Anyone got a view on why Travis is fit enough to start but Dack isn’t?

People have been buying season tickets for the last 10 years on exactly this basis. God love you.

If he had a decent tactician alongside him, that’s not a bad shout.

Bingo (bit in bold)

That would be a first. They don’t tend to start looking until there is a vacancy.

What did the club do in response? The EFL can’t just decide that a random Tuesday is a Bank Holiday. Has an appeal been lodged? Has a complaint been made? In situations like this, defending a club’s own fans publicly can go a long way. Sadly, since he arrived it is clear that fans are the lowest priority until it comes to paying.

I sometimes forget that there are people who haven’t been on this forum long. It’s exhausting and frustrating having to explain stuff to new people all the time. Enjoy your New Year’s Eve.

What kind of person? One who said he would and who sets himself up as being a man of his word. I agree, nobody would want to give up the comfortable, well paid position that is Rovers manager under Venkys. So we need to stop pretending that Mowbray isn’t just another football person out for himself. - like all the rest. Which means he is easily replaceable and, if he is failing to achieve the aims of the club he needs to be. This isn’t about fans wanting someone sacked, it’s wanting to have a normal football club, and it’s distasteful for you to call fans dishonourable. An industry where the manager position is one of the least secure roles in the world and everyone takes on their contracts knowing full well that they “live and die by results”. For some reason that doesn’t apply at Rovers and our own fans are happy to watch terrible football which doesn’t produce results while dropping down the division. “Only 3, 4, 5, 6,... points of the play-offs” or “6, 5, 4, 3,... points off relegation”; or even worse, 3, 4, 5, 6,... points from safety “. Every time there is a manager or managers available with some pedigree the pro-Mowbray fans double-down. Then when the likes of Bilic go else where they revert to: “well who else is there?” Mowbray should be removed from his post - even installing Damian Johnson until the end of the season. It’s not personal, it is exactly the (football) business.

Frustrating isn’t it? I’m here for Blackburn Rovers. Not for any manager or any player. It looks to me like Mowbray has peaked at midtable - regardless of the players we’ve had available and the ones we’ve bought and sold. Are we the only club that has had injuries? The question is: is that peak enough for Blackburn Rovers and for how long?

Which I would argue is totally down to the rotation policy that has been installed by Mowbray. Dropping players regardless of their performances.

I’ve been banging this drum for ages Matty. It’s a contradiction to say on the one hand Venky’s are the best owners we can ever hope for and then say that they can’t be trusted to appoint a manager better than they one the appointed. Yet people do. Their motivation? To be able to say they are the best kind of supporter. That they stick it out when others doubted. Because they want the morale high ground of the “I told you so” when things are going well. They will also be the first people to say “his time was up” as soon as his departure is confirmed. It is defeatism disguised as positivity!

And yet, we are meant to believe that Mowbray is an honourable guy who would do the noble thing, having brought stability to the club. Y’know, fall on his sword and that. There are very few options actually open to fans apart from to vent their spleen on forums and social media. We all know that there are people who monitor this site - amongst others. Aside from airing our displeasure, what else can we do? We can’t go to games and vent or even protest (“sack the board” style) and, even if we could, the superfans would be shooting down any dissenters as “not being real supporters”. We don’t have the local newspaper on side. Heck, they don’t even ask any difficult questions. There isn’t any embarrassment from within the football family. Mowbray will carry on unashamed, the players will go through the motions, the chief exec will carry on laughing. Behind the scenes BRFC will be the joke of football, the club where nobody cares how shit you are as long as you stay out of the bottom three - which is why there will be no shortage of applicants to replace Mowbray for the best job in the Championship. The only realistic option is for fans to walk away, for the sake of their sanity and to stop endorsing this whole fucked up charade. But in doing so we harm the very thing we all love. In a staring contest between Venkys (with their ignorant arrogance) and zero season ticket holders (or let’s say sub-500, as an embarrassingly low number), would they back Mowbray/Waggott, replace them both, or walk away? If we subscribe to the theory that they are still here for a reason (probably financial) then they would surely have to change the people running “their UK operation” rather than suffer the ignominy of being the worst supported club in the country. It’s always in the hands of the people. If they stick together and hold their nerve.

Lest we forget he came into form when we lost our previous best player... Players come and go. If we don’t cash in he will likely walk for half of what he’s worth now - possibly even did nothing. If we were in 7th or 8th and a couple of points of the top six I would have a different view mind. Well, Mowbray not withstanding.

I don’t agree. Losing Armstrong doesn’t mean playing with 10 men. I honestly think he is vastly overrated on account of a very good spell of form at the start of this season. I must have missed all of those passes you refer to. I don’t remember him even looking up once the ball was at his feet. Last time I checked, his shot to goal ratio is actually very average, if not poor.

Bit of a straw man you’ve put forward there. Without wanting to sound sarcastic, every club has a top scorer. Most clubs have either a prolific (20+ goal) scorer, or two or even three 10+ scorers. Let’s not pretend that without Armstrong we won’t score any goals. In any case, having a very good run for the first 14 games (during a time when the team was playing well) he has scored 1 in his last 7 games. You might think this proves your point but for me he has done as much good as harm during that time by not passing to others in better positions. We need promotion. Now that it’s not going to happen we need to make some money instead. If we are genuinely worried that without Armstrong we will be in a relegation battle then the problem is not the guy up front but the guy in the dugout.

Fundamentally disagree. Just like a new manager would replace Mowbray - either on his terms or ours - a player, or players, would replace Armstrong’s goals. It’s irrational to suggest otherwise. Right now he isn’t scoring but just as importantly he isn’t creating chances for others. I’m not talking about cashing in, I’m saying a bid north of £15m should be accepted.

Ah ok. Yes, I agree. This is another reason we should be looking to sell Armstrong next month. Yes, he has been our main goalscorer but an injury could mean we lose him anyway (and the value too) while someone else will get the goals if their only job is “shoot”. We are out of the promotion race and we are apparently absolutely skint.

?

Two games now where Dack has come on and not made the slightest bit of difference. Hopefully just a slow start but I wonder if that new contract was a little premature...

These are the kind of players you get when you have a wage cap that isn’t in keeping with where you want to be in the division. Talk of promotion is a feint hope, and a way to sell STs, rather than any kind of ambition.

Yes but... 1) It’s too soon after a game 2) The same thing always happens: everyone lumps on for him to go and then over the course of a week gradually people change their votes as we scab a win 3) He’s going nowhere 4) The fact that he’s going nowhere makes it all too depressing Then a few new posters join and we go through this whole charade all over again.

Wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up John Jenson’d...

75 points is generally the target for a top 6 finish. We are on 29 so need 46 points from the next 24 games. That’s 1.91 points per game. Simply put its WWL all the way, with only one D allowed to upset that winning sequence. On the current trajectory we should reach 60 points. Lower-midtable. The question is, assuming Venkys continue servicing (and adding to) our debt, is the faux-security of another midtable finish enough for us to continue watching football as bad as that for the foreseeable future? It’s becoming stunningly awful to watch, with selection problems, misuse of substitutions, no clear game plan or style of play (I think Lucy called it ‘possession-based football’ today), no plan B, and watching us criminally waste the young talent that we have in our squad. The football is dire. It’s lose-lose in my view. We play poor football and don’t get the necessary results. After the game, in the iFollow interview, Mowbray bemoaned us not taking our chances. Some Mowbray pearls of wisdom after the game... “We shouldn’t have lost having equalised” “Huddersfield put their bodies on the line” “It was a decent game of football” “1-1 would have been a fair result” “We have to take it on the chin” Blaming individual an mistake for the goal. “I don’t want to moan about referees but...” “Add the injuries to the list “ “Struggling with defenders” “We has a midfielder playing right back “ (!) “Disappointed and we move on “

I just hope that someone (Pasha?) at the club sees the writing on the wall pointing to another relegation death spiral and doesn’t leave it as long as it took to sack Coyle. It’s even depressing to hear such real sadness in Neil Yardley’s voice at the end, and even Warren Lucy struggling to find any empty-gestured positive thing to say.

Why was Kaminski not sent up for that?