Yes. Much better that they ignore the covid crisis. UEFA are a pathetic organisation.

I didn’t say play. I said a place on the bench. The experience of being with the first team would help them. I’d take Annesley, Butterworth and either McBride or Pike. I’d give Butterworth a good 20 minute run out instead of Buckley.

To be fair, I refuse to believe that not one of the players from one of the best teams in the division is deserving of a first team bench spot in a dead rubber.

Granted I’ve only caught the last half hour but based on what I’ve seen they’d be a shoe-in for a Mowbray team. Neat and tidy passing, composed and controlled passing it across the back in the final few minutes… while 2 goals down. 🙄

And yet, depending on who you believe, we have richer owners now than we had back then… let that sink in.

Don’t agree on Ayala. A dead rubber game for a player chronically injured who Mowbray already knows what he is capable of? Why? May as well have complete rest. I’d even go so far as to say that if he got injured it could be spun into either an excuse (woe is me) or a reason to go back to Venkys for cash. Either way Ayala is not the answer, not tomorrow, not next season. And, wow, three players in four years. It just strengthens his, self-fulfilling, argument to shut the academy.

Playing Ayala would be the stupidest decision ever taken by Mowbray, which takes some doing. Even having him in the squad takes an opportunity away from a youngster. There should be a bench spot, or two, for an U23 player - and even an U18 one - as a reward for their season. Pick the PotS from each and get them in the dressing room. If we can’t take a look at them in a dead rubber then when can we? It’s almost as though it’s important that the Academy is not seen as being a success so that it can be quietly binned. Let’s face it, if I recall correctly, the person making the decisions about them openly said he didn’t see the point of an academy, sees Brentford as the best model and coincidentally there have been plans to downsize it anyway. He must be gutted the U23s have done so well this season. The future of this club requires Mowbray be urgently replaced - and by someone who can work with an academy structure instead of gambling money we don’t have on ‘potential’.

You’ve got a point but selling one player every three years, even for £15m, at the expense of the team and results is a recipe for disaster - and the returns just aren’t there. The only thing that will help this club in the long term is promotion - or in the very long term administration, relegation and a restart (a la Bolton). We are currently stuck between both: Schrödinger’s club - neither promotion candidates or administration bound (yet). Anything but promotion just keeps things ticking over long enough to keep those in their nominal positions in coin. I fully agree with your comment. We would have a queue of managers applying for a role where they will get loads of time and autonomy, regardless of results.

The may well grasp it, they just don’t care. Back when Kean was here there were enough fans to make a meaningful stand and a PL status to preserve. I will never really forgive those fans who didn’t stand up when it mattered and when there was at least a passing media interest. We are now back in that same situation but without the numbers to make it work, or interest from the media (even the local media would look the other way) and no pride to fight for. Mowbray sits there pretending, or even convincing himself, that he can turn things around when we all know he can’t. I have never been a Mowbray fan and I was gutted when we brought him in (at a time when we were trying to stay up and has been an abject failure at Coventry) but I no longer have any respect for the man. Nobody would have expected him to walk away… until he said he would. And now he won’t, despite him now being the burden he told us he didn’t want us to be - on account of the respect he had for this club. Lies.

So hard to care. Despite the need for better players than Evans, this will be a decision based on wages and we will end up with someone cheaper/worse. A complete clear out, even cutting our cloth, would at least mean something if it were for a clean slate with a new manager. The idea that Mowbray will get another go at rebuilding a squad is criminal. This could be the start of a new three year cycle - cue a two year contract extension to give him the time to do so… 🤦 …which would be the death knell for the club and would all but end my interest in all things Rovers.

Crewe used to churn out talent and sell them off the conveyor belt to top clubs. When was the last time Mowbray developed a player, let alone sold one to a top club? All his eggs are in the Armstrong basket on that front.

Because at Rovers they choose managers over fans. The CEO then divides the planned season ticket income by the number of projected fans. Instead of trying to grow the fanbase… ”We’ve done all we can “.

Wasn’t it going to be the naming of one of the training pitches? As of that wasn’t insulting enough, in the next breath they were looking into getting rid of training pitches. Brilliant.

😂 Effing hell. You really have not been paying attention.

Needs at least 10 games. Nobody else would come to Rovers in any case. Mid-table Championship is our level anyway. We only got promoted from L1 three seasons ago. We can’t compete with PNE. Dread to think where we’d be without Mowbray. If it weren’t for Dack’s injury we’d have made those play-offs.

Would be quite an escape for Wednesday if they could win 1-0 and Rotherham only draw.

The gulf is ridiculous though. How can two players in the same team be paid 30 (thirty) times as much as another? I get that it happens but it’s still ridiculous.

Odd isn’t it. We are always told we have a strict wage structure so we can’t bring in certain players - even on frees - yet the breadth of wages in there would be infuriating fit players. Dolan on £600 per week while Dack is on £18,000 per week? Pears on £3,500pw to do nothing! Sounds like BS but equally nothing would surprise me. Football is broken.

If a manager at one of their chicken factories was delivering similar performance, making annual losses while wasting money whenever it was provided, would they be similarly protected and have such a safe job? I highly doubt it. Strikes me Venkys aren’t interested and/or aren’t involved in the process - which is why previous “CEOs” have eventually pulled the trigger with a level of autonomy. Now Mowbray has an ally in that post we have complete and total inertia. Our big hope was that Mowbray was the noble bloke he was made out to be and a man of his word. This, from 18 months ago… (Proud, working-class Tony) “I came here to Blackburn Rovers, because I love football, and this is a historic club and I won’t be a burden on the club. “If it isn’t going well, I don’t need to get booed out, I’m a proud working-class man from the north-east and I’ve put a lot into the job.” https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/18057490.mowbray-can-feel-anxiety-disenchantment-rovers-fans/ And now… (Shameless, stubborn Tony) “I don’t want to be a burden on the club, if I’m the problem then that's no problem, the owners have to tell me. “Other than that, I love the game, I've been here before, I'll keep going.” https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19118986.tony-mowbray-doesnt-want-a-burden-rovers/ Anyone at the LT going to call him out?

Meanwhile, less than 30% of BRFCS posters who expressed a preference are not renewing. That’s a bigger worry than your attempts at point scoring.

Such scorn, yet so ignorant. You’ve made it quite clear you are more than happy for Mowbray to continue as Rovers manager. Your opinion on him is now moot, I’m afraid.

Already being downplayed/carpeted in the LT comments section. Holtby not good enough for Rovers but Mowbray is. Yet it was Mowbray who signed him. Curious how this works.

Maybe 3 wins in 20 games and still having the confidence of the owners, the backing of the CEO, and an approving hardcore of fans?

And they had four years in League One.

We finish below Preston again.