And this is why we need Venkys out of the club and should be railing against such a terrible system.

In a word, yes. The primary school milk monitor has more authority than Waggot. And even in best case scenario that he does have authority then there is the minor issue of conflict of interest as his mate got him the gig.

Which shouldn't be used to excuse TM, a terrible keeper or be happy about the current situation. That said I'm fairly confident that the target, even with our lunatic owners, didn't include wasting £12 million on strikers or more pertenent to the discussion a keeper who drops so many clangers. Simply put if Walton is here next season we know that winning is not in the remit of the manager or owners. We would be using a proven failure who over the course of the season has demonstrated he isn't good enough. If we sign him it can only be for non footballing reasons..

It's a simple debate imo. TM isn't that good a manager, he is ok at best. In fact I think he is ok rather than useless but definitely not good. We are owned by Loons who are controlled by an agency that are third rate. All managers come from here. So given the pool and people making the selection the chances of us making a better appointment then TM are minute. The odds of making an appointment as good as TM isn't great either, in fact the likelihood is we would get worse. In no other club would the possibility of getting a worse manager be a reason to keep the current one. However in the circumstances at Rovers it seems a very compelling and strong motive. So roll the dice and very likely get worse/no benefit or stick with someone very limited who can't do it either. What a choice. No wonder we are stuffed until.Venkys go. Once we have a better owner TM will be out like a shot - would have been fired 3 times over at a normal club imo - and the possibility to progress becomes real. But until Venkys go we're stuck between a rock and a hard place with no way out...

Great post. Agree with 99% of it. Very well put. Only thing I would disagree with is the fear of another Coyle or substandard manager. Given the agency choses the manager or limits the options (look at last 3 for.compelling evidence of this) and Venkys history of appointments, and you have to say that it's a very real and genuine fear. It doesn't excuse TM or make him a good manager and in a normal club he would have gone three or four times by now. But just as the evidence points to TM being mediocre at best the evidence also points to the very real handicaps we have in appointing a new manager. In fact I would say imo the only reason for keeping TM is the extreme likelihood we will appoint worse.

To be fair it could only be an improvement on Coyle. I mean it literally couldn't get any worse bar a Kean 2 situation and that was a unique set of circumstances we will never see again. TM is distinctly average but the agency in charge does seem to specialise in dross. So yeah it's a lot more risky changing managers now even though TM isn't that good.

How have Brentford overtaken us? I think its because they have recouped more in fees and built up and progressed the team year on year. They are ahead of us because they have done things the right way. Far from Brentford showing us we can't compete, they are a model for how clubs can compete dispite not having parachute payments, a big fan base and strong financial backing. Also PNE and Millwall are above us with smaller budgets. I hate to say it but PNE have been much closer to the playoffs than us with none of our alleged advantages.

I'd take McCarthy in a shot but who is his agent? If it's not the ones running us then we have no chance. If he is with them, then I would be hoping that such an appointment would be made and would do that swap in an instant. He has multiple promotions on his CV (more than TM) and did very well on a limited budget at Ipswich to keep them in the Championship (contrast TM's £12 million splurge). Players speak well of him (mostly) which means he probably be not too drastic a culture shock for our squad - they need a better mentality but a more friendly approach to raising standards may be the better than a manager like Souness or Roy Keane who is too combustible. If he is on the allowed list I would be telling TM to pack his bags.

Even the non catastrophic appointments have been poor. Bowyer, Lambert, Appleton and Berg (albeit the latter two were in different times) don't inspire confidence they would do better than TM when finding a replacement. It's hard to muster any enthusiasm for a new manager search given the owners and restrictions in place.

Absolutely that's the only thing for me that makes me not gutted that TM isn't gone. Not saying he is a good manager but being run by a substandard agency does mean replacing him well will be nigh on impossible. Venkys and the horror show previously are probably key reasons why he is popular with elements of the fan base too. In a normal club, or Rovers pre Venkys, everyone would want him out. Look at the stick Sam got for doing a much better job. It always comes down to Venkys and the effect they have on us, one of which is the erosion of standards.

There's a few things that undermine this. 1) Holtby wasn't out that long, 2) Holtby has been available throughout the return period and we have played a stupid false 9 formation instead and 3) losing your best player is going to have an impact as you say. Adjusting for this (for which there was plenty of time) doesn't necessarily mean getting a like for like replacement. Maybe we could have replaced Dack's goals with an improved defence bringing in a defender to equally lessen what we conceed, or a striker who was more clinical. Sure keep the formation but that doesn't mean adjustments for Dack being out cannot be made in other ways. Again Evans' injury record is exceptionally well known. Sure one of them was unfortunate and not due to being injury prone but he consistently has been injured throughout his time here as post lockdown has shown. Relying on someone with such a terrible injury record is asking for trouble. In fact it's plain stupid. This point also ignores the fact Johnson was brought in to be the midfield partner of Travis and has tanked at it. So whatever way you look at it, this is the manager's fault for relying on a sicknote and/or buying a dud alternative. I agree the Cunningham injury was bad fortune. However we never replaced him even with ample time. It also ignores that Williams was our cover for centre back too, so if one of our centre backs had got injured we would have still had a hole in the defence because the manager did not have adequate defensive cover. This is horse manure to put it bluntly. Sorry that's harsh but it feels like a complete rewriting of how Bennett has been handled by TM. Remember Bennett played the last game because Nayambe "had played a lot of football." Nothing to do with the injury situation but forcing his golden boy into the team at any cost. The idea that Bennett has only played as much as he has because of injuries is laughable. Further evidence of this is that Downing did a decent job at lb (and I thought JRC looked ok there too) but Bennett has been played there ahead of both of them on several occasions. Apart from the January transfer window. Plenty of time to rectify it there. Or having adequate defensive cover. Or not relying on a permanent crock in Evans. Plenty of ways we could have improved planning or predicted elements of our misfortune. Again two issues with this. Firstly other than blind hope what makes you think Gally or Ben will step up, they have been absymal. There's very little evidence whatsoever that they can step up. I don't think we should be giving TM more time because these guys may come good, as they very much look like they won't. Secondly even if all of this is accepted (and I think I have made a decent case for why it shouldn't be) what about all the other errors? Gally on the wing. Midfielders as a false 9. The terrible transfers of players such as Walton. The tombola selections. The non scoring strikers. The bottling it whenever we are near to the playoffs. The struggles TM has against teams when we are clear favourites. There's a hell of a lot of issues on top of the ones in your post, even if you can excuse them.

Ah but let's be honest with this such a mixed record - which shows more bad than good - is pretty appalling. Mixed is a very clever term as it is vague and can be spun positively, whereas the context determines what rate of mixed is acceptable. For example at uni a mark of 70% is a first and therefore a good result, whereas 70% pass ratio for a safety check would be horrifically inadequate. So in the context of a football club a mixed ratio of successful signings is pretty poor. from this list given 50:50 would be the best ratio TM could be said to have with successful transfers (I think the list suggests it is worse but we will go with that for now.) So that means half of our signings are duds. Given probably two thirds of our squad is made up of signings and half of them are duds that means a third of them are dead weights because of TMs mixed transfer record. When we look at the context and examine the specifics we see this is far from positive but horrifically mixed. It gets worse when we consider the level of risk and opportunity costs of the failed signings too. After all a low-cost failure doesn't have the same negative costs as an expensive one. Hughes for example trialed a few failed strikers such as Jeffers (and Fowler). They stunk but at low cost the risk and damage was minimal. Contrast that with TM - the big signings have gone badly wrong the last 2 years and 2 of the 3 expensive ones in league 1 went badly too. Theres a lot more damage from these signings being missed in terms of costs and not being able to respend the money or have used it elsewhere. Also on this loans. Loans are to give you things you otherwise couldn't get. They are there to rent a better quality than you could buy, like Tosin. Problem is this better quality in than we can afford often hasn't been the case. The likes of Harper and Walton have been poor, but also use up slots that really should have been top quality. Slots that were an opportunity to get better than what we could buy. So yeah mixed is the word, and in the context of a football club that is a terrible result.

In fairness I think Bell looked a good move on paper. He was doing excellently in league 1 and seemed to have the physical attributes and scouting reports would only have come back positive. So I see why we signed him and is one of the ones I think has been unlucky. I also think that under a better management Rothwell would do better and we would get more out of him. But you missed Palmer and Leuitweiller off your list of duffers. Not that it needed the two names scratched off replacing. Even without a few debatable ones it's a hell of a list of mistakes.

See this is the thing. Short of destroying the Jack Walker statue and changing the kit to jockstraps I struggle to see how any new owners could be worse. We won't get anywhere being the plaything of an agency with owners who won't even use Skype for planning. We are literally set up to fail. I mean seriously the bar is so low now I fail to see how it could be worse.

Very mixed record. Shame that most of our bigger signings each year have been poor - Whittingham, Bereton and Gally. Also factor in how many really bad signings - as in not just not worked out or been mediocre but been detrimental to the team. I cannot remember another manager bar clueless and the odius one (neither of whom count) having so many utter flops at big expense and/or in key positions.

Quite simply whilst Venkys are here it ultimately doesn't matter who the manager is. Under their reign of terror we will always have the handicap of a poor management structure and huge delays to setting budgets and targets. Under their reign we will always pick managers from the same shoddy, third rate agency. And yet people think they are good because they haven't killed us off from the mess they put us in? People think they're good despite their agencies ties and incompetent way of running things making things a thousand times harder than it should be to recover? Nah, there is no way that Venkys past or present are anything but a curse to Rovers. The worst of it is they aren't going anywhere.

Words fail me. How can people forget they put us in this position?

I don't know who would. But I do know ANY owner would be better than what we have. I mean aside from their well known history of the club they still let us be run by agents, are late in deciding budgets, don't have any sort of accountability in the club or a proper management structure. And that's them at their best. Defending Venkys is literally defending the indefensible. Not saying you are but pointing out asking who will want it is daft as anyone would do a better job. That said they will never sell because they have a house full of skeletons at Ewood never mind a closet and they won't want that exposing at all.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53403060 Another reason why I hate football as well as love it. It allows players to act like this. Seriously wonder why a player would throw away their career like this though - no pride or ambition whatsoever.

I've just read a Mike Omar crime book in the Zoe Bentley series and fantasy book The Killing Fog be Jeff Wheeler. Found both of them good reads. Speaking of fantasy I really hope the youngsters are blooded but they'll be competing with the regular lads for spaces as TM won't want anyone to be unhappy. Reckon it's a nailed on win. Nothing to play for, fan criticism of TM - all hallmarks of a Rovers victory.

I think it's called morbid curiosity rather than excitement...

Personally think that was one of @chaddyrovers best posts. Until the last point about we don't know who we would have signed it was all based on reasons and well articulated. I disagree with a fair number of the points but appreciate reason, rational and facts as oppose to we don't know what would happen arguments. To suggest the loss of Dack hasn't had a huge effect is nonsense imo. Would it be enough to get us top 6? I'm not convinced as we weren't top 6 with him in the side. But given he is such a key player I'm confident we would likely be a bit closer/doing a bit better. I think the main thing for me from this is that it doesn't absolve TM as blame as there was no effort to replace a key player who was evidently out for a long time. To me that shows utter negligence, and whilst a like for like replacement would have been difficult, to not take any measures to counteract his loss is criminal. He could have thought ok we have lost Dack's goals so we need to conceed less and get a defender (or actual keeper in) or get a striker with a few more goals in them, buy or loan of budget is low - plenty of possible solutions to the absence of Dack. He is absolutely influential, not addressing his loss has been a big mistake. I think the arguments focusing in on the Millwall game is a bit of a red herring as there have been many occasions where the formation and the roles players have been playing have been real head scratchers. Personally the issue of playing favourites and the nadir of the lot dropping Nayambe for playing lots of football screams out that happiness of the squad is put before winning and is a sackable offence in and of itself. The European scouting network will take time to establish and I'm not sure when it was set up. If it was on our return to the championship it is unreasonable to expect any fruit from it last season, and an argument could be made for last summer depending on how long it took to establish (I have no idea on this!) 4 windows however does seem a tad alarming and there is a lot of pressure for it to work now. Whatever the length of time it takes to establish it cant be used as a positive for TM until it actually produces something! The loan situation and transfers in the summer in general is a huge problem because there is so much to do! We knew Mulgrew and Graham had limited shelf life in League 1 due to age and yet 2 years on neither have been replaced effectively. Admittedly not for want of trying but 12 million on we are no nearer to a replacement which is criminal. Factor in we need 3 key elements of our defence replacing - an area of the team where consistency and continuity are even more crucial - and the age of Johnson and Downing. That's 7 players needing replacing before standing still. (The Mulgrew situation taught us something no matter how poor is better than notjing.) Even a slight less emphasis on loans would make this summer's task much easier. Given the age of the squad having so much emphasis on loans was a mistake. No issues with them being the missing pieces of the jigsaw, in fact they clearly are, but they shouldn't make up so much of the picture when half the pieces also need replacing due to age. There's also no doubt TM has made some great signings as listed by Chaddy BUT the issue is there's just as many clangers and they tend to be more costly. In the transfer review thread I gave him a 50:50 success rate on signings but when half of them are clangers that ultimately means half the squad are duds. And when the overall longevity of the squad is considered you can only wince at the problems we have. Yes we have some great players but it is totally undermined by the clangers we have in the team and unbalanced squad. Tosin is brilliant but it is undone by Walton's howlers. Armstrong is on fire but too many resources are lost in Ben and Gally who also won't contribute goals. One step forward, one step back. The biggest defence of TM is that he isn't a complete duffer as evidenced by promotion, some decent signings and our mid table finishes. In any other club that's no reason to keep a manager on whatsoever. However at the circus that is Rovers in the thrall of a substandard agency it is a very pressing and relevant factor. Their past record shows they couldn't appoint a good manager if they tried and are beholden to an agency so aren't really trying. Such circumstances make TM considerably more attractive as a proposition. Sadly though it doesn't make him a good manager.

Yet with a bit more nous we could be in the playoffs. A fraction of the £12 million better spent, a few less times players played out of position, a little less use of the false 9, a bit more cover in defence or for Dack, a couple less games when Bennett squeezed in at full back, a marginally better keeper than Walton - any number of minor baffling decisions, some of which like the players in the correct position were super easy to sort, could have given us that bit extra to be in the playoffs and a potential escape route out of this mess.

This is interesting as I generally see you as an optimistic poster. Excluding Holtby who I think I have been overly generous about, what's interesting here is as a TM fan, you think his best signings are worse than I do, but his worse signings are better than I have rated them. Wouldn't have expected that. What makes you think Downing and Tosin aren't as good as i do, and yet Walton and Gally better. Appreciate this is all opinions but it's an interesting outcome I wouldn't have expected.

What I pick up from his interviews is a man who plays favourites and says one thing and does another. For example: defenders are coming - starts Mulgrew game 1, they only come on loan, and the bare minimum arrive, leaving us still threadbare for over half the season. I picked Bennett because Nayambe had played a lot of games - in other words he has favourites. I highlight Nayambe's mistakes in the press but not Bennett's - more favouritism. I stopped the owners from spending money, told them to put away the cheque book - I may be imagining this one but if true you wonder what's going on. Heaven knows the squad has needed strengthening for two years. We have a European scouting system - yet no players from it. I'll be honest his comments don't make me think he has passion but that he's full of horse manure.