More evidence of Mowbray's mismanagement in handing long term contracts out like smarties after we got promoted.

Not sure if the flag is Mowbray's fault but it is certainly well OTT. I would have thought that sort of thing should be reserved for Clough, Shankly, Paisley, Ferguson, King Kenny or Wenger when he was good. Mowbray seems to have unwittingly stumbled on the secret to managerial longevity. Fail in your allotted task of saving a Club from relegation, then bring them back up and your credit with a large section of the fanbase will last forever and a day. ?

I'm not sure the views of the fans either now or in the 70's or 80's is that relevant, if the fanbase had already turned I'm sure you'd be arguing that they should be ignored as they aren't professionals and don't see the hard work that goes in at the Club on a day to day basis etc etc. Perhaps Mowbray should be thanking his lucky stars he wasn't about in the 70's and 80's, perhaps the fans had higher standards then. If they could turn (rightly imo) against the likes of Iley and Saxton who didn't have a proverbial pot to piddle in, what would they have made of a man who had the keys to the executive khazi but flushed millions upon millions of the Club's money away, probably with no return? Also disappointed that you blame the financial situation at the Club without acknowledging that to a large extent Mowbray has caused it himself with his disastrous transfer dealings. Basically we still need strengthening in the same areas we always did, with the addition of a keeper as the previous one was needlessly alienated and flogged off, we have no money left due to the money wasted on Brereton and Gallagher which likely will never be able to be recycled and several other players have been brought in who've barely ever seen the blue and white halves such as Hart, Palmer, Davenport, Chapman etc etc. I did mention when Brereton was signed and immediately sidelined that for a Club our size at 7m he needed to be playing and an integral part of the team and that with us losing 10-15m p.a. anyway the 3 year 39m rule would soon bite us on the backside. Most appeared to chortle at the time as if it didn't matter and Tony was a loveable little scamp who'd just blown his lunch money in the school tuck shop. Well we're not laughing now that our one really saleable asset and only real source of goals has sustained a serious injury and put the rest of Mowbray's dealings into sharp focus.

Yep. You also have to remember the circumstances leading up to the signing. We'd had offers in for players all that summer but drawn a complete blank and the fans were getting extremely uptight that we hadn't signed anyone. Mowbray later claimed that money was there all along but suddenly, from complaining all summer how expensive and difficult the market was to deal in, we suddenly out of nowhere throw bids of 7m out for BB and 4m for the lad Freeman from QPR with 24 hours to go of the window. Which tends to indicate we panicked at the last moment because we hadn't signed anyone, went back to the owners, asked for more money, and splashed the cash on BB without researching the deal properly or watching him thotoughly enough beforehand. Of course he sounded great in theory, 19, 6' 3" England under something international, Liverpool had been interested in him etc etc. No doubt if he ever does come good he'll be a Tony Mowbray signing again. Lol.

Can't win either way with conspiracy theorists. If TM had said nothing at all about the transfer you'd be jumping all over it as "proof" that it wasn't his idea. When he specifically comes out and and directly refutes the allegation you're makingT that doesn't suit your overall agenda so all we get is "Well he would say that wouldn't he?" There is absolutely no evidence Mowbray didn't approve of the Brereton signing. When you last brought this up in an attempt to muddy the waters, someone posted an article from the LT in which TM went into extreme detail about why he admired BB's attributes. If it's a cover story he went to quite extraordinary lengths to concoct it

Fair point, don't believe he wasn't behind the Brereton signing, but even if he wasn't he should have said "I'm the manager of this team and we're not spending 70% of the summer transfer budget on a player I dont want."

Before you start dissing other Club's players in an attempt to make TM look better, let's not forget that considering he's so crap we spent 12 months trying to sign him and ultimately he turned us down, not the other way round.

No, because he has consistently taken ownership of the signing. He seemed to think when BB arrived that he could be merely tucked away as "one for the future" which was pretty foolish thinking for a Club of our size and income. Let alone a signing costing £7m.

Imo, if Mowbray is staying for the foreseeable, the ideal way forward would be to offload Graham who has completely gone due to his age and get his substantial wages off the wage bill. Then loan out Brereton and Gallagher to teams that will give them regular game time up front, not out on the wing and hope they recover some form and confidence. Then get a couple of experienced strikers in on loan. As all that isn't going to happen in January, as others have rightly said we have to take whatever we can get. I wouldn't really understand any reluctance on the part of the Club to let Brereton go out on loan as Mowbray refuses to play him anyway. If another manager were coming in imminently then of course the situation might be different as said manager might be able to play a different system or formation and get a tune out of various players who have not been performing. The situation as it stands though is completely unsustainable. Mowbray spent 7m on Brereton but clearly has never rated him and another 5m on Gallagher who imo was never any good in the first place but who has been made to look even worse by Mowbray's bizarre tactics. If we're to get anything at all back on our investment on those two, something has to change, and fast.

If something definitely isn't working, as it isn't with Mowbray, then how can things possibly get any worse by trying something different? It might work, it might not but is that not better than being doomed to failure? And before you come back with the obvious retort that you dont think he will take us down, even if that were to be true, I don't consider 15 -20 th in the Championship every season as "working". That would be the case even if we weren't in any debt and not c £175m in the hole with indebtedness accruing at c£20 m p.a. I also think the presumption that he won't take us down is optimistic to say the least. 15th to 20th might be acceptable if there were clear signs of progression but as I pointed out the other day after three years of Mowbray we have no keeper, no left back, one centre half of our own (who he inherited) a RB who is consistently overlooked in favour of someone who cant play there, eleven midfielders of which arguably only Travis (who he inherited) is up to it going forward and no decent strikers. And no money because he blew the vast majority of the transfer budget in two successive windows on two duds. He's clearly setting us up for a swift return to League 1. But we're supposed to do nothing because we might get someone worse? That would take some doing, even by Venky's standards.

I thought Tosin was extremely sloppy and casual yesterday and has looked like his heart isn't really in it since he was left out over Christmas. I suspect he had his eye on a move elsewhere but couldnt negotiate a release and it fell through. Either way, even if we can get him to get his head down again for the rest of the season, it's only an elastoplast of a solution we're back to square one in summer.

Good luck to Samuel if he goes,. Wouldn't say he's any worse than Gallagher but if we're not going to use him we need him off the wage bill and briefly he looked a real player at L1 level so it would be a good chance for him to resurrect his career. Bet Gillingham aren't planning to use him on the right wing.

Me too. I couldn't really be bothered going down today which is a sad indictment considering it was a local derby but finally roused myself and got in about twelve minutes in at which point Evans was being taken off. Sod's law it was one of the few times anything happened in the first half at Ewood this season and I missed our goal. That'll teach me.

I thought the first half was quite entertaining from a neutral sort of perspective, the second half was absolutely atrocious although perhaps the appalling weather didn't help. Still 2 very poor sides out there though. Gallagher today, good grief, it was embarrassing. I know he's out of position but he just doesn't show any willingness to get into danger areas when he gets the chance. He'll be lucky to score ten goals before he hangs up his boots. No wins in six now and without Dack I cant really see where the next win is coming from. Very worrying. Two things summed up the whole feel of the Mowbray regime to me, after Preston scored the ball was thrown back on the field and came to a stop on the edge of our penalty area. Our players should have been fighting amongst themselves to get the ball and sprint back to restart the game but the 10 outfield players were trudging back towards the centre circle with their backs to the ball. No one was remonstrating with or even talking to each other and no-one was bothered about restarting the game. At the other end, Walton was chunnering to himself a bit but again showed no interest in collecting the ball to restart the game. The second thing was the so called half time warm up which consisted of Bennett, William's and Rothwell standing in a little triangle a yard apart and rolling the ball to each other whilst having a good natter whilst elsewhere Chapman and one of the other subs performed some half hearted keepie ups. These players have it so easy its untrue and if anyone else says this manager or these players genuinely want promotion I'll scream. As Mercer says we need Mowbray gone yesterday if we're ever to progress but I suppose the apologists, Waggott and possibly the owners will look at the table, think we're only five points off the play offs and kid themselves we're actually in the mix. Depressing days.

I suppose you could argue Dack comes into the maverick bracket, and ironically he is far and away our best player! Good job Mowbray wasn't George Best's manager, we'd never have heard of him. He'd have turned Damien Duff's output into something resembling Bennett's as well.

Wasnt aware of anything marking 25 years since the Prem, terrible idea, merely drives home how bad we are now in comparison, opposition fans can take the piss out of us for living on past glories and if you were going to do it, surely it should be in or around April, it's not even 25 years yet. Then, tickets for the fixture most likely to cause trouble if there's going to be any, now on sale until kick off. What's going on, has everyone completely lost it down at Ewood?

More non existent reasons being made up as to why it's allegedly virtually impossible to bring people in. It's apparently difficult to speak to people to ascertain if potential targets have the right sort of character, and wingers are apparently "flightly mavericks". Whatever the hell that means. It's also stating the bleeding obvious but it's a player's talent that primarily determines his longevity in the game, not their character. If you haven't got the talent, you're generally not going to prosper - unless you're Jason Lowe or Elliott Bennett who seem to have conned a lucrative career out of the game off the back of convincing managers they're indispensable due to their character whilst in reality being an absolute liability on the pitch. Mowbray makes the process of signing players sound so complicated it's a wonder he can get out of bed in the morning and put one foot in front of the other if he finds everything else as difficult to come to terms with as buying and selling players. It's the ramblings of a man who has if you were being kind would merely say he has completely lost the plot, if you were being a bit more direct you might wonder if he was beginning to develop mental issues due to the pressure. Either way it's way past time he was put out of his misery. I wonder who in authority at Ewood reads the rubbish Mowbray comes out with and thinks it's ok? I also wonder if the owners either don't read what he says in print or with English not being their first language read it but dont quite appreciate how ridiculous what he is saying comes across.

According to a mutual acquaintance he came up for talks in the summer expecting to join but perhaps not surprisingly we couldn't agree terms so can't see that one being a runner any time soon. I agree he'd be ideal though

Dont agree with that at all. Arguably other than Dack and 36 year old Downing, the only decent players we have (Lenihan, Nyambe, Travis and before him Raya) are or were academy products.

Not so much of the "possibly" where Bennett is concerned please. I can see it, you can, Mowbray can't. And as has been pointed out, that's not even the priority position any more now we don't even have a decent keeper or striker. So to summarise, no keeper, no LB, one centre half of our own, a RB who is more often than not overlooked to shoehorn Bennett in, eleven midfielders of which arguably only Travis you would have complete confidence in, and no decent strikers. What a mess we're in after 3 years of Mowbray in charge. This is why he needs to go imo, never mind any guff about being "only four points outside the play offs" it might as well be fourteen.

Yep. With only Travis, Johnson, Evan's, Smallwood, Davenport, Holtby, Rothwell, Downing, Chapman, Bennett and Buckley to choose from I think it's pretty obvious we need a 12th choice midfielder.

Once his contract expires, Gladwin isn't our concern. As others have said allowing him to use our facilities for free whenever required to complete his rehabilitation would have been more than adequate. By the same token, some players have a hard job adjusting to normal life once they retire. Should we offer all our former players three years wages and free counselling when they retire in case they're having problems adjusting as well? You can't go around throwing money around on acts of charity simply because a player may or may not be such a snowflake he can't cope with an unfortunate turn of events which sadly is a part of life.

You seem to be under the impression that people are suggesting we shouldnt have paid Gladwin and ignored his contract. Not the case. We paid him and presumably paid for all his treatment and rehabilitation whilst he was under contract which is unfortunate for us but fair enough. The issue is that his contract came to an end and Mowbray seemingly gave him a further deal as an act of charity because he felt sorry for him even though realistically he was never going to play for us at any point. In the fictitious example you use I doubt Rover 99's brother would have got a new contract if he'd never been any use to his employers nor was he ever likely to be. People aren't that stupid in the real world away from the insular bubble of football.

I really do disagree. I can't believe anyone can condone it. As I said the other day, if you're going to hand Gladwin a deal when there's no chance of him playing simply because you feel sorry for him then you might as well give me or you a weekly handout until the end of the season. The argument might be made that it's a sign of how well TM treats his players and other players will take note but equally it sends out a signal that if players come here they've cracked it and are on easy street. Not only do you not have to continue to perform to keep getting a new contract, you dont even have to have ever performed or even be available for selection!!

It seems to be far more pronounced since Waggott joined the Club and I did wonder if it was him trying to be clever rather than Mowbray, but you do get the impression it's an approach they're both happy with. With Mowbray the main issue seems to be his reluctance to replace or disrupt the existing players so I doubt he's too unhappy if we're sat there with bids in which are extremely unlikely to be accepted, and if all else fails and it looks like a deal may still go through against the odds, he can always kill it off with his spiel about the player only coming in as a member of the squad as it appears he did with the Bauer deal.