RevidgeBlue

Bloody hell...... that was a no brainer wasn't it. And he got it wrong. We ended up with a well past it Graham AND a £5m donkey.

Other than adopt your usual stance of feverishly defending every move the Club makes right or wrong I really don't know where you're coming from with this post. The weather conditions of the last few days are a side issue. The problem lies with the overall state of the pitch which in the words of your friend the groundsman is essentially because the thing as a whole is thirty years old. Maybe you could therefore attribute the blame for the state of the pitch two thirds to the Walker Trust and one third to the current owners. The difference though is that the pitch was perfectly playable during the Walker Trust era and has only shown signs of real distress and deterioration in the last three or four years and that's when it should have been sorted. If we anticipated there would be problems before the season started, why didn't we sort it in summer? I'll give the Club the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe there wasn't time to do anything too substantial last summer with the shorter turn around. Actions speak louder than words though and there's no excuse this summer we'll have to see how extensive Waggott's "renovation" is. Pitch technology has moved on enormously in recent years and it must be a bit like comparing a brand new car today to one from 1992. So if it's a root and branch replacement of the infrastructure, drainage, undersoil heating and top surface then fair enough. If it consists of turning over and resending the top part of the pitch for the umpteenth time then we'll know that the owners aren't really interested in the long term health of the pitch or haven't been asked to sort it out properly. The latter wouldn't altogether surprise me. As with the state of the stadium, the weeds previously growing inside Ewood Park and the rubbish piling up outside it, the pitch situation seems to summarise Swag's modus operandi. Instead of showing some pride in the Club, keeping on top of things and preventing problems before they arise the preferred option seems to be to let things slide and only act when things get so ridiculous that people kick off and you are grudgingly shamed into doing something. If, as we're led to believe, the owners never refuse a reasonable request for funding there's absolutely no need for it. It's third rate and amateur.

What a ridiculous piece from Mowbray. As if anyone expects us to be at exactly the same level we were when Sutton and Shearer were here. What grinds my gears the most is when he constantly plays the humble, down to earth working class hero card. How does that tally with constantly wasting the owners money on overly generous contract extensions for players that are past their best or were never good enough in the first place or both, other players that clearly were never going to play for us, and an ongoing stream of questionable signings through his Middlesbrough connections. And if we want to be pernickety about it we're more or less where we were when he joined - fifteen (poor) games away from returning to League 1. We're certainly not progressing. The ramblings of a desperate man scrabbling hard to preserve his cushy number aboard the good ship "long term plan". He's spotted that the owners aren't football experts, has wormed his way into their confidence, has got his mate appointed as his boss for extra security and is determined to eke the job out as long as possible and squeeze every last penny he can out of the V's for his own family's benefit.

There's absolutely no way Johnson should be getting a new deal for me, bar a few flashes this season he's past his best and has been another of Mowbray's poor signings. But he probably will get one. Nyambe should be the priority but probably won't sign if he's any sense and will go somewhere where his talents are appreciated. Rothwell is probably worth a new deal. Again would probably flourish under a different manager. Holtby has a bit to prove and on balance I'm not sure he's consistent enough. JRC will probably re-sign but I'm yet to be convinced by him or see anything that blows me away. The rest forget it. However Moggasaurus is probably hoping we can flog AA so he can give everyone new deals "and keep the squad together".

Not 100% certain if Hughes is still the manager he was when he was here but one thing's for certain he'd raise expectations and set a reasonably ambitious target such as promotion by the end of next season and expect everyone at the Club, players and staff alike to work towards it. There'd be no worse of this "by next season we should be in a position to challenge," and "we're on a journey" bollux. We're "on a journey" all right. Back to League 1.

Indeed. And the people who were paid not to play aside, the annual wage of a lead swinger like Evans would probably be enough to cover a brand new state of the art pitch and maintenance on the stadium for a couple of years.

Not sure I'd blame the owners for this, Mowbray and Waggott agree an overall budget with them every year for the playing side and the non playing side and it's down to the people on the ground at Ewood to ensure the basics such as having a pitch capable of hosting professional football. It doesn't need to be the best in the Country.

Indeed. Without wanting to reproduce JH's excellent post in full again, I think one of Mowbray's main failings ihas been the fact he isn't ruthless enough and relying on people like the ones you quoted - who got us relegated in the first place and who aren't good enough if we're serious about promotion from this division. Similarly, he isn't ruthless enough with loans that don't work out, seems to think it will affect the player's confidence if we send them back early, Walton, Douglas etc. He's here to act in the best interests of the Club not the players themselves, that's their agents job. All far too cosy and not good enough.

If memory serves me there was a violent downpour immediately before that Wimbledon game. There's nothing you can do about a flash flood but when it has rained today it's been steady rather than torrential so I don't think that with a well maintained pitch in good condition with reasonable drainage it'd be a given the game would be off. Given the current state of the pitch and the weather over the last 24 hours it was fairly inevitable however and it probably won't be the only time.

Would pay for new contracts for Evans and Bennett though.

Perhaps they think its 20m rupees and no one has told them yet.

Even they must notice they have to write out a cheque for £20m every year to keep us afloat though.

Steve's January message to the fans: "You won't be seeing much football for a while, not even on i-follow because the pitch is in such poor state. But it's not all bad, don't forget, I'm on £300k p.a. Tone is on substantially more and Ben, Sam and Richie really enjoyed their new deals not to play. Stewie loves being paid thousands of pounds a week to sit on the bench as well. See ya Love Steve And don't forget......"We're all in it together!"

The only message I want to hear is one from the Club saying they've both been relieved of their duties and thanking them for their efforts!

Surely Mowbray would have had an input on whether to allocate limited funds on the pitch or give Smallwood and Hart and Gladwin new contracts not to play for us or give Downing a new deal etc. I agree Waggott bears primary responsibility, he has overall control of the day to day running of the Club and should have over-ruled Mowbray as surely having an acceptable playing surface should be near the list top of our list of priorities, It's one thing we can control. Hardly surprising though, how can we expect a decent pitch when those on the ground at Ewood didn't have enough pride in the place to keep it free of weeds a few months back. If JH is right about only having one set of Frost covers to go between Ewood and Brockhall (and the 100 Club had to pay for those) then that is absurd penny pinching in the extreme. The Club is an absolute farce from the dug out to the Boardroom. As with the results we can only hope those in India have sat up and taken notice of the state of the pitch on Saturday and today's postponement and start handing out a few P45's pretty sharpish.

Wouldn't give Mowbray any more money to waste. We need a new manager. Anything else is almost irrelevant.

And in terms of his overall contribution to the Club I think you can argue he did quite well for 18 months, almost keeping us up then getting us promoted at the first time of asking, albeit with a budget that eclipsed everyone else's. However the last two and a half years since promotion have been imo absolutely dire. History won't view his contribution kindly if we fold because of our debts and the view is taken that we needed to treat the situation a lot more urgently instead of waffling on about journeys and long term plans with no evidence of anything actually happening to substantiate that.

Glad to see you're finally coming round Parson, better late than never! Not sure where this reputation as a man of integrity comes from, obtaining his immediate boss his job seems an extremely devious move to me, likewise giving completely needless contracts to people like Gladwin Smallwood and Hart who were never ever going to play for us doesnt strike me as acting in the Club's best interests either. No wonder we can't afford to relay the pitch.

There's a lot wrong with that post. Firstly, whilst the Rao's are generally unpredictable where Rovers are concerned, I'm guessing there's no actual evidence that Mowbray is completely bulletproof or immune to bad results no matter what. Secondly, even if he were, (which I doubt) it can't be argued that that SHOULD be the case can it?

I suspect you're right. I did say "if we're writing this season off" though. My first choice would have been to sack the Mowbray, get the best possible replacement for the job, (a Pearson or Bilic type before he got another job) and let them bring in who they want. I suspect we've left it a month too late for this season already but as everyone keeps pointing out we're "only" seven points out of play offs still so even now it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that someone really on the ball could come in, put a rocket up the players' arses, get them playing with some element of organisation and a plan and get us there or thereabouts.

If we're simply writing this season off, we'd be far better off giving Damien Johnson the chance to show what he can or can't do until the end of the season rather than letting Mowbray pointlessly limp on until summer. If he does particularly well, that's good and gives him a chance of the permanent role. If he doesn't pull up any trees then we know where we stand, that he isn't the answer permanently, and that we might need to dispense with his services along with the manager and the rest of his coaching staff. Might be a chance of it happening at a normal Club.

So the next seven or eight games matter but the last ten dont? What will you be saying if the next seven or eight don't go to plan? "Let's see how the last fourteen or fifteen go?"

Fair enough. I think the point being made is that scraping an occasional win and a couple of draws here and there which just about keeps our noses above water and Mowbray in situ isn't taking us anywhere. As opposed to people wanting the Club they support to lose per se.

If you and nephox rate Trybull we'll have to agree to disagree. I think he's absolute garbage, another completely pointless Lowe/Evans type albeit he is slightly better than those 2. It must speak volumes when Norwich would rather save 2k p.w. than have him available. At least Davenport has a bit of bite about him.

Plus Trybull, Gallagher