Admiral Nelsen

One of the very few improvements in how we conduct our business these days (to the extent that we actually conduct business at all!) is that we seem to be a lot better at keeping things under wraps than was the case a few years ago. No mean feat in this day and age.

I always live in hope for yellow & black halves, but I think this is in with a shout of being our best ever away kit. Lovely stuff.

Genuinely took me the best part of a minute to work out who you were talking about. I'm blaming the weather!

It wasn't at all blatantly obvious. There was a run in February and March that was very poor, no question, but that run was sandwiched by two four game wining streaks. Coupled with a strong first half of the season, what reason did we have at that point to think it was the bad run which was a sign of things to come, and not the other parts of the season which went well? Clearly in retrospect we would have been better off replacing him with someone better before now, but there's no point pretending that this was obvious in 2019 when it simply wasn't.

Fair enough, and sadly I think you're completely right about mid-table Championship being his ceiling (at least with a realistic squad for us to assemble given where we're at). It might've been a bit unfair of me to target that post specifically, but there are a few posts on here which I think are far too broad brush in their criticism. I guess my position is that Mowbray is in some ways a pretty competent manager at this level, but at the same time has some significant flaws which over time have become more and more apparent (last year especially). He has without doubt outstayed his usefulness and should have been replaced before now. At the same time I find it a bit frustrating that balanced assessments of his time here are far outweighed by posts making him out to be a manager without any redeeming qualities - all the more so considering we have a recent history of having managers who fit that description perfectly.

I agree that last season was unacceptably poor, and I too worry about next season, but I'm not having what you've said in the highlighted section. The idea that getting rid of a manager who had just got us promoted with 90 odd points would have been the actions of an 'ambitious club' is complete madness in my view. I think generally we're all in danger of rewriting history a little bit with his first 2 years or so. We're falling over examples which show that being a big club with a decent budget is no guarantee of promotion in that league, and our first season back had some genuinely promising spells in it. Mowbray earned his popularity at that point, as much as he has earned is unpopularity since.

I'm not sure about vast majority. I agree that the season before last marked the point when the rumblings of discontent really started, but I didn't get a sense of the average fan being against the manager until the awful run last year.

From Sharpe on twitter:

We've been given an allocation of 1,500 for the Bolton game, apparently.

Not sure if this has been commented upon already, but Ryan Gauld isn't coming to Ewood, or Britain for that matter. Accepting a deal from Vancouver which depending on who you listen to is between £20,000-£40,000. Never going to happen at that cost. https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/7415133/ryan-gauld-mls-deal-vancouver-whitecaps/

To be fair, THB and Branthwaite were only brought in post Wharton's injury, otherwise he would've played. I'm broadly sympathetic to the idea that we need to be very, very discerning when it comes to loaning young players. But it's not right to say there's no benefit to us - we could've been bang in trouble last year if we take Elliott's contributions away. Throw in that we've obviously got next to no budget to play around with and that the squad is looking pretty thin, we could easily be looking at the impact of loans to keep us away from trouble this year too.

Maybe five years ago - now I'd have him in the same bracket as Gordon Greer when we signed him.

Yeah, in retrospect there's not much of a comparison in terms of their ability, but it wasn't at all long ago where Grealish looked like he was going down the 'wasted talent' career route. All this at the same time when Dack took to the Championship like a duck to water. The way that Grealish has kicked on makes the whole comparison seem a bit silly now, but it wasn't daft at the time.

The unwanted under Coyle thing is something which didn't get discussed enough during the relegation season. Bennett, never a world beater, was still a far more productive midfielder than Feeney that season who inexplicably kept being picked. There's a decent argument that we stay up that season if Bennett played more, although I suppose the flip side of that argument is that Coyle doesn't get sacked as quickly. Legend is certainly a term which is banded around far too frequently. Nobody has got close to that tag since at least Dunny left, if not before, and it would be a bit ridiculous to pretend that Bennett was within a mile of that conversation. Right for all parties that he moves on. He needs to play, and we need better. I would say for him though that was clearly made of the right stuff, and whilst that is clearly no substitute for being a better player (what did Souness about not wanting a team full of son in laws?) he was decent too before he was moved to full back. Genuinely wish him well, and give it a few years I suspect a lot more Rovers fans will remember him fondly than they would have admitted over the last season or two.

Clarkson's the lad who supports Rovers, right? Don't really know the first thing about him beyond that.

Ah, I hadn't realised that. Not at all surprising that his form dipped under those circumstances.

Slightly off topic - but on Celtic I was amazed to see Duffy be as bad as he was last year. I know he was always a pretty clumsy player at the best of times, and not a modern centre half in how he plays the game, having made a pretty decent first of things for Brighton I expected him to cope fine at Parkhead. I even thought that with the number of corners/free kicks the Old Firm get, it wouldn't be ridiculous if he reached double figures!

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/england-euros-sol-campbell-portugal-24272786 For anybody out there who still harbours a grudge

I still want them to do well generally (although I think that winds them up even more) but I find the games where we play each other absolutely unbearable. It's almost like when we hadn't lost to Burnley for 30 odd years, it makes the prospect of losing so terrible that you can't enjoy the rivalry. If you offered me the choice of winning the tournament but losing to Scotland in the group stage, or getting knocked out in the semis but beating Scotland along the way, I would genuinely need to think about it.

Even allowing for a horses-for-courses approach, I struggle to see how he can leave out both Foden and Mount at the same time.

He is - don't get me wrong, Grealish is no slouch either - but I don't see either of them really stretching teams by making runs in behind. I'm remembering when we scored three goals away against Spain a couple of years ago, and how important our pace and power was in that performance. There's no doubt that form-wise, Grealish & Foden should be higher in the pecking order than Rasford & Sterling, but at the same time I think one of each would have a better balance to it. Tough call.

I desperately want to get Grealish and Foden in the same team - but looking at the front three, there isn't much in the way of pace or players who run in behind the defence. I can completely understand Rashford playing for that reason, especially against the better sides, but it's a real conundrum. Leaving either Foden or Grealish outside the XI is such a massive call.

Was a very common opinion at the time, as I recall. The way he left probably seemed to change the opinion of many who otherwise would have given him the benefit of the doubt. Agree. He was an average footballer, no worse than that.

The 7 year contract is definitely true - the free transfer might be a false memory, but I think it was. It definitely was at most a tiny fraction of what we paid, but it might've just been a straight swap with Ostenstad.

Quite a lot in this I think. Having said that, I don't remember too much frustration with Cairney's performances per se, more that he wasn't used properly. Trouble with inconsistent players is that whereas sometimes it just takes the right environment to set them straight, sometimes players will just remain inconsistent. Hard to say which sort Rothwell is, although I'd definitely keep him if he's open to signing a new deal. Wonderful player to watch, and his end product is improving, which is easy to miss with the team as a whole underperforming.