Dreams of 1995

Tugay

To do that we have to push up high Ewood Ace and we currently have a centre half/centre midfield partnership that turns like milk!!! I wouldn't bet a penny of anyones money on us if a team broke and we had Smallwood, Evans, Rodwell and Mulgrew at the back providing cover.

Yep and that would all make perfect sense if he'd suddenly reverted to this system towards the latter end of the season to stem the flow of goals. However that's simply not the case - he floated this idea of defensive attackers when we were in League 1. Then, to compound the confusion, he goes ahead and signs players like Palmer, Rothwell, Brereton, Chapman and Armstrong who clearly have no intention of ever fulfilling the role of "defensive winger". You have to ask the question that if he knew he was going to stick with Bennett and Conway - he must have - why didn't he spend the £10m available to him shoring up the positions he feels like he has to compensate for? Left back, centre back, right back...... Quite frankly I couldn't give a damn about the excuses. I refuse to believe Rodwell would be any less effective than Smallwood/Evans in centre mid; I refuse to believe there wasn't a centre back available in the summer and I certainly refuse to believe that he didn't consider the risk he was taking in not signing any recognised defenders in the summer despite all the warning signs being there that they simply aren't cut out for this level. The chickens are coming home to roost in a truly abysmal run of games, not even just in terms of results but in terms of application on the pitch. If he's playing Conway and Bennett on the basis they are less likely to make mistakes then the experiment has sadly failed.

As much as I detest the ratbags we can't say they haven't given Mowbray something to work with. They continued to fund him in league 1, where he ultimately achieved an aim but no trophy, and have continued to bank roll him apprx £10m this year. They can't do much more. He's got talent coming out of the u23s, that they have funded for these years, and he's getting players signed onto decent enough contracts. As far as owners go they haven't exactly done much wrong since Coyle - although that fuck up was so monumentally huge it makes you wonder how "accidental" it all was.... The blame lies with Mowbray and the players. Managers live and die by their decisions and he has decided to play the way we are and sign the players he has - they may not be good enough but neither is he in that case

That is exactly what we will end up with. Posters on here are carrying the cross for Mowbray by listing Venkys' poor history of recruitment as a reason to maintain the status-quo. That same logic has to be brought through to TM also. It's actually quite farcical the amount of players he has signed only to shunt them all over the pitch. Let us not forget that we have endured a season, or at least the majority of it, with Bennett at right back. Meanwhile Harrison Reed, who is a CM by trade but has also played right back for Southampton/Norwich, has played right wing - the very position Bennett is natural in; we have a 6 foot striker either left or right wing; we have a full England international playing centre back whilst our arguably poorer academy product in Magliore is brought through when Downing and Wharton (albeit Wharton has proved about as much as Magliore in his time at Rovers) are out on loan playing centre half for another club WHILST WE HAVE TWO MIDFIELDERS THERE. I'm actually sick to my back teeth of looking at the team sheet and thinking what the actual fuck have we set ourselves up as here? Some days I think we are going 3 at the back and we aren't, then I think we have 4 at the back and it's 5. I'm not the only one either - aside from Chaddy (.......) I would put money that most fans walk into the ground, see the team and consider a completely different approach to the one that is shown on the pitch. This isn't because Rovers fans have no genuine idea about the game of football but because there has been about as much consistency with our team as there is in Dack's diet. The truth about it is we haven't been good enough for 50% of this season. Now whether that is because we haven't got the quality we all think we have or because we aren't settting ourselves up right is irrelevant because either reason places the blame squarely at TMs door. McClaren has paid for his sins and I'd be hugely surprised if he has spent the amount of money Mowbray has.

The argument that we aren't playing players like Rothwell, or Chapman during his time here when fit, because they aren't defensively sound enough would stack up if we had a great defensive record. As it stands we are amongst the worst in the league and are apparently picking players in order to protect ourselves. Christ on a bike.

I'm sure we could play a few more of them on the wing

I have it on very good authority that the Premier League have an emergency fund of hundreds of millions just in case a big club falls foul of the rules to ensure something similar cannot happen to them. Unbelievable really and goes a long way to explain the recklessness of Premier League finances.

I wonder what the goals scored vs conceded between Lambert & Mowbray is. Always feel we will score under Mowbray but concede 3 more. Under Lambert you felt as though a draw was the expectation every game.

And the rest RevidgeBlue. We just £7m on a young lad with a handful of appearances and goals. If they are paying that for Brereton imagine how much a player like Che Adams or Billy Sharp is worth in their eyes!?

That's fair enough. Based on his time at Lincoln he was always a bit part player but if Bury are proposing to play him every week then it's a better deal. At 21 I'd prefer him to be plying his trade in League 1 but at least Bury win almost every week so he's not gone to get battered and bruised all the time.

Scott Wharton has been given a handful of appearances in league 2 at Bury. In a bizarre move the club considers such a deal as decent business, clearly, because he's been farmed out 3 seasons in a row to act as a rotation player. He will be 22 by the time he lands back here by which time his only notable experience is a squad player at League 2. Frustrating really. In the couple of appearances he had for us I thought he looked a solid enough performer and I have always heard good things from those that watch youth level. I am not against loan moves for experience but there's no way he has learnt more in his season at Bury this year than he would have done had he stayed with us.

I wouldn't say he is rubbish. I'd hazard a bet that whilst he has been in a Rovers shirt we have kept far more clean sheets with him than without him. I don't think he's suited to this level but he's better than some of the other shite we have playing in that position. At least he is an out and out centre half unlike our other options!! Downing will inevitably leave eventually but I'd certainly keep him as back up for the next season whilst shipping Rodwell either into midfield or out the club. If Mulgrew didn't have goals in him he would be gone for me too. Far too nonchalant as a centre half for my liking. The ball bounces every time when he's in there and he lacks pace and strength to recover from mistakes. In a ruthless mind set I'd ship Mulgrew out too.

Surprised by how many want Downing gone. He's probably one of the better defenders contracted to the club right now unbelievably. I want Gladwin and Williams gone and reluctantly would allow Smallwood and Conway to go. The rest can stay because without squad depth we won't last very long in this league. A clear out is only good if you have x amount to reinvest. Over the next few years if our team is likely to progress we will see the likes of Downing, Bennett, Bell, Graham, Mulgrew and Evans go. It shouldn't be a rushed thing though. As a side note despite some impressive early performances I wouldn't be overly bothered if Rodwell went in the summer. He's not a central defender.

I can't believe we are still having the discussion of needing to fill our defence out. Save the 1 season with Hanley & Duffy have we had a proper back 4 since these lot came in and fired our impressively experienced Premier league defence? Even with them two we still leaked goals No manager has ever really addressed this problem. It's been going on for roughly 8 years now. Under Bowyer we would have probably been promoted had we been able to keep a clean sheet. It must be a monumentally difficult task to put together a decent defence because we've seen a few managers come and go now and yet here we are, still discussing how weak we are at the back.

Why? I thought the move by Hughes was a good one.

Whilst waiting for an engineer on site one day I was browsing through the Sun and found myself completely out of touch with their readership. It wasn't that I considered them stupid, beneath me or whatever - it's just that I didn't agree with what they wrote, or what topics the readership wanted to read. I did the unimaginable and stopped reading it. I didn't moan about them or call out all Sun readers, I just stopped reading it. Perhaps that lesson could be passed on to the twitterarti hyper-intelligent few as it would probably save them a lot of heartache, and headaches, moaning about how inferior other fans are for wanting to discuss topics that doesn't involve Howard Kendall, a fixture dating back to the 1950s or cats. Cheers.

Is it really that much of a concern? A man with integrity has a good relationship with a bloke who is also our CEO and it concerns you? I'd much rather a Mowbray/Waggot scenario than go back to the days of managers and executives warring it out for Madam's time! We are in a relatively good era under Venkys now - is there really anything to be concerned about? Seriously?

Yeah well 96% isn't far off 100% is it.............

Mowbray has his failings that's for sure. When we were languishing in league 1 in October, having just gone down and bought some tosh players I reckon he should have gone then. That said they stuck with him, oversaw a promotion and now we sit mid table. He's done a fantastic job in a year and even brought talk of promotion about. There's no way he should be sacked. Give him another season. It's the least he deserves.

Get rid of both left backs; buy 2 new centre halves and a right back for competition. Mulgrew has 1, maybe 2, seasons left in him, Lenihan needs competition and I'm adamant our midfield would be better with Rodwell playing in it, despite his protestations he is a centre half naturally.

Ah my bad. Two fa cups in a row. And fuck, I didn’t mean sacked. When Fergie left then. It’s not that I disregard them. My point was that sustained success happened with two clubs under managers with long careers; whether that success be the state of the club or trophies. United probably don’t call the years since fergie a success despite them trophies. They’ve worsened in terms of quality and have barely challenged for a league title since. I alsodon’t believe any manager would have been successful with the level of investment arsenal got during their transition to the emirates, especially with the other clubs around them really beginning to splash the cash. In terms of Premier League challenges Utd haven’t mounted a serious one since they started chopping managers regularly. Although it’s true that in later years neither did Wengers Arsenal. I suppose there’s merit in the argument he should have been sacked sooner but it cannot he argued that he left the club in a far better state than when he got it, after all a lot of Arsenal’s success as a club is based around his own vision. Could you have got that with 10 different managers in that spell?

Just another case of two people seeing the game very differently I suppose. Brentford had 5 play off places in a decade before reaching the Championship. After that the only real change around was after Warburton - he was sporting directory when Rosler was there so it wasn't exactly a huge shift in managerial staff. I wouldn't say they are over performing and, if anything, suffered after the sacking of Warburton and suffered after Dean Smith went. Let's not pretend like Wolves' agent links haven't helped them be where they are now. All of their players are represented by the same guy and there's not a chance Ruben Neves would have gone to the Championship otherwise! Santo is a success but booking Jorge Mendes is the bigger success. I don't disagree with sacking a manager by the way I just don't think it's the right thing to do if chasing success, regardless of behind-the-scenes board structure. There are definitely more cases of clubs suffering through a change than succeeding, save relegation battles - which they end up in the next season anyway. Then they won 3 FA Cups on the bounce. It was a difficult transition for them at the time and Arsene Wenger brought them through with lots of cash in the bank and a platform to build. If you chop + change managers in that period you'd have found you'd have invested lots of money for similar return.

Of course you need to have a good manager in order to see the benefits of long term management. I'm not trying to say that any manager, given enough time, will go on to achieve great things at a club. Just that history suggests if you have the right manager then firing them in the hope of a new manager bounce often proves unsuccessful. I'm not talking about Lambert or any manager in particular really. Likewise there's an obvious difference between sacking a manager that has your team in bottom place than sacking a manager that is sitting mid table. Or, as you put it, stagnating. I was just arguing the point that board structure doesn't really have much to do with it save an owner with deep pockets. Clubs that go through a big turnover of staff invariably under perform compared to clubs that retain a good manager with a vision. Chelsea got rid of Conte after a season of not winning anything (SAVE A FUCKING FA CUP); Tottenham stick by Poch despite being "close" a few years. Who is in the better position now? Yet despite that it is entirely possible that Chelsea sack Sarri and bring in a huge managerial name next season. The success won't be down to the manager change, it will be down to the fact they will more than likely spend £100+ million on players the new superstar manager has brought in. Meanwhile Championship clubs will inevitably get rid of their managers having failed to achieve promotion and, due to being unable to spend approx 50m on players, will reset their progress by 2 years as the new manager looks to change the philosophy of the club. All of the above is of course from my own non-expert thoughts. My discussion has nowt to do with firing/retaining Lambert but more the sentence JH said that "you can chop and change managers regularly" - I don't think that's the case.

He looks bereft of any confidence if you ask me. Whether that's because he is being asked to play as a winger or what we don't know. It certainly won't help. Yet, despite myself trying to find any excuse for him I can't help but feel as if there is a distinct lack of effort. Sounds petty but him taking 4 minutes to tie his shoelace vs Sheffield United won't leave my head either. It might if good form prevails but silly moments like that stick in somebodies head when the rest of his game has been so poor. On the other hand, clever bits of play that won us the penalty that time don't so much stick in my head - I can't even remember who it was against. I think that line of thinking is leading people to the probably premature judgement of Brereton. Until his form improves all of the negatives will stick out like a sore thumb whilst any positive will sink into oblivion.