♫ we're staying up ♫

Because he's simply not intelligent enough to play up top on his own. He gets caught offside repeatedly because he isn't smart enough to time his runs properly. Mowbray didn't mention that being "analysed" though.

Unable to put any defenders on the bench, but Mowbray reckons we recruited just fine defensively ? oh well. Good to see Rothwell starting in a match he should be able to influence.

Yeah of course - but were we playing "the Mowbray way" when Johnson was in charge, or is that something that's changed from last season?

So are we saying TM promoting Johnson to a first team role at the club has effectively ruined our u23's whilst bringing no obvious benefit to our first team?

Strange considering we're going backwards. Perhaps he needs to buy Elliot a Satnav for Christmas.

I think Kean might have had a couple of decent matches, but then Steele had a few where he looked okay too. Overall two terrible keepers either way. It's funny I was going to mention age but there's only a year between them!

Jake Kean was probably worse overall but had a lot less time to repeatedly screw us over. Nowadays playing in the National League I believe.

The fact the comparison point right now is the lowest point in our recent history (purely in terms of squad, league position and manager) says it all about how things are going.

When Gary Bowyer was sacked we had played 16 games, were 16th in the league with 17 points and 0 GD. As of now we have played 16 games, are 18th in the table with 18 points and a -4 GD. Tony is fortunate that both the owners and from what I've seen the fans standards have dropped significantly in the last few years.

In fairness it was destroyed the moment Bolton were allowed to start the season in the state they were in. All of the games they played with their youth team were essentially a gimme 3 points for practically every team that played them.

A five point suspended points deduction for Bolton for both the Brentford and Doncaster matches.

Yeah pretty much. I tend to do other clubs eventually but I'd feel bad if I didn't start my first game with Rovers! I'm in 2040 in my current FM18 game - Rovers are the best team in the world by this point and Venky's are long gone, so life is good I've been playing this save for nearly a year though. I don't get that much time to play FM, and when I do it's usually mixed with watching something or writing, so my games tend to move a little slowly.

I'm still on FM18 at the moment. I usually buy a new FM in 3/4 year cycles so will probably pick up next year's, or maybe the one after that.

I think Allardyce definitely put his foot down as far as being forced to sign Kentaro players, perhaps knowing he'd get the boot as a result, but he was still going to make sure he got a payoff. Can't blame him for that but the fact remains Lambert has been the only manager to walk away under Venky's tenure. Technically Kean falls into that category as well, however his court case (and subsequent £1.2m payout) amounted to him suggesting he was forced out (effectively sacked) rather than resigning of his own volition. There is also that interesting article from way back then in which Andy Cole says he was told Kean would replace Allardyce months before it actually happened... (the article is still online but I can't get it to show up - https://www.thenational.ae/steve-kean-can-do-job-at-blackburn-1.560386) Nonetheless a direct quote from that article: "a trusted little bird told me two months ago what was going to happen. He said that the club would be taken over by an Indian company and that Sam would be pushed aside, to be replaced by the coach Steve Kean. If Keano does well then he keeps the job. If I knew that, then Sam did and he is probably right to think that he is been stabbed in the back." If Cole had heard that then you have to think that Allardyce must have gotten wind of it at some point as well, as Andy says...

Good post but worth noting Allardyce was sacked, he didn't walk. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2010/dec/13/sam-allardyce-sacked-blackburn-rovers-manager' Lambert is the only manager who has voluntarily left, although he obviously came into the job with severe reservations, hence the end of season break-clause. Seems to confirm how bad Venky's reputation was at the time, and I don't think it's changed much since then.

The only thing they've learned, as far as I can tell, is that it's better to stay silent and avoid coming anywhere near Blackburn. Otherwise they're still making the same mistakes they were making in the beginning. 9 years and the closest we've come to a genuine manager is Paul Lambert, who saw what was going on here and decided after six months he'd rather be unemployed. The day they employ a genuine, experienced manager and back him with funds is the day I'll believe they might be learning something about running a football club. As long as they keep employing cheap cast-offs who can't or won't get us performing on the pitch I'm of the opinion they have learnt absolutely nothing and moreover after nearly a decade you have to assume they aren't interested in becoming better owners. For whatever reason they just want us to keep ticking along as a loss-making enterprise bouncing between the second and third divisions of English football.

So Jim Cornette managed to come out with some blatantly racist shit on NWA Power and has now resigned. Considering Power is a taped show it's kind of hard to fathom how his comment even made it through the original editing process in the first place, but there you go. I used to find Cornette quite refreshing but nowadays he's become really bitter and comes across as incredibly dumb and out of touch. Looks like he's even blocked Brian Zane now

No matter who came in I'm sure our owners would find a way to screw it up.

A shame nobody followed up Waggott's answer with "why did we sell Raya before being sure we could bring in a decent replacement?"

The way he worded it is just strange to me, like that is a decision solely within Mowbray's control and nothing to do with anybody else. I can understand the manager having a preference and making a request to the relevant department, but to be in charge of something like that just seems odd to me.

This is a bit confusing to me. Why would the first team manager need to be involved in this kind of decision? Seems like something that doesn't need to be in his remit.

Orton loves stirring up stuff on social media to be fair. It's pretty entertaining.

I'm clearly not thinking enough like Tony. Good shout. Didn't he also get sent off? It was against Cardiff if I recall correctly. An absolute disgrace.

Will be told he'll have to earn his way past Armstrong and Downing first, then will go elsewhere.