Think there are engineering works on the main line. Or at least a risk of them that weekend. Probably won't know for sure until a couple of weeks before.

I'd be delighted with Farke, very pleased with Carvahal, optimistic/satisfied with Hughton and underwhelmed but optimistic with Ainsworth. I don't think any of them will get it. Both because they would cost too much, don't have what our lot are looking for and even if we got them around a table they'd probably run a mile after listening to Waggott and Pasha. My bet is on Liam Manning but think he will be the very best we get. Hope I am wrong because mess this one up and League One will be on the horizon again.

With respect, this club has almost everything that a manager like Dyche or Farke would want from their next job. Neither are likely to get a PL move, certainly not in the near future. Farke hasn't managed now since last year and had a spell in the Russian wilderness at Krasnodar, so he's nuts if he thinks a solid Championship club is beneath him, This club SHOULD see decent managers queuing up. All the ingredients are there other than the ownership and board situation. Other than the parachute clubs nobody in this league should be able to chuck money around. We are also in the fortunate position of having sold Armstrong last summer and have Brereton this to cash in on to fund our overhaul. The owners might decide to trouser the proceeds and go cheap and cheerful again which is more likely than not, but if they did wake up and do the right thing then we have plenty to offer.

Looking on the positive side there are two managers linked here out of the equation which I'm not in the slightest bit fussed about. But yeah, Birmingham supposedly a crisis club and being taken over yet seem to be ahead of us. Not sure what is going on there as heard rumours of wealthy owners coming in and also mentioned Bassini and Sullivan involved which could be a disaster for them.

Plan going forward and footballing structure. Two things I'd be surprised if there were at Rovers and certainly not an announcement to the public in May about. It will be Grayson/Dunn, Adkins, Venus or Mowbray in the seat come pre-season having to work with Maggott and Suhail to rebuild the squad on a shoestring. No plan or structure to be seen.

Seen a post on twitter claiming that Venus is also leaving but Johnson and Lowe staying. No surprises but if true forget about Farke, Dyche or anyone decent. Nobody like that will be told who he has to have on his staff

Dyche had a place down Calderstones way so wouldn't be surprised to see him knocking about in that area.

Unless we are appointing a D of F or Sporting Director then we need an established operator in the dugout. There are too many issues and too much of a void for a rookie to be stepping into it and learning on the job and taking those sort of risks. It needs someone who knows the demands of working at a big club and of Championship football. The risk would be drastically reduced if the owners installed a chairman, ceo, sporting director, board or similar who could run the club and let a younger or less experienced bloke focus on the team, but that isn't going to happen.

So another day gone, now 72 hours since the final game of the season and still not a peep from the club or owners about the manager. Disgusting, disgraceful, unprofessional, and taking paying customers for fools. Why would anyone want to work for an organisation that can't or won't even have the decency to release a statement about a manager after 5 years in charge?

Kenny Jackett hasn't managed in the PL. Swansea, Millwall, Wolves, Rotherham, Pompey, Orient - the highest he has been was top half Championship at Millwall/Wolves. He has spent most of his career in League One. He has 3 promotions from League One and if we were a League One side would be a strong option as he has a good record. But he's certainly not an appointment for a Championship side looking to go anywhere good. The only boxes he ticks are that he's available, affordable and might be a safe pair of hands in terms of avoiding relegation. Ryan Lowe is at Preston. Not going to leave them to come here nor would I want him to. Passionate, popular, homeboy are not attributes that should be remotely relevant to us bringing in a new manager. And I'm afraid suggestions of Davidson and Reid are just more from the ex-player brigade both of whom have it all to prove as managers before we should hand them the keys to Brockhall. I'm not sure where the fuss about Reid comes from, given he went on to represent the dingles after being with us I wouldn't have any sentimental view on him coming here.

I'm a big fan of Gerrard's after their win on Saturday. Just hope he gets them sorted out for the home leg next week....

There's positives and negatives to Waggott being involved in a managerial appointment. Positives - that at least he has some experience in football, even if incompetent he should have some understanding of the Championship, the club and fanbase and be able to use that to come up with some sort of reasonable shortlist. Negatives - he's a buffoon, has no authority and doesn't control the cash. So in some ways better having India's involvement in this and cutting him out of the equation.

There's the possibility that we haven't had an announcement because Venkys still want him to stay and are working towards that happening. The only thing worse than that possibility is we haven't had an announcement because nobody at the club knows what Venkys want.

I think Neil is a decent manager. I think he went through a similar process at PNE to that Mowbray went through here, whereby he had 3 seasons at it in the Championship, but then things just reached a natural conclusion, he recognised this as did the club and they parted company. No fuss, no animosity, no drama, just thanks for over 3 years of hard work, accept time for a change, go off and have a rest. That is what should have happened with Mowbray at 2-3 points in the last 24 months but due to the joke setup we are there was and is nobody at the Club to apply any sort of process, decision making or authority to this, and so Mowbray was instead allowed to continue unabated through horror spells where seasons have been derailed.

Hughton wouldn't be my first choice but it would be an appointment I could firmly understand and get behind, and I would have some confidence he could take the club forwards, which is more than can be said for most of the names mentioned so far. If he had never gone to Forest, or had left in the summer before their nightmare start to the season, I think most people would have been very happy to have him here, as his reputation prior to August/September 2021 was outstanding at Newcastle, Birmingham and Brighton. I think he's an intelligent operator who has more sense than to launch himself into any old job just for the sake of getting back into it. Not one I think will happen. He won't have the right 'connections' for Venkys.

When none of those names get spoken to and / or Mowbray gets a new deal Nixon will come with his 'change of budget' claims to cover for it.

Going to be a lot of disappointment on here when they eventually announce Mowbray is staying. Probably take them a few weeks but I think this is the inevitable conclusion to this saga.

Mowbray's latest comments seem to be at odds with those previously where he said he was calm and relaxed about his contractual situation, that it didn't make any difference to him and his approach and that the time for discussing it was at the end of the season when he'd get on a plane to India. Now its a case that he wanted an offer in January and is seemingly hurt by the failure of the owners to make him an offer and that now the season is over he's off because of this? Typical Mowbray ambiguity and mixed messages. Of course there's a small chance that he's got the message through that he isn't getting an offer having previously held hopes and an expectation this would come. That is what would normally be expected and maybe now he's throwing his toys out of his pram whilst he still has a platform and some relevance to command an audience. Then again maybe the opposite is true and the silence continues from India and even he's had enough of waiting. The lack of communication from the club only points to one thing. Uncertainty and no authority. It is the easiest thing in the world to release a short website statement as they did yesterday with Rothwell and Johnson. Their failure to even do that tells me they haven't a clue what is going on and dare not announce his departure because as far as they know he might yet stay, which would be the ultimate embarrassment. I still maintain my belief that once the penny drops with the clowns in India that he's off not only will they be astonished at this (I think they just assume staff will sit around and wait for them indefinitely) that they will then come with some sort of increased offer and budget to keep Mowbray here and he won't be able to say no. In the meantime they are going to squander any window of opportunity for us to recruit a decent manager, and then when we are faced with pre-season and a huge amount of recruitment at short notice and are churning through the names on the managerial scrapheap the Tony fan club will be explaining how we can't ever expect for better than him and how we should have kept him for the rest of his days.

Mowbray left West Brom of his own accord following relegation when they had finished bottom and were miles off staying up. His successor was Roberto Di Matteo, who led them to automatic promotion the following season. West Brom then went on to enjoy about 8 years in a row in the PL. Mowbray went to Celtic and despite being popular from his playing days is now considered something of a joke figure there after being sacked during his first season with them miles behind Rangers. He was succeeded by Neil Lennon who went on to win everything in his first managerial job. Mowbray went to Middlesbrough, and after two promotion pushes followed by alarming collapses (see us this season) he was eventually sacked in 2013 after a poor run with the club looking over its shoulder at the relegation zone. He was succeed by Aitor Karanka in his first managerial job, who soon after took Middlesbrough to the play-offs and then automatic promotion. Mowbray went to Coventry, and after one season looking like promotion contenders followed by an alarming drop off (see us this season) he walked away in 2016 with them bottom of League One and winless all season. 6 months later they appointed Mark Robins who has led them to the League Trophy and 2 promotions and are now established in the Championship. So one narrative that I won't be falling for is that the only way is down after he's led us to the giddy heights of 8th. Of course these owners could quite easily squander this opportunity and wreck the club again, but that risk will always be there until they beggar off.

If FFP and money is such an issue you'd think they'd want to sell as many as possible.

The club should already know who or what it wants and have lined people up. If you know what you want and have the determination to get it then you don't need to interview various random names. Those linked with the job so far suggest a scattergun approach as they are all very different in style, background, track record. We already know what managers offer before the interview. Anyone who bothers to come to one wants a job so will tell us what we want to hear. Of course any manager is going to agree to use our academy, so this developer-of-young-players thing will only be tested in time and if the players are good enough and not to the detriment of results. Any decent manager should be interviewing us. Not the other way around. He needs to know if we can be trusted and deliver what he needs to succeed.

I agree. Ainsworth has done very well with Wycombe. My point was that in doing so there is nothing in the stats that points to the football or style you seem to crave or require from a candidate for the Rovers job. His side are the oldest and bottom for things like possession and passes. You appear quite happy to ignore that and appoint him regardless in the hope he does a u turn and adopts a completely different approach here (or you aren't actually that bothered about style in the first place) Either way it seems quite pointless discussing the styles of certain managers when you are then willing to disregard it anyway and appoint someone at odds with that style.

A bit of join the dots here. Carvalhal was plucked from relative obscurity to join Sheffield Wednesday after Chansiri took over and started throwing big money around to try and get promoted. Did a decent job - in two full seasons got into the play-offs both times including the final one year. Also involved at Sheffield Wednesday around that time was Paul Senior, who as we all know had a short spell here at the time Mowbray arrived. One of Carvalhal's signings at Sheff Wed was Lucas Joao, who joined us on loan whilst Senior was here (our only January signing despite staring relegation in the face) Joao has since joined Reading, another club with strange goings on including remote foreign owners and odd transfer business and seemingly up to their eyeballs in FFP issues after heavy spending. Reading are on the look out for a new manager and Carvalhal was 'linked' to them. Now he's 'linked' to us. Seems to me that us, Sheff Wed and Reading have quite a lot in common. All recently taken over by foreign owners who appear to be clueless and completely out of sync with what the clubs need and want. All have had similar issues financially and with FFP. Similar names and faces turn up at each.

It's Sunday so that means another round of Nixon gossip. Looks like whoever is representing Carvalhal is doing their best to get him a move to England. Been 'linked' with us, Dingles and Reading recently. Think he's a good manager and would happily take him here but would prefer Farke. Carvalhal also spent big at Wednesday so would be surprised if that happened.

Ah right, so you're factoring in budgets now then? So when I suggested Mick McCarthy based on his record at Ipswich on a shoestring you rejected that based on his style of play. Yet you would now happily take a manager with a similar style and excuse that because he's had a limited budget. Makes sense. A decent manager will adapt his style and approach to best fit the players and conditions of the job. I'm getting tired of people being categorised like this. I'm only interested in results and accomplishments.