Exactly. Can't believe some people are still falling for the nice but dim Uncle Tony jumpers for goalposts routine. You could just about forgive him for installing his own boss IF the owners were daft enough to suggest it. However the way Waggott has subsequently defended Mowbray to the hilt despite him pissing money away like water and producing abysmal results and then the three of them all trying to pull off the same stunt as at Coventry suggests there is something rather more sinister afoot.

Great post. No-one has ever held the view that we needed to acclimatise in the Championship because we were relegated when arguably we shouldn't have been. It's just something Mowbray has invented in the last few months to excuse his own abysmal performance.

Wake up Gav, why do you think we we training on an already knackered pitch in the middle of winter in atrocious conditions? Of course Mowbray was instrumental in it just as much as the other two. They tried (and failed) to pull off the same sort of scam at Coventry as well. You can't pin that on Venky's.

When's the next Fans Forum meeting?, I shall be reading the minutes with great interest as obviously the Forum will obviously collectively tear Waggott a new one for wasting Club money on a project which - if the main aim was as stated I.e. to maintain Category 1 status - was doomed from the outset. Perhaps the Forum could also ask Waggott or Cheston to specify exactly how much money was wasted on the scheme?

According to the Fans Forum minutes Cheston told the Forum it could be financed. As we apparently can't even finance a £2m pitch that just shows how ludicrous and unlikely that suggestion was. Just as, as soon as some basic questions about the scheme were asked, there was no answer to them and it had to be shelved. I can't believe Waggott and Cheston ate still in a job on the back of that tbh. I wonder how much of the Club's money was wasted on the doomed project?

He's way worse than Coyle for me. Take away the superior financial backing he's had and there's naff all to choose between then in terms of ability and more crucially Coyle didn't attempt to flog off our infrastructure like Mowbray and his mates. I'll give you Kean but in devil's advocate mode he had us 5th or 6th when he was sacked, something Mowbray could only dream of.

I don't disagree the owners overall record has been terrible but I'm failing to see why Mowbray couldn't have made a decent fist of things with the (imo) extremely generous backing he's had. Granted they should never have in a million years allowed him to install Waggott as his immediate boss but that shouldn't in itself have automatically meant poor performance, it was just bound to lead to obvious problems if he needed to be replaced at some point.

I can't reveal the source of my info on that, suffice to say the info itself was fairly precise and seemed entirely credible at the time. The original source of the info would have had absolutely no reason to make it up either. I have been referring to it indirectly over the last month or so and wouldn't have done so if I didn't believe it to be correct. What's the point in making stuff up and then looking daft when it doesn't happen? However, I am admittedly starting to wonder why Mowbray apparently has been allowed to veto potential transfer targets IF he is leaving. Are things THAT much of a disorganised shambles down at Ewood? (Silly question I know).

I have absolutely no idea on either count, I'm only relaying what I've been told!

Sorry Parson, we are where we are currently because Mowbray isn't good enough, he's had fantastic backing, wasted millions and never been asked to sell anyone he doesn't want to. The sort of backing that the likes of Mackay and Saxton could only dream of as you rightly point out.

Exactly.

According to a friend in Italy we've been offered a 6 ft 6 Nigerian centre forward Simy Nwankwo who plays for Crotone in Serie A for 800,000 Euros. Crotone were relegated but the player scored 19 goals, only 2 less than Lukaku. Mowbray wasn't interested apparently. Seems a fairly low risk punt at that price. Perhaps his Coventry/Boro connections weren't strong enough.

To be fair the snippet I heard was as long ago as mid April when we were in the midst of the death spiral and everyone was calling for Mowbray's immediate sacking. The information seemed quite definite and was to the effect that he would be leaving at the end of the season. It seems Paul Mani heard similar from a different source so it's perhaps too early to describe it as wrong. If it doesn't happen, fine, fire away.

Plays for errrrm Coventry. Who'd have thought it? Wonder who Warnock wants shut of this summer? Let's hope Mowbray is gone before he gets the chance to palm off his latest round of cast offs on us.

Agreed. Absolute disgrace if Johnson gets a new deal, ditto Bennett.

Good grief, we are where we are at this point in our history because we've had a terrible manager who can't hack it in the Championship for the last three years! The local media have become a major part of the problem. Mowbray could come out and say the earth was flat and instead of challenging it and saying it was rubbish that comment would probably get spun something like "The intuitive Rovers boss has taken a bold and alternative view on the shape of the world in order to try and get an edge on his rivals."

Pity he's been playing for someone else and not for us!!!

Don't disagree that he should have gone then (or preferably over two years ago) but I am still very hopeful Paul Mani is correct on this as it ties in with something I heard.

Yep. It's over to them.................

I'd be exactly the opposite. Rhodes (at his peak) every day of the week for me.

I can't see anything whatsoever wrong with what Cowley said. He's currently employed by Portsmouth and as long as that's the situation it's his job to big them up. If the phone rang tomorrow and he was offered a genuinely bigger job it'd suddenly be a case of "Portsmouth, who are they?".

My guess would be not if you want to be competitive at the top end of the table. However I can't see why you couldn't run competitively at a small fraction of our £20m p.a. loss and make that up with skillfully player trading and developing Academy graduates. The amount of money we waste is eye watering. We've been paying Mulgrew and Ayala the thick end of £2m p.a. NOT to play for us! Pears, Bennett, Evans, Trybull, Downing, Johnson etc - did we actually need any of them?

Yes, was just watching the end of that game. I think his stats since arriving at Portsmouth including today's loss are P 12 W 6 D 2 L 4 - 20 points. We can only dream of returns like that in recent seasons.

To quote you, based off what?

I disagree completely on Nyambe. I think he's as good as we could ever hope to get as a Championship Club, any replacement will be an inevitable downgrade and the final kick in the nuts will be the relative peanuts we'll get for him thanks to the appalling way in which Mowbray has treated him. I agree completely with your comment about spending more on the first X1 and losing the expensive dross squad filling. One possible positive is we have a great chance to do that this summer ......... but only under a new manager with a completely new outlook you'd imagine. Otherwise we could see new deals for the likes of Johnson and Bennett and a cushy role for Stewie somewhere within the Club in an alleged coaching capacity.