Sorry but maybe it's time for a change

[robinrover]

I have purposely waited until this morning to post as yesterday I would of wrote a far more savage post.
Saturday off,so made the trip to Rotherham settled in with the brother in law
I was convinced this would be the game to turn the corner after the battling if not a little disappointing result against Brum
Boy was I wrong
We didn't look great at all
Rotherham threw everything they had to the lumps up top and our fragile defence couldn't cope.
This is a revelation right?Rotherham were never going to lump it up to their forwards it was going to be a pretty passing affair?
Tony Mowbray said in his pre match interview "plenty of long throws and long balls" so why did we look so poor against it?
I like tony Mowbray for what he has done for us but the cracks are getting bigger all momentum is lost,and we are nervously looking over our shoulders
When let's be honest we were very comfortable,just over a month ago.
What's worse than all this I have spotted him getting more than a little annoyed with a couple of players.
His outburst with raya at full time was spotted by quite a few of us.
Now is the dressing room starting to turn or is it truly a awful run?
Time is running out for tony Mowbray sad as that sounds,but we are going backwards and the more momentum lost this season the harder the job next season to build on what should be a play off push.
Is tony that man?
Sorry aucks sorry despair but no he isn't.

[Despair]

Robin , no need at all for any apology.
Take another look at my response to Champs some short while back ie TM is no footballing messiah. All managers live and die by results. They are all paid handsomely for the allotted task in hand. No manager i am aware of has got everything right. As much as you can when trying to gel a solid squad, it doesnt always continue un a-baited.
As with all managers , when your charges are not performing up to what you believe is their capability of course there is only so much stuff you can hold inside, without it causing personal damage to your wellbeing.
So here we are with the question of just ehen do Venkys make a call on TM retain or release ???

[test]

Not one for sacking Tony as he has overachieved this season in my opinion, many of the team had not played at this level before and have done reasonably well until recently.At the beginning of the season I would have settled for staying up and that is what we will do.
The manager has done a good job, he has healed the rift between the fans, calmed the Venkies down, made some good signings and formed a good management team. The form will pick up again I am sure.

[AucklandRover]

I'm 100% with Test on this.
When TM was appointed, I was lukewarm. His record didn't inspire, and I expected him to have a "dour" footballing philosophy.
This has not proven to be the case. He comes across as a dedicated, thinking manager, and he is the best one I have experienced at trying to include fans in what he is trying to do.
Has he made mistakes? Of course - they all do. However, some of these are much easier to comment on in retrospect. Have the supporters who are now moaning about the release of Downing forgotten that this was the man many of them described as a D.1 workhorse, and no more, a few months ago?
Has Mowbray been too loyal? Probably, but he wanted to give this squad a chance to see what they could do, a Division up. Again, there is some hypocrisy involved. At the end of January, how many people were saying the squad wasn't good enough? Some vague memory tells me that there were posts talking about play-off possibilities!
What I want to know is, do people believe TM took a "bad manager" pill in the week between the Hull and Brentford matches?
This is football, for God's sake - it's not a predictable piece of program-code for a computer! Look at Derby. They have an expensive and classy squad, but have taken one point from their last twelve.
We are NOT going to be relegated. Our D.1 squad has taken us as far as it can. Mowbray acknowledges this. Should he have done something about it in the last window. Once more, probably yes, but Lenihan's injury was an unpredictable factor that has hit us much more severely than we might have expected. Mulgrew and Rodwell still look comfortable on the ball, but they are too similar and lack the traditional, more basic qualities of the "stopper" centre-back. Looking back, Leutwiler's extra height might have been very useful against Rotherham. I watched the highlights again, and their guy who scored the two goals appears to be almost a head taller than any of our players! Easy to be wise after the event, however.
On the Telegraph site, the same posters who have panned Mowbray for giving Brereton a chance are now calling for the inclusion of three or four untried Under-23s. Go figure!
If we kick Mowbray out now, we will be ignoring, as Test says, all that he has done to restore dignity and credibility to the Club. Of course he will go if we start next season badly. That is the nature of the job.
But, come on!! Doesn't he at least deserve another transfer-window.
Put your knee-jerk reactions away and look at the big picture.
Finally, before I finish my rant, let me return to my hobby-horse - the one that has annoyed Saxo so much over the years: it is not all down to the manager, anyway. When you were playing, if you had been one of those involved in the "after you with the teapot, Vicar" incident (between Bell and Raya), would you have argued that your hesitation was caused by poor management? Just imagine it: "Well, Dave, I definitely wouldn't have left that ball to you if we had a better manager."
Utter nonsense. (And, incidentally, has Roy Hodgson now become a "good" manager again? What about Ranieri? He's clearly been sharing the "bad manager pills" with TM).
Now I can go and sit in the sun and do some deep breathing.

[Despair]

My view is as per Aucks and Test.
However my concern is, as it always has been, the response from the support.
Given that the belief and surge in support has not been IMO to the level that Venkys will have hoped for, this during the resurgent time. Now during this downturn and testing time, question marks will inevitably arise if we simply ‘scrape through’ in retaining Champs status.
There can be no question there will be a post season assessment upon the overall campaign and with that ; plans, hopes and aspirations for the next.
Will Venkys keep faith with TM in not only retaining what is the current level of support, but enhancing it by some margin. This would take a surge in performance to put us firmly in top six IMO in order to stand any chance of bringing about the significant increase in support that they need.
Hence my final comment in earlier reply, not necessarily my opinion of what should happen. As I hold no firm belief whether this is in TM’s abilities or not . Suffice to say I would dearly wish it is.

[robinrover]

Look I am not playing down what Mowbray has achieved for us
We were a absolute shell when he took over and almost kept us up
Kept the core,and we bounced back
We have done brilliantly up to February
Something has gone very wrong at the club
Players are pointing the finger at each other and the manager is saying the same things.
Something needs to change soon otherwise we will be involved in a relegation fight
On our form 11 points will disappear
24th in the form table,speaks volumes.

[champs95]

Look, all the comments and opinions are all good and well, and but you simply cant ignore the fact we are turning out almost every week, and are losing games. We aren't safe yet, and could actually go down. The fact we are even now talking about relegation is actually disgraceful. Rotherham aren't nearly as good as us. And have spent a fraction of what we have. But they are improving. Ok, it might not be enough to keep them up. But they are improving. We are getting worse every week that passes. While the past 18 months has been good, that will all get forgotten the more we lose football matches.
What happened in the past, happened in the past. Venky's trust the guy. And he has done a tremendous job behind the scenes, and kept us competitive on the pitch. Up top a point. That severely stopped in Jan. We are no longer competitive on the pitch. What the Venky's wont do is, just sit and let us fall into mid-table mediocracy. They need a return on their investment. We needed to build this season, and push on and at least try to go for promotion next. Players have thrown in the towel and someone is to blame for that! And TM just repeats the same things in his interviews. To me is a man right now without any kind of an answer to the problems.

He would need to buy almost a new team to do that, we are absolutely miles away from being good enough. And the quality of the division is quite poor. None of the teams going up this season will last 2 mins in the Prem unless they spend well over £100m. We could not do that with such pathetic crowds. The club is going nowhere, the town is going nowhere and the manager will not be the one to take them onto a new level. If they are happy to just tread water for a few seasons, and finish lower half mid-table for a while, then stick with TM. But they won't be heading upwards under him.

What I would not trust him with now is building a whole new team. Unless he knows exactly who he wants and needs. You'd think he would know now who he can depend on? After 2 years in the job.
He clearly doesn't, as he keeps changing the team every week. Which just isn't helping at all.

[champs95]

The big picture is Venky's are owed £125m debt. They brought in a guy who is the first one that has actually performed well. And has put in a plan of action. But the next crucial step was always go and try get up, into the Prem. Be it next season, or the one after. Its clear we are absolutely miles away. And if we keep losing games week after week, he wont be here for any of it, as he will be sacked. No manager is too good for that! No matter how well he balances the books.
If we hadn't have put up the white hanky in Feb then we could have had an ok end to the season, and started bedding in a few younger lads. Instead we are in for a rough end to the season, and nobody can see where our next win is coming from? No doubt it will happen at some point, but its not looking likely.

[test]

The Manager of the Month curse has struck again.

[AucklandRover]

The big picture is Venky's are owed £125m debt. They brought in a guy who is the first one that has actually performed well. And has put in a plan of action. But the next crucial step was always go and try get up, into the Prem. Be it next season, or the one after. Its clear we are absolutely miles away. And if we keep losing games week after week, he wont be here for any of it, as he will be sacked. No manager is too good for that! No matter how well he balances the books.
If we hadn't have put up the white hanky in Feb then we could have had an ok end to the season, and started bedding in a few younger lads. Instead we are in for a rough end to the season, and nobody can see where our next win is coming from? No doubt it will happen at some point, but its not looking likely.

But, Champs, if the PL is all that matters, where we are now is just the same as being beaten in the play-off final. We would still be in the Championship (where - as you know - I think we belong).
You say we are "miles away" from any chance of challenging. Really? We have picked up one point from 18, and we are still only ten points from a play-off place.
Six weeks ago, you were telling us we were negative for not believing that we were on a run that would take us to the top-six. Now, everything is a disaster, and Mowbray is hopeless.
Despair and I predicted 14th place. That still seems to me a realistic target.
The current players are running out of steam, and we clearly need an input of new blood, just as Mowbray has been saying this week. Who's to say what impact that will have next season? I don't know, but I never claim to, because I have been watching football for so long that I accept predictions are little more than guesswork.
In my eyes, Derby were hot favourites for promotion. Now they are struggling a bit, but they might still come good. That's the point: teams' fortunes often change dramatically for no obvious reason. Look at Burnley. They couldn't buy a win until the New Year. Then they had an excellent run. Suddenly? A bit pear-shaped again.
We won't necessarily lose our next few matches because we've done so badly recently. Obviously, confidence is low, which is always a negative factor, but all it takes, sometimes, is a stroke of luck - an own goal, a deflection, etc.
Looking back at Saturday, how did Mowbray's corner not go in? The ball seemed to defy the laws of physics. If it had, who knows?
That's my point, really. Blaming a manager every time something goes wrong is just cheap, convenient and lazy.
I can't believe you've turned on Mowbray so quickly. There is always so much more involved than the input of one man. As I said, is Ranieri a "bad" manager now? What about Hodgson? Most Rovers fans don't think much of him, but what would happen if you asked Palace fans at the moment? Alex Neil is another with a yo-yo career. In fact, the majority are the same!
By the way, which of the miracle-workers do you have in mind as a replacement?
I am stoical by nature, but I am also realistic. By the standards you are imposing, there are only three successful Championship teams a year. I think that's nonsense. I am quite happy to survive this season. Then I will observe, with interest, who Mowbray brings in, and how he begins to utilise the best of our Under-23s.
To be honest, I wouldn't watch football at all if losing and/or disappointment made me as angry as it appears to make some people. If that's the way you react, you are on a hiding to nothing as a football supporter...unless you follow Man. City!