SuperBrfc

I used to buy the training tops regularly. That was until they started bringing them out in garish colours and the prices went a bit silly. I quite like this shade of blue though. On another note, good to see Dack wearing the blue Predator Manias. When did they come back out? I used to be mad about the Predator Mania range back in the day. Think they went big around 2002-ish. My favourite boots to this day.

On the same day we have Haaland signing for City, Darwin Nunez going to Liverpool and Jon Dahl Tomasson heading to Rovers. The big guns mean business 😁.

Last year the same thing was being put forward by a certain poster. We don't need to sign two strikers, we've got Butterworth and McBride. We don't need to sign two central midfielders, we've got Davenport and Garrett. We don't need to sign two right backs, we've got Pike. None of those youngsters did a thing. 12 months on and no lessons seem to have been learnt. The likes of Phillips, Garrett and Vale might be decent, they might not. Phillips is highly thought of and I look forward to seeing what he can do. However, to count them in at this stage as being able to contribute and suggest that this reduces the need for a signing in their position is madness, imo.

My first thought upon seeing the interview was, that's another yes man in the building. He might have plans and want to make changes, but these owners don't allow anybody to get ahead of themselves. He'll do as he's told.

Was always going to be the case. Liege actually have some ambition. It's why I'm not getting drawn in to the JDT talk. This can easily go the same way as Farke, Carvalhal and Deila. If he is the man to come in, I will back him. However, I can't shake off the idea of a potential sting in the tail. Woodgate. Boro connections and no doubt will be championed by the Boro supporting agency man. On the off chance that Vineeth or any family member is looking in, do not go for Woodgate. He would be an awful appointment. Him playing for Real Madrid 15 years ago means nothing! He was one of their worst ever signings. Oh, and tell the agent to F.O, his opinion isn't needed.

Reports going around this morning that Pardew has applied for the managerial role at Lech Poznan in Poland. This would suggest that Pardew to Rovers won't be happening. He had applied for the Rovers job. It looks like he is trying to get back in wherever he can.

It's only my take on the situation and I could be wrong, but my gut feeling is that we are going to get done in with Deila in the same way that has happened with Farke and Carvalhal. There are already red flags which point towards it not happening for me. Unleaded's info, also covered by the LT in part, tells us that it's not a straightforward deal. They don't want to let him go and if they do, they'd be due compensation. There's also a matter of a work permit being needed. This deal is likely to take some time to complete overall and I don't see this lot getting it over the line. There's the issue of Deila having to work with the existing coaching team at Rovers. Would he be happy with that? It's hard to say. However, the main problem, imo, is the fact that Standard Liege are also vying for his services. I've been reading how Liege have serious backers in American owners who are planning on throwing money at it next season. They are offering Deila the chance to completely overhaul their squad in order to compete for the title next season. Liege have also appointed Fergal Harkin as Sporting Director. The same Harkin that helped Deila to get the Celtic job. They've got an ambitious project going on there with money to spend. Compare that to the buttons, in comparison, that he will get here, the restrictions he will have and Venky's all round pace when it comes to signings etc. If it comes down to a shootout between Rovers and Liege, I don't fancy us to win it, as much as that hurts to type. Out of the four names the press has linked us with recently, that is: Ferguson, Warne, Deila, and Knutsen, only the Deila link seems to have any substance behind it. Ferguson and Warne have both denied there being any contact from Rovers. Knutsen appears to be lazy journalism based on Broughton's appointment. My point is, if Deila is the main target and he says no, who the heck is in reserve in this lot's thinking? I fancy this to drag on until July 1st.

I think the Knutsen link is just lazily based on yesterday's appointment. Pardew's the one that has me worried right now. Has applied for the job, apparently, and there are a few whispers the job is his. How desperate is he to get back into English football, is the question. He, or whoever else, is going to be walking into a mess here with so much work to do in the window. Genuine question, if Pardew is appointed, how would you feel?

The game away at Tottenham was an absolute stinker in 2012. Must win and not even a shot on goal. Forget that, there was no intention to attack all game. A disgrace. Also, wasn't there a wink in that game from Dunny as he was being substituted? It could have been innocent and related to anything, but I'd still like to know what that was all about.

I'm with you on this, something is still not right at the club for me. When we look at this shambles of a recruitment process currently going on, it looks like Mowbray was helping to paper over huge cracks. Mowbray walking out, which I don't think they were expecting, has seemingly led to them falling apart and not knowing what to do now. On the back of that we have to ask, has anything really changed from the Kean days? I said it more than once last season when we kept on seeing bizarre lineups: "has blingy picked this team?". It was said half jokingly, but now I'm not so sure. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say we are currently THE worst run club in all four divisions. If not number one for some, we're certainly in the top three, I'd say.

I mean, where to begin with the information from Orr? Let's start with team selection. If he is to be believed, that's three managers that were told not to pick Orr in the starting 11 by Shebby. Berg, Appleton and Bowyer. Berg and Bowyer, allegedly, listened to what they were told and refused to pick him. Appleton did not listen, instead calling Orr back from Ipswich and starting him in games from that point on We've heard about the Shebby 'sub by text' story from Glen before. We've also heard how the team sheet, in the early days, used to be sent to the bling man for approval, who would send it back with amendments if he didn't like it. All this has got me thinking..the constant use of Gally on the right wing, over and over, Johnson as a false nine that one time. Surely not?

Just got round to listening to part 2 of Orr's interview. I found it a good listen and see Orr in a better light than I did before. There are many interesting things that were disclosed. For those who haven't listened to it or don't want to listen to him speak, here is a breakdown of what was said. Apologies, as this is going to be a long post. Bear with me. The main points are as follows: 1) Orr defended Kean because he felt certain players had downed tools and that Kean was taking all of the bullets for them, without the fans knowing what was really going on with the players in the dressing room. Orr believed certain players were told that getting relegated would make it easier for them to leave Rovers than it would be if they were to stay up, so they stopped trying. This incensed him as we were in a relegation battle. He cited Swansea away as an example. Givet refused to play at LB in a crunch game and said he wanted to play at CB only. Orr, whose season was deemed to be over with an Achilles injury in the previous game, had to play by way of injections. He continued to do this for the last few games of the season. Givet did not play in the Swansea game at all, not even at CB as he initially said he wanted to. Orr mentioned a midfielder who had pitiful running stats for that game with only 50m of high intensity running, when 2000m was the norm for Premier League midfielders. That player was Nzonzi. Orr stressed that the fans treated Givet as this warrior, but they didn't know what he had done at a key time in the season. During that Wigan game, which ended in relegation, Orr said the atmosphere was toxic, the level of abuse and hate was something that he had never experienced before or after and that it was brewing up to explode at full time. When the full time whistle went, it did go off and somebody threw a Corky cricket ball at Kean's head from way back in the stands, missing him by inches. If it had connected, the situation would have been horrendous. That was the final straw for Orr who decided to do that infamous Sky interview defending Kean. His intention was to let the fans know about the maggot players who had given up and he felt it was unfair that Kean was taking all of the flak. 2) During a pre season tour in 2012, newly appointed Shebby arrived. He immediately made a beeline for the senior pro's table in the hotel/canteen. The table consisted of Dunny, MGP, Dann, Robbo, Orr etc. Shebby tried to shit stir, get info out of the players, blame Kean for the club's problems and was trying to get the senior players to agree with him about Kean. This got Orr's back up and he began to see Shebby as a snake and a maggot who couldn't be trusted. Orr began warning Eric Black and other staff to watch out for Shebby. 3) Still in Ireland, during Pre season 2012, Orr came down to breakfast one day in the team hotel to find the lads surrounding an iPhone, laughing their heads off. They were laughing at a clip of Shebby mocking and insulting Dunny and Morten infront of a group of fans. Probably the King George's Hall debacle? Orr says he was furious about this, as in his words, "this maggot was taking the piss out of our mates, two solid professionals, infront of a bunch of fans just to get them onside". Shebby was due to arrive at the team hotel later that day as there was a match that evening. Orr arranged a meeting with all of the senior lads, 15 strong, to let Shebby know what he did was unacceptable. Kean was fine with this taking place. When Shebby arrived, Orr let rip at him telling him exactly what he thought with expletives thrown in, with the other senior pros looking on. Shebby was told he was not allowed to get on the team bus, he could not come anywhere the dressing room or the training ground and that he was not wanted. Shebby was bemused and simply responded with "But how do I get to the game?". It was clear that Orr strongly disliked Shebby and the feeling was mutual after that outburst. 4) On the night before Charlton away, in September 2012, Kean walked in to a room and told all of the squad that he couldn't do it anymore. He said he had a family to look after and that they were struggling with everything that was going on. Kean resigned and Eric Black was placed in temporary charge. 5) The first thing Black did at training was gather all of the senior pros together, including Orr, and ask them to give Shebby another chance by allowing him to come to the training ground. Black felt that Shebby wasn't as bad as the players thought he was. He told the group Shebby was really keen to get involved and mend things with them. Orr was not happy with this and told Black to do whatever he wants but warned him by saying "Shebby is a snake who will stab you in the back". Days later, Berg was appointed and Black was out on his ear, just as Orr warned him about. 6) It's a Thursday, two days in to Berg's reign. Berg is working on defensive shape in training. After 30 seconds he calls out Orr's poor positioning, takes him out of the session and has him replaced by Adam Henley. 7) On the same Thursday, after training, Orr gets a phone call from an agent saying "you're not playing on Saturday, are you?". Orr asks "how do you know". The agent replies with "I've just been told by Alan Nixon from the Daily Mirror, there's going to be a piece written about you in Saturday's paper". 😎😎 😎 Two days later, on the Saturday morning we are away at Crystal Palace, Orr's dad rings him and asks him to grab a copy of the Daily Mirror and to read what it says. Orr does as his dad says and finds an article titled "Blackburn Rovers to get rid of bad apple, Orr". (Ignore emojis above, added by mistake, won't delete for some reason). 9) Orr confronts Berg with the article and says "I knew about this on Thursday (via the agent who rang him), you're telling me it's your decision not to play me, you're a liar, this is coming from above because you don't know me to say I'm a bad apple, you've only been here for two days". Orr says to Berg "You're a Premier League winner, a European Cup winner, multiple trophy winner, be a man and tell me that you can't pick me. I can take it. Just say it. You're being dictated to from above (I.e Shebby). Orr says Berg couldn't look him in the eye and kept saying "no, it's my decision" in a snotty way. He was on the bench for that Palace game and the following two games against Huddersfield and Birmingham, while Henley started both. Orr had lost his head by the Brum game and demanded he be let out on loan. He then went to Ipswich on a loan deal. 10) Orr claims he knew Berg was lying because Appleton phoned him up as soon as he was appointed at Rovers and said "I don't care what this Shebby Singh is saying, he's telling me I can't pick you, but I'm calling you back from your loan (at Ipswich). He called him back and put Orr straight back into the team. 11) The Peterborough game at Ewood was the final straw for Orr, where he says he got untold abuse and almost had a fight with a fan outside the ground. He knew he could never win the fans over that day and that he had to leave the club. During that game, the booing got so bad according to him, that he swore at the fans to shut up. 12) Interestingly, he mentions how Gary Bowyer told him "this is a disgrace how you're being treated". Also, for months Bowyer, as reserve team manager, had been telling Orr how he should be playing. However, when Bowyer got the Rovers first team job he said to Orr "look, what it is, I've been told I can't play you". Orr accepted this and said let me go abroad on loan and that's how his loan to the MLS happened. There's a lot to talk about there and I'll talk about some of it in another post.

I heard Kieron Dyer recently say that he keeps in touch with Bellamy and that he (Bellamy) wants to get into management. The interviewer was asking him whether a Bellamy/Dyer coaching team was possible in the future and that's when he said it. My initial thought upon seeing your post was: Bellamy, HSH, Rovers job. Most likely it will be as Kompany's assistant over at the dark side, but you never know.

I'm planning on making a detailed post later this afternoon. There are a number of key revelations from him that paint a picture. One thing to say is, Glen was telling the truth about the Shebby sub story. Shebby tried to influence team selection by demanding Orr be taken out of the starting 11. Berg listened, allegedly, and would pick Henley, but Appleton refused to listen to Shebby.

Nzonzi. He was a disgrace in that Swansea game. I remember being left fuming at his display that day. The number of times he lost the ball and then petulantly threw his arms up in the air and then just ambled back. Not even jog back. It was a terrible attitude in a game we needed to win. I'm sure it's Nzonzi he is talking about there.

If Warne comes in, prepare for a relegation battle and League 1 football again some time soon, in my view. An appointment that would be a sign of how far this club has fallen. Warne would be over the moon to be linked with this football club and that's precisely what those cheap, gutless morons in Pune are looking for in a manager. What makes any of these L1 managers good enough for Rovers? It's a bloody disgrace what these cheap bastards have reduced this club and the fan base to. Billionaires my arse. I want to know what's really going on here, because appointing Warne or similar, when there are very good managers available, does not and will not, ever add up. You don't pass by on Farke and Carvalhal and appoint somebody like Warne unless your agenda is something else. Promotion is not it.

The way I see it is, that all of the above is to give off the impression that they are doing their very best, working to the bone to find the best man for the job. Thoroughly conducting the recruitment process by holding interview after interview. I think they very much want this idea to be publicised and put out there. "We've done all we can". I'm not buying it. If after all of this, they allow Farke and Carvalhal to pass them by and come up with Warne and Ainsworth instead...that says enough.

It's not going to be anybody of note, in my opinion. The very last people in football who should be attempting something like this is Venky's. Talk about complicating things for no reason at all. How about get the basics right first before trying to act like smart arses? My highest break is 8, I don't know what a stun shot is, but you know what, I might enter Q School because I believe I can play at The Crucible one day. Dream on! This role will only be worthwhile if it is a Steve Walsh coming in, for me. He actually has some pedigree in the game and wouldn't come here without being given some assurances, you'd think. If it's a low key appointment it will likely be a waste of time, as that individual is unlikely to have much power.

An 'interesting' bit of business involving Arsenal. Arsenal have been chasing this Brazilian winger from Sao Paulo called Marquinhos. The player is available on a free now as his contract is up, so Arsenal can basically take him for nothing. What does Arsenal's Technical Director, Edu, go and do instead though? He essentially says "I'll give you £3.5m for him, mate. It's cool, don't worry, I've got £3.5m for you". What a top bloke Edu is. Rather than sign him on a free, Marquinhos is on his way to Arsenal for £3.5m instead now. Brilliant. Perfectly normal. Nothing to see here. Ryan Hedges, anyone? It looks like reality is already starting to bite for Arsenal fans ahead of next season. For any of their fans hoping to see a spending spree to break into the top 4, they can think again, the narrative is already being set for disappointment with an example below. Cheapskate owners (Theirs are compared to their rivals) who couldn't care less about success on the pitch. That's why you get a youth project with "young lads" who "need time to develop". You can't put too much pressure on the young lads, eh? Spending £51m on Gabriel Jesus, who is out of contract next summer, is alright though as Edu really likes him and he's a big name in Brazil. That, and it will give the Arsenal fans hope that "exciting" things are happening. It's all PR crap and we are seeing it happening at Rovers too, in relative terms, obviously. Disinterested owners are the root cause of all of this.

If everybody here was put on the spot and asked to put one name forward as to who you think our next manager will be, who are you all going for? I'll start off with mine. Nigel Adkins.

Steve Walsh would actually be a lot better than the complete dud that I would expect this lot to find for the role. I would be pleased with him coming in, if true. He has an eye for a player and played a key role in recruitment at Leicester. It didn't go well for him at Everton, however he's on record as saying his suggestions to sign Andy Robertson, Maguire and Erling Haaland were turned down by the Everton board. I'd have more faith in him being able to spot a player than the brfcs admirer who has just left. It does, however, point towards the Everton boys possibly coming in and I'm not too pleased about that prospect.

I can see this dragging on right up until the end of month. Mowbray's contract officially expires on the 30th, so it could be a case of a fresh start on the 1st of July with the new manager announced then. It would also mean not having to pay two managers for the month of June. Damien Johnson to take charge of the first couple of weeks of training, is my guess. There's no urgency with this lot, because they don't know what they are doing, in my view. Football principles don't seem to register with them, therefore the idea of not having a new manager in place for the start of pre-season isn't likely to phase them at all.

Ridiculous, isn't it? There have been many examples where people at the club could and should have been justifiably sacked, but were kept on for as long as possible. Unbelievably, in some cases those people ended up walking of their own accord! What would have happened had they not walked? It doesn't make sense, nor does it bear thinking about. Now this with Lowe. How a nondescript coach can be deemed to be so important that a new manager has to accept him, even if that puts off the better candidates, is beyond me. There has to be a reason behind it and I don't like the idea of what it could be. He needs to follow Venus out of the door, in my opinion.

Absolutely stinks. What other nondescript coach would receive such favourable treatment? The question that crosses my mind is, who sacked him? At a 'normal' club once the owners have decided to allow a coach to leave, that's the end of it. To come away with a promotion instead though...

Just been having a look at Lowe's coaching history. A summary: Lowe began his coaching career in 2002 at Wigan under Paul Jewell. He then followed Jewell to Derby in 2007 where he became the Head of Youth Academy. Incidentally, Paul Jewell is a client of HSH. Lowe leaves Derby in 2009 and does some part time work for Man United at one of their Soccer Schools. In August 2010 Lowe joins the backroom team at Tranmere Rovers. 10 months later, Lowe is appointed as a Head of Youth coach at Rovers in June 2011, during the height of the SEM/Kentaro shit show. Lowe has remained in place for 11 years despite a number of managerial changes. Now we are hearing how, apparently, the owners aren't willing to replace him and the other staff, meaning they will be foisted on the new manager. Carvalhal is sat before you yet you piss him around by telling him he has to work with Lowe. Seriously? No proper manager will accept this crap. Lowe isn't some kind of top class coach that can't be replaced, in my opinion. I'm also not liking the pals talk mentioned in the posts above. Consider the connections for a minute and where this all could possibly lead back to.