Getting serious now as it seems even when we play well for a period, the rest of our performance utterly undoes it. Let's be honest, when you can't get anything from the game when you are 2-0 up at half time, you really are struggling. My biggest worry is all the marginal results are going against us. Brum were rubbish but still get the 3 points. Preston give us an entire half and 2 goals and we don't get the points. Play well (ish) Vs Hudds and end with a point. These are relegation type results. At the very least you would expect points Vs Brum and PNE (if not, very reasonably 3 today) yet to come away with bad results Vs average teams suggests it's only going one way. Huddersfield have arrested their decline and I see Millwall have won today. Their manager is one I rate, and even if it's just new manager bounce that's a heck of a lot more impetus than we have. Stoke lost which is positive for us but you feel their board may be quicker than us to sort any problems out. Regardless of opposition- on whom I don't think we can rely to be worse than us - our form and performances are relagation fodder. Last time we went down I believe we were sonewhat unfortunate. It was a bad combination of no investment, some improbable results and all teams doing decently. This time there is no excuse as £15 mill onwards we look weak, scared and mentally fragile, not to mention we leak goals. In some ways our decent start may have masked the problem from the owners, but another month of this and no one will be able to ignore how we are sinking.

Thanks goodness we got rid of Raya and replaced him with a much more experienced keeper. Thank goodness we had Corey Evans and Bennett to protect our defence. Who knew 4 windows later we couldn't find better. Thank goodness defenders are coming adding defensive solidity. Not too sure how 2019 has been anything but a disaster and how TM can still be in the Rovers hotseat at the end of it.

The bar is so low at Ewood that we have to dig it out of the ground! So we are happy for Preston sodding NE to potentially be better than us? A team with no premiership experience , a team that could only dream of spending our outlay on wages and transfer fees, a team that hasn't been in the playoffs in years. And we are ok with them being better than us?!? TM can do one with that kind of attitude. My patience snapped when Bowyer started spouting utter drivel and now TM is no better. Just bog off with your none aspirations, crap transfer record and genius ideas of playing players out of position.

Yes! Aside from being a relatively big club in the overall football pyramid - bigger than league 1 downwards and some championship teams - we have basket case owners which has a plus side of a ready made excuse and no harm to the rep if fails. That makes us attractive as does a competitive transfer budget and wages, no targets or expectations, placid fans, comparisons to the dross beforehand giving them lots of leeway and some very easily fixable issues all of which make Rovers look good to a manager.

Shame nobody told Millwall or Huddersfield there were no better candidates out there...

Great post which I wholeheartedly agree with. The academy in particular is perhaps a pertinent but overlooked black mark on TM. Only thing would add to the no hidden gems thing is that all the players are very, very well known to TM often having played for him before. Forget hidden gems we haven't even taken a punt on anyone. Was Gally the best £5 mill option available - am sure not but he was known. Was Gladwin the best cheap attacking mid punt we could have made - no but TM knew him. His utter over cautiousness extends to transfers as well as how we play. I've said a few times we always struggle to break down the team's we should be beating/are heavy favourites to win at. We've struggled since League 1 with this, it's not a new problem and the stats seem to back this up.

The fact that the main reason for a manager being kept on is that the owners couldn't pick a good replacement speaks volumes for how poor TM is doing. At any other club with even a small degree of confidence in the upper management structures would be calling for TMs head unanimously after another dreadful run of results. The problem is our owners are terrible at picking managers with the current much, and rightly, maligned manager being the best of the bunch! That shows how bad they are at it and have 2 utter disasters and a host of failures under their belt too. So I can see why people might be reluctant to change even if TM is a dud, which he clearly is imo. The question becomes when are the odds in our favour to risk a Venkys hiring session. Given we can't score, we can't stop leaking goals, we can't win and most damningly of all TM can't get a tune out of some talented players suggests we are sinking towards relegation and the rot cannot be stopped under TM. In this case we have to risk a hiring from Venkys because bad though the odds are, the current odds are much worse. I've never really rated TM personally, but I think we're past the point now where there's a way to look at things in a glass half full way. We are sleepwalking towards relegation and our ok start is only hurting us by masking the danger signs.

Genuinely think we will win. TM has a habit of picking up a win just as things are turning / looking dangerous for him and I think this will be it. With the win all critical thinking and questions will be deferred till at least the end of November Brum are in poor form with a weakened team, and with us being pretty poor they'll see this as a winnable game for them.which suits our underdog/counter them mentality. There's hopefully l the added bonus that injuries limit some of TMs more random selections leaving us with some sort of consistency too. Without doing a Mercer I think this is as good a chance of a Rovers win as any, and if we can't win this type of game we are in a lot of trouble.

It's amazing that two players we were perhaps unbothered to lose (I was gutted about Raya going) and somehow TM still gets it wrong. Mulgrew may be pretty finished at this level but he is better than nothing , which is what we have ended up with. Keeper wise we've ended up with a worse replacement we don't own and the money spunked on a non scoring striker. Given fans weren't by and large too sad to see either player go in principle, for us to be missing both shows monumental mismanagement of the squad/transfer window.

Indeed a month or so ago I thought we would be fine. Stumbling along in mid table with enough occasional wins to see us safe. Problem is if all the other teams up their game - and it certainly looks like Hudds and Stoke have - will such an ambling approach be enough? Bare in mind last time we went down with a very high points total and if certain teams continue to pick up we could be in the same situation. Also massively agree with us throwing away points by conversing stupid goals. It's not just that that's throwing away points though - nuts substitutions and line ups are costing us and limiting the amount of time we are on top in games. This too is massively costing us points. What makes this even more incredible is by and large we have a mid table to top 10 squad imo. We are only a good striker, centre half and keeper away from that (barring injuries) yet we are very nervously looking downwards.

Think this is very possible - mainly because we will slowly slip into said position at this rate. Under Clueless from the start it was obvious we were struggling. This season I feel it will be a slow sink, or like a dingy slowly drifting out to sea, we won't realise we are in trouble till it is too late. A point here and there, the odd win, but if other teams similarly pick up their act, we could be in a world of trouble.

That'll help him focus...

I thought this too but this doesn't make tons of sense, even though I think that's their reasoning too. I say this because 1) the most we have sold a player for under Venkys was Jones - a defender. And 2) With van Dijk, Maguire etc going for big bucks in the last year or two we can see this happens for defenders too. So it doesn't make tons of sense.

Really? Dropping for a medicore right midfielder who has generally been poor this season? Do you really think that is a good decision. If Nayambe had been dropped for a better right back that would have been one thing, would have felt sorry for the lad but that's how it goes, but a subpar right midfielder? Also deserved dropping - more than Mulgrew, Smallwood, Gally or Armstrong in their terrible runs. All these players played much worse for much longer than Nayambe so he seems to have been judged against a completely unfair different standard. (My point isn't these weren't dropped eventually but how many bad games they had before they did - significantly more than Nayambe.) He also had to force his way past Paul Caddis, despite Nayambe already being here. No wonder he is hacked off. There is no debate as to whether we would use the money the same way whatsoever! What possible posutive debatable merits are there on spending £12 mill on two none scoring strikers, one of whom isn't even championship standard? Everyone would have brought defenders or strikers with a proven record of scoring in this division. I'll grant you I can kind of see where the Gally signing comes from, albeit it is working out badly, but Bereton? On what level was £7 million on a totally unproven striker at this level a good idea? Not debatable at all imo as that suggests there are some arguable merits to buying Bereton.

Not sure it was unlucky at all. Lenihen has been injured every season for lengthy spells, and if it was any one of the city lad, Williams or Cunningham injured we would have been in trouble numbers wise. Similarly had Travis or Graham got injured we would also have been stuck for cover

What. A. Suprise. We were short defensively both on numbers and quality. (After our best back 4 it gets scarily bad.) We're in real trouble given suspensions and niggles will also inevitably come. Hopefully it means Nayambe's shoddy treatment is over but I suspect we will see a lot of midfielders in defence over the next few months

Quite possibly as it weakens us at centre back as well. Williams covering 2 positions we are weak in means the whole defence is paper thin. If any centre back injured then Bell has to play. That said an injury to Graham or Travis would also screw us over big time too.

So we've got Bell and Williams arguably the two worst left backs in the division. Not to mention one of them is needed as a centre back. So one left back in Bell - and by left back I am using it in the loosest sense of the word. My word it's going to be a horror show watching our defence.

Lot of options for me. From this list Houghton , Rowett and Pearson would all be worth exploring. Bit worried about how Pearson would engage with owners and how Rowett's last post has affected him but they are all options. Might be open to Adkins and championed this a year or two ago but the last few years haven't gone well for him, so perhaps not so much. Am also sure there are a ton of other good candidates out there from home and abroad, and with a decent structure in place to make the decision then we could get someone good in. I'm almost as confident though that that won't happen and we most likely will end up with another duffer.

A bit more context needed imo - if we were a club with a very small budget etc. then maybe we'd be punching above our weight and happy to be in this division. However that is not the case. We had one of the best championship squads with Marshall, Cairney, Hanley, Duffy, Gestede, Rhodes, Olsson and Cairney and King and fluffed it. We have had £15 mill to spend in the last season or two with a manager getting to rebuild and are fluffing it. We had a ton of talent amidst our 5 managers in a season and fluffed it. One thing that sticks out is we haven't got the managerial appointment right once - and that is no coincidence. No manager should be stupid enough to break up Rhodes/Gestede to play Brown - but it happened. No manager should be stupid enough to lump the ball long to Rhodes for 90 mins in a cup quarter final - but it happened. No manager should have numerous players regularly playing out of position - but it happens. Bit of a theme eh? Crap managers with no one keeping them accountable for some bat nuts decisions. No wonder we are stuffed. Even Holloway got the asylum that is Blackpool promoted. Watford change managers at the drop of a hat yet have done ok till this season. Newcastle got promoted and have somehow stayed up and got a big name manager despite some farcical decisions. Even basket case clubs can limp along and do ok but not us. So yeah I agree with you, we are stuffed because we aren't doing well when things are relatively positive and we do atrociously when things are bad. The joy of supporting Rovers.

Don't think we will get relegated as we still have a decent squad and there are a lot of poor teams in this division. In fact a lot of the squad is pretty good or at least certainly no worse than a lot of teams. We are admittedly somewhat short up front and on defensive numbers but the squad is solidly a championship level squad. In fact I'd suggest we are a rock hard centre back and good striker from being a good/strong championship team. Problem is the players and tactics are chopped and changed and there's not much rhyme or reason to said changes. Combined with our obsession of playing it along the back line it's going to limit us a lot. That said I feel we have enough in the tank to get enough points to survive. We'll raise our game and get a few points off the better teams and beat some of the average ones a la Hull and Reading to stay up.

Yes I think so, Sunderland being the prime example. They got through a ton of managers, some of whom had been good before and since their stints there, yet it never has worked out for them. All those managers can't be naff. I would add perhaps it goes in periods rather than forever - for example for quite a while I thought Sheff Utd would fall into this category as a number of managers failed to get them promoted out of league 1, but they seem to be doing alright now! So perhaps it happens in spells? But yeah, our structure is atrocious and is going to hinder any manager even if it is just a sluggishness in the transfer market and zero pressure not helping to push the manager onwards.

Agree with most of this including the example but wouldn't overall lump Grayson with TM. Grayson has 4 promotions to his name which is significantly more than TM. Seems to have faltered a bit in his last role or two mind but overall a pretty impressive CV.

Spot on. Summed up my thoughts very succinctly. Goodness we are both so promising and a mess at the same time it is untrue. Regarding why sign Gally I think TM knew he had made a stinker with Bereton and with Graham getting older knew we were seriously lacking up front. The problem is TM isn't very good in the transfer market and often relies on players he knows/obvious choices. This meant we ended up with Gally. Unfortunately the pressure of having messed up with Bereton is doubly weighing on Gally and he must be shoehorned into the team at any cost as 2 expensive flops may even get Vs questioning what is going on. Like you say though, there's zero thought to how we sign players. Even the talented ones don't fit a system/don't play. It's all very frustrating.

The real worry is who would we get instead? Am.terrified that Vs will make a worse appointment. That said I don't think TM is particularly good and he has taken us as far as he can. Speaks volumes for a manager's ability when the argument for keeping him is the owners will appoint worse. Shows he has lost the plot. The simalarities with Bowyer are huge. Albeit I think TM is a bit better tactically and a bit weaker in the transfer market. The problem is like Bowyer - a) we're throwing away a good crack at play offs with a team that should do better and b) what happens when the budget is cut/key players leave? Bowyer struggled when Gestede and Cairney went and his budget was reduced. I'm pretty sure history will repeat itself with TM. as our best players/goal threats age and leave (Mulgrew's set piece get out of jail card had already gone when his legs went, before the Wigan move, and Graham is on the wane.) Combined with a lowering of budgets - can't see them too trusting after £12 mill down the pan and we will head like we did under Bowyer. If a change was made now, before the new guy has little to work with and we're embroiled in a relegation scrap, then there is a chance that momentum can be arrested and a crack made at play offs this season or next. If we leave it too late, as per usual it could be a bumpy few years. Not sure what to go for in terms of new manager but feel looking abroad may be the answer. Unless we are to get proven track record of success & experience in this division e.g. a Warnock type, I feel the experienced manager route hasn't hugely worked. TM, Clueless and Lambert haven't pulled up trees. Similarly the young aspiring coach/manager hasn't yielded too much success with Appleton and Bowyer not doing it either. Perhaps a manager from abroad would be best as it is something we haven't tried and has seen a lot of success of late in this division - Hudds & Norwich promoted with it, Leeds did well too with it. That said with someone doing their homework well I think there are good options in the UK managerial market but the challenge is we haven't really had anyone make smart decisions on this previously. So perhaps as a managerial appointment gamble the odds may be better from abroad.