Lol knew someone might suggest this and that's definitely not what I meant! But a proper coach from abroad as a number of them have had decent success - Wagner and Falke being the most obvious but not exclusive examples. We haven't really gone this route and the current systems haven't worked so combined with its success elsewhere I think it might be the way forward. As ever Venkys can screw it up though.

Yep, the dice should only be rolled in the worst case scenario when it's clear the manager is taking us backwards rather than forwards. Imo we've reached that point with TM and his safety blanket of they will appoint worse is deminishing by the day.

Personally I'd be tempted to go the route of an interesting foreign appointment. We've tried promoting within (Bowyer) and experience of Championship (TM & technically Coyle) and I do wonder if something new and different might not be what is in order. The huge problem is that whatever category we look in Rovers will probably go to the substandard element of that category.

No fan of Walton but this interview throws him under the bus too. Good habit of TMs. Also makes him appear incompetent for not getting a keeper sorted. I do tend to find TMs PR efforts have the opposite effect.

Amended. Great point either way though.

A few interesting results tonight although mostly in Rovers favour. Worst result was Luton winning, which is not what we want to see. However Stoke losing along with Wigan only getting a draw are both positive results for Rovers leaving both in the mire for another week. A loss for Reading doesn't hurt us either.

Spot on in your predictions. Under a vaguely competent manager there's very few players I'd be gutted to see go so keeping hold of them isn't that big an achievement. Except it is because as we found with Mulgrew something is better than nothing. Keeping them is only an achievement because the chances are he will buy worse. Under a competent manager meh, I wouldn't miss most of them. Travis, the attacking midfield trio (with Rothwell not Armstrong) and then perhaps Nayambe, Lenihen and the (now gone) Raya - and these three because of what they could potentially be, not because of what they are now. Oh and Graham. After that meh, a competent manager could get better; they're squad players masquerading as first teamers. Wouldn't lose sleep if any of them went. As ever the bar continued to be lowered at Ewood.

Let's say you are right that's still only 3 good games in a what 15 appearances! That's still a very shoddy rate. Problem is if it's irredeemable there's not much you can do but watch them depreciate! Let's say I spunked the dosh on 2 cars but neither were capable of getting me to work. I have to find alternative transport. Under TM both are irredeemable imo and we won't get anything out of either of them. A new manager might find a player in Gally, although I fear Bereton is a dead loss. But until we're looking at a new chap in charge theres no point playing them. Going back to th car analogy if there's a mechanic who can fix the car then it can drive me to work. Since I'm not a mechanic it can't so I don't use it.

Mowbray saying something that isn't true? Surely not...

One was an own goal. And even so given "both" were in one game - a game some would say is his only good game - it hardly shouts out that he's been a raging success. We don't create yet Dack has 7, he doesn't create anything for himself and he doesn't link up the play like Graham. So what has he actually offered above not being as bad as Bereton? Armstrong by comparison has a couple of goals too. I think he doesn't offer enough either. There's a number who need calling out for being poor offensively, Gally included. Fwiw I think there is a player buried deep in there but we need a new manager with a big shovel to get it out in the open. So far he has been very uninspiring.

Hugely agree especially on your last point. I think that there isn't that desire to hugely improve mainly so not to upset the current crop. We don't buy better (eg the Bauer situation) because we don't want to upset the regular players by kicking them out of the team. Since we got.promoted how many players have come in and been automatic starters? Very few. It shows how little we are progressing and to me is in part not to hurt the players feelings. I was thinking on the promotion side under Souness and it's similarities with our league 1 promotion team (albeit at a lower levels) Both had 3 crown jewels capable of winning games supported by a bunch of decent to good playe s for that division. Thing is Souness kept adding stars - top quality best performer stars - Friedel in goal, Cole up front, Tugay in the midfield. Also those solid squad players were moved on for better both in the championship and promotion cull (Bent and Curtis are two that stand out on this ) TM hasn't really added any match changes much less star players since promotion. Perhaps Travis is the nearest and only thing. And it shows just how when you aren't improving you are going back area.

What gets me is with many situations TM seems to somehow make it worse than it was, even when the standard wasn't that high to begin with. Nayambe and Raya are two examples. Both imo have the potential to be very good players but are also raw and have errors in them meaning there's a degree of risk in playing/developing them. Yet the replacements Bennett and Walton are considerbly worse and don't have the potential to develop like these two could. Likewise you could say Gallagher is pretty poor, but it is made even worse by playing him on the wing. Mulgrew's time at CB was up, but it was made worse as there was literally no replacement. Bell instead of Williams is another example at lb - and the standard there was very low to begin with. The keeper issue has been one of the key ones though as without Walton's regular blunders I reckon our average goal leakage would be lower. The number of clangers he has had is alarming. The only mitigating circumstance is that the defence in front is shambolic which is going to hinder any keeper regardless of their ability.

Along with Johnson apparently having attitude issues as well TM isn't doing great at judging characters... Disagree that Raya is worse. Regardless of how good he was he had a lot of potential and could develop into a very good player. That's not going to happen to Walton imo and even if it did it'd be long after he is with us and we won't benefit. Incidentally had we better than terrible full backs in particular I do wonder how much of a problem Raya's issues with crosses would still be. You do not flip from bad to good overnight - clearly he wasn't performing to his potential at Ewood and the question is why. I suspect that's another black mark against our manager and coaching team. Again though, we really shouldn't be having conversations about which Rovers keeper is worse. Speaks volumes about our situation.

This is hard to say. After all Bowyer had a top 6 quality squad imo and couldn't get us top 6. Similarly McCarthy got a weak Ipswich town punching above their weight. To me there is an element to which the squad is as good as the manager makes it. Whilst a good and interesting question (with a probable depressing answer) perhaps an equally important question is how much of the squad could a good manager get something out of? A lot of our players are limited but a good manager could do something with them. For example could Mulgrew play as defensive mid to get his set pieces and yet not be a liability in defence, or does Gally have the attributes to be a nusicence up front with correct coaching? A good manager can't do the wholesale changes needed but if they can get a few of our bog standard players working in the team / offering something alongside the few quality players we have, perhaps top 10 would not be unreasonable. If our players limitations were hidden for example not getting our players playing a possession game they don't suit and players were played in their best positions then that can only help our team. In short I think it's hard to judge given how much more complicated TM is making it with all his chopping, changing and playing players out of position. Get the basics right and regardless of the quality of lack thereof we will do better. L

To me when you turn on the fans it's time to go. Especially when it's not warranted - sort it out is hardly a criticism of you, much less personal or asking for the sack. I wonder if being in control of the entire club - from his bosses to the local paper - has given him a bit of a god complex whereby any negative comment or criticism, no matter how justified, is considered offensive and a personal attack? Given he has spunked £15 million, sidelined popular players, taken us down and put us on our worse run in recent memory I'd say he is very fortunate not to get more criticism than he has.

It certainly can't hurt although it feels too little too late. A decent keeper coach with Raya and we might be in a better situation. Tbh whilst that can only help (can he get worse) my preference is for a better keeper that we actually own! I feel even with a better coach Walton won't get better in time for it to matter - and is starting from further back than Raya imo- so let's get a decent experienced keeper in whilst we can. All the time Rovers downgrade and it's killing the club.

Agree with 99 here. The difference for Rhodes is there were a ton of other players who could score regularly- King, Gestede, Cairney and Marshall to name a few and the jigsaw was nearly complete (imo a good keeper and defensive mid and we'd have had the best 11 in the division.) This current Rovers side really struggle for goals. Strikers who look inept, the likes of Armstrong on the wing. Without Dack we really are stuffed for regular goals.

Don't get excited. He said defenders are coming and Gally will be banging them in. What he says and does are two different things. Apart from his treatment of Nayambe and Rothwell. He speaks negatively of them and treats them accordingly. But still I wouldn't listen too much to what he says. He'd be mad to give up his no accountability gig.

We have enough goals in midfield but up front? Granted it might help Gally and co if they actually played there regularly but we don't bar Graham have a striker who either a) would score regularly or b) enables effective link up that maximises the goals the midfield score. So a striker is an issue. That said I agree more of an issue is the defence as if we cut out the 2 conversed per game we wouldn't be reliant on scoring as many goals. I'd also say there's a big question over who sits with Travis in the 2 (Holtby?) As that needs resolving too. At least we have 300 potential options for this though and one might work out if the rest of the team was ok.

In fairness to Gally and Samuel both of whom I also think is pretty useless it can't help being shunted out to the wing on a regular basis. Not seen one attribute Gally has which suggests it's a good idea to play him there. Like with most things TM manages to make things even more complicated than they should be. I do wonder if we did things simply, like players playing in losirion, how much of a difference that would actually make.

Interestingly despite our poor performances we somehow have a 7 point gap on the relegation zone as the relegation scrap is playing our as expected. Stoke looking ok with a new manager but have a lot.of catching up to do, Millwall and Reading scraping points here and there but alongside a poor Barnsley Luton and Wigan are on poor runs. Next season can see as relegation favourites with TM in charge but this year we re very fortunate that 3 teams are in a massively worse shape than us. We're poor at both ends but still ragging points- Luton, Wigan and Barnsley are not. Next year without these three weak teams Rovers will be in even more difficulty as the league grows in competitiveness. Even now if one of the 3 teams.mentions turns it round we are in trouble. The positive is they don't look like they will.

Game summed up our season. We have a few good players of top quality who can grab us a few points. We can rag a few wins to keep our head above water. Other clubs exist that have more issues than us. Overall our performance levels are poor, turgid and uninspiring. We also always leak 2 goals a game and need 3 to win. Our failings are compounded by an unbalanced squad and the clown of a manager playing multiple players who shouldn't be in the team in wrong positions, making us worse than we should be. No wonder fans are getting fed up! The silver lining is the whopping 7 points between us and relegation which means our shambles of a season probably won't end in relegation.

Yes he is such a hypocrite he is very dislikeable. Maybe Ewood has a way of doing that to people.

If you play Gallagher and Armstrong you are asking a lot of the other 9!

And really neither player should be anywhere near full back. Fortunately these are the only outfield players that look horrendously weak. The rest of the team looks decent.