JHRover

The difference is that whilst many of Middlesbrough's appointments haven't worked out that well you can see the logic in each of them and Gibson isn't afraid of quickly making a change if he thinks it is for the best. Since our dear Tony was sacked they've not done so badly on managers. Karanka took them to the Premier League. Monk only lasted 6 months but had them in the top 6 when sacked. Pulis took them to the play-offs in his first season and finished 7th in his second season. Woodgate was a sentimental appointment of a rookie but they realised their mistake and sacked him after less than a season Warnock came in and kept them up, finished mid-table last season. Wilder comes with a very impressive record. Karanka-Monk-Pulis-Warnock-Wilder were appointments of managers at the peak of their powers not have beens or nonentities like we've had here and stuck with for far too long.

Oh I agree. Dyche would not be seen as a sexy or ambitious move by a PL club these days. That's partly because of him being an ex centre half Englishman managing Burnley, partly down to the style of football he has become known for at Burnley. These days the high paid executives want to go for the foreign names This also ties in with the structure of the club - as you say at Burnley he has control over the operation - a very traditional and some would say old fashioned approach of having a manager running the show. Most PL clubs have moved away from that and diluted the manager's power so were Dyche to get a move elsewhere he would have to relinquish power and accept having to work alongside or below someone else who might not share his views. Add to that rumours of a substantial release clause in his contract and there's not much chance of a rival club making a move for him. I think the only way it would happen would be if he managed to drag Burnley back into Europe or towards a domestic cup. Those sort of headlines might tempt someone but finishing 16th or 17th and no cup run won't. As above, maybe he's happy with all this and staying at Burnley working relative miracles every year but most managers get fed up with it and want to try something more than that sooner or later.

I see that Steve Gibson was proactive at Middlesbrough. He heard that Wilder was open to the job, heard that rivals were on the lookout so dispensed with Warnock and got him in during the international break. Some may say harsh on Warnock but he was out of contract and likely to retire in the summer whereas Wilder can commit to a few years. You don't let good options slip through your fingers and sometimes you have to move quickly to secure them whilst available before someone else gets them. This is why this notion that we are just waiting for Mowbray's contract to run down before bringing in a new manager is fanciful stuff. Would be no surprise to see a rapid improvement at Middlesbrough and for them to get into promotion contention in the next couple of years. Then come the summer all the naysayers will be out with the usual 'but who would come here' when we talk about making a change. Well a brilliant option has just passed us by because a rival is on the lookout whereas we are not.

Yep spot on re. Dyche. People keep hailing what a great job he is doing and how he will end up walking if the new owners don't back him in the transfer market. I think not. The reality is that he's just had no better offers which is why he's still at Burnley. He gets to run the show as he wants to with his bank balance looking very healthy after he keeps them up each season but then has to repeat again next year. He seems happy with this arrangement. Most managers get fed up of performing miracles every year and want more. See Hughes here, Allardyce at Bolton, Curbs at Charlton, even Pulis at Stoke, Lambert at Norwich - back in the day they'd get a move to a bigger or richer club and have their chance to replicate it elsewhere. Not for Dyche though because the better jobs all pass him by. Villa is the sort of job he should be in line for to prove if he is as good as they say he is at a bigger richer club. Yet he's nowhere to be seen in the discussion whilst they are linked with the usual Terry-Lampard-Gerrard trinity and a selection of foreign names.

Mowbray has until the end of the season anyway. Nothing me or anyone on here thinks or does about that is going to change it. The only way he isn't is if he gets fed up and walks and I think that is unlikely unless the fans really turn whilst on another death spiral after Xmas. I didn't change my view on him after the 7-0 thrashing and I haven't changed my view on him after Saturday. It really irritates me seeing people on Twitter and Facebook on the lines of 'where are the Mowbray haters now?' after the win. I'm still here, my views have been formed over 2-3 years not 2-3 games and I don't change them overnight. I want him gone, have done for 18 months to 2 years now and that will remain the case. The only way he will really prove me wrong is by either getting us promoted or into the play-offs. As it happens I'm more pleased with his performance as manager right now than I have pretty much at any stage since his appointment. I certainly think he's getting more out of the squad than he has at any other point and this is probably the first season where we are 'overachieving' in the table at the moment. Lets not get carried away though. I am pleased with where we are in the table more because I expected a relegation battle this season, but it is an incredibly tight division and it won't take much to be 7-8 places lower down the table like Preston. If we can sustain it then great but we've been here before.

We can't change manager because we are a town club. Makes sense. Just hope Mowbray has found the philosophers stone and can live forever so he doesn't ever need to retire, otherwise we would be in trouble as no other manager would be able to work here.

There's certainly an element of extreme delusion in what he says. The bit about not bringing Pep Guardiola in and the next manager after him being in the same position is all to bolster this notion that he is the only man capable of managing this club in its current form. Now I know the job can't be easy working for these scumbags but the club is doing him a favour by still employing him, not the other way around. Yet I keep on coming back to something I heard from Waggott back in 2018 along the lines of we need to do x, y, z to be able to keep Tony Mowbray at the Club. These buffoons i think really do believe he is a top drawer manager that we are lucky to have. He's not a good manager. He's competent. That's about it really. But it seems to me that he genuinely thinks that he is doing us a favour not throwing in the towel. We promoted Gary Bowyer from the reserves and he did as good as if not better job with less cash to spend.

Steve Gibson and Middlesbrough saw through the bullsh!t he comes out with and realised that they were on the road to nowhere with him at the helm - actually worse than that the longer he stayed in charge and imposed his 'vision' on the club the worse they got so they were looking over their shoulders at relegation by the time he was potted. He was replaced with Aitor Karanka who took them to the PL within a couple of years. That was 8 years ago. In the time since then he's had a short doomed spell in League One with Coventry, sending them to League Two whinging and whining about not having enough 'men' in the squad he assembled. He was succeed by Mark Robins who in the time since then has hauled the same Coventry, with the same nutjob owners and the same issues behind the scenes, all the way from League Two to above us in the Championship. Then 5 years managing this club, the pinnacle of which was getting a massive and mind blowingly expensive squad out of League One, and is now leading us to club record defeats and complaining that the squad he assembled has too many boys and not enough men.

I think it is fair to say that his head has gone. He appeared to lose the plot and throw in the towel at the start of the year, inexplicably was allowed to continue through the summer but now it is different - rather than the defeated shoulder shrug it is antagonism of the support base. He seems to be following the Kean guide book on how to divide and conquer the support base. I wonder if he's been taking advice from the same people as Kean once did. Imply that anyone unhappy or critical of dismal performances/results or who questions his position is negative, not supporting the club and therefore by extension not a true fan. Encouraging supporters to rise up and combat 'abusive' fellow supporters - abusive of course being expressing unhappiness at being humiliated. Suggesting that unhappiness with Wednesdays debacle is a symptom of a modern social media disease - nonsense - in decades gone by there would have been a mob gathered by the reception waiting for him after the game. Distraction tactics by referring to other clubs that are of no relevance at all to our situation The perennial tale of us being 'young guys' not men and still learning how to play football - who has been running things for the last 5 years? Heaven help this club. The only thing I agree with him on is that once he goes it will be some other substandard manager sat in his place making similar excuses working for the same pondlife.

Absolutely shamless the lot of them. Brace yourselves for the usual pre-match boredom today. Self-pity about injuries and suspension. Soundbites about 'putting it right' after Wednesday. A few dollops of what a massive, brilliant force Sheffield United are, how they have parachute money so we can't compete (since relegation they have won 5 out of 16 in the league and those were against Derby, Pboro, Hull, Barnsley and Stoke) Going back to the start of last season they have won 12 out of 54 games, losing 36 of them. I fully expect a backs to the wall win or bore draw which will erase the 7-0 from consciousness and reset the clock. The only way serious pressure begins to build on this guy is if we get walloped again which is highly, highly unlikely going off their record and law of averages. A narrow defeat and the Mowbray disciples will be out to tell us how the players are still fighting for him, odd random results like Wednesday happen and on the show goes.

I keep coming back in my head to just how ridiculous this whole scenario is. February 2017 - facing likely relegation they finally sack Owen Coyle - he should never have been allowed anywhere near Ewood yet he got the job before far stronger and more suitable candidates for reasons unknown. He was then left to wreak havoc for 8 months, condemning us to League One when a blind man could see in August/September where we were headed. Thanks Venkys. In comes Mowbray. How, why, who knows. A bizarre appointment in itself given his history. A bloke who had been on the scrapheap for 6 months after leaving crisis club Coventry City facing certain relegation to the 4th division, who hadn't worked in the Championship or equivalent/higher for 4 years since being sacked by Middlesbrough yet in he comes. Reports that he was a contender for the Chesterfield job yet was overlooked in favour of Gary Caldwell. Yikes. By virtue of the fact he wasn't Coyle and had some degree of managerial ability there was the inevitable upturn in results and improvement in atmosphere and through that, despite relegation, he was afforded respect and admiration from most people who were willing to allow him a proper shot at it in League One. Here we are, 3.5 years later, he's still plodding along. He isn't a good manager, never has been, yet some would have us think he is absolutely indispensable to the club. Just what does it take to sack him? He's wasted millions of their money with little to show for it He's failed to get us even in serious contention for the top 6 let alone promotion. He's taken us on one of the worst runs of form in our history and has now lead us to our worst defeat. What hope do we have? I think the worst part of this is that this sub-par managers, whether it be Kean, Coyle or Mowbray - people who really shouldn't have even got an interview to manage this great club - are in situ for years, able to deliver any performance imaginable and it matters not one jot. Talk about landing on his feet. From being unemployable at Chesterfield to unsackable at Blackburn Rovers. It really leaves a sickening taste in the mouth.

It'll be either a bore draw or a narrow defeat. Enough for Mowbray and his acolytes to hail a magnificent recovery for his young, injury stricken squad against another behemoth that was in the PL last year. And on the show goes through the next international break.

We all know how this routine goes. He's got his initial excuses in hand - the red card, playing mighty Fulham, parachute money, PL last year. Radio Lancs and Kevin Gallacher have been helping with that tonight. Luckily for Mowbray he's only got 2 days until the Sheff Utd fixture. Club twitter account has been trying to placate the twitter mob by promising to 'put it right' on Saturday. He only needs to batten down the hatches until Friday. Then it will be pre-match presser time and he will be able to turn the focus away from tonight's disaster an on to the next one. 'We've a game tomorrow to prepare for' 'We'll make sure it doesn't happen again' 'We've had words and put it behind us now and look forward, still in a decent position in the league' 'No point making a change when we've a game in 2 days then we've got the international break to get some injuries back' Then we play a mediocre Sheff Utd side but with a few well known players and also in the PL last season so armed with excuses for a defeat. But assuming we don't get completely pummeled - which we won't because lightning won't strike twice in a row and Sheffield aren't good enough - then even a narrow competitive defeat will be applauded as improvement, players fighting for the manager blah blah blah and before we know it another 2 weeks pass by and Meanwhile Cardiff and Barnsley get their pick of the decent managers out there and by the time we go to Bristol we are well through November. On and on it goes. Get to December and they will turn the focus onto bringing in better players in January to keep people dangling for a few more weeks. We're being played and yet so many people can't see it.

I'm not going to comment on the game itself as I don't think there's much I can say of any use or that others won't have already covered. But If ever we needed to see what a hollowed out shell husk of a club Blackburn Rovers is these days one only needed to sit through the final 30 minutes of tonight. Getting absolutely annihilated by Fulham, going down with a whimper to the heaviest home defeat in history yet nothing. No mutiny on the terraces, not much by way of boos, just a few groans and an odd few chants among those left at the end. The whole thing just a shrug of the shoulders. I'm part of it. In years gone by I would have been shocked, disgusted, furious at witnessing that sort of performance. Now I'm none of those things. I almost don't care. What's the point? Normally a defeat of this magnitude represents a watershed. Managers get sacked on results like these alone, or at the very least are into the last chance saloon with both chairmen and supporters. Here the show rolls on. Owners who probably don't know we played, CEO who will be more worried about keeping the heat off Tony than the result or performance, and it seems the fanbase has been battered into submission where we get little more than acceptance of our fate. Even ignoring the horror of the performance and result it was another weary midweek at Ewood. Pitiful attendance showing that Maggott's 'pioneering' initiative has had all but zero effect on the gate. Dire atmosphere not helped by no effort from the club whether that be some pre-match build up or tannoy announcements. This club is on a road to oblivion and nobody is willing or able to do anything about it. I'll say it. This club disgusts me in its present form. Owners, directors, management - I hold in contempt. The matchday experience and visiting Ewood Park is appalling. There is only one way to turn this around and it starts in India.

I have to admit it is funny watching Newcastle seemingly struggle to attract top quality management. You'd expect someone like Loew - unemployed - would jump at the chance to join a PL Club and a project with vast resources - seemingly not. If it is true then Emery would rather stay at floundering Villarreal and Xavi in Qatar. Conte would sooner go to Spurs - working under a famously tight chairman in Levy - than chase the Saudi money at Newcastle. I think it is probably just delaying the inevitable because with that sort of cash there sooner or later they will get the top drawer manager they desire or get themselves into a position to get them. It is just a case of getting through this season and to safety. As daft as it might sound they might be better just giving Allardyce or Hodgson a call - massive bonus for survival. It might not be popular or sexy but it would be survival and give them time to plan ahead whilst a safe pair of hands keeps things ticking over. Have to chuckle at the Eddie Howe stuff - yes he did very well at Bournemouth for a number of years but ultimately relegated them with an expensively assembled squad and hasn't worked in nearly 18 months. Not sure he is what Newcastle need in their difficult position.

Looking at it from Conte's point of view this is a low risk move for him. He's out of work and presumably in the last few months hasn't had many offers from rich clubs in good leagues. Suspect he has had word that he isn't on United's radar or that they won't be sacking Solskjaer in the near future. Missed out on the Real job in the summer. No other obvious options in any of the big European leagues. He can sit around until next summer doing nothing or try to do what no other has managed which is to win something with Spurs. Even if he gatecrashes the top 4 he will have done a good job considering how far ahead Chelsea, City and Liverpool are. £20 million a year for 18 months work. Can walk away then if he gets a better offer or falls out with Spurs. Win a domestic cup or one of the 2nd rate European trophies and his CV will be enhanced even further. Spurs are a club that have always seemed to have a bigger and better reputation than they deserve and always manage to attract good managers and players above their level. I was amazed Mourinho went there with their lack of success and I'm surprised Conte has too. Suppose money talks plus they have the big benefit of being in London and now a great stadium.

Well a quick glance on the ticketing website doesn't suggest there has been a surge in sales in the home ends. Still bucket loads of availability in all areas. I'll be surprised if we sell more than 10,000 home tickets. I think categorising non-attenders into either those who avoid it because of the cost and those who don't want to watch mid-table Championship football is taking the easy route out of this. I think the problems run much deeper than merely the cost of tickets or the 'product' not being the best. Of course both these things are relevant to varying degrees and to many people may be central issues - but I think there are a lot of others who have just given up/turned their back on going to Ewood and there are a whole collection of reasons why which stretch back over many years and go hand in hand with the complete lack of effort the club has made during that time to retain or obtain new supporters. Cutting costs may persuade some to return, as would a promotion push or PL football, but again there needs to be a deeper examination as to what has gone wrong at this club. I don't expect that to happen because there appears to be no interest or serious analysis at ownership or board level as to the underlying cause of the problem. That examination and analysis isn't going to happen any time soon. The owners don't care whether Ewood is full or empty - if they did they would have acted before now. People like Waggott aren't tasked or judged on sales but on numbers on the books so he will just make excuses or compensate for less sales with further price increases. That's why the only route out of this is a regime change to someone who will take this seriously and take action to address it before it is too late and an entire generation of support is lost forever.

I can only guess that the 'Safety Advisory Group' have said to Rovers that if we sell the whole Darwen End then they will need a significantly greater police and stewarding operation at a significantly greater cost. Notice how there is no issue opening the BBE upper tier for a few hundred people on free tickets which has happened several times this season. Looking forward to the Rovers tweets warning of a very busy day at Ewood with a massive 15000 expected. Just how did the club ever cope with regular 25000+ crowds?

Just waiting for the interview with Richard Bevan of the LMA expressing his disgust at the number of sackings and managers not being given sufficient time in a job. He was quick to draw public attention to the ongoings at Rovers when we sacked Michael Appleton after only a few months in the job, so can only assume he will be doing the same now that Spurs have sacked Santo just a couple of months after winning Manager of the Month and still in the League Cup/Europe.

Barnsley's strategy is a high risk/reward one. With a high turnover in coaching staff (not all their own fault) and recruiting from a pool of untested names it can pay big dividends or be a struggle. If they'd have stuck to the tried and tested model they might be in a more stable position right now but by the same measure they likely wouldn't have been near the play-offs last season. To be fair to them they've appointed 5 of these European coaches and 3 have been very successful, 2 not. Ismael worked spectacularly, Schopp hasnt worked. At least they've knocked it on the head quickly and will try something else. It is getting similar to the Watford model but on a smaller budget. The bottom 3 are in danger of getting cut adrift on their current form.

Conte is too good for Spurs but then when we look at the alternatives for a manager of his calibre he might have a long wait. He missed out on the Real Madrid job in the summer. United likely to stick with Solskjaer. Liverpool, Chelsea and City happy as they are. Juve rebuilding under Allegri. Barcelona in financial crisis. Bayern is a no. PSG happy with Pochettino. Just left Inter. Not many other clubs in a top league that could equip him with the finances and opportunity for success. In theory Spurs should have the ingredients - brilliant stadium, training ground and academy. London location. I was surprised that Mourinho took the job there at a club with no recent history of success as it was uncharacteristic. Conte will be the same sort of surprise. Having worked at Juve, Inter and Chelsea - all with records of success - Spurs is an anomaly. But he may fancy himself to change that.

Get stuck into them from the off. Make them uncomfortable. A long midweek trip up North especially with this terrible weather are the sort teams like Fulham will slip up in. They've already lost games at Blackpool and Coventry this season so those are what we should be trying to emulate. I just hope we don't show them too much respect or that Mowbray tries to outplay them. This is a game for the dark arts and I worry Mowbray won't ever employ them, which is one of the reasons our record against sides in the top 4-6 in recent years is so poor. If this rain continues for the next 2 days I doubt the game will be on but am expecting a woeful gate with about 300 from Fulham coming.

Quite clear Waggott expected the same numbers to buy at a higher price this summer thereby boosting his figures at minimal change to gates. Many of us mere civilians knew this 'strategy' was a high risk one likely to fail and cause long term damage especially off the back of a pandemic and what do you know? Right we were. Substantial fall in gates at the worst possible time at a club and in a town that simply can't afford to lose season ticket holders by the thousands. Now it is desperation time hoping to claw them back after they have gone. Not working judging by the numbers. Paying this guy how much to demolish our support base? And the 'initiative' merely consists of continuing to sell season tickets after the initial deadline at a similar rate. Hardly groundbreaking is it?

It will be interesting to watch the sales pitch in full swing over the next couple of months. Knowing that it is a January sale or £0 for Rothwell and Nyambe I expect to see relentless advertisements in the Telegraph and Mowbray wittering on about them with regularity in an attempt to entice bids and interest in them. Even if it is just £500k a piece it will do the trick for Mowbray and Waggott in keeping in the good books and getting some cash in. Problem they have is that their departures may well derail our season, especially if we maintain current trajectory and are mid-table with a sniff of the play-offs come January. We all know those sort of fees for those players represents a disastrous return for a club supposedly hard up and struggling with FFP compliance.

Derby only picked up 3 points less than us this season so two evenly matches sides based on results so far. The fact that is the case despite rookie Rooney having to deal with administration, points deduction, takeover uncertainty, and all sorts of issues tells me what a poor job has been done at this club with stability, continuity and substantial investment.