Valérien Ismaël: Blackburn Rovers Head Coach

[JHRover]

I have some sympathy for him in terms of players missing and disgraceful regime he's (chosen) to work for but 1 win in 11 and counting is sacking territory for any manager at any club, regardless of circumstances. 

Here though? Not a hint. Distract the masses with transfer gossip instead.

[K-Hod]

Whilst Pasha and Rudy have made us sell all our best players to cut costs, he’s still absolutely hopeless.

At any other club, he’d be under scrutiny for such a poor run, but not here at Easy Street Ewood.

[Tomphil2]

I think we've seen enough now to be clear we need a change of approach and tactics it just isn't working aside from the odd win that comes out of the blue.

Yes we know what he's up against but his tactics are all wrong for a club and team in our situation. He has the team running on empty by half time every game and the goal attempts/corners/set piece/chances created column rarely ever has more than one or two entries in it.

[G Somerset Rover]

He can’t win football matches which is fairly important for a manager. Well, at any normal club it is.

As an aside, we’ve scored two goals in the last 525 minutes of football. Jesus wept.

Edited yesterday at 19:23 by G Somerset Rover

[Waggy76]

If his hands are being tied , he should walk like the 2 previous managers  . We will see in early February!

 

[Upside Down]

He's got himself a three year deal. 

The job's his for that time unless he decides he wants out. 

All he needs to do is reference Suhail and the owners by name in a press conference and it will all be over for him. 

The question is, will he take us down two divosions or just one?

 

[Lancaster Rover]

Still no closer to knowing what our style of play or identity is. 12 months in and for large parts of most games we look as clueless as his first game against Norwich, where we contrived to make Shane Duffy look like beckenbaur.

 

[Waggy76]

25 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

He's got himself a three year deal. 

The job's his for that time unless he decides he wants out. 

All he needs to do is reference Suhail and the owners by name in a press conference and it will all be over for him. 

The question is, will he take us down two divosions or just one?

 

He is no good , he will  take us  down !

It is how he leaves ? , that is the question,  for me !

[MarkBRFC]

He will absolutely take us down before his 3 year deal is up.

I think he will get away with it this season by the skin of his teeth, next year though I can see us not being that much better off than Sheffield Wednesday.

[London blue]

Odds on Ismael's contract being the next one that the club extends?

[Upside Down]

1 minute ago, London blue said:

Odds on Ismael's contract being the next one that the club extends?

Odds on.

[London blue]

I wouldn't be surprised.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

The question I keep having in my head is:

IF we stay up - what has Val learned this season that he can apply next season? Is he brave enough to take a calculated risk? Does he have what it takes to bring out the best in the players?

I think there is too much of an over reliance on 'trusting the data'. The trouble is, what data are you trusting and at what point does the data become untrustworthy? Our stats might look better playing a 5-3-2 than a 4-5-1 but at the moment the key stat that is being ignored is the lack of wins. 

I want Val to look at the overall picture and think "This is clearly not working, despite what the stats say, let's try something DIFFERENT". 

When I watched Macclesfield beat Palace, they had a plan. The part time players may not have thought winning was likely but they still believed in the manager and his plan and it worked. I appreciate V.I has a lot of injuries but I don't think we could have beaten Crystal Palace the other day if we played them. We don't seem to have a plan that the players believe in or can get the best out of them. I want Val to take on the challenge of having a weakened team and make the players feel 10x better. Instead, they look like they are scared to not let him down rather than try and take on the world. 

[roversfan99]

To be fair, results were even worse playing 4231. Results in general under him have been shocking.

[roverblue]

I think the only way we see the back of the 5 man defensive and the team's appalling goal scoring record is if Ismael goes.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

The 5 at the back worked pretty well when we had the players to play it.  None of the centre backs looked good enough to play in just a 2. Maybe that isn’t the case now. We had Alebiosu and Hedges as pretty effective wing backs. It allowed us to play Ohashi and Gudjohnsen up front as a pair when neither of them had what it takes to play up front on their own. They looked to be forming a good partnership when Gudjohnsen got injured unfortunately.

Alebiosu is missing at the moment, Hedges is probably out for the rest of the season. Gudjohnsen is out for a while yet. So the plan is in tatters. Without some signings we are just drifting downwards.

[all you need is duff]

The thing that has frustrated me the most about his management is the way he has handled the strikers, whether by choice or because Rudy and Pasha have told him to. Leonard banished to the U21s, Gueuye not picked in squads, Tyjon not picked in squads. Instead we had Dlamini and Henriksson up front yesterday. The most baffling thing is Tyjon has suddenly been picked in the last two squads but he has zero intention of giving him any minutes. It reminds me a little of when Kean wouldn't play the likes of Salgado, Nelsen and Emerton but wouldn't really be honest about the reasons why

[RevidgeBlue]

First of all, he is not the ONLY problem at the Club but he is a bloody big part of it, he's an atrocious manager/ head coach - and he is fully complicit in the situation we currently find ourselves in.

The real test of how good or poor a manager he is imo came last season. Literally from the first minute he walked through the door, remaining in the play off picture no longer seemed to be an option.

In the summer he was completely on board ("aligned") with  Gestede and Pasha as he oversaw the destruction of the squad. After wheeling and dealing with eleven or twelve players both in and out we've been left with arguably the weakest squad any of us can remember and definitely the one with the least attacking potential.  Hardly surprising when we went into the season with only two strikers that he was prepared to use.

Frankly I don't believe a word he says either. He's been prepared to pretend players were close to signing new deals one minute then make out they'd changed their mind on a sixpence the next, sling unfounded accusations at other outgoing players or send them to Coventry in order to ease them out of the door, and been happy to sell a key player in the last few hours of the window without a replacement knowing the alternatives had a history of being extremely injury prone.

Now he's (imo) pulling the wool over supporters' eyes by pretending players were coming in early and that we're after two strikers when (again imo) he knows there's no chance whatsoever of that happening. And it comes only a month or two after he told the owners they could repair the pitch instead of spending in January.

The owners need to go, Pasha needs to go,  Gestede needs to go. But by Christ this fella also needs to go. 4 home wins in 19 and 2 goals in (edited) 624 minutes of football.

Edited 10 hours ago by RevidgeBlue

[aletheia]

Would we beat Macclesfield?

[islander200]

4 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

First of all, he is not the ONLY problem at the Club but he is a bloody big part of it, he's an atrocious manager/ head coach - and he is fully complicit in the situation we currently find ourselves in.

The real test of how good or poor a manager he is imo came last season. Literally from the first minute he walked through the door, remaining in the play off picture no longer seemed to be an option.

In the summer he was completely on board ("aligned") with  Gestede and Pasha as he oversaw the destruction of the squad. After wheeling and dealing with eleven or twelve players both in and out we've been left with arguably the weakest squad any of us can remember and definitely the one with the least attacking potential.  Hardly surprising when we went into the season with only two strikers that he was prepared to use.

Frankly I don't believe a word he says either. He's been prepared to pretend players were close to signing new deals one minute then make out they'd changed their mind on a sixpence the next, sling unfounded accusations at other outgoing players or send them to Coventry in order to ease them out of the door, and been happy to sell a key player in the last few hours of the window without a replacement knowing the alternatives had a history of being extremely injury prone.

Now he's (imo) pulling the wool over supporters' eyes by pretending players were coming in early and that we're after two strikers when (again imo) he knows there's no chance whatsoever of that happening. And it comes only a month or two after he told the owners they could repair the pitch instead of spending in January.

The owners need to go, Pasha needs to go,  Gestede needs to go. But by Christ this fella also needs to go. 4 home wins in 19 and 2 goals in (edited) 624 minutes of football.

Not a defence of Ismael but anyone appointed by Gestede and Pasha will have to be complicit or they won't be appointed.

If they sack ismael tomorrow morning then the replacement will come in working under the same conditions 

We ain't going to appoint a Eustace or a JDT who will be demanding of the board.Not while Gestede and Pasha are running the show anyway 

[philipl]

1 hour ago, aletheia said:

Would we beat Macclesfield?

Thankfully we are not going to find out...

[lraC]

9 minutes ago, philipl said:

Thankfully we are not going to find out...

We wouldn’t beat a field full of cows.

[wilsdenrover]

16 minutes ago, philipl said:

Thankfully we are not going to find out...

Give it a couple of years.

[RevidgeBlue]

37 minutes ago, islander200 said:

Not a defence of Ismael but anyone appointed by Gestede and Pasha will have to be complicit or they won't be appointed.

If they sack ismael tomorrow morning then the replacement will come in working under the same conditions 

We ain't going to appoint a Eustace or a JDT who will be demanding of the board.Not while Gestede and Pasha are running the show anyway 

Any replacement might have a bit of ability though.

[islander200]

4 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Any replacement might have a bit of ability though.

 

We might yeah If we get lucky 

But talented and in demand head coaches won't agree to come in and work under Pasha and Gestede on this project 

It will be head coaches like Ismael that are in the last chance saloon that will be making up the shortlist 

Or someone who has zero or little experience in senior management. Vignal the under 23 boss and Jordan Rhodes would be in the running is my bet