I'd still like to understand:- Who interviewed and decided upon Owen Coyle Who interviewed and decided upon Tony Mowbray. If we are apparently pulling all of our managers from the same pond, why did Cheston bother interviewing Warnock? Who gave approval to interview Warnock? Life was so simple when the board either identified a manager or received applications for a job. They just interviewed the candidates and picked who they thought was the best one. The reason I can't see any change happening is because Venkys don't have anyone in place who can manage the process. It's too much hassle.

Except for Mowbray has had an OK budget and yet has bought all of the black and white paint. Yes we are stuck with the squad we have, but after 4 years that is 100% Mowbrays fault. When Dave Carroll says you can't keep blaming the manager because the players aren't good enough of course you can. It's his squad. End of. And its Dave that needs a good slap for the comment that if Pep was in charge we would still be midtable. That implies Mowbray is doing as good a job as possible with the squad he has. That implies that playing Sam Gallagher wide right is the correct thing to do. That implies that dropping Nyambe for an 18 year old kid for his first ever senior start is a good idea. That implies having 5 strikers on the pitch with one at right back is a good idea. I'm sure the Welsh version of Dave Carrol said the same thing when Mick McCarthy was brought in to replace Neil Harris, and yet 6 consecutive wins laters they are sat in the top 6. So the state of the current squad is 100% on Mowbray.

I know from experience it doesn't 😒

In all honesty I think there is enough in us to pick up wins against the grain here and there and end up safe. If we do score first we will always be dangerous on the break to teams coming at us. There is a lot of chaff in this league and I think we will be OK. However as much as anyone says 'we won't go down', 100/1 is a ridiculously big price !

What really didn't help yesterday, and over the last few games, is the reliance on two unproven loans in the defence. It difficult to criticise as they were brought in as cover, not to be the mainstay of the defence, but they have a hand in all bar one of Watford highlights - For the first Watford Chance, Harwood-Bellis and Travis can both see the guy that eventually takes the shot. Travis ignores him to get back into midfield and Harwood-Bellis is looking at the man behind (who Nyambe has) and is slow to get across. For the first goal Branthwaite is just slow to get out, plays the man onside and then stands watching him with his hand in the air instead of trying to do something about it. For the second goal its a clear, basic error in dealing with the ball in by Harwood-Bellis. For the next Watford chance Rothwell is just stood on the edge of the box sorting his collar out instead of falling back to pick up the extra man. For the final goal Nyambe steps out as Harwood-Bellis has the other striker covered, but watch how slow Branthwaite is to react to the runner from midfield who ends up receiving the ball. We've complained constantly about not strengthening the defence. We knew it was short on cover every transfer window for the last 3 years. And yet here we are losing games with two teenage defenders who have made less that 15 starts between them in senior football before they arrived at Ewood. It's just poor, poor management of a squad.

As a preventetive measure, investing in defenders in general during the preceding years also helps.

Dalglish built that team in 4 months, not four years. Dalglish hadn't already had several spells of going 5,6,7 games without a win under his tenure. Dalglish actually got us into the top 6. In some of those games under Dalglish during that spell we were the better team.

Oh, and as for that kid from City. I warned you with Mowbray comes much responsibility. But you didn't listen, and you see what happens. You are not ready.

Before we get the "they were in the premier league last year, what do you expect" comments, remember Coventry, QPR, Millwall, Huddersfield, Wycombe and Forest are amongst the Championship behemoths to have already taken points from them.

On a bit of positive news, my Stanley supporting mate said Pickering looked different class last night against them. Said he stood out massively.

As the season has now one, I would certainly suggest giving the lad some game time to see how he develops and how he looks. We gave a 19 year old Brereton plenty of minutes across 2 seasons despite looking useless, so I'm sure the same should apply to anyone who is having great success at our club at the level below the first team.

Not sure Scott Wharton would agree. Centre-half has been our achilles heel for a number of seasons and yet he has been loaned out several times with great success. However he rarely got a look in here until serious injuries struck and we had little choice. When he played lo and behold he seemed well up to this standard. You could argue maybe Mowbray didn't fancy playing a young centre half until he has matured, but then you look at our current back 4 and you realise that's obviously not the case.

Guess which club Steve Kean left in order to join Rovers?

I'm not sure they are given proper chances. Despite our deficiencies in defence for several seasons Wharton kept going out on loan. He only got game time due to a severe crisis and you would have to say looked at least as good as, if not better, than the Brandthwaite and the City lad. Plus if we played him and developed him we could see for a profit, which was supposed to be our model. Now its discard the status of the academy and flog the land.

If the academy was to retain its Cat 1 status it would surely have been in Saturdays press release. That whole release was to try and calm down any storm which was brewing. Every bit of positive spin which could be put on this would new included in that release. Not mentioning the Category 1 status of the academy is unlikely to have been an oversight. Put simply, we are selling off the category status of the academy to raise funds.

Yep. Once it's gone it's gone - for any future owners of the club.

Probably. The 'other' thread which somebody opened asking why it had been removed last night has also been locked now.

It says "Pending approval" again when I look at it now. Venus isn't popular but it looks like he was manager when they went down which isn't going to help. The detailed reply was:-

The Coventry thread is up - https://www.skybluestalk.co.uk/threads/blackburn-selling-off-training-ground.129388/ The detailed post is interesting, mainly on his views on Mowbray and his recruitment.

Someone made a new thread in their General football forum https://www.skybluestalk.co.uk/threads/blackburn-training-ground-thread-that-was-on-general.129389/#post-2207018

I just posted on a Coventry forum to quite civilly ask for their opinion and for a quick summary of what happened in in their situation. I got one reply but within a minute the thread was deleted. I presume the mods thought it was going to be either too divisive or legally dodgy. edit - the thread has been hidden pending approval.

Venkys have no idea what is happening in Blackburn or what the best thing for the football club is. Therefore the idea And proposed benefits must have come from here A key question is will people close to the club, either currently or previously, benefit personally financially from this. The similaraities to the Coventry situation are alarming. Venkys bought a club (cheaply) with several a major assets. One of them, despite it being condition of the sale it not be sold off for non-sporting usage, is about to be lost from the club forever, unavailable to be utilised by whoever owns us going forward.

Not sure on what formation we are planning on anymore. I think Mowbray and Venus will be looking to go 2 up 2 down with a few detatched out wide.

30 mins till touchdown. I hope they're friendly 👾👽

Did you know that "THE NAME TONY MOWBRAY" is an anagram of "NO WAY TO THE MR NYAMBE" It's correct. Check it. Coincidence? I think not.