Hopefully Mowbray's last game in the dugout.

Would be a perfect fitting end to Mowbray's time here.

Wonder if we'd be 2-0 up of we'd come into this game in 6th and needing a result? Gutted to see Luton in the playoffs alongside Forest, Sheff Utd and Huddersfield whilst we miss out for a 9th time since being relegated. It is so much to ask for one season where we sneak into 6th? Even Ipswich with barely two pennies to scrape together managed it once under McCarthy before sacking him and spiralling into oblivion.

He lost his place originally because he was injured though, and there's every chance he would have been back on the treatment table soon enough if he had been reintroduced. We don't know the exact reason as to why Ayala wasn't in the first eleven when he had presumably regained fitness, but either way it's a bad look for Ayala to have only played a third of our league matches since joining, and an equally bad look for Mowbray in giving him a three year deal on what we have to assume are relatively high wages. I'd happily move him on in the summer if possible, but I'm not sure if anybody would be interested in matching the wages we're giving him.

Ayala is well known for going missing during the winter months. If he was only being paid to play 50% of the season then fine, but he isn't. In fact I believe in the last two seasons he's made 30 appearances out of a possible 92, so it's more like 30%. A good player when he's fit, but completely unreliable.

Then you woke up and remembered who owns us.

At the time I thought Lambert was an ambitious appointment, but nowadays I'm not as convinced. He clearly had reservations about what he was getting himself into, hence the end of season break clause. There was something strange about that situation. How many clubs bring in a manager like that with a clause in their contract which allows them to leave after less than a year? For Lambert to then activate that, and apparently having already decided to do so by February/March, suggests either a mismanaged appointment process in which one or both parties lied about their requirements, or something else going on. Probably the former, but with the shenanigans surrounding the club since Venky's turned up I could believe something unusual was going on too.

They just don't care about Blackburn Rovers or indeed Blackburn at all as much as any of the fans. As has already been noted, we're just one of a portfolio of businesses to Venky's, and likely very low down on the priority list. It's a shit situation and a big reason that Venky's should be nowhere near running this club, but it's also the unfortunate reality and why I have little hope right now that they're putting any serious thought or attention into Mowbray's successor - let alone treating him with any dignity upon his exit. I imagine it isn't even a footnote in their various meetings.

That's my guess too. We've been down this road too many times in the past. An obvious candidate overlooked for a total rookie or unknown quantity willing to work cheap. It's been the Venky model for 12 years now. If we break from that model then maybe we can start to believe the people saying some positive changes have been made behind the scenes. If the standard model comes into play again, however, then we'll know nothing is different and our stagnation will continue on indefinitely.

Agreed. Stop bickering or be forced to stop. It's up to the pair of you.

If you aren't feeling nervous about a tight relegation battle I'm not sure what the point is of following the sport.

Leeds and Bumley will be very nervous now. Amazing how poor Chelsea were. Possible the sanctions are having an affect on squad morale, I guess.

Agree. It's funny how Mowbray's time here is considered the pinnacle of the Venky tenure, yet Bowyer's time here is now regarded as an abject failure and part of the club's destruction - when in reality as a total rookie manager GB finished higher than Mowbray ever has with much less to spend on transfers (albeit assumedly a higher wage budget). I'm sure a lot of the people doing so were likely praising Bowyer at the time as well, as I remember very similar sentiments about 'dignity', 'pride brought back to the club', etc being thrown around then too. The king is dead, long live the king I suppose.

Come on now. If BBD leaves it's the second season in a row we're losing the only player in the team who scores regularly, by some distance. We got lucky this season with BBD's pre-January purple patch cancelling out Arma's missing goals, but if he leaves that's a major loss no matter how you look at it. Lenihan has his flaws but losing your captain and a decent Championship CB can't just be dismissed as unimportant, especially considering our historical reluctance to invest in defence meaningfully. We'll also struggle to replace Nyambe's physical attributes at RB. Rothwell I'm not quite as bothered about, but by the same token I'm not convinced we'll replace with better. Khadra is useful but inconsistent, so I think we could find a loan of similar quality for next season if we're inclined to do so. Overall though we're talking a pretty big rebuild of the starting eleven with a new manager having to come in and assess everything very quickly. It's something we should all be very concerned about imo.

I agree that if he'd been offered a contract he wouldn't be saying any of this, but whilst he has talked about being away from his family in the past, this time he has specifically stated that he's leaving because it isn't fair to them for him to be away, and that his son needs him to be there for him more than he has been. Backtracking on those comments would be awkward to say the least, although at the same time if he did renew I can't imagine the local press would ask him about it. I imagine all of this would be conveniently forgotten and we'd hear more nonsense about journeys, player development, etc.

After all the stuff he's come out with regarding his family not seeing them and wanting to address that, talking about his values, morals, etc, it would be difficult for him to justify accepting a new contract now. I'm sure he would, but it certainly wouldn't paint him in a good light. I don't think he would have said those things unless he was absolutely sure he was leaving. Really hope I'm right on that.

With Nyambe it feels like his strengths have continued to get stronger, but his weaknesses have never been addressed. The flaws in his game, particularly when it comes to the attacking side of things, have never really improved which gives him a set of somewhat lop-sided abilities. We'll probably never know if this was down to poor coaching or the player himself, but I feel like if Ryan can work under a coaching team that focuses on his weaknesses he could become a very, very good RB/RWB. He has all the physical attributes, he just needs help on the technical side of his game. At 24 he still has a couple of years to really develop that, and for his sake I hope he does, as whenever I've seen him his commitment and attitude have never been in question.

The send off Mowbray deserves as far as the match is concerned.

Another 45 minutes of Mowbray's tenure over with 👍

Is that the 3rd or 4th time in a row now that Rotherham have bounced straight back up from League 1? The definition of a yo yo club at this point.

Just a normal first half under Tony Mowbray then!

We are proper shit. Thank god this is (hopefully) Mowbray's last home game in charge.

Ultimately we only have ourselves to blame. 10 points clear of 7th in January to where we are now is on the manager and the players and nobody else. I suppose Mowbray had to give us one more masterclass in death spiralling before leaving, and this one may have been the most spectacular of all of them considering the amount of hopes and dreams it destroyed.

Let's face it, he knew what he was getting himself into the moment he signed on as manager of this club. We'd already been a basket case for six years by that point. Whilst the way he's being treated now is pretty shoddy, he's also benefitted from working for 5 years under the same largely disinterested owners who have allowed him to stay on despite the club enduring some absolute horror-runs of form that would have seen any other manager at any other club sacked. He's admitted as much in the past. Unfortunate to be treated like this at the end, perhaps, but very fortunate to have been able to continue despite repeated runs of poor form. He really can't complain that much, considering he was picked up from the managerial scrapheap at the beginning.

As we've seen from previous comments Mowbray's perception of a 'young' player is somewhat odd, as he's referred to the likes of Gallagher (26), Rothwell (27) and Lenihan (28) as young in recent times despite them all being well past the point where the average punter would classify them as young players. Not sure when a player becomes old for Tony - 30s maybe? His comments regarding our young team are still quite disingenuous though as I highly doubt our average is significantly skewered lower in comparison to the rest of the division, so in that sense it doesn't really matter. Not sure what Bournemouth's history in lower leagues has to do with what they deserve now tbh. If we're working on that logic we might as well just create regional divisions where nobody ever gets promoted or relegated, irrespective of club structure, stadium, etc. Just seems like a criticism borne out of bitterness. They certainly have a lot of high paid players at this point thanks to time in the PL and parachute payments, but comparatively so did we when we got relegated and look at what a total fucking mess we made out of that. Now, disliking Bournemouth for how they acted in January with Rothwell? That I can understand.