They're just making it up as they go along. None of them - I include Ismael - can be taken seriously when they speak publicly. I'm not suggesting Ismael is in on it or should be compared to the scrotes in the boardroom but at this early juncture he is just repeating the same old stuff the last three have come out with, he will probably have been given the same false impression in his discussions with them and it is totally pointless as he will find out in the next 6 months.

Whoever writes these things down there needs to get a grip on their use of exclamation marks.

Think Waggott is going to be kicking back and celebrating a fantastic few weeks for him and his mate in the shadows. 6 figure compensation for Eustace and his staff 3 off the wage bill. A 2 week long search concludes with Ismael accepting their terms on the basis he works with existing staff. No compensation required. As it stands a wage down with Gardiner and Downing off the books and Whitehead on. Fans gearing up for a day at Derby giving grief to the bogeyman whilst Waggott and his mate sit in the comfy seats upstairs (at our expense) enjoying the show. If we fall short of the top 6 everyone can blame Eustace upping sticks and leaving mid-season and the instability of having to find a replacement. Job done.

I believe that part of his attractiveness to the regime will be that he won't have many demands when it comes to his own staff and that the current establishment behind the scenes will be brought further into the fold than they were under Eustace, where other than Benson the others were rarely seen and apparently sidelined. The regime will want to ensure they are front and centre again.

What the players want or think doesn't matter to this regime. Nor does what the manager, staff, fans, think. They won't be staying because the owners and their stooges have decided they won't be getting offered reasonable competitive new contracts, hence nobody renewing in over a year.

Brentford sell Watkins to Villa for £30 million and within weeks have invested most of that back into their squad and the show rolls on - either get promoted and recoup the money or sell the replacements and reinvest - and on it goes. Here the name of the game is to save cash for the Indians with no end in sight. No promotion, no reinvestment, no sale of the club. Just purgatory.

This is all part of the grand plan. Getting Ismael under a longer contract creates the illusion that there is some sort of strategy and medium term aim here. It persuades him to come in and commit to the club. They'll go with the 'new era' stuff now as for a relatively small cost - contracts for Ismael and Whitehead - they'll delude most into thinking there is a new bright era on the horizon. Then out the back door they will bundle the few remaining quality players, who have worked their socks off this season to get us into this position and who we should be building around for years to come. I can see it now - come the summer - release a load, sell a few, the rest heading into the final years of their deals - all dressed up under the heading of Ismael is building his own squad, new era, give him a chance. I call it a con job to achieve their longer term aim of gutting the squad of senior proven players and replacing with low cost alternatives. They'll push Ismael to the limits with it as they did JDT and Eustace and call his bluff.

Edit - double post

In the middle bracket for me. Not an appointment that excites me or enthuses me, but not what I would describe as a poor or shocking appointment. There is logic to it and reasons for optimism. I'm not sure there are many that would enthuse me whilst these owners are in charge because even if we hit the jackpot and get a managerial genius all we know for certain is it cannot last long here. I'm perplexed by the awarding of the 3 year contract. I don't know who they are trying to kid with this. I find it doubly baffling that they've given this guy longer than Eustace and JDT despite not renewing a players contract in over a year, even though Ismael has never lasted more than a season in any of his 8 club jobs to date. It is almost like they are trying to make a point to the fans and to themselves. Maybe they consider it a price worth paying to create a pretence of a plan and stability. Of course Ismael references the obligatory 'pathways' for the academy players AKA we are going to release all our proven quality senior players, get their wages off the books and then throw in the kids and hope it works out ok so we can save the owners money and we hope we've found a manager willing to go along with that. They aren't fooling me and of course Waggott can't resist getting on the bandwagon to gather some free brownie points from this. I just hope nobody loses sight of the real issue or forgets the events that led us here - our manager walking out to join a side likely to be going into League One - that's the important thing, not what soundbites they come out with now whilst they distract the masses with this sideshow.

Very convenient that he won't be demanding any more than 2 staff (the number of slots freed up by Eustace's staff leaving) and thus ensuring that Lowe/Benson/Johnson are secured through the next managerial regime (unless they opt to move elsewhere). Good work if you can get it. I suspect the fact that Ismael only wants to bring 2 with him and that they are available (free) has helped him land the job. Whereas when we could have had Farke but wouldn't accede to his staff demands.

So Nixon reckons we are giving him a 3 year deal. I don't see the point of this. Why are we giving a manager with a patchy record a long contract when our entire squad is out within the next 15 months? I would much prefer a deal until 2026 and an option beyond that if things have gone well.

At Barnsley, West Brom and Besiktas his assistant was Adam Murray, now the manager of Eastbourne in National League South. Not sure who he had at Watford. Edit - just looked it up and it was Dean Whitehead and Omar Riza (now Cardiff manager) who assisted him at Watford. Whitehead also worked with him at Besiktas, was at Stoke earlier this season but I think left when Robins took over. So perhaps one option for one of the two vacant positions at Ewood (unless we go cheap again and impose existing staff on him).

West Brom results in the league under Ismael: 12 wins, 9 draws and 8 defeats. Concerningly though 4 of those defeats came in his last 6 games. Their first defeat was not until 1st October when they lost 1-0 at Stoke, so they lost 8 times in 19 games. This is what worries me, his initial impact usually seems to be quite positive - at WBA they went unbeaten in 10 winning 6 - but then things started to unravel quite quickly and when you consider they were fresh out of the Premier League with a pretty strong squad for this level the form they were displaying in the last 2-3 months under him was pretty terrible. Having read that report in the Watford Observer it seems other than a purple patch in the middle it was pretty poor throughout.

Having reflected a bit more on it I have some limited and vague hope that Ismael might perhaps be able to get a positive reaction out of the players between now and May to get us into the top 6. He comes across to me as a bit of a motivator. I am saying that purely based on the fact that he had an initial positive reaction at Barnsley, coming in mid-season and leading them up the table, and his initial time at WBA and Watford appears to have been ok, it was after his first 20 games that things unravelled quite quickly, perhaps once the players got fed up of him. If he can do the business over the next 12 games that is the main thing. I am not confident at all of what happens beyond that but then again the club are ensuring that we could go for Guardiola and he'd struggle with half the squad out the door and no commitments or ideas on budgets.

They'll be keen to offload Cantwell this summer as I think he was only a late 'splurge' to keep Eustace quiet and the intention was always to get him back into the English shop window and sell again. Introducing a manager totally the opposite of his style will see to that.

150+ applicants and over 2 weeks of searching to come up with two names that were both employed and sacked by rival Championship clubs last season for failing to deliver what they wanted/expected. There were people on here surmising that Ismael would be in contention that first weekend based on his availability and status. Why has it taken the 'powers' another 2 weeks to progress with it?

Because it is totally false that he has been 'bounced out' of those clubs you mention. At QPR he was only the caretaker manager, had a good return of points and then they appointed a permanent boss and he left. Rotherham he transformed them from being bottom of the league to survival in the space of 2 months. They wanted to keep him but he wanted to be somewhere with a chance of promotion, so ended up at Cardiff instead who he kept up then got promoted the following season. Middlesbrough he kept them up from being in a relegation battle and was replaced by Chris Wilder when they were mid-table. Huddersfield he kept up from a disastrous position and had them mid-table the following season before their American owner wanted his 'own man' in and they went on to get relegated after he left. The other issue here of course is that a Warnock would be an interim appointment, just for the rest of the season to deal with these last 12 games and then revisit the manager situation with more time. A Wagner or Ismael would inevitably want, expect and get at least a couple of seasons of a contract and we all know that Rovers won't get rid of them during that time. Wagner was very unpopular with large parts of the Norwich support. I'd suggest their 'achievement' in getting into the top 6 was not that impressive when you look at their resources and squad, and they spent most of the season in mid-table. https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2024-05-17/where-did-all-go-wrong-four-reasons-why-city-axed-david-wagner

The Huddersfield promotion was long ago and like with Karanka and Middlesbrough is distant history now. That Norwich side underachieved under Wagner. Blessed with parachute riches and a strong squad and totally unconvincing. Ismael 'didn't see a full season out' because his results were awful at both WBA and Watford.

No, both are dreadful. Ismael fired off from his last two Championship clubs with a win record hovering around the 29% mark at Watford and after 1 win in 10 at parachute laden WBA. Wagner failed miserably in Germany and Switzerland and fell short with a strong Norwich side. Let's not forget his antics towards the end of the 2016-17 season which played a part, admittedly small, in our relegation to League One. Nobody else anywhere near the top 6 would employ either of them.

I'm sure they will ask him about this. And then he earns his Venky coin, because he will say something along the lines of the club are exploring renewals, are in discussions with players about new contracts, are hopeful of progress soon, about how very good offers are being made, it's all under control. The Telegraph print it and the deluded take it all at face value, believe it, then when the players don't sign new deals it is all their fault for wanting too much money (see exhibit Dolan) We've done all we can and the blame lies with the player(s) and their agents. Another batch of downgrading and Championship level wages off the books, Steve and curtain twitcher congratulate themselves on another job well done.

Just don't do it to yourself. My twitter account is effectively dormant and I refuse to post anything Rovers related on there or Facebook any more because I won't get into exchanges with such people. The only thing worse than Venkys, Waggott and co. are the people defending/supporting/justifying what they have done to this club.

Outside the relegation zone when they sacked him, so they're now getting exactly what they deserve.

Cooper and O'Neil will not get jobs in the Premier League after how their Leicester and Wolves spells went. They will either need to go abroad, or more likely drop to the Championship to resume their managerial careers. If they are going to drop to the Championship then something will have to give - either they'll have to drop their demands (if they are unreasonable as you seem to think they are) or Championship clubs will pay them what they want/need to come. It just won't be Rovers because under these owners we don't pay the going rate. We can't even be bothered to look after and maintain our own stadium so there's no way we are going to be paying hefty wages out when they can cut corners and do it on the cheap (again). This is another reason why we never get employed managers and go after a succession of unemployed managers - all about saving and avoiding paying compensation. Their disgraceful conduct in 2016 when backtracking on the Warnock appointment to save a few quid was probably the difference between getting to the PL and ending up in League One. At a normal organisation the person responsible for that decision would have been down the road, sacked, years ago. Yet he appears to still be here, lurking in the shadows, making more damaging decisions costing the club. Do you agree with the general concept that the more you pay the better you get?

Wasn't that kind of what Nixon's story this morning was about? That we are struggling to attract any of the quality names because our wage and bonus package is insufficient to tempt them to take the job?

Just part of the never-ending Venky cycle. Appoint a new manager between now and the summer, probably torpedo our play-off hopes either by dragging it out for far too long or appointing a totally inappropriate option to come in at this critical stage of the season, then when we inevitably stay in the Championship and wave off another 15 players and embark on another round of cost cutting and have to cobble together another squad of frees, loans, cheaps then the fans can be kept hanging whilst the new bloke 'builds' a new team. He then realises it is impossible with the structure and resources provided and gets fed up / disillusioned. The road to nowhere.