Makes sense. I do wonder however if Walsh turned us down due to the mad Venkys setup and that's why we went for Broughton out of the blue.

I also can't see why we would go for Rooney. I'd much rather take someone with a good proven managerial record. Also realistically we won't be able to afford him.

Just a hunch?

Hopefully he will have a big list of cheap talented players to use. I reckon it could be an interesting season with a lot of experimental signings. Still can't really wrap my head around how a decent manager will sign on for our gig - needs to be okay with 1- Crazy distant owners, 2-Brand new DoF, 3-Small budget

What's particularly galling about it (and probably a big factor why Lenihan is moving on) is despite Lenihan being critical to Rovers, captain and playing most games Ayala is probably being paid double to miss 80% of our games.

He's a good all-round defender. It will be hard to find as good a replacement with the budget we have. I guess we will be finding out if Carter can step up, and trying to get a loan in of similar quality to Van Hecke or Harwood-Bellis.

I had a look too off the back of this and agree if you dig a little deeper he's really a well qualified academy director, not a first team anything. Not saying hell do a bad job but he's in this Sporting Director role for the first time. It's also a bit weird when you consider the part of the club that's been doing well is the academy under Damian Johnson. But we've brought in someone doing DJs role in another club and made him top dog. Where does that leave DJ?

Thing that worries me about the 48 hours is that Broughton may not have had time to realise how dysfunctional our setup is and is in for some surprises. Hope he doesn't pull a Lambert in a few months.

Have to wonder if Knutsen really fancies walking away from a CL club however small for the Championship?

Sounds very switched on, but obviously working at a lower standard than Rovers. I interesting quote in there "the project that really excited me was Bodø/Glimt. The joined-up thinking, strategy and journey they were on made me think we could do something really special." Surprised if he's coming based on a similar feeling at Rovers.

There's no way it's Dyche. JDT seems possible though.

Personally I'd take the Nations League every time over a friendly. Obviously nothing compared to the Euros or WC but at least competitive. We or Belgium, Spain etc might think it's a sideshow, but I am sure Hungary etc would love to win it. It's the League Cup of international football. Quite looking forward to Germany tonight. Hopefully go in with more energy and focus than Saturday night.

Yes - for someone like Ainsworth that he will get paid more is a huge advantage for us. But for our first choice managers they can get similar money elsewhere. So the nutters thing will be / has been decisive.

Spot on, it's clear any decision with any significance to the bottom line need to be signed off from India, and the people to do the signing off aren't that interested. Recipe for inertia.

This is the club all over and why we will struggle to make progress. You'd be better off with less resources but the capability to move quickly and decisively. It the lack of vision, clarity, confidence which is killing us.

Yeah, we need a decent second choice. Pears isn't it

It's two sided imo. Good managers look for a chairman / owner with vision as much as the other way around.

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