Completely agree. Some folk are so objective and dispassionate about it. I think they get more satisfaction from piously attack others for not just supporting the team. I can understand a little more those who have been watching Rovers for 50+ years saying they’ve “seen it all before” but give me a passionate supporter every day of the week - even if I disagreed with them. If the debate put forward from the “Get begins the lads fans” was reasons why - full stop - then I could respect that but time and time again it’s pointed comments and offensive digs at people. We only have to win on game and the knives are out for the disbelievers. You only need to look on Fb after most games. Disappointed fans express anger at club RTID fans express anger at disappointed fans - presumably because they can’t defend the manager/players

Touchy. Some do though. If he suddenly starts games regularly that’ll be proof enough for me. We’ll find out in the new year...

But you don’t believe these kinds of deals exist. Even with proof. It’s bizarre really. Why is it “dodgy” though? It’s just business. Brereton is on loan and it was done last minute so we will have got a poor deal. Makes far more sense that an experienced Championship striker rated at £7m by both parties isn’t playing due to a contract clause than “he’s not ready” or “he’s crap”.

The show was clearly aimed at an American audience. Many of the cut scenes looked like they were done for dramatic effect. Pretty sure they added American Football style sound effects for crunching tackles too. I actually thought that the number of empty seats would have looked pretty pitiful to US audiences used to seeing stadiums pretty full with far greater capacities. (Yes, I appreciate there are geographical reasons for that but this is Sunderland, I was a bit shocked myself!).

Don’t be daft those kinds of things are conspiracy theories for tin foil hat wearing head wobblers. @Biz told me. Good spot that. Football is a joke. Just goes to show that it does go on and unless he is going to impact games it does explain why players don’t play as often. Maybe we will start to see Brereton starting games in January and being able to get into some kind of form.

And I bet not one of those dozen would be Ben Brereton.

I don’t expect wholesale changes in the team. Wouldn’t be surprised if Brereton coming back and Nuttall dropped were the only changes in fact. Smallwood and Evans will remain as the anchors in a side going nowhere. This is the perpetual problem that we now have and I see the board becoming more and more fraught.

Which is how a football manager should operate IMHO.

Wise words, Gav. We stuck with Bowyer when his ‘best before’ date had long expired and our best chance vanished. I expect someone will be keeping an eye on things this time around.

There is definitely a balance. You need a captain who will be your voice on the pitch but it is definitely your message that he is giving out. If Mowbray is suggesting that he isn’t really involved with the team on match days then that’s not delegating it’s passing the buck.

That mentality starts with the manager. After games he talks about “disappointment” but that “we’ll learn from it” / move on and work together in future, etc. The sad things is that many fans excuse or even agree with this approach. There was a rather telling comment after yesterday’s game... https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/rovers/news/17320535.leeds-united-3-blackburn-rovers-2-tony-mowbray-reaction/ “I can’t sum up out how the players were feeling, other than it was pretty quiet. The inquest was starting as I walking out (to speak to the press).” Surely Mowbray should be leading the inquest?

Great post. Regarding the paragraph in bold, I’m not sure if you mean a squad inherited from League One or inherited from Coyle but having had all Summer and money I think Mowbray hasn’t addressed this shortfall or doesn’t think we need to. If it’s the former then he needs to show signs of addressing this in January, even if only the loan market (I.e. a proper centre back - which we can all see is a must), if it’s the latter and Mowbray wants to keep the faith with Smallwood, Lenihan and to an extent Evans then I’m concerned. His approach so far has been to show loyalty to his League One promoted side and to make every other player earn a few minutes here and there. This is misguided in my view and will see us regress. If Reed goes back then only Bell and Armstrong represent Mowbray’s improvement to our first team - and the jury is out on both. If there is no money and (for argument’s sake) he was blindsided by the Brereton signing then, one, he is being undermined and, two, he is happy to work under those circumstances. If he is going to get that second window, then he needs to demonstrate in the first one (January) that he knows what the problems are. At the moment, Mulgrew-Lenihan and Smallwood-Evans as our hard centre are looking like his preferred choice rather than something he is having to make do with. We shall see.

I think he was joking/being sarcastic. Nobody in their right mind thinks the manager deserves credit for losing from winning positions. Do they?

Edited out a lot of straw men and insults. But for the record, I said “coaching staff”, you said manager.

I’m absolving Venkys? Far from it. They are the root cause of everything that is wrong with Rovers. But... There is no point in trying to do anything at this moment in time as far as Venkys are concerned because when it mattered not enough of our fans were prepared to do anything about it. All those people who protested will be the first ones outside Ewood shaking buckets when the time comes. Without PL cash (or new owners - which will require PL football for the Lunes to even sell) that will be the inevitable outcome. I hate Venkys with a passion but right now we need a manager who can get us promoted. The current reality is a facade. The point that you’ve chosen to highlight out of context is that we have spent £10m on two players, IMHO a better manager could have done a lot more with it.

Did you even read the OP? It’s the first line FFS.

One or two games? His record with Rovers in the Championship is mediocre, at best. (After yesterday that’s 7 losses) 53 points from 117 Win % 30.7 (Less than WDDDLL) He had a far better record in a League One simply because he had the best players in the division. Our expectations need to change? So we should just adapt to being Championship relegation battlers ever season while we have extremely wealthy owners willing to spend £7m on one player? The time for big decisions is a long way off? So you don’t think that changing the coaching staff is a big decision then because that would be the first place I’d look. Our next 6 games are a mixed bag starting with the next two written off in terms of any culpability for Mowbray. Going off league position - which is what people seem to determine is all important in determining if a game is winnable or not, the ‘right thinkers’ would probably target the following points... Sheff Utd (A) - 0 points West Brom (H) - 0 points Millwall (A) - 3 points Ipswich (H) - 3 points Hull (H) - 1 point Brentford (A) - 1 point By the time we face Bristol City at Ewood on 9th February... Best case... We might have 39 points from 30 games which puts us on course to around 60 points. Worst case... Going from four defeats to back to back wins might even be a stretch. We could only manager 3 or 4 points from that four game run. That would mean 34 or 35 points and looking at 52 points. Of course there is no exact science but momentum is everything in football. Having had the promotion bounce, and £10m to spend, we should have been much further up the table, sniffing around the play-off places and a 7th or 8th place finish giving us some impetus and something to build on from next season. Right now the Summer looks like needing a complete rebuild but with certain players getting new contracts I expect a similar strategy to this Sumer and next season to be the same as this one. Welcome to Stability: Part 2

Do you think he did the right things for the good of his career long term? First insisting on a clause, and then sticking up to fingers at the club and his team mates? In my opinion, this showed that his priority was making as much money as possible in the short term. If you are a golfer then it’s no issue but in a team sport, that could create a bad atmosphere (if it comes to light). The fact that Rodwell is midway through his career is exactly why I believe he should have behaved differently. Had he gone back to the chairman and said: “look, my agent has looked into a free transfer and nobody is willing to match my contract, will you make up the difference?” then nobody could have said anything. What makes me laugh most though, is that people are defending one of the game’s biggest mercenaries [granted, as portrayed in the press and programme] yet Conor Mahoney “only cared about the money” and “should have accepted” the poor contract and little or no playing time’ despite being on peanuts in comparison.

And it would have almost certainly made us unaffordable to Venkys!

Eff off back to the turd. Can’t wait until your club are back where they belong in division 3. Hopefully you’ll run Dyche out of town first and embarrass yourselves on the way down. It took a bunch of utter shysters to put you above us and we’ll be back above you before long even with this handicap. Sympathetic my arse.

Leeds have always had a huge fanatical fanbase though. We are not competing with that, we never have been, we are contending with crap owners and poor management of the club at board level - if you can even call what we have a board! Investment is required by the lunes to get us into a position where they can sell up and recoup their losses. Any thoughts of them returning us to where we were when they arrived are long gone. Much like Leeds, the beginning of our salvation lies in ridding the club of cancerous owners. Given that the authorities turned a blind eye that means Venkys have to get what they want first.

I sincerely hope you are right, because relegation would be unthinkable. As for FFP, the only way to beat this is promotion to the PL.

Which is why we accept mediocrity offered by any manager in exchange for the pretence that we are a normal club. Until Venkys go we are indeed a self-fulfilling prophesy. We need to get a lucky manager who will get us into the play-offs, the PL and a the attention of new owner. Mowbray won’t get us promoted - his teams don’t operate well under pressure. So round and round we go.

January is extremely important in this regard. If we send back Reed and Palmer. Then we are left with last season’s League One side plus a £7m U23 player. On that basis, what difference will there be between Summer 2019 and Summer 2018 in terms of a rebuilding job? If Mowbray couldn’t do it this year then I don’t see how he will next year. We need to add some quality to the squad now to not only keep us up but to allow any kind of progress and avoid wasting a season.