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    Saturday 4th May 2024
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    Kingpower Stadium
    Championship

Tony Mowbray

steve w

Senior Member
It is harsh. For some reason Mowbray's dour touchline appearance is viewed by some, mainly younger supporters negatively.
And by some older supporters too
He is a manager! and part of that remit is motivation
It's OK to say his experience makes him indifferent but fan's want passion and a show of feelings - good and bad
 

Drog

Administrator
Staff member
I don't and I'm sure that like me fans just want results.
 
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blueandwhitehalves

Senior Member
Personally I think if there was some research done on every manager in English football from the last 20 years, and manager animation on the touchline was plotted against teams performances on the pitch, there'd be no correlation between the 2.

For me a manager's work is done on the training ground, in their office and in the dressing room. Once players take to the pitch, for me all a manager is doing is watching for things to mention at half-time, full time, and maybe during the odd drinks break if there's an injury. And for which subs to make.

In terms of shouting things from the touchline, I really don't think players can hear, or that managers should even be trying to change things at that point, after coming up with a gameplan all week.

Be it Dalglish stood there calmly in his big brown coat, Souness and Hughes mid-way on touchline animation, Allardyce sat in the stand first half, Mowbray expressionless, or JDT with his hands in his pockets mostly expressionless, doesn't affect the score in the slightest IMO. Maybe in amateur football it helps players, but for professionals a manager hopping about is just another fan to go with the other 15,000 they zone out.
 
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Drog

Administrator
Staff member
I bet you weren't saying that in March/April/May 1995!:D
 

steve w

Senior Member
I'm not talking touchline antics - they generally just look foolish
It was his whole demeanor - He looked and sounded like a man who hated his job - and as a Rovers fan - I found that annoying
As for post Fulham debacle!! i would have sacked him that night for his total lack of respect for the club and the fans!
 

Drog

Administrator
Staff member
Hated his job? Who wouldn't on that dreadful night with a mike pushed under their nose soon after? Remember though he then lead em to win 22 points from the next 8 matches of 2021. We got a hammering off Man utd under Big Sam after an otherwise commendable run of matches in the autumn of 2010. The venkys sacked him soon after, replaced him with Brockhall cone carrier Steve Kean and we all now know how that ended!
 

blueandwhitehalves

Senior Member
The Fulham game prompted our best Championship season (at the time) since 2000/01 under Souness. Each to their own but personally I couldn't care less about the odd thrashing, its meaningless in my opinion. When City beat Arsenal 5-0 in 2021 its a good thing they didn't sack Arteta, obviously Man U wouldn't have considered it when City beat them 6-1 at home under Ferguson, Villa beat Liverpool 7-2 with Klopp at the helm.

If a manager is in charge of a club for long enough (and Mowbray managed Rovers 267 games), then a thrashing is practically a mathematical certainty at some point. Not to mention that I worked out all the wage bills for that season and Fulham's was £91m against Rovers' £24m. So to all intents and purposes we were playing a mid-table Premiership team.
 

Drog

Administrator
Staff member
I worked out that if we'd swapped Mitrovic for Gallagher in August we'd be in the Prem the season after!

Anyway careful steve. I'd wait until after Saturday before I criticise a manager whose team suffered an occasional thrashing.;)
 

Drog

Administrator
Staff member
Really? I couldn't sleep properly and was waking up at 4/5 O'clock most days.
 

Husky

Senior Member
Is he STILL there?

Fans on the Sunderland forums are slagging Moobs off way more than fans did on Rovers forums and he's only been there a couple of days in comparison.
 

Old Darwen Blue

Prediction Champion 2021, 2022 & 2023
Is he STILL there?

Fans on the Sunderland forums are slagging Moobs off way more than fans did on Rovers forums and he's only been there a couple of days in comparison.
He was sacked last week.
 

Drog

Administrator
Staff member
Ridiculous action given their position in the table, limited spending power and a team of youngsters. Mind you our owners did the same too.
 

steve w

Senior Member
Ridiculous action given their position in the table, limited spending power and a team of youngsters. Mind you our owners did the same too.
They didnt!!
They just didnt offer him a new contract - has it ever crossed your mind he wanted more than they were willing to pay?

Both TM and Waggot were supposed to go that summer - SW is still here - maybe he didnt ask for a pay rise?
He wasnt sacked!
 

blueandwhitehalves

Senior Member
No respectable club in football gives a manager who's been there for 4 years a rolling contract based on making the play-offs.

Why should Mowbray, who's stock was high with everyone in the football world (other than Rovers fans) for promoting Rovers and establishing us as a solid Championship club, accept being treated like that?

I'd have screwed it up and threw it in Venkys face too. What Venkys did is exactly how you'd treat someone who you wanted to sack, but wanted to make it look like they've resigned.

They and we are extremely lucky they found someone as good as Mowbray. I'm yet to be convinced JDT is any better, and we could easily have ended up with someone worse. So I hope they don't treat the next good manager we get like that once they get bored.
 

goozburger.

Senior Member
What Venkys did is exactly how you'd treat someone who you wanted to sack, but wanted to make it look like they've resigned.
I thought it came directly from Mowbray that he hadn't been offered anything during his last year.

When we picked up Mowbray, it was a somewhat puzzling appointment to me. He had 1 win in 10 at Coventry and didn't do much with the biggest club in Scotland. His stock was fairly low, and I think it's just by pure chance that he was a decent fit for where we were at the time. I don't really think much more or less of him beyond that.

I think the interesting bit is that the Sunderland fans seem to sum him up in the same way that we generally did. Really nice bloke. Seemingly honest and integral. Not great, tactically. Just a solid Championship manager which, arguably, you could say is no more or less than either club deserve.
 

blueandwhitehalves

Senior Member
Yeah thats true, I just saw that as Venkys effectively turning his original contract into a rolling one. As in, we'll offer you something if you get us a good finish. Players and managers can't operate well under those circumstances, and its not how you treat a guy who's been with you for 4 years and won a promotion.

I agree I was extremely sceptical when we went for him. I thought he was another Coyle, a success at his first major club in management, and then downhill from there. But I'm a big believer in changing my mind when the facts change, and specifically in judging managers on:
1. Results - Mowbray's 40.5% win rate over his 267 games is very decent.
2. Finishing position vs wage bill - when I did that thread for all Championship clubs in 2021/22 on this, Rovers finishing 8th with the 13th highest wage bill was one of the best over-achievements in the league.
3. State of the club when a manager joined vs state when he left - On Championship status, academy success, and club stability, I think Mowbray helped improve things massively.

The one thing I would say is that size-wise Sunderland are a PL club whereas Rovers aren't. So I think they should have given Mowbray more time, but he'd have know what was expected of him there eventually.
 

Drog

Administrator
Staff member
He did a bloody great job from the shambolic set up he took over. Lambert and Coyle were about as bad as it gets. Mowbray got a disgracefully unfit squad fit for purpose both physically and mentally enough to win promotion at the first attempt and his tenure here left JDT a wonderful legacy of academy talent.
Since 1958 fans have desired a productive youth set up churning out first team replacements. We finally got one and then binned him off. I prefer to think that yet again it was the venkys showing their ignorance of football matters and the way football works. Dour? Glum? Boring or not, so many big clubs would not have trusted sending the likes of Tosin, Elliot, Van Hecke, Harwood-Bellis, Morton, Hill, Moran, Reed, Branthwaite etc here to develop and learn if this club were not run in a suitable manner by a suitable manager with proper football methods and values would they?
 

Old Darwen Blue

Prediction Champion 2021, 2022 & 2023
Tony did well for us but he would never have got us promoted. Nobody can say he wasn’t given time though, it’s rare these days a manager gets five years. JDT is far more promising and at least goes to watch the academy games.
 
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