DE.

Honestly, based on our history over the past five years or so, I'd have fully believed it.

We'd be going down on about 5 points if Ismael had started the season with us. Still, we aren't getting playoffs at this point anyway, so bad results just keep the pressure rising.

A statement so pointless that it should literally have just read "As part of their professional duties and commitments to the club, Blackburn Rovers’ senior leadership group will continue to attend games". Everything else is just waffle and bullshit. I'm sure the groups involved fully expected this response, so hopefully it just means phase two, whatever that is, proceeds immediately.

Great work by all involved. The club statement will be interesting. I only urge two things: 1) Anti-owner sentiment should not change due to a temporary uplift in results, if that happens between now and the end of the season. The last 15 years have proved time and time again that, with the exception of the L1 season, good results are temporary but the root cause of our failures remain permnanent for as long as these owners remain. By all means 'get behind the lads ffs', but not at the expense of protesting against the owners. 2) All communications from the club should be rebuffed unless they involve discussing the removal of the owners. We're long past the point of mending fences and working together. They must go and nothing else should be acknowledged. The club have become adept at nipping these movements in the bud by bringing group leaders into the fold with false promises of change. It has to be understood they aren't to be trusted and will never be a friend of the supporters- critical or otherwise. I trust Glen completely when it comes to doing things the right way. I hope his expertise and guidance will be given the importance it deserves.

Wasn't much different from watching us under Southgate. However, that's what many of the players have been used to for years now. It'll take a few camps before Tuchel can significantly change things, if he does.

The decision to part with Mowbray is a curious one as well. It seemed to be a relationship that was working for all parties, but then Venky's/Suhail decided to just ghost TM towards the end and let his contract run out. I wonder why? Did Mowbray end up asking for something that they felt was too much? Did he do or say something to sour that relationship? Was JDT just a cheaper option than renewing TM? It's difficult to imagine the answer is "ambition", considering how Tomasson was treated (as you noted, the usual lies and broken promises), so why get rid of a manager in TM who, on the surface at least, was doing the minimum required and unlikely to rock the boat in future? Can't help but wonder, considering how things have gone since, whether Suhail or Venky's regret not extending TM's deal, regardless of why they chose not to renew him originally.

Technically they did with Coyle, but they left it too late because everything at the club moves at glacial speed. Even if a miracle did happen and Ismael was removed from position due to us being in peril, you can guarantee they'd leave it until salvaging the situation was virtually impossible. Bowyer was also sacked, which is actually quite weird in retrospect. We weren't doing particularly well (15th I think?) but nor were we in dire straits. Also under a transfer embargo which was always going to make things difficult. I'd heard communication between GB and Venky's had broken down around this time, but one imagines if GB had been manager in a similar situation from 2018 onwards he would not have been sacked. I suppose those days in 2015 were the dying embers of the owners having any sort of remote ambition for the club before settling into the current model of just letting the club exist, like a mothballed toy at the bottom of a cupboard somewhere. Difficult to compare further back than that due to the Kentaro/Shebby/The Rogue/Agnew nonsense which the owners allowed to spiral out of control due to their inability to run the club in a professional manner. Over a decade later and we've just seen another manager walk after another "power struggle" that should never have been allowed to happen. The rudderless ship sails on.

Spot on. The reason I welcomed Eustace joining initially was because I felt his style of football was exactly what we needed. Build from the back, defensively solid, playing to the strengths of the team - which is not technical ability, even from our supposedly technical players. It was a relief to finally have a manager who understood what we needed to do to compete. Not always pleasing on the eye, but if it gets results then so be it. Ismael is deluded if he thinks he's going to make us successful with possession based football on our budget, and it really does suggest he's the wrong man for the job.

He'll be in for a big disappointment when he gets the budget in the summer then. Unless he's planning to build a squad for League 1.

It won't be. File it under the same category as when someone says "heard a rumour Venky's are selling" or "heard a rumour Waggott is retiring".

If they were being paid by performance they'd owe the club money.

Well, we know they didn't sort it out because Park left. If it had been sorted in favour of either side then you would have expected one of Eustace or Park to leave, not both. The fact they both decided they wanted out suggests the situation was just left to deteriorate.

No need to apologise mate, I think we all felt the same. I think with Gestede being a rookie at the job he may not have had the confidence to say that to Eustace. Even so, the fact remains he simply shouldn't have had to say it. The only reason would be if Eustace somehow had the power to delay transfers, and that's the part I'm questioning. It goes back to the same question - if he was able to disrupt transfer dealings, who was giving him the authority to do so? You could argue an inexperienced Gestede allowed Eustace more power than he should have had - but as you say, at that point Suhail and Waggott should have stepped in to clarify the situation. Evidently they didn't, and so we got stuck in a loop of infighting and division between Eustace and the recruitment team. Unleaded specifically said Eustace had gained influence, so I suppose it depends on whether you trust that part of his story or not. I agree that it's strange, for the reasons I outlined in my last post, and I'd like to know more about exactly how Eustace gained influence and why. The only way would realistically be through Suhail or Waggott giving him that influence, but it would have been grossly incompetent to allow this to happen and continue indefinitely when it was clearly causing serious rifts and hampering our ability to actively recruit. I don't know Paul personally so I can't go off his word alone, but putting the pieces together it makes sense to me, and so I am inclined to believe it. We again arrive back at the inescapable conclusion that leadership was absent and negligent. That is indeed the question, why didn't they step in to sort the problem out? I imagine both Park and Eustace were asking themselves the same question and ultimately decided that it wasn't worth their time to continue working under such weak leadership. This is where I have a bit of a problem with the initial suggestion that Park walked because of Eustace. I'd argue that's not seeing the bigger picture. The reason he walked was because Suhail and Waggott could not control the situation and he wasn't prepared to continue working in such a chaotic environment. Eustace supposedly causing issues, if this was happening, was a direct result of leadership failing to take responsibility for the situation. Anyway, thanks for answering my question directly - appreciated.

You have to wonder if some of the players out of contract thought "ayo, hold up, we've got the club into 5th place and they're refusing to extend our contracts - and this bloke who's achieved nothing comes in on a 3.5 year deal?"

Summer 2027 😞

First time I'd listened to one of his post match interviews tbf. Probably also the last time.

Just made me bored tbh. Turned it off after two minutes as his monotone voice was doing my head in and it was nothing but excuses. Thought Dolan was onside (wrong), thought it was our most 'complete' game whatever that means. Wanted the penalty to stand even though it was the correct decision not to give it. Stopped watching when he started blaming injuries as well. That was only two minutes in and the interview went on for over five minutes. Can't imagine it got any better.

Listened to Ismael's post match interview but gave up after 2 minutes. Excuse after excuse. Seems to think we played well.

Venky's don't let managers resign, lol. He's either stuck here for 3 and a half years or not working for 3 and a half years.

Looks like Ismael is where Waggott and Suhail's luck runs out when it comes to bringing in unemployed cheap managers expected to keep the titanic afloat. And believe me, it's been nothing but a ridiculous streak of luck for the pair of them.

Shameful from the lot of them, from our incompetent boardroom to our pathetic management to the bottle jobs on the pitch. Burn it all down and start again.

Looking forward to another "rallying call" next week Trav.

Read my next post and please answer this question directly: What I'm asking you Chaddy is whether you believe that our club's leadership are responsible for allowing a severely dysfunctional setup to continue, and ultimately lead to the season becoming yet another mess? We can make educated guesses as to what happened, roughly, but looking at the bigger picture, do you think Waggott and Suhail hold ultimate accountability for what occurred? If not, why not?

It's also possible the club negotiated a cheap break clause in the contract which allows them to terminate without any major financial penalty at a certain point. This would suggest a degree of competence which seems unlikely based on past history, but nonetheless.

Let me break it down a little further. Eustace is hired to be head coach, according to Unleaded he has the remit to coach the players with some input into what he would like in terms of reinforcement. There is a recruitment team put in place by the board (Owens/Gestede/Park) who are responsible for providing the head coach with players they believe will satisfy his requirements. Somehow by the summer Eustace has already 'gained influence' to the point where he is actively causing problems with recruitment and butting heads with that team. This is strange to me as he hadn't done anything special by that point and only been with us a few months. It's not like he'd pulled off some miracle escape from certain doom - we limped to the finish line the previous season mainly thanks to a couple of shock wins at the end. Majority of the results were not particularly good at all. It's never been answered how Eustace would have gained this influence, if we are to believe this happened. He isn't a board member so it's not like he could put his foot down and say "I'm not having this player". He wasn't a Kenny Dalglish figure with significant reputation, nor was he a Mowbray type figure with a long tenure at the club. He was a manager who had just arrived and not done a great deal beyond pull off a couple of great results at the end of what was otherwise a dismal final part of the season. Paul Mani has suggested Eustace offered to resign in the summer. I'm inclined to believe this on the basis JDT did the same the year before, and Eustace's post-summer behaviour (if we are to accept he was applying for practically any job in the division) indicates he wanted out at any cost. Probabilities suggest he wanted to leave, and we can reasonably assume this was in large part down to his inability to see eye-to-eye with the recruitment team. According to Unleaded, however, this wasn't a one-sided thing where Eustace was having his opinions ignored and players he didn't want forced on him. He outright says transfers were delayed and effectively fell through because of Eustace's influence. He also cites Eustace's alleged meddling as the reason John Park left in November, suggesting this nonsense was still going on far beyond the summer. This is where we have to look at the responsibility of the board (basically Waggott and Suhail). If we are to believe there was a power struggle of sorts between Eustace and the recruitment team - it begs the question of where Eustace was getting his power from. He's ultimately just the head coach, so somebody higher up must have given him enough stroke to cause problems with recruitment. A situation like this requires strong leadership to sort things out. Only two options exist at this point to rectify a situation which has somehow already spiraled into chaos despite Eustace barely being at the club a few months. One, Eustace is told he was brought in as head coach and needs to be reasonable with suggestions from the recruitment team. If he can't do this then he will be unable to participate at all in transfer selections, or his resignation will be expected/accepted. Two, the recruitment team are told that Eustace will be giving them suggestions, and they are expected to follow up on those suggestions and bring those players to the club if at all possible. The blame will lay at Eustace's door if his signings fail to deliver. By the sounds of it, neither happened, and so we ended up in no man's land with arguments, disagreements and frustration from both the head coach's side and the recruitment team's side, with no leadership above them willing or able to control the situation. What happened instead, if we are to broadly accept what Unleaded says to be the case: 1) Eustace allegedly caused problems with our transfer dealings, undermining the recruitment team's efforts 2) Eustace became so annoyed by the process that he wanted to leave, but much like JDT was denied 3) Senior leadership do not intervene in any noticeable way to improve the situation 4) Eustace becomes disenchanted and decides he can't operate in this environment, and thus allegedly begins looking for opportunities elsewhere in the division 5) The situation is allowed to fester, to the point where Park, our head of recruitment, leaves the club - according to Unleaded this is because Eustace is continuing to undermine the recruitment team's efforts, although no reason is given as to why he is able to do this 6) By January nothing is resolved and the situation is deteriorating on the pitch now as well 7) Eustace leaves for Derby, a team in the relegation zone We surely have to look at this as a whole and say it is a monumental failure of the club's leadership team to allow the situation to develop. I appreciate we don't know and it's all speculation, and that's fine. Unless one of us was there we will never know for sure, as even if we heard about it from one of the horse's mouths, you'd have to factor in that they'd be an unreliable narrator due to presenting a biased view. The point is that our leadership team designed things in a way that we would have a recruitment team and a head coach working in some kind of synergy, and yet this almost immediately fell apart and they seemingly totally failed to get a grip on the situation. Instead they simply allowed everybody involved to become undermined and ineffective. What I'm asking you Chaddy is whether you believe that our club's leadership are responsible for allowing a severely dysfunctional setup to continue, and ultimately lead to the season becoming yet another mess? We can make educated guesses as to what happened, roughly, but looking at the bigger picture, do you think Waggott and Suhail hold ultimate accountability for what occurred? If not, why not?