Evidence!

Again Chaddy - good? Really? Downing has been good for us this year. Armstrong has been good for us this year. Walton has been nowhere near that level so would love to hear what evidence there has been of him being good. He's not even been that steady dependable type of a player either as he's had a few cracking games but a number of poor ones to. No idea how you can justify him as a good signing so far. Where's the evidence for that?

Nothing wrong with that statement - if we were looking to bring in a keeper, a defender or defensive mid. Pity we got nothing though! (And my word I hope that is what TM meant, otherwise you really start to worry.)

It is far more than 3 or 4! Without going through each game there have been more clangers then that. Plus there's the ones he should have saved which weren't howlers but disappointing keeping. There has been a fair number of those.

His best 2 games have come against a decimated Hull team and a very weak already relegated Bolton team. Both sets of opposition weren't very good - dare I say it nearer league 1 quality. My point being not so much to knock him, although I think a bit of perspective is needed, but rather why couldn't he have had a half season (hopefully) battering them in in League 1 or a similar league? Would have been the best practice possible for the lad and done no end to his confidence, match fitness and sharpness.

Reasons why it may be possible: - It's a crap inconsistent league. - We are capable of putting good runs together. - We're only 6 points off, is not insurmountable. - With fewer options the tombola in team selection and tactics occurs less, which generally improves our play. Reasons why we won't: - We're capable of putting on really bad runs. - 6 points is still a fair bit to make up, we're not actually in the playoffs and haven't been yet. - There are a fair number of teams above us, It's not like we are the only ones chasing the top 6. - Our squad is almost at breaking point - another injury or suspension and we really start to struggle. - Can we win the games we should? Over the years there's been a ton of winnable games we have struggled with, this needs to change. - Do we cope well with pressure - I don't think we do. From Bowyer's play off attempts to chasing for the League 1 title, Rovers aren't great under pressure - Players played regularly out of position and other tinkering attempts will most likely happen. . My gut reaction is no. Whilst it's not a fantasy to think we could do it, there's a number of external factors (the number of clubs above us) and internal ones (would the side be doing better with an actual right mid in the team for example) that make me think we will fall just short. Given our injuries just short isn't a bad return, but it is another get out of jail free season for TM. I'd love to be wrong on this but can't see it happening.

The debate isn't about if Walton is better than Raya but whether he is good enough to sign. I'm not convinced about the former argument but regardless of that the latter seems pretty clear. He's not good enough for no 1 at Rovers. For those who dislike Raya - if I had argued he was better than Steele (hardly a challenge mind) quite rightly people would say that's not the barometer of success. Or Smallwood being better than Lowe doesn't mean he warrants a place in our current midfield. Independent of Raya, regardless of our views on Raya, is Walton a good keeper - I'd say not.

Agree shows how much the right club at the right time is. Rowett also marred his copy book jumping to a rapidly sinking Stoke (I think). It really makes a difference choosing the right club. I wonder if 3 may be a bit much to be a coincidence but having said that none are easy circumstances at all and a lot of decent to good managers have failed there so I wouldnt count that one against him. Next job for him though will be huge.

To nick 99s post best summary of Walton yet imo. Especially the bit in bold suggests he isn't all that good and whilst Raya is trying to grab the headlines for the worst howler ever (along with the best saves) a more mundane but still weak Walton isn't the answer. C'mon folks we are Blackburn Rovers, a mid table championship side. You can't tell me there aren't better keepers in our price range out there who would come to us. Walton may be less headline grabbing than Raya (for good or ill) but that doesn't make him a good keeper. Heck wherever people stand on the Raya quality debate that's not the standard either. The standard is a solid to good number 1 and Walton isn't that.

It was a really disasterous run he was on - 1 win in 12 (sound familiar?) so can understand it. That said given the circumstances and his previous record - 4 promotions is no fluke- I'm a bit surprised they didn't give him longer. Perhaps the game is moving on past him as his last few jobs havent gone well but 4 promotions suggests he has something about him and Sunderland has been a negative on so many manager's careers I'm not sure it counts! Will be interesting to see if they appoint better. Am not sure that they will.

Best summary I have seen on the keeper situation.

Most impressive to me about this is that he's doing well even though he hasn't got a ton of creative support or service. He's always had the potential for this just never the consistency. I think most Rovers fans would have been happy if he had upped it to 1 in 3 instead of his previous 1 in 10 but it feels like of late he's doing much better than even that.

Armstrong challenging Downing for player of the season? Also doing it with relatively little attacking support which goes in his favour. Biggest thing that pleased me tonight was we won against much worse opposition - something we have struggled to do Vs weaker teams over the year. Thats twice including 10 man Wensday we have taken advantage of weaker opposition. Perhaps this Achilles heel of ours is slowly fading. Not out of the woods yet, Wigan home is still fresh, but a positive sign that maybe we're working on this weakness. Good to see our other strikers get some proper game time. Good to see we can score goals even with very limited resources available. No complaints and on to the next one. Well done Rovers.

Whoopee. We have one error prone keeper instead of another. How about we have a keeper who, I dunno, doesn't make gaffes? Call me a fair weather fan but that's my criteria for a good keeper.

Well that's a hell of an admission of failure using all but the words "i screwed up." Encouraging to hear actually. Shame he didn't realise it in the first place, or being more fair as hindsight is a wonderful thing, after the Bereton fiasco. Twice was pretty unforgivable. In fact this sums up why I think TM isn't a good manager. Its not that he is incapable of learning, he just learns very slowly and is tempted to revert back to type when he is out of a jam.

No Chaddy it's not a different question, it's you defending the indefensible again. Of course quality was a factor in the original post - how could it not be? We've a ton of centre backs contracted to us through the U23s/reserves but they weren't mentioned or included because they clearly weren't good enough. Warton clearly falls into that category having not played above league 2. Heck, as Ewood points out that was your own criteria! So moving the goal posts all the time comes across very hypocritical. Repeating your point again and again does not make it right. I could state that I'm the next Alan Shearer a billion times but it doesn't make it true. People have repeatedly highlighted why it is a problem, you've ignored and not engaged with their reasoning, and can't seem to get over the fact that people see the keeper situation as a negative. Really? Have had this debate with a number of fans and the best that has been offered has been "he's not that bad" or "he's ok". Yet you go one up and say he has been good for us and I really struggle to see the evidence for that. Outside of blind loyalty to the club how can his performances be classed as good. Downing has been a good signing for us this year. Tosin overall too. Walton has been nowhere near that level, has made very little positive impact and yet you say he is a good signing. Compare with Downing, Dack, Smallwood and other Downing in League 1, and you see a huge gulf in what are generally classed as a good signing and Walton's performances. Can you honestly say he have been as good as this lot? You post some really great links which I appreciate loads but this inability for Rovers to do anything wrong and lack of engagement with others arguments - especially moving the goal posts to suit your agenda (the value of stats being another example) is pretty wearing.

If we were City and Liverpool esque assuming Sky didn't sabotage us then yes we would sell out the stadium. Tons of plastics support both clubs on top of their core fan base and no reason to suspect it would be otherwise for us. Just look at the promotion from League 1 - a full stadium. If we were winning things and battering teams I'm sure fans would come back/attend more regularly. However since this isn't going to happen I wonder what a more realistic target would be for Rovers to aim for.

Thanks for a well reasoned reply - I'll try responding in the post to help link up the discussion. Walton - the loan element is a big problem as there aren't too many benefits for us to it. But again the best I hear about him is "not as bad" which is hardly a ringing endorsement! When the debate is over how bad a player is rather than how good - and I think it would be hard to argue he has been good for us - you know that you've got a duff one. Fwiw he's not as bad as I initially thought imo but is still pretty poor. Far too many errors costing us goals, plus very few games where he has had a positive contribution. I struggle to see how he is anything but a failure given his performances and circumstances of him being here. Samuel a little bit more grey. Did ok for us a year before, but not looking like he will kick on. £500 k for a league 1 team was no small amount and one of our big 3 signings that year, so perhaps the expectation would be he would have made more of a contribution. For a 1 season, decent player I'm not sure it's a success story. Probably on reflection I'd say that's a pretty neutral transfer. Hmm not sure I agree all his signings did contribute. Hart, Harper, Whittingham and Caddis all spring to mind as not really making much odds as to whether we were promoted or not. We didn't hugely use our loans from higher table teams to full advantage. (Armstrong and arguably Antonsson aside.) A lot of the key players who carries us to promotion were already here: Raya, Nayambe, Mulgrew, Bennett, Graham, Lenihen. Could he have started building for the championship in those years - perhaps not (although to his credit Dack and Armstrong were so can't see it as a total free hit and he did ok at it.) That said given he had nearly a year and a half preparatory time pre championship with his team, he really should have been in a position to know exactly what was needed and to hit the ground running. Given we've not really challenged playoffs with such a huge prep time doesn't suggest he's doing that well or used that time effectively - especially when you consider how threadbare the squad will be next year. Perhaps disappointingly is the number of players who aren't really decent championship standard. I agree the playoff type players to give you that push were hard to get in league 1 but the rest of the squad being a solid and decent platform for them could have been. That a number of them aren't but are on decent contracts taking up wages is a problem. Smallwood with new contract, Bell, Samuel, Williams aren't really the type of players needed for a promotion winning squad. Factor in how unbalanced the squad is too and you wonder what TM has spent the last 3 years doing to be in this situation. Last season we went on the worse run in living memory and blew the January transfer window. I can't think of any manager who would have survived such a run. Also whilst the outcome was ok, the manner involving a second half of the season collapse was utterly disappointing leaving us wondering what might have been. As for this season the excuses you offer - and I agree the injuries have been terrible and a huge blow - are also criticisms of TM. He blew the two transfer windows, no one else. He is the one who brought in misfiring strikers so that we are dependant on our creative mids for goals. He is the one who has an unbalanced squad - we lucked out with injuries in the first half of the season that our paper thin defence wasn't exposed more. Injuries have made a huge difference - it would be daft to say otherwise - but had TM done his job a bit better in getting in scoring strikers or used the windows better they wouldn't have hit us quite so badly. Again this defence is a criticism of TM. He can't win against the weaker teams (you could factor in the Wigan home and arguably Brum game too - I'm not at all sure it is behind us.) Its a huge weakness of his. Am a bit torn on the increased value too. Probably overall - although we won't see that £12 mill back for our strikers - but whilst the squad has improved it is still horribly thin and unbalanced going into next season. Also whilst credit has to be given for improving our situation somewhat, given that Coyle had to sell his best players and had no money to replace them, it's not the fairest of comparisons. Also given we've had 3 seasons of TM, I do worry how slow the progress has been. Defence and up front and keeper don't look much better, if at all. Midfield is I will agree. Finally and this is a tad unfair as off topic slightly but ties into the behind the scenes stuff - am not sure we are better off. It's clear dark forces are still at work at Ewood - 3 managers from the same agency being an example of this - so I do wonder how much better things actually can be. Not TMs fault at all this one, but I'm equally sure he can't improve that situation either. Anyhow that's a heck of a ramble. TM isn't terrible and often it comes across that way in my posts. Not the intention - I dont think he is very good at all but he is a bit better than some of the non managers we've had in my lifetime. I feel that if we were a normal club with standards and hadn't been so horrifically treated no one would be happy with TM or the job he is doing.

Its not just these 2 signings though it's a raft of them. From Whittingham to Walton, Johnson to Samuel over half of TMs signings have been really poor. Factor in that the majority of the budget was spent on Bereton and Gally and they do deserve to take more attention because they are where TM has chosen to put the majority of the budget. In looking at these guys, you are considering a fair chunk of the overall picture. I think the 2020-21 squad thread shows how poor TM has been in the transfer window that next year we are looking a squad with huge holes in it - after 3 seasons and 5+ transfer windows.

Not sure Mulgrew or Johnson should count. The legs have clearly gone for both of them and being literally, physically unable to do their job means they're a total waste of a wage. Lenihen and Evans both spend a lot of time injured and have ever since they've been with us. You can count on them missing a fair whack of the season. Ditto Holtby (which is why he is with us.) Add in Dack will take a while to get up and running (whenever that is) and boy is that a thin squad. There's question marks over whether our undoubtedly talented youngsters are ready yet or whether best served by regular league 1 football. The least of the concerns with the squad but it feels like a big ask for them to become squad players within 3 months. An exciting possibility and could pay dividends but it is also a risky one. Am sure a couple will make the grade but am equally confident a couple of them won't. And that's before you even consider if any of them aren't good enough! To be in this situation after 3 years at the helm is just appalling. How anyone can look at that squad and think good job Tony is beyond me.

The answer to that one is pretty obvious...

Now Ewood that's naughty highlighting the selective nature of their stats. The narrative is we are jolly lucky to have TM and his achievements of getting us midtable in the championship is greater than anything those blokes Klopp and Wilder are doing. We can only hope no-one recognises his managerial genius and takes him off our hands. Stop being so negative and support the team.

Perhaps the most obvious result in the circumstances. Haven't seen or listened to any of it but it seems like it played out as expected - we were defensively dogged, offered little and they had the quality to edge it. Feel like there may be a number of games like this with the available squad between now and the end of the season. In the circumstances what was probably to be expected and yet despite this am a bit disappointed with a couple of decisions. 5 strikers on the pitch at once - by definition at least 2 or 3 must have been out of position. 2 of them Samuel and Bereton aren't good enough and should t be playing full stop but 5 strikers on the pitch cannot be a balanced or effective team, and by definition (unless playing 3 or 4 up top) has too many players out of position. Bereton got 5 minutes. Blimey. No one will improve on so little football. A really pointless use of a sub and way to help Bereton regress even further. Feel the rest of the season could be a bit of a slog from the reports I've heard today. With no chance of going down it could be difficult to watch/drum up interest.

So aside from managing to look poor in a 5 minute cameo (an impressive feat in itself) my main gripe is with the manager and how he has been handled. Now Bereton imo should be nowhere near the first team but if he is how the heck is he going to improve by playing 5 minutes. I mean talk about kicking a guy when he is down...