have found ourselves in such a situation under the stewardship of Williams et al. What people are failing to take into account is how the modern game has changed. Players run down their contracts. They look to put themselves in the greatest position of power by becoming free agents. Heck, just look at the Mbappé situation at PSG. We've made a lot of mistakes over the last decade and our ownership and management can take a lot of the blame, but they can't be held responsible for the fact that there has been a shift when it comes to how players approach contracts. They want short contracts and they want to reach the end of them. What's more, given the current financial climate in football, you will have every agent telling a player to run their contract down so that they aren't denied a dream move by a transfer fee. It's the world we're in now. We've benefited from it and will continue to take advantage of it, but we will also lose good players for smaller fees as a result. That being said, I'm not going to overestimate Rothwell's ability and consistency based on the fact that he's been good here for about 1/4 of his appearances. If it truly is 6m then we should take it and move on.

I don't disagree with the prevailing opinion that we shouldn't sell Rothwell to a promotion rival and that we should be very reluctant to disrupt a team that is clearly working well and where all of the players seem to be really pulling in the same direction - HOWEVER, it's impressive to see how people's estimation of Rothwell have increased over the past 6 months. I have little doubt that many would have happily accepted a similar bid 12 months ago. I don't want any changes to the squad right now, but we also don't want to risk evaluating our players purely based on their best form (and not a pretty large sample size or mediocre performances and inconsistency).

I'll happily offer you 20/1. Minimum stake 50.