With Tony Mowbray reaching 1,000 days in charge at Ewood Park this week, three fans give their verdict on the manager’s time at Ewood Park...

 

TONY is a pleasant, hardworking individual, committed to his job and well aware of his team’s importance to the local community. He expresses himself well but actually says very little. He believes in integrity and honesty which he communicates to his charges.

He started his role at Blackburn impressively, almost staving off relegation and then achieving promotion the following season.

Since then his performance has been inconsistent with dubious transfer dealings and a seeming inability to problem solve in respect of poor results.

Currently he appears to have let Rovers’ defeats affect his personality and needs lifting from an air of gloom.

The next month will dictate whether we should continue his employment.

Paul Yates

 

IN my time as a supporter I’d cite a few managers as having true impact at Blackburn Rovers.

Don McKay took the team from the depths of the second tier to successive play offs but couldn’t quite make the step up.

Graeme Souness brought excitement and promise with promotion to the Premier League but didn’t have the tactical awareness to take us further.

Mark Hughes established us as a competitive Premiership outfit but couldn’t break us into the elite.

Gary Bowyer brought us stability and sense in a very uncertain time but arguably underachieved with a talented squad (that he assembled albeit).

Tony Parkes filled in well in-between but was never going to be the main act and Kenny Dalglish took us to the very top, but couldn’t keep us there. 

Tony Mowbray stopped a perilous decline, brought sense to a club that lost its identity and built a squad that could challenge for greater things. 

The task he faced was not without considerable challenge and the role he took up was not fancied.

He rebuilt the club and restored pride, purpose and potential.

Blackburn Rovers have a lot to thank him for and I just hope he overcomes this testing time, but whatever the future for Mowbray, he certainly has my appreciation and recognition.

Kelvin Wilkins

 

UNTIL recently I’m fairly certain that most Rovers fans would have nothing but positive things to say about the job Mowbray has done. 

It’s no secret that he came to the club at a time when we were in severe turmoil. The appointment of Owen Coyle had left many fans disillusioned. Mowbray has certainly played a massive part in tackling that.

The promotion season for a younger fan like myself will live long in the memory. I also don’t think we put on a bad showing last season either. The run from February to March obviously wasn’t great but overall it was a decent return to the Championship.

This season expectations amplified and thus far we haven’t matched them.

Questions can be asked as to whether we expected too much, but as football fans I’d argue it’s out right to have high expectations of our club.

As a fan base our patience may be running thin due to current form, but there’s no doubt that Tony Mowbray has had massively positive impact on a club that we all love.

Tom Schofield