Eddie

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

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.

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.

Was subjective your word of the week?

It's not semantics, words have meanings. You're basically saying that we've had 4 'great' managers in the past 25 years? Great should be reserved for managers that do great things over a sustained period of time, not simply for managers that have good to very good seasons every now and then. Mowbray has been decent in his time here so far. If he manages to get us into the playoffs then I would consider that to be a very good turnaround from the club that he took charge of. As of yet he has failed to do this. By your definition of great there would be 20-30 'great' managers in the football league at all times. That takes all meaning away from the word.

I've had my moments doubting Mowbray, but have mostly been in the 'back him' camp, but to call him a great manager is ridiculous. That isn't a knock on what he's done here or his career, but great has to be reserved for managers that are genuinely...great...

With throw-ins also making the news after the North London derby at the weekend. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lazy-incompetent-and-a-failure-to-accept-responsibility-how-one-throw-in-sums-up-the-malaise-at-arsenal-ndv9vznrj

It's been a long time since I've really had any confidence in any of our set pieces (and I'll include throw-ins in that mix).

Over the past few months, we've spent more and more time discussing Mowbray's preferred formation, tactics, and set-up. So I thought it might be interesting to post an interview that we just did with Thomas Gronnemark, a freelance throw-ins coach that currently works with Liverpool and a number of other European clubs. It was really interesting to talk to him about how undervalued throw-ins are, what makes a good throw-in, and his career in general. He spoke about working with the likes of Brentford in the Championship, but it might be something that a club like us should think about in the near future. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2qiXtfqsvV3dOj3iTu4F2b?si=_R9ztrxCQJyF3Alc-ZIPFg

The answer is clearly yes. Anyone saying otherwise is delusional. The real question is - given the player development, the budget available, and the squad that he has had at his disposal for the last two or three seasons - should we be closer to going up.

I can't really speak for the Brazilian or German press as anything I read would be translated and taken from an outsider's perspective, but I can tell you that the French press are decidedly kinder. Now, they've also won 2 World Cups and a Euros in the past 20 odds years, as well as losing a final in each competition, so any criticism would have to be against that backdrop, but they are generally far more forgiving - and they've had a lot to forgive (the 2002 debacle, the 2010 debacle, losing a final to Portugal at home when overwhelming favourites). I would say that manager's in those countries are typically given much longer as well. Southgate faces the reality of knowing that his position is very-much judged tournament to tournament. Anything short of a quarterfinal appearance (no matter the side that knocked them out) would certainly see him go and even a quarterfinal appearance might not be good enough Now, one could hope for managers that care little about their own careers and instead want to go down shooting playing the football that they like, but that can't realistically be expected from someone who will probably view this as one of their dream jobs. Many managers would probably opt for a more defensive approach that they thought would limit risk and reduce matches to moments of luck, brilliance, or incompetence and hope that they faired the better. No one can doubt that Southgate has turned England into a side that will consistently beat sides when they are clearly the more talented - tonight proves that and the only real blips in that regard have been, crucially for him, probably in his biggest moments (the World Cup and Nations League semis). I have my fingers crossed that he will embrace a more attacking approach in the summer and be won over by the young, aggressive, pacey side that this England team could be. I won't be holding my breath.

This is a fair point. I don't want to overstate the impact of the press (and the supporters) on the performances of the England team, but it is fair to say that the constant scrutiny and level of negativity cannot help. Southgate is too negative in his style of play, but, overall, the England team has performed fairly well under his management. He will ultimately be judged by the Euros, but I can't imagine how England supporters would be reacting if England were losing matches in the style that France or Germany are at the moment.

It was a gamble. We decided that it was worth taking the chance on a player with obvious talents. Clearly the risks were his attitude and his injury problems and neither has improved. We can't slate Mowbray for that. I would encourage him to take similar risks in the future and one or two of them will pay off.

I never care much about reviews from old clubs. There are plenty of players that we've sold who would have had bad reviews but then went on to better things. Equally, there have been plenty of players who would have left with rave reviews, but who then went on to be flops. He should be judged on what he does once he starts here, not on what some Belgians on Twitter think.

I'll also apologise in advance for my lack of knowledge when it came to Roy Wegerle.

So, going to shamelessly plug one of my own projects, but recently started a new podcast with a couple of colleagues and I thought I would just see if it might interest a few of you. For now, it's a light discussion on a range of sports (football, NFL, NBA, horse racing...just about everything), but we'll be expanding into some decent interviews in the future. You can give episode 1 a skip as we had some sound issues and it should get better over time, but the first 3 episodes are already out. Happy if you give it a listen and subscribe. Available Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/the-big-chill-podcast/id1525439798?l=en Or on all devices here: https://thebigchillpodcast.podbean.com/ We'll be on Spotify after another 2 episodes. Thank you if you do listen and share.

We can't be overly dramatic. We had chances to take the lead in both matches, especially the Barnsley match, and it is clear that we will pick up points over the remainder of the season. We certainly deserved at least a point or two from the last two fixtures, but that isn't me trying to ignore how bad the performances were in the context of us having a realistic chance at making the playoffs. But we look irrational if we start saying that we aren't even a competent Championship club when we end up finishing 9th-12th and a few points off of the playoffs - especially when considering the fact that one of the teams that just beat us has just gone into administration and will surely go down.

It's a bit harsh to say that when we are comfortably midtable.

I have officially moved to the Mowbray-out camp. The tinkering with the side in the past two games and the baffling approach to tactics in must-win situations has just been too much for me. We need someone new in this summer. It wont happen, but we need it.

I think Hart would be great. He's definitely a good enough keeper to be an improvement and he will bring in a wealth of experience and the chance to have a genuine leader at the back - something that we haven't had since Robinson (at best). It all depends on his attitude, but if he sees this as an opportunity to come back and prove himself then it is just the type of thing we should be going after.

We had 3 very good chances to score before they took the lead - to not take 1 of 3 very good chances is just inexcusable. I'm as despondent tonight as I have been in a while. We all sort of knew it was coming, but to completely blow any chance of promotion against two bottom-half teams, albeit it two bottom-half teams in relative form, is just not good enough. We lack quality out wide and we lack leadership all over the pitch. We've several players away from being good enough for promotion, but it isn't an impossible task in a single-window if we approach it wisely and don't make the mistake of signing a player like Gallagher who addresses none of our problems and doesn't really fit into our approach. Season over. Play the youngsters from here on out and see if they can step up. If one or two of them can really impress over the next few games it could drastically change how we approach this summer.

3 out of 6 isn't great? Please name a manager with over a 50% strike rate on signings. And I'm not implying that two thirds can be duds, just simply not signings that you would classify as good. Johnson hasn't been a dud, but I wouldn't call him a good signing yet. Big difference between a good signing and a failure. To use your squad analysis approach. If we assume that our squad of 23 players can be supplemented by about 6 homegrown players, say 2 of which are good enough to start (basically the position that we are in now), it then requires that we have 17 other players, 9 of whom are good enough to start. Now, you can't do a perfect analysis of squad building as you're not starting from scratch at any point, but I would be perfectly happy with any manager who signed 3 players, one of who was considered a good starter, one a good squad player, and the other a player who will not make it. That's not fantastic, but as a general rule of thumb, I'm fine with that. The challenge then becomes applying another 1/3 rule to those starters and squad players. I'd want to see a further 1/3 of the players that are good enough to start developing into 'star' players and a further 1/3 of those squad players developing into players who genuinely challenge for places in the first team. We're not able to go out and sign £50m finished products, but if I wouldn't be overly critical of any manager who hit that sort of ratio over a longterm basis. You might have the odd window where everything is great or where everything is awful, but you have to view things over an extended period of time.

It's a lot easier to do good transfer business when you are at a huge club spending huge money. There are generally not as many unknowns when signing a player for 20m+ as there are when signing a player for 10m or less. As for Klopp's record, it's pretty good, but there are still some duds in there. How many would pay £50m for Keita now? Even £35m for Oxlade-Chamberlain is questionable. £30m for Benteke? He's done well and he's had some key moves work out really well, but, for the most part, they haven't been cheap. Again, it's all balanced out by the fact that he could sell Salah, Robertson, Mane, etc. for far more than he paid for them - even given some of their relatively high transfer fees, but you'd have to expect that there will be a lot of failures in there. The reality is that 1 star player is worth failing on 2/3 other transfers. Mowbray has hit on just enough of his transfers to call his approach a success. Dack is an overwhelming success. Armstrong a very good signing. Downing very good (although there won't be a profit there). There are then a number of players who may develop into being seen as good signings (the likes of Holtby, Rothwell, and Samuel, for example). And even Tosin justifies our approach in the loan market.