Tony Mowbray Discussion

[Roversider]

Let's roll back time to pre-season, would anyone be calling for Mowbray to go if we said we would be 6 points off the play-offs and be the top scorers in the Championship?  A lot of the antipathy relates to the disappointment following the outstanding start.

The 'Boro game gave me some confidence as it was a scrap all the way through the game but we ground out a 1-0 win.  I also have to say that some of the goals we have scored this season have come from some fantastic football.

The problem that needs addressing is consistency, you can't say that the team don't enjoy playing for Mowbray so that removes one of the common issues 'he's lost the dressing room'.  What may be an issue is the difficulty in adapting a passing game to a poor pitch at Ewood.  That has yet to be shown and our failures against top half teams is also an issue.

The pitch isn't Mowbray's fault but how he chooses to play on it might be.

I'm still firmly in the Tony Mowbray corner, I don't see anything but downsides to getting another manager in.  Plus he's managed to work well with the owners who also deserve some credit for continuing to pump in money.  Shame they made so many mistakes at the start .......

 

[Mattyblue]

9 minutes ago, Roversider said:

Let's roll back time to pre-season, would anyone be calling for Mowbray to go if we said we would be 6 points off the play-offs

 

That would say we have stood still on last season, even though it seemed like we had made some decent acquisitions and didn’t sell any of our top performers.

So I suppose it depends on what your expectations are.

[roversfan99]

8 minutes ago, Roversider said:

Let's roll back time to pre-season, would anyone be calling for Mowbray to go if we said we would be 6 points off the play-offs and be the top scorers in the Championship?  A lot of the antipathy relates to the disappointment following the outstanding start.

The 'Boro game gave me some confidence as it was a scrap all the way through the game but we ground out a 1-0 win.  I also have to say that some of the goals we have scored this season have come from some fantastic football.

The problem that needs addressing is consistency, you can't say that the team don't enjoy playing for Mowbray so that removes one of the common issues 'he's lost the dressing room'.  What may be an issue is the difficulty in adapting a passing game to a poor pitch at Ewood.  That has yet to be shown and our failures against top half teams is also an issue.

The pitch isn't Mowbray's fault but how he chooses to play on it might be.

I'm still firmly in the Tony Mowbray corner, I don't see anything but downsides to getting another manager in.  Plus he's managed to work well with the owners who also deserve some credit for continuing to pump in money.  Shame they made so many mistakes at the start .......

 

Thats nonsense. The target at the start of LAST season was a top 6 finish, publically declared by manager and players alike. We finished 11th, miles off in the end, a mere 3 points better than the season prior in which we went on a truly awful run with a side the manager admitted were "given a chance" following promotion, and never really were ever in the running for the top 6. Players including the captain acknowledged a failure to meet target, but I think there was a level of understanding in that no one ever expected us to get into the top 6. Whether the improvement was enough was a different matter.

This season, the top 6 aim was really pushed home again in the summer, more signings made, many with promotion experience, no sales, and a lot more belief and expectation. Unfortunately it has been a season not only that has got progressively worse, but another in which we havent really ever been in the running for the top 6, which was our aim. 2 wins away is not particularly close, and it is not based on the expectations of a good start, which itself was brief, but the expectations set out 18 months ago and re-iterated 6 months ago, on the back of further recruitment and no sales.

The fact that we are the top scorers is irrelevant, it is where we are in the league that matters. 

[phili]

1 hour ago, islander200 said:

Not calling you a liar or anything like that I'm sure you are only passing on what you have been told but to be fair most summer you were saying no money would be spent and we had to sell players?

Apologies if i have you mixed up with another poster

Limited spending has been allowed following relaxation of the FFP rules for the season as well as TM going for the playoffs. Up until then we had a leeway of £15k.

Venky's have guaranteed an injection into the club this year of £32m to cover this years running costs. 

[Gav]

32 minutes ago, Roversider said:

Let's roll back time to pre-season, would anyone be calling for Mowbray to go if we said we would be 6 points off the play-offs and be the top scorers in the Championship? 

 

Mowbray should have said in pre-season:

"We can't complete with the relegated sides financially and we can't compete with the clubs still receiving parachute payments. The minimum expectation is mid table, but we'll push for a play off spot with everything we've got"

The season is working out as expected, keep up the good work Tony, push for the playoffs son. 

[Mattyblue]

How are Accy competing for promotion to the Championship against some very big football clubs then? How are Leicester competing for the title? How did Wycombe end up in the Championship? How do Burnley stay up year after year?

Take it you meant to say ‘Not only do we not have the budget of relegated and parachute clubs, we are also a dysfunctionally run football club, so we’ll bite yer hand off for top half’.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Mattyblue

[roversfan99]

8 minutes ago, Gav said:

Mowbray should have said in pre-season:

"We can't complete with the relegated sides financially and we can't compete with the clubs still receiving parachute payments. The minimum expectation is mid table, but we'll push for a play off spot with everything we've got"

The season is working out as expected, keep up the good work Tony, push for the playoffs son. 

What is the point if promotion is an impossibility anyway? 

But he didnt say that anyway, football isnt based solely on budgets and Mowbray has plenty of advantages over many rivals. More time than anyone else to build, no major sales forced through his time here, no big earners and/or bad influences rotting on the wage bill sapping up resources which makes direct comparison unfair that he has still under contract that he has inherited, a very healthy and competitive budget. 

[Claytons Left Boot]

I kid you not (your honour), my wife has just come in from the kitchen and said she’s made a lemon drizzle cake. I think that unequivocally qualifies me to take over the running of first team duties until the end of the season. Strap yourselves in for the ride and, Mercer, get some of that expensive wine on order and lots of it.

[RevidgeBlue]

51 minutes ago, Roversider said:

Let's roll back time to pre-season, would anyone be calling for Mowbray to go if we said we would be 6 points off the play offs?

 

Yes, why wouldn't you be? Appalling level of performance. Being in and around the play offs should be the absolute minimum level of expectation. Really the target should be top 2 with the play offs as a fall back option.

And it's only six because we sneaked a win yesterday. Would you be posting the same if we'd lost and the gap was 9?

[RevidgeBlue]

3 hours ago, Exiled in Toronto said:

First plausible explanation that ties everything together. Maybe the data/scouting investment wasn’t anything to do with TM. This is exactly the sort of stuff the consultants would’ve recommended: best practice. Then we had two systems working in parallel: the analysts found Kaminski and the young keeper, TM does his Boro mates a favour with Pears. Analysts find young defenders, TM does his Boro mates a favour with Ayala. Results don’t go as planned, TM in the frame. Venkys work around him while talks start on who to replace him with.

We can but hope.

If true  you can't really blame Venky's for being annoyed when TM over-ruled the recommendations in favour of Kipre who we then failed to land and Ayala who to date looks like an overpriced crock on a long term deal.

How much must be wasting on him and Mulgrew not to play.

£2m p.a.?

[Gav]

39 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

How are Accy competing for promotion to the Championship against some very big football clubs then? How did Wycombe end up in the Championship?

I'd be interested to know how you've drawn comparisons between getting out of league one, maybe in Accys case, to getting promoted from Championship to Premiership.

 

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by Gav

[Mattyblue]

Just now, Gav said:

I be interested to know how you've drawn comparisons between getting out of league one, maybe, to getting promoted from Championship to Premiership.

 

 

Because Accy’s budget is a fraction of the big clubs in that league (as was Wycombe’s). Pretty simple comparison, really.

 

[Blue blood]

42 minutes ago, Gav said:

Mowbray should have said in pre-season:

"We can't complete with the relegated sides financially and we can't compete with the clubs still receiving parachute payments. The minimum expectation is mid table, but we'll push for a play off spot with everything we've got"

The season is working out as expected, keep up the good work Tony, push for the playoffs son. 

If he had said that I would have handed him his P45. 

Brentford (much better run I admit) prove that you can compete with those clubs with more financial muscle. No parachute payments there. Boro and Reading making a decent stab of competing too. As have Preston, Millwall etc over the years and Huddersfield and Norwich when they got promoted first time round. 

Also in a league where any team can and does beat any other this defeatest attitude particularly grates. Not saying it is easy, we have an automatic right to be top 6 or anything like that but the idea we can't compete is not true. 

[JBiz]

1 hour ago, Blue blood said:

1) it's also based on reports from Boro fans I work with.as well as 3 poor games, which seems to be in keeping with their reports. Also I said not very good which is less dramatic than your summation. Have to say both on reports from previous and what seems it appears a fair assessment of him. Also given he is a number 2 he isn't going to get huge amounts of games is he. Leuts only made a handful prior to him and Raya leaving but it was enough to see he was poor. 

2) if anything this makes signing him worse. Him being a crock would have been much less a gamble had our other defenders been more robust. In fact it would have probably been a more worthwhile gamble to take in those circumstances. As it is with two other centre backs badly injury prone it was playing with fire. 

3) Not sure the goalposts are being moved. Both the defence AND the keeper situation really needed badly sorting. Yes we needed a couple of keepers, no arguments from me there - I agree with you. We also however really needed to strengthen a depleted and injury prone defence. That the money went on a second keeper when we already had the Greek lad as back up, and we badly needed defensive reinforcements too, seems a poor use of the money. Don't think that's hindsight whatsoever. 

4) Maybe it was key to us signing him, in which case we were had. It's bad business regardless of how much it happens in football as we don't come out well from it. I'm not sure why eyebrows can't be raised at Pears contract. Is a second choice keeper who hasn't really performed really worth a 4 year deal? I would have expected he would have had more to prove to justify being locked down for that long. It's not like a Dack or Armstrong situation of tying down your star players. What I will say though is if it was longer for a lower wage than perhaps that makes sense and I would withdraw that criticism as I could see why you would want that situation. 

 

1. Reserve keepers are a strange scenario - we signed 2 backups to TK last summer after being in a situation where Fisher was our only “senior” choice. I think it’s been a successful refit - the other lad (greek?) has no experience of English second flight football so a relatively cheap long term second choice makes a lot of sense. 

Fair enough that you’ve been given info on him, but I don’t see Pears as “favour for a mate” or a lazy signing, just a small cog in our first team. The main job of finding a proper keeper has been nailed by our restructured scouting network - something Tony was very vocal about developing!

2. Wharton injury prone? Also I don’t think being “injury prone” is an exact science either - but I would suggest a common decision in football to compliment “young” defenders is a lad who’s been round the block a few times. 
 

As it happens - so far, the jury probably suggests DA has been a waste of money - but I’ll suggest again that this is an easy criticism in hindsight. I’m not Au Fait with DAs history but I do remember a Boro fan saying he will have a “strain” in time for a week at home at Christmas....! An apt “quip” maybe?

3. As I mentioned - Greek lad had no real elite senior experience as far as I was aware, but the main response to three is; how much do you think he cost out of the budget to be concerned?

In terms of sorting the defence and goalkeeping scenario out - I agree with you that these areas seemed to be less important to TM, however I also would suggest there was a definite lack attacking “potential” coming from the academy before AA and BB came on permanent deals, whereas the u23s seemed full of defenders and midfielders.

Wharton for example - someone who looked the part prior to injury, and any development of his credentials would be a better route to improving the team than spending more money. Carter and Magliore might step up with a similar path of loans to Scott.

4. Last bit on contracts is a bit based on assumption and to some extent I agree - however a pertinent example, we’ve plenty of good players on 6/18 months left, if Ayala came in with 12 and did well - the criticism from the fans would’ve been “why 1 year”

All contracts are a risk. Some even questioned resigning Dack after 12 months off - and whilst I get that, I don’t agree with the assumed simplicity of running this aspect of the club!

[frosty]

1 hour ago, Roversider said:

Let's roll back time to pre-season, would anyone be calling for Mowbray to go if we said we would be 6 points off the play-offs and be the top scorers in the Championship?  A lot of the antipathy relates to the disappointment following the outstanding start.

 

 

100% yes. As already touched on, this year was meant to be 'the year' after two seasons of 'consolidation'. This summer we didn't lose any key players yet again, the players brought in looked to be very good signings, we were saying that everything was in place (apart from those of us who've had doubts about Mowbray's ability to get us challenging for a while now).

So if I was told that we'd be plodding along in mid-table yet again being x amount of points from the play offs, then it would have simply confirmed what plenty of us were quite sure of and what surely everybody must realise now - we're not going to finish in the top 6, let alone go up, with Mowbray.

I don't agree with outstanding start by the way, unless you're referring to the first three games only, in which yep we had two thumping wins. But two wins out of three soon became two wins out of six, and three out of 10. I'd say it's after about 10 games when a start to a 46 game season can be judged.

[Gav]

8 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Because Accy’s budget is a fraction of the big clubs in that league (as was Wycombe’s). Pretty simple comparison, really.

 

I wonder if Accy fans are calling for the managers head sitting a healthy 10th in league one?

We're 9th and ours are.......

You're point is nonsense with respect Matty, the distinction between Norwich who earned over £100m last season and Blackburn Rovers, is nothing like comparing Donny and Accy.

 

[Mattyblue]

Who said Donny? Try the Sunderlands who are paying £10/15k+ a week to some players. Accy pay what, less than 1k a week?

Of course it’s not nonsense, neither is the fact that clubs out perform their competitors all the time, at every level and will continue to do so - we won’t because the club is not set up to outperform its resources, many other clubs are.

 

[Ben Frost]

1 hour ago, roversfan99 said:

The fact that we are the top scorers is irrelevant, it is where we are in the league that matters. 

It's where we are in the league in 104 days time that really matters 

[RevidgeBlue]

4 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Who said Donny? Try the Sunderlands who are paying £10/15k+ a week to some players. Accy pay what, less than 1k a week?

Of course it’s not nonsense, neither is the fact that clubs out perform their competitors all the time, at every level and will continue to do so - we won’t because the club is not set up to outperform its resources, many other clubs are.

 

Yep, it's a really weak and lazy argument to say that you can't compete with a team with a bigger budget.

Some teams will always have bigger budgets than others no matter what League you're talking about. If you take that viewpoint there's no point going out in the first place, just allocate finishing positions in accordance with turn over.

[Lucimo]

24 minutes ago, Gav said:

I wonder if Accy fans are calling for the managers head sitting a healthy 10th in league one?

We're 9th and ours are.......

You're point is nonsense with respect Matty, the distinction between Norwich who earned over £100m last season and Blackburn Rovers, is nothing like comparing Donny and Accy.

 

No they won't be because they'll see that they are only 4 points off 6th with 5(five) games in hand. If we had 5 games in hand, I think a lot of people would cut Mowbray some slack. At least until the inevitable run of 7points in 10 games to which we have become accustomed to under TM(usually when we get within touching distance of the play offs) 

[Gav]

3 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Who said Donny? Try the Sunderlands who are paying £10/15k+ a week to some players. Accy pay what, less than 1k a week?

Of course it’s not nonsense, neither is the fact that clubs out perform their competitors all the time, at every level and will continue to do so - we won’t because the club is not set up to outperform its resources, many other clubs are.

 

Neither Sunderland or Accy will make it to the Premiership anytime soon, they'll not make it to the Championship either...

For every club that our performs the competion and gets promoted I'll give 60 that don't.

Its nonsense to compare the league one competition to Championship/Premiership and I've given you over £100m reasons why.

[Mattyblue]

3 minutes ago, Gav said:

Neither Sunderland or Accy will make it to the Premiership anytime soon, they'll not make it to the Championship either...

For every club that our performs the competion and gets promoted I'll give 60 that don't.

Its nonsense to compare the league one competition to Championship/Premiership and I've given you over £100m reasons why.

It really isn’t nonsense, it’s all relative, if you don’t understand that, then fair enough.

 

[RevidgeBlue]

8 minutes ago, Gav said:

Its nonsense to compare the league one competition to Championship/Premiership and I've given you over £100m reasons why.

The parachute payments skewer the equation slightly as regards automatic promotion but we're not even at the races in regards to challenging for the top 6.

We're also only three points ahead of teams who were struggling desperately against relegation last year like Huddersfield, Barnsley and Luton so we're not exactly performing well are we?

Edit: two, three and five  but the point stands.

Edited January 25, 2021 by RevidgeBlue

[Blue blood]

37 minutes ago, JBiz said:

1. Reserve keepers are a strange scenario - we signed 2 backups to TK last summer after being in a situation where Fisher was our only “senior” choice. I think it’s been a successful refit - the other lad (greek?) has no experience of English second flight football so a relatively cheap long term second choice makes a lot of sense. 

Yeah and I said at the time in principle someone with English experience makes sense. It's the fee and quality i have issue with. I think we could have got just as good a quality a second choice keeper with UK experience  without having to cough up a six figure fee. 

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Fair enough that you’ve been given info on him, but I don’t see Pears as “favour for a mate” or a lazy signing, just a small cog in our first team. The main job of finding a proper keeper has been nailed by our restructured scouting network - something Tony was very vocal about developing!

First choice keeper hunting out has been a fantastic success no arguments there. 

Yeah the Boro fan was really not complimentary about Pears and the fact Warnock shipped him out so quickly also bares weight to this assessment. So when you consider fee, quality and length of contract j think you can make quite a case for favour for a mate/lazy signing. Of course it doesn't help ease suspicion when we have signed  a number of Boro players! 

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2. Wharton injury prone? Also I don’t think being “injury prone” is an exact science either - but I would suggest a common decision in football to compliment “young” defenders is a lad who’s been round the block a few times. 
 

Sorry I meant Lenihen. And again with him and Williams on the books plus potentially Nayambe too signing a centre back with fitness issues is very risky. 

My Boro colleague said of Ayala great if you can get him to play and said he was one of the most injury prone players he had seen. So yeah not an exact science but really don't think we helped ourselves here. 

Agree about the young and old pairing btw. 

 

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As it happens - so far, the jury probably suggests DA has been a waste of money - but I’ll suggest again that this is an easy criticism in hindsight. I’m not Au Fait with DAs history but I do remember a Boro fan saying he will have a “strain” in time for a week at home at Christmas....! An apt “quip” maybe? 

Should perhaps have posted the Boro fan I know's comments here. Yes it does seem he had fitness issues. 

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3. As I mentioned - Greek lad had no real elite senior experience as far as I was aware, but the main response to three is; how much do you think he cost out of the budget to be concerned? 

Not huge but more than warranted. Blimey the defence would still be underfunded but given we seemed to struggle to pay fees I think it certainly could have been spent more on the defence. A few buy for fee options were mooted and I wonder if the Pears fee would have been better spent on perhaps bringing them in. 

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In terms of sorting the defence and goalkeeping scenario out - I agree with you that these areas seemed to be less important to TM, however I also would suggest there was a definite lack attacking “potential” coming from the academy before AA and BB came on permanent deals, whereas the u23s seemed full of defenders and midfielders.

Wharton for example - someone who looked the part prior to injury, and any development of his credentials would be a better route to improving the team than spending more money. Carter and Magliore might step up with a similar path of loans to Scott.

Yeah I hear that you look to see what your youth can augment and that may save you a few fees. Thing is we still have been short on numbers of defenders, especially as some of the youth aren't ready. We've been thin on defensive numbers for years regardless of Warton stepping up this year. Last year Williams was our sole back up at lb and CB at the same time for example, Bennett and Downing have played full back, we've thrown in a few youngsters at CB (not Warton) who weren't ready. Even before you get to the problems caused by too many injury prone centre backs you have to conclude that we haven't had enough defenders in the squad for years. The injury prone nature of the defenders has added to that problem. So whilst there may have been more need for attacking reinforcements - with Travis Lenihen Nayambe, Warton and JRC coming through the defence still needed work in terms of numbers and this was neglected. 

And that's before we even get in to debating whether the current defenders are good enough or whether the money spent on the forward line was well spent!

Thing is for me it's a build from the back situation and we really haven't. Look at under Hughes for example - we had a year of Kuqi and Dickov as strikers accompanying Bellamy but because the defense and midfield was solid it worked. When Big Sam and Hughes both came in the defence was sorted first. Sure we may have needed attackers but the defence has been woefully neglected. These 2 transfers are a part of that imo. 

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4. Last bit on contracts is a bit based on assumption and to some extent I agree - however a pertinent example, we’ve plenty of good players on 6/18 months left, if Ayala came in with 12 and did well - the criticism from the fans would’ve been “why 1 year”

All contracts are a risk. Some even questioned resigning Dack after 12 months off - and whilst I get that, I don’t agree with the assumed simplicity of running this aspect of the club!

Yeah it's not simple but if 1 year is too short and 3 too much the answer is pretty clear. Also if we were actually more on the ball with these things then perhaps shorter contracts would be less of an issue. I agree it isn't simple or straightforward but 3 years for an over 30 injury prone defender seems risky even taking complexities into account. 

[Gav]

1 minute ago, RevidgeBlue said:

The parachute payments skewer the equation slightly as regards automatic promotion but we're not even at the races in regards to challenging for the top 6.

We're also only three points ahead of teams who were struggling desperately against relegation last year like Huddersfield, Barnsley and Luton so we're not exactly performing well are we?

Our competition every year are the teams with the biggest budgets, usually the relegated clubs over the past 3yrs and Brentford who have traded massively over the past 3/4yrs.

Can you explain how you expect us to compete with the likes of Norwich or Bournemouth for example this season? We survive on loans mostly, its not going to get us promoted anytime soon as history shows us.

The gap is getting wider by the season, with our budget of £1.49p its tough Rev, regardless who the manager is.

I don't have any problems with ambition, posters should be optimistic, full of hope, I'm far to long in the tooth for that, I can see the current path and its consolidation, mid table and I'm happy with that and even if I wasn't I can't do anything about it, I bleed Blue and White, giving up isn't an option.

Hope you and the family are well by the way.