Tony Mowbray: 'We'll see where the Rovers journey takes us'

Mowbray reaches 200 games in charge at QPR today, will mark four years in charge later this month, and now only five Rovers managers have taken charge of more post-war games.

Equally, this is Mowbray’s longest spell at any club, in terms of both games and years, but he says he looks to manage them in much the same way.

And he hopes those methods are enough to guide Rovers back into the top flight.

“I go in and I try and create a culture, an environment where people want to come to work, a culture with values, honesty, integrity, humility and I try and drive that with the staff, the players,” Mowbray said.

“They come with a smile on their face and ultimately it’s all driven by results, good players win you games. I don’t think of this job any different from West Brom or Middlesbrough, we had great times.

“At Middlesbrough we won eight away games in a row, top at Christmas for two years on the bounce, so great times, but they come to an end because you have a bad run.”

More than half the sides in the Championship have a manager less than a year into his job, with only Paul Warne (Rotherham United) and Gareth Ainsworth (Wycombe) able to boast greater longevity than the Rovers boss.

Mowbray believes pressure from fans, and the role of social media, can impact the decisions made by executives at clubs, but he has enjoyed unanimous backing from the club's hierarchy during his time in charge, not least in the period post-relegation in 2017.

He signed a long-term deal in December 2018 through to 2022, but only has eyes on one objective, and knows only results are what have allowed for such stability.

“The journey at this club will end at some stage, it won’t stop in my mind until we either get to the Premier League and see what the club want to do, or we don’t get to the Premier League and we see what the club want to do,” he explained.

“Let’s just keep going, at this moment we’re trying to get a bit of momentum, go to QPR and get another win and then we’re into another home game and let’s see if we can turn four games (unbeaten) into six games, into eight games, into 10 games and all of a sudden you’ve given yourself a real chance.”

Rovers were at a particularly low ebb when Mowbray took charge, not least their league position, sitting second bottom of the division.

In the two months leading up to his arrival, supporters had three times held protests against the ownership, though Mowbray’s arrival, and subsequent longevity, has provided the stability the club craved, even after the dark hours of relegation from the Championship.

His mantra has been for year on year improvement, Rovers finishing 15th and 11th in the last two seasons, and now making a concerted push for the top six.

“I’ve said a lot that we’re on a journey. When I got here we were second bottom, we had 15 games to try and stay in the division and unfortunately on that last day, despite a win at Brentford, we didn’t manage it,” Mowbray continued.

“From then it’s been a journey back. We managed to get ourselves out of League One at the first attempt and now we’ve had two seasons of consolidation and now we feel really comfortable in the division to a point where our expectation is to try and get out of this division.”

That’s not to say there haven’t been, and won’t be in the future, difficulties.

Indeed, there was growing discontent when Rovers went on a run of just one win in 11 matches in early 2019, while a poor end to 2020 also saw criticism labelled at the manager and questions about the progress being made.

Mowbray has been in management long enough to know that is only natural, but he maintains a play-off spot is within their grasp with the squad he’s built over the course of his stewardship.

He added: “While everyone has been inconsistent this season, us included, we’re still in with a chance, of the coat-tails of the top six.

“When I look at the squad we inherited to the squad now I think there’s a lot of value in that squad, young, talented footballers, who are hungry and all want to try and get to the Premier League and that’s our ambition.

“It’s a journey that we’re on and we’ll see where it takes us. I fully understand a few weeks ago there was a bit of unrest because we’re not winning every game, then you win a few on the bounce and things seem to calm down but if we lose the next few everyone will be moaning again. That’s football. It’s where we are. We keep going and try and win the next one.”

While there has been a period of consolidation in the last two seasons, there were clear and defined aims for Mowbray in the early stages of his job.

Replacing Owen Coyle in February 2017, his sole aim was to try and keep Rovers in the division.

Despite 22 points from the final 15 games, and victories in their final two matches, that wasn’t enough to keep them in the division.

With the universal backing of supporters, Mowbray was given the opportunity of leading the assault on an immediate promotion, one he secured with two games to go.

“Whenever you’re a football manager, when you come into a job generally it’s off the back of some bad results and you have to change the mentality,” Mowbray said of his first months in the job.

“It was a bit different because after those 15 games we had to have a mentality where we weren’t going to be hanging around in League One.

“It’s hard to get out of League One, everyone might think it’s a terrible league, but it’s not easy going to some of those grounds and grind out results because there’s a lot of pride and players who work hard for their money and we did exceptionally well.

“I was fortunate in that we could keep the likes of Graham, Bennett, Mulgrew and sign Dack, players who took the league on and did exceptionally well.

“I expected to get out of League One.”