joey_big_nose

If it's quick, professionally conducted and as much about the owners selling themselves and the club to the preferred candidate as validating the candidate then great. But.... Will it be like that? My money's on slow to happen and revealing of a lack of plan and vision by the owners, and even a clear idea who the candidate is. Just my gut feel.

Wonder what Carlos thinks about having to probably be interviewed again by India.... https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/20170448.blackburn-rovers-managerial-latest-talks-held-carlos-carvalhal/

He's looked absolutely awful imo. But then I suppose so did Ben Brereton. Maybe we should send Magloire to Chile?

If we announce a decent manager in the next week I'll hold my hands up and stand corrected. Would show there has been a bit more engagement with the club from the owners. I was fully expecting not to get anywhere near a manager appointment till July. Also I doubt Carvalhal - if he comes - would be doing so without very good investment promised. He was given a big budget at Sheff Wed and so I am sure he would expect the same at Rovers. That said still feels likely to me that he will get a better offer than Rovers. Edit - on that last point if he is taking a week to mull it over, it could be that he is awaiting confirmation of what sort of budget he would have available from Venkys.

Yes Cavalho probably will have three or four offers on the table so I defo wouldn't count any chickens.

Think you're being a bit harsh, but agree the basic point is that the centre backs (and GKs) are not world class. We've got world class quality in other areas but not those two. If we did we'd have CBs and GKs playing in the Champions League which (apart from Stones when others are injured) but we don't. The one who does seem promising is Tomori. I'm really surprised he's had such limited England call ups.

We do seem to have a lot of really promising young players coming through. Whoever is leading the strategy at the academy is doing a very good job. Who ultimately leads that over the long term as the U23 and U19 coaches come and go? Edit - just realised Damian Johnson has been in role since 2015 (didn't think it was that long) so it must really be him I suppose?

Yeah not sure why people think this could be a good thing, it reeks of amateur hour madness. We might get lucky and the kid is a smart level headed guy with maturity beyond his years who turns the administration of the club around. But I would say that's going to be a lot less likely than either a) his inexperience leading to him making a lot of rash not thought through decisions, or b) his inexperience being exploited by the more senior members of the staff to neutralise any changes he tries to make. Nothing personal against him, just few multi million pound businesses appoint people in their early 20s as directors. There's a reason for that

Dyche isn't going to need to take a Championship job. He'll get a prem job soon enough when the sack race starts around November. He can take a few months out with the family till then.

Yeah, the "he's sixteen" thing is weird. Jude Bellingham started for Birmingham very close to his sixteenth birthday. He ended up playing 41 games that season. If he's really good he'll get some subs, if he looks good in those he will start.

Do decent players sign for clubs when there's no manager? I can't think of many

My impression is they just communicated less and less with everybody rather than targeting Mowbray specifically.... but maybe I could be wrong?

Cavalho has just got Braga into Europe and won the Portuguese cup.... wouldn't he be aiming a bit higher than Rovers current predicament? Seems a bit optimistic to me to get him. That said I suppose he's also got the biggest amount of clubs managed on his CV that I've ever seen, and probably only two real "big" clubs - Sporting and Beskitas. Has am incredibly long list of small clubs to his names, 19 clubs in 22 years, and that's with a 3 year break from 2012 to 2015. Definitely an odd one. Maybe would suit the odd setup at our club?

Mowbray was a reasonable manager tbh. Did okay in a club run by absolute numpties. Some good signings, some bad. Good runs, bad runs. If he was pitching up at another club and a fan asked me what theyre in for I would say youve got a solid manager who will do his best and build a competitive mid table side. But he isn't going to revolutionise your team's fortunes. Though I suspect under good invested ownership with a plan he might do a bit better than at Rovers (as any manager would) but we will see. Anyway, think he did his best, enjoyable periods, seem like a good guy, brought through a lot of youth. All the best for the future Tony. He should use his time off to figure out how to address his side's awful habit of death spirals.

All just suggestions though. The club heirachy need to be empowered to interview candidates and offer the job. That's the main hurdle. I can see it being very unclear internally how the process will work. Does anyone know how Mowbray was selected and signed off? Might make it a bit clearer how it will work this time. Was he final interviewed by Venkys?

It's mental that we have this huge extra burden of managing the owners that the club has to take on. Championship is ultra competitive and comes down to fine margins. The lack of clarity and lack of decision making that comes from the owners is a huge handicap we have. If we do manage to get to the point where we interview the likes of Farke I will be very surprised if the good candidates want to take that on? Why risk your career on an obviously dysfunctional club when you can find another with engaged leadership and clear practical processes?

My general feeling is we promote young players too late to first team rather than too early. I wouldn't be against him getting some game time. But realistically he's not going to go in as a starter under any manager. We'll need new experienced players to replace Rothwell and Johnson imo.

The issue we had is during our best period we had Travis, Rothwell and Buckley all playing together. Either with them all in a three (433)or Buckley more advanced in the hole (4231) or a false 9 (343). So even if we swap Buckley for Rothwell we still have an absolutely key starting player to replace. If the new manager fancies 343 or 4231 probably Dack or Markanday can fill in, but 433 we would need someone completely new to lineup alongside Travis and Buckley. And then obviously big gaps everywhere if we have injuries or suspensions.

I'd dispute that. I think he will be good in a two alongside Travis or another physical midfielder. But who plays two in the middle these days anyway? Very very rare. Only formation where you have a proper old school 2 in mid in 442 and virtually no one plays that. Otherwise you've got players from various positions stepping in to help the mids either from a back three or a number 10 dropping in.

Rothwells best games were probably marginally better than Buckley's so far, but Buckley does look to me like he will be far more consistent when he hits stride. We will need two more quality centre mids who can tackle and get forward. I'm skeptical like others are on Edun. May grow over time, but not ready for next season. Also quite lightweight for a mid (though we did say that about Buckley and he sorted it). Reckon we need 2 centre mids, 2 centre backs, a left back, right back, GK, two strikers and a winger, at least half of them starters, and the other half near starter qualityy. Hell of a shopping list. 10 players! Assuming we get 4 good loans that's six buys. How many quality players have we managed to buy outright a season? I think we've averaged about one or two who haven't been loans over the last three seasons. Last year it was only Pickering who went straight in. Hedges started to come through but he needed 3 months to settle. Hmm.

Besides that even if they were great players we obviously wanted to buy what player signs for a club without a manager? Crackers to even try and get them.

Buckley is a very good player who can play almost anywhere. Can pass, beat a man, tackle, score. He'll be the partner to Travis and start every game he's fit for next season. Will be his break through year imo. We should enjoy him as fully expecting a prem club to take him next summer (unless of course we go up).

Non "big six clubs" can't get in the CL. In the last 15 years the only club that wasn't Liverpool, City, Utd, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea in the CL was Leicester once! Outside of that's it's a free for all. West Ham, Burnley, Wolves, Southampton, Everton, Hull, Swansea, Wigan, Fulham, Stoke, Wigan, Birmingham, Villa, Bolton, Portsmouth, Newcastle and of course Rovers have qualified for the UEFA cup in the last 15 years. I don't think that's really changed. Leicester and West Ham qualified last year. It's an achievable target for a club like Rovers.

I'd say it's worse than that. Wouldn't be surprised if we don't interview anyone for a month or two

My gut feel is we aren't activitively looking for anybody. Venkys probably just waking up to idea that we need a new manager. Waggott desperately trying to get Pune on the phone for direction but with little luck.