His body language, as always, is awful.

But I have zero sympathy for him. I'm not going to be made to feel bad about a manager who's contract is running down when he's allowed multiple players to run down their contracts.

I know that isn't entirely his own decision and he might be barely involved in that process, but he's been willing to tow the line in the media about how there's time to sort things out for others, so why should it be any different for him?

Not to piss on the Buckley parade, but Twitter trends are determined by your own interests and the number of mentions and the particular hashtag used will vary greatly depending on what you set your location and language to be.

So, not that surprising to have Buckley trending if you're a Rovers supporter and follow a fair number of Rovers, Championship, and football accounts.

22 hours ago, Admiral Nelsen said:

 

I know many will agree with you, so I'm not saying you're wrong to bring it up, but personally I don't get why his body language/interviews etc. riles people so much. He's had a pretty miserable demeanour since day one here as far as I see it, and plenty of that coincided with the team doing well. I don't agree that his signings were mostly bad either. I think there are enough success stories to say that he can spot a player.

 

I agree though that it's hard to concisely summarise all the different aspects of his time in charge. If I was to try, the thing that it really boils down to is your point about the major drops in form. I think if these were just a little less predictable/less severe, you could even now make a perfectly good case for him being worth a new contract (not least because we'd still be in the play off mix). But sadly they're not, and it almost makes all other aspects of his performance irrelevant because it means that we'll always have that ceiling of what we can achieve under him. 

I'm actually less concerned about his body language and demeanour in interviews and more concerned by how he presents himself on the touchline.

He is often just lifeless, head in hands, sitting with a thousand yard stare. He's supposed to a be a motivator and it's impossible to think that (at least some) players will see that and think it is an assessment of their chances or, possibly even more damagingly, the capabilities of their manager. 

I also think that his overall demeanour contributes to a lack of accountability and that probably permeates every area of the club. I can think to my own work and know how much it means when a senior person takes the lead, takes accountability, and sets a real example.

I find it very difficult to place all of my thoughts on Mowbray's reign into a concise summation. 

He does deserve a tremendous amount of credit for stabilising the ship after relegation to League 1. Yes, some managers might have been able to avoid the drop in the first place and relegated sides are always promotion favourites, but many sides have struggled to go back up and it was essential that we do it at the first time of asking.

Since promotion, he has managed to reestablish this club as a solid Championship team, but after that the positives stop. His inconsistent tactics and inability to get the best out of most of his players has been tremendously frustrating. His signings have been mostly questionable and he seems to be a poor judge of talent. 

Yes, he gets some credit for our form in the first half of the season, but he was unable to regain momentum once the luck ran out and things started to slip. He feels very much like a manager who struggles in the face of adversity and who is unable to adapt. Each season has been plagued by major drops in form (particularly towards the backend of Championship seasons) and the fault has to be placed firmly at the doorstep of management in that regard. 

But my biggest criticism of him has to be in his demeanour. I cannot imagine having a boss who carried himself as he does. Who'd body language and messages were so negative. It's impossible to think that this has had no impact on the team.

He won't go down as our worst manager, but it is his time to go (and has been for some time) and we can hope for someone to come in with more energy and more creativity.

I don't disagree with the prevailing opinion that we shouldn't sell Rothwell to a promotion rival and that we should be very reluctant to disrupt a team that is clearly working well and where all of the players seem to be really pulling in the same direction - HOWEVER, it's impressive to see how people's estimation of Rothwell have increased over the past 6 months. 

I have little doubt that many would have happily accepted a similar bid 12 months ago. I don't want any changes to the squad right now, but we also don't want to risk evaluating our players purely based on their best form (and not a pretty large sample size or mediocre performances and inconsistency). 

2 minutes ago, CrouchingNunhiddenCucumber said:

Totally agree, 16/1 is bonkers  - though I can't find better than 14/1. 

I'll happily offer you 20/1. Minimum stake 50.

2 hours ago, Paul Mellelieu said:

...but.... they said we had a list to chose from.

I'm not really bothered about that. 

I'm never interested in what is being said publicly about our transfer dealings, nor do I know how close we may have come to one or two signings or the reasons why those may have fallen through.

I think another manager could do better. I think that the club is poorly run. But I think that this squad should expect to be midtable in this division and has every chance of challenging for a playoff spot if things go our way (which happens to one or two mediocre clubs every season).

2 hours ago, CrouchingNunhiddenCucumber said:

I will give you the good start, far better than we could have dreamt of. However, what happens when we get a few injuries? We have absolutely no depth.

And - you don't think replacing 54% of our goals last season was an absolutely necessity? You also think Mowbray will change from his insistence of playing our £12m strike force on the wing? 

The only way I can see us being top 10 is Mowbray's hand is forced and he HAS to play Gallagher down the middle and we have a huge slice of luck and Ayala doesn't get injured all season - highly unlikely given his history. 

In reality, if we can go on the mother of all death spirals of 2 wins in 17 last year, when we had a 28 goal striker and a mercurial talent that is now starting for Liverpool, how do you expect us to BETTER that this year when we've lost 12 players, 54% of our goals, brought in a few kids on loan and a chap from Lincoln?

I think that some of those goals will naturally be replaced by someone else filling the void (penalties, for starters).

I feel comfortable with the strength in depth at the back, it's the most depth we've had defensively in years.

And, I just think the overall balance of the squad is better now. I expect us to be a bit better. Only time will tell.

4 minutes ago, CrouchingNunhiddenCucumber said:

8/1 to be relegated at the start of the season now looks generous after this utter shit show 

I mean, it doesn't. We've already shown enough this season to be confident that we can stay up.

The board is being a little bit dramatic at the moment (not surprising).

I'm disappointed that we haven't done better, but don't think that signing a striker/forward was an absolute necessity. I hope that this means that Gallagher and Brereton will be used in more central roles and that the wingers that we have and have brought in will give us more creativity and pace in wide positions. 

I actually think our squad has decent balance and will look fairly strong when we get our injured players back. I think there's every chance that we are in the top half when January comes around and that might put us in a position to splash out a bit on a player that we really need.

5 minutes ago, RoversClitheroe said:

Why do we always leave the most important transfers for deadline day?

 

Not just us.

I think the market just moves more quickly and efficiently on the final day when clubs and players realise that they don't have as many options as they would have hoped/liked.

6 minutes ago, callumrovers said:

Ive read Maja was on 57k at Bordeaux, how can we afford that? He would want minimum 35k.

Where have you heard that?

3 minutes ago, Armchair supporter supremo said:

you're welcome Karen. 

Oh good one. You've got him there. Very clever.

Regarding the Nyambe rumours - although using the term rumours might be generous - our owners are incompetent, but they've consistently shown that they will hold out for a good price for players. Raya is probably the only one we've got majorly wrong, but even that was more down to the fact that Mowbray had decided to move on.

I can't see them letting a useful player go for a million or less. At that price they will hold onto him. 

32 minutes ago, JHRover said:

People have come on the Forum and given their opinion or interpretation of the FFP situation.

That doesn't mean it is correct or entirely accurate.

Venky's current management of the club is on similar lines to what it was in 2017 under Coyle. Selling assets, no money, cheap loans and a manager who shouldn't be here.

You can credit them for pumping in essential funds to keep the club in business and meet their liabilities and commitments. But all this trajectory is going to deliver is further decline and loss of assets on free transfers.

Stupidity and short sightedness.

Next news is we lose Lenihan and Nyambe on free transfers and you will be using FFP as an excuse on why we can't do anything.

Sort one and the other follows.

People have come on the Forum and given their opinion and interpretation...

And now, here is my opinion presented as fact. 🙄

We are not unique in the fact that we are struggling to get players to renew contracts. 

I'm not a huge Mowbray fan and think other managers could do (much) better, but not everything is his fault.

Just last month, Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl was pretty open about how they've been struggling to get players to renew contracts, why he thinks it is happening, and why it is bad for the game.

We should have been more proactive with some of these contract negotiations, but I have no doubt that almost every agent will be telling players to sit tight and test the market.

If that is the case then we are faced with only three real solutions: significantly overpay a player to get him to extend his contract (which is a path we've gone down in recent years and it has never worked out), hope that our players get towards the end of their deals and decide that Rovers are the best place for them, or get promoted and put ourselves in a position where players get what they want (more money and Premier League football) from this club.

The reality is that we, like a lot of other clubs, will lose players on frees. The positive side of things is that we are likely to be able to benefit from players at 'smaller' clubs running down their contracts.

Thanks. 

Understandable, and I know the importance of website speed and first contentful paint for SEO performance, but that's why I think next gen image support and optimised images would help improve user experience and website performance (I'll step back from my CMS marketing arguments).

Again, not a really important one, but the homepage looks great on my phone and very bad on my laptop (using Chrome). 

Not a big issue, but would it be possible to have the banner image on the front page support optimised images so that they look right on any browser/device?

It's constantly out of focus and blurred.

I know how hard you all work on the site, but this seems like an easy fix.

Not strictly Rovers related, but we recently had Brett Johnson on our podcast to talk about the business of football, his groups takeover of Ipswich Town, and the other football clubs that he has investments in.

Really interesting conversation, he came across very well, and I have to admit that it made me a bit jealous of a club having an ownership group that is so open and approachable - stark contrast to what we experience.

We will definitely be having him back on in the future (as well as some other owners), so it would be great to get some feedback and any questions that you might like to be asked in future interviews (we also always appreciate some more subscribers to the show).

8 minutes ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

I wasn't saying otherwise. 

Rovers can trigger the contracts, the players can say they still want to leave. It just means paying a less than committed player for another 12 months.

The only hope is they sign new deals. 

There's no way that any of our players will be 'less committed' next year.

I'm firmly in the Mowbray-out camp and I'm fairly pessimistic about our future, but none of the players in question will have a host of good options for the next move and the current financial climate in football will ensure that every player will want to put on a good show if they're looking for a move.

The contract situation is a mess, but I don't think it will lead to players underperforming. 

and just in case watching is more your thing...

6 hours ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

quite good 'to be fair'😉

It did come up quite a lot...

This might provide a little (or no) distraction, but last week we had John Buckley on our podcast to talk about this season, his career so far, and some other, more random, topics.

We obviously didn't address any of the controversial topics that are floating around at the moment, but there are some interesting little bits of information in there.

I'll post the video of it later on once it is up, but here's the link for Spotify (extra subscribers, ratings, and reviews are always appreciated). 

We will likely have him back on, as well as other Rovers players and other footballers, so let me know any questions or topics you'd like to have asked in the future.

9 hours ago, AllRoverAsia said:

Harvey is a superb young footballer who will in time as in no time at all, grace the PL.

Unless he fires us to promotion this season his benefit to us is ZILCH, ZERO, NOWT and developing our own a better way to grow the Club on the Journey

But as the Journey is a figment of the imagination lets sit back, keep our mouths shut and enjoy developing a Liverpool asset.

So, we should play an inferior player because then we won't go up, but we will get to keep them?

And we should also play a less skilled player because, even if we don't go up, who cares about the pleasure of watching a talented player turn out for your side?

Oh, and we shouldn't bring talented players in on loan because there is no way that they could possibly have an impact on the squad, influence other players, and pass on skills.

And, finally, we shouldn't bring in players on loan because signing good players and showing that moving to Blackburn can be a good career move is in no way a good thing for the club to do and it can have no benefits on future transfers or contract negotiations.

Makes sense.

January isn't THAT important of a deadline. Hotlby may well get some interest from Germany and Nyambe could get some interest from abroad, but I think that would be about it. When you then factor in that they are unlikely to get huge offers I would think that we won't face that much pressure until the end of the season.

That being said, we may not already be at a point where they have all decided that they will test the market. We've already seen this play out with Downing and I'm sure a few of them would find their way back to Rovers even if they did try their luck.

What also has to be factored in here is that the club might be gambling on the possibility that we may go up before we start making serious offers to some of these players. The prospect of promotion might change our interest in a couple of expiring contracts for players that we think are good at this level, but not good enough to make the step up.

There are reasons for both sides to be sitting this one out and I'm not overly concerned...yet.