100%.

Good grief, I can't believe Im reading that! As you know Nick, I have the utmost respect and admiration for the selfless work that you and your colleagues have put in for the last 12-18 months trying to point the Club gently in the right direction but I couldn't disagree more strongly with the above. Firstly Im not sure how anyone can say we're in a better place now than before Mowbray was appointed with the Club (or rather the owners) another £100m in debt and half the first team departing for nothing in the summer. Secondly he's acted like he's doing everyone a favour by being here in the latter part of his reign, and he is actually extremely lucky that the owners seem to have been of the view that a contract is a contract and that he's been allowed to see his out despite runs of desperately disappointing results season after season. So to praise his "devotion" is a bit of a stretch to put it mildly. Thirdly, and I think this is the most important point which I think everyone is completely missing, presumably Mowbray's contract ends on the usual date of 30th of June. The owners are under no obligation whatsoever to enter into contract negotiations at any minimum period prior to this date. Of course if they wanted him to stay but but left it until the day before his contract expired they'd run the risk of him getting fed up of waiting and having made alternative arrangements elsewhere but that's the risk they take. The point is even more pertinent when you consider that we only knew for absolute certain what our fate would be on Saturday evening. Of course the Club COULD have announced at the end of January he was leaving at the end of the season no matter what or COULD have given him a new contract back at the end of January when we were doing well. However I'm guessing that very few people would have wanted him to get a new deal if we missed out on the play offs, conversely the vast majority would have been in favour of him getting a new deal of some sort had he taken us up and those same people would have thought to announce his departure in January harsh in the extreme. I think waiting until our fate was clear was exactly the right and common sense thing to do and imo Mowbray has jumped the gun and pre-empted the Club to get everyone feeling sorry for him. (I've been told he's made the unilateral decision to retire anyway although how true that is I don't know) Imo he's played everyone, the owners, the supporters, and the media like an absolute fiddle.

Hope so. Would be interesting to see if he can get any sort of reaction but the ship has probably sailed for him in terms of getting the job full time.

Don't know but JFH would be such a left field and surprising appointment you'd have to guess at some agent influence somewhere. Just as TM seemed a totally random appointment at the time with no rhyme or reason to it but presumably Honeyman got him the gig.

I don't know when the contracts of the current coaching staff end. If they're all up (like Mowbray) that would be one less potential hurdle to overcome.

I'm sure Farke would be interested IF - The salary was tempting - The budget was workable - He could pick his own staff Whether those conditions could be met remains to be seen. The longer the Club delay the bog standard message of thanks to Mowbray for his service, the more nervous I'm getting.

Promotion? If you have a light bulb in your house and it stops working, do you sit there in the dark because you're worried if you buy a new one, that may not work either?

Great Post.

This shouldn't really be too difficult should it? The two outstanding candidates (Farke and Dyche) are out of work. There's no need to go trawling through a list of inferior candidates. All we need to do is to get our CEO to persuade them to come and negotiate the terms. Oh wait..........

It was his decision not to sign a back up striker in January and it was obvious if anything happened to BBD we'd be screwed as no-one else was scoring.

I'd be done if Mowbray stayed and I'd be done if Appleton was reappointed. I know the latter now has the same rosy managerial CV as Mowbray did when he was appointed of being out of work having jumped from a League One Club before he was pushed but nevertheless surely even Venky's wouldn't be crazy enough to reappoint someone they (rightly) fired off after just 67 days. I thought Appleton was terrible when he was here (will never forget the Millwall quarter final) and seemed a very unpleasant character to boot. Didn't he offer fans who were complaining out after one particular defeat? The only thing you'd say in his defence was that he was sacked after a run of five wins from fourteen games and Mowbray took us on a similar run (or worse) every season in the Championship and survived so Appleton might be forgiven for thinking "What's the difference?"

Lot of collective amnesia on here today, we're barely 24 hours on from an absolutely pitiful capitulation both in terms of yesterday's game and the second part of the season, and already people seem to have forgotten how poor the last four years have been. Even trying to make out "It wasn't that bad really." Yes it was. And he hasn't actually gone yet. I will refrain from popping open the bubbly until the Club have commented on his employment status and he has physically exited the building.

Of course it is. If you can afford to spend more on wages for the squad, theoretically you should be finishing higher in the table.

If we're correlating finishing position directly with income about 6th to 8th is where we should be finishing once you have added Venky's contribution of £15- £20m p.a. on top of our revenue. Obviously, it doesn't work exactly like that anyway. Someone had better tell Luton they can't pass go, can't collect £100m and have to be reassigned to 24th.

I haven't checked the ages but is the squad THAT young and/or inexperienced?

Well if you're cheap and give a shit that gives you an obvious advantage over Mowbray straight away and you're dead level on the 3rd criteria !

This is what worries me slightly when I read the headline about his interview I thought he must have said he was definitely leaving but he said nothing of the sort, all he said was that he'd had no contact about a new contract therefore he was drawing the obvious assumption. I'm just hoping and praying that the owners haven't assumed it would be acceptable to open discussions at the end of the season bearing in mind the doubt at one time over which division we'd be in next season and that this isn't a devious ploy by Mowbray to get them to feel sorry for him despite the abysmal results and emotionally blackmail them into saying "Tony OF COURSE we don't want you to leave!" But.....but.....Tony is "a man of honour" (so we keep being told) so surely he wouldn't carry on after saying he was leaving. Would he?

I'd add Furphy to the highs. Wasn't a fan of Saxton despite the extremely challenging financial circumstances he had to work under. Otherwise couldn't agree more.

Berating fellow supporters when they're not the problem isn't a particularly good look either.

Mowbray's parting comments are not helpful in the slightest. We don't need a "developmental" coach, we need a manager that can win Championship football matches!

What other manager would exclude from the squad a home grown player with over 200 appearances for the Club in what would have been his last home appearance but include a loanee who hasn't featured for more than half a season due to injury?. Absolutely disgusting. If Ryan Nyambe can't be persuaded to stay by a new manager I will be really upset by his departure. In terms of value to the team he'll be by far the hardest of the three amigos to adequately replace imo. Wish him well with his future career and hope he gets treated better elsewhere should he leave.

Hang on - two days ago he claimed he'd had no contact with the owners. He seems pretty bloody certain about his future just 48 hours later! Many of us were also right to be sceptical about Mowbray bringing in another of his mates - Park. Unless Markanday turns out to be a good un his only contribution for a year and a half's wages is to fail to find an Armstrong replacement over 2 transfer windows and saddle us with Hedges. Honestly, these characters can see Venky's coming a mile off. Easy money.

Well, he's not a person of low intelligence, I think he's a cunning old sod who knows exactly what he's been up to for the last five and a half seasons - and it's been for the benefit of him and his family, not the Club. Edit: Can't see any obvious connection to persons with a disability in that definition.

Memo to owners: Stop throwing good money after bad and wasting £20m p.a. employing substandard staff to run operations on the ground at Ewood. Get a competent CEO and Dyche or Farke as manager in NOW, let them pick their own coaching staff and give them a reasonable budget to work with. I think you'd be amazed at how rapid and dramatic the difference would be.

Nailed it SG.