Tony Mowbray

[lucky]

Tony is back in football. He's taken on the poison chalice that is Blackburn Rovers

http://www.skysports.com/share/10777487

[J-C]

TBH Blackburn didn't play that badly against Man U in the cup, if they can start replicating that type of form, they may well survive.

[Billy Whizz]

Tony is back in football. He's taken on the poison chalice that is Blackburn Rovers

http://www.skysports.com/share/10777487

Think he's failed at nearly every club except Hibs

[High-On-Hibs]

Not a bad place to reboot his career. Although he was a bit of a twat towards us as a Celtic manager, still wish him the best of luck. Gave us some great performances and results (as well as some absolute shockers).

[Scottie]

Think he's failed at nearly every club except Hibs
Similar to Terry Butcheresq :agree:

These failed managers always seem to get other jobs.

[Salt N Sauzee]

Think he's failed at nearly every club except Hibs

Got WBA into the Premier League and a FA Cup Semi Final, wouldn't say that's exactly a failure.

He done ok at Coventry too considering their circumstances.

Think his time at Celtic & Middlesbrough could be considered failures in fairness.

So all in all, he failed at HALF the clubs he's been at since Hibs :greengrin

[Salt N Sauzee]

Similar to Terry Butcheresq :agree:

These failed managers always seem to get other jobs.

Harsh!

[Rattler]

Tin hat firmly on here....

But I'd compare Mowbray to Stubbs actually.

[FC Leige]

Think he's failed at nearly every club except Hibs And only because he inherited the best crop of youngsters in a generation. Even then he got hammered in Europe in round one and took a tanking of the uglies in a Hampden semi

[Deansy]

Tin hat firmly on here....

But I'd compare Mowbray to Stubbs actually.


The Tin-hat's a good idea ........................

[Waxy]

Tin hat firmly on here....

But I'd compare Mowbray to Stubbs actually.
Boing

[21sMay]

Mowbray signed some great players - Murphy,boost,zemmama,Benji Jones and sproule . Be added these players to a very good bunch of youngsters , so to br fair even though he inherited the golden generation , he still added great players

[Smartie]

Tin hat firmly on here....

But I'd compare Mowbray to Stubbs actually.

Very reasonable comparison. The players seemed to relate well to both of them and have similar relationships with them both.

The starting positions for both were different - Mowbray inherited a talented crop of youngsters in the top league and was set up to succeed, albeit in the same league as Celtic and cheating Rangers and Hearts sides. Stubbs inherited the football equivalent of ground zero and did brilliantly to first give us a bit of pride back and second, get his hands on the holy grail.

I liked Mowbray's team and I enjoyed the football we played under him, as with Stubbs.

Mowbray was a twat at Celtic but he's allowed the odd aberration.

I warmed to him as a manager, I tended to like him during interviews and understood where he was coming from unlike some of his successors.

I wish him well.

[Pretty Boy]

And only because he inherited the best crop of youngsters in a generation. Even then he got hammered in Europe in round one and took a tanking of the uglies in a Hampden semi

How well did Bobby Williamson do with that groupnof youngsters? Mowbray turned them from a pretty crap team to watch into a 3rd placed side in one pre season.

[Is It On....]

Think he's failed at nearly every club except Hibs

West Bromwich was ok...but not great since..

[Weir07]

Very reasonable comparison. The players seemed to relate well to both of them and have similar relationships with them both.

The starting positions for both were different - Mowbray inherited a talented crop of youngsters in the top league and was set up to succeed, albeit in the same league as Celtic and cheating Rangers and Hearts sides. Stubbs inherited the football equivalent of ground zero and did brilliantly to first give us a bit of pride back and second, get his hands on the holy grail.

I liked Mowbray's team and I enjoyed the football we played under him, as with Stubbs.

Mowbray was a twat at Celtic but he's allowed the odd aberration.

I warmed to him as a manager, I tended to like him during interviews and understood where he was coming from unlike some of his successors.

I wish him well.


Yep, I agree, can see real similarities between Stubbs and Mowbray, the two managers I've liked the best since I've supported Hibs seriously since the mid 80's.

Each to their own but i don't really get the criticism of Mowbray (and indeed Stubbs), thought he gave the fans a fantastic team to watch, had a real eye for a player and also came across as a complete gentleman. To all those who say he had the golden generation, so did Williamson and his teams were terrible to watch.

[superfurryhibby]

Think he's failed at nearly every club except Hibs

Play off 1st season at West Brom

Championship winners second season and FA Cup semi

Relegated 3rd season at West Brom.

Went to Middlesboro they were 22nd in the championship, took them to 12th in the same season. Season after they missed a play off place by 1 point, finishing 7th. Next season he left in Oct when he went to Celtic

Celtic was a poor one for him.

Coventry, kept the in League 2. Relegation seemed likely when appointed.

Not really falied anywhere, except Celtic.

[Smartie]

How well did Bobby Williamson do with that groupnof youngsters? Mowbray turned them from a pretty crap team to watch into a 3rd placed side in one pre season.

My opinion of Williamson has eased a bit over the years, although I admit I wasn't mad on him at the time.

He blooded the youngsters at a young age and gave them the chance to learn their trade. They had a few rough edges and he helped knock them off, reducing our wage bill whilst never really being in any danger of getting relegated.

Williamson's biggest achievement was the legacy he left for Mowbray which was a pretty good one.

How many Hibs managers have inherited as good and promising a situation as Mowbray did?

[Pretty Boy]

My opinion of Williamson has eased a bit over the years, although I admit I wasn't mad on him at the time.

He blooded the youngsters at a young age and gave them the chance to learn their trade. They had a few rough edges and he helped knock them off, reducing our wage bill whilst never really being in any danger of getting relegated.

Williamson's biggest achievement was the legacy he left for Mowbray which was a pretty good one.

How many Hibs managers have inherited as good and promising a situation as Mowbray did?

I was never someone who hated Williamson. He had a tough job and arguably saved us from relegation in the Sauzee season. I'd also accept that his job was made harder by the slashing of the budget.

However I question whether he would have had the ability to coax the team into 3rd place in the way Mowbray did. Mowbray undoubtedly inherited a good crop of players, better than any other recent manager, but I often feel this is, unfairly, used as a stick to beat him. Personally I think he deserves praise for the style he stanped upon that team, the players he brought in to compliment the players he injerited and the improvements he oversaw in a few of the players, most notably Garry O'Connor.

[FC Leige]

How well did Bobby Williamson do with that groupnof youngsters? Mowbray turned them from a pretty crap team to watch into a 3rd placed side in one pre season. BW got them to a cup final. Thats more than Mowbray ever did. It was Williamson who introduced them and got the ball rolling.

[Super_JMcGinn]

Tin hat firmly on here....

But I'd compare Mowbray to Stubbs actually.

I used to hang on his every word, I was actually crying more when he left us than when we won the cup, for diff reasons obviously.

[Smartie]

I was never someone who hated Williamson. He had a tough job and arguably saved us from relegation in the Sauzee season. I'd also accept that his job was made harder by the slashing of the budget.

However I question whether he would have had the ability to coax the team into 3rd place in the way Mowbray did. Mowbray undoubtedly inherited a good crop of players, better than any other recent manager, but I often feel this is, unfairly, used as a stick to beat him. Personally I think he deserves praise for the style he stanped upon that team, the players he brought in to compliment the players he injerited and the improvements he oversaw in a few of the players, most notably Garry O'Connor.

I think that's fair, and I agree.

Williamson probably took that group of players as far as he could take them, and it needed someone else to come in and take them to another level.

Would Calderwood, Butcher, Mixu, Collins or Yogi have been able to pick up where Mowbray did and do as well as he did? I don't think they would, so I agree it is unfair to beat Mowbray with the "he inherited good players" stick, although through of all of our managerial changes he probably did inherit the best situation (or arguably Collins I suppose).

A lot of these players are approaching the end of their careers. I suspect a lot of them will be very grateful to the roles that Williamson, Mowbray and Hibs played in their development.

[Weir07]

I was never someone who hated Williamson. He had a tough job and arguably saved us from relegation in the Sauzee season. I'd also accept that his job was made harder by the slashing of the budget.

However I question whether he would have had the ability to coax the team into 3rd place in the way Mowbray did. Mowbray undoubtedly inherited a good crop of players, better than any other recent manager, but I often feel this is, unfairly, used as a stick to beat him. Personally I think he deserves praise for the style he stanped upon that team, the players he brought in to compliment the players he injerited and the improvements he oversaw in a few of the players, most notably Garry O'Connor.


Think it's a fair point that Williams saved us from relegation (to be honest it was something I'd sort of forgotten), think he had about 12 games or so to save us, seem to remember a 2 or 3 nil win against St Johnstone, that meant we pulled away from trouble. After that first third of a season he had in charge, the style he had us playing was woeful, real eye bleeding stuff, probably worse than the most turgid times under Miller!

[Pretty Boy]

BW got them to a cup final. Thats more than Mowbray ever did. It was Williamson who introduced them and got the ball rolling.

As enjoyable as that cup run was it was ultimately unsuccessful. Bobby Williamson led Hibs for the full 02/03 season and we finished 7th, exited the SC in round 4 and the LC in round 3. He led us the majority of the 03/04 season and we finished 8th with a LC final and a 3rd round SC exit.

By contrast Mowbray led us all of 04/05 to a 3rd place finish, SC semi final and LC quarter final. 05/06 saw a 4th place finish with the same cup results. The following season John Collins won the LC and made the SC semi but lost to soon to be relegated Dunfermilne and only managed 6th in the league.

Mowbray done very well for Hibs.

[jgl07]

Play off 1st season at West Brom

Championship winners second season and FA Cup semi

Relegated 3rd season at West Brom.

Went to Middlesboro they were 22nd in the championship, took them to 12th in the same season. Season after they missed a play off place by 1 point, finishing 7th. Next season he left in Oct when he went to Celtic

Celtic was a poor one for him.

Coventry, kept the in League 2. Relegation seemed likely when appointed.

Not really falied anywhere, except Celtic.
You have your chronology wrong there.

Mowbray went from WBA to Celtic and then to Middlesbrough.

[lucky]

The football played under Mowbray was great but weirdly we are getting bigger crowds under Lennon in the league below

[Smartie]

As enjoyable as that cup run was it was ultimately unsuccessful. Bobby Williamson led Hibs for the full 02/03 season and we finished 7th, exited the SC in round 4 and the LC in round 3. He led us the majority of the 03/04 season and we finished 8th with a LC final and a 3rd round SC exit.

By contrast Mowbray led us all of 04/05 to a 3rd place finish, SC semi final and LC quarter final. 05/06 saw a 4th place finish with the same cup results. The following season John Collins won the LC and made the SC semi but lost to soon to be relegated Dunfermilne and only managed 6th in the league.

Mowbray done very well for Hibs.

I do think that Williamson deserves credit for the cup run though.

Against a backdrop of slashing the bills we put out Celtic in the QFs, Rangers at Hampden in the SFs (at a time when they were spending silly money that they didn't have) and eventually lost to an expensive Livingston side (who they couldn't afford and iirc were even in administration at the time) who had far more experience than our team.

[Rugy07]

I remember meeting a bunch of Plymouth supporters in a pub in London when Williamson was manger for them. They'd just been beaten 5-0 by West Ham and still had a 4 hour journey back home to go. They were really upset that Mowbray was doing so well for us when Williamson was doing so badly for them. I think their chairman had sold Williamson to the fans as some sort of managerial genius. In fact, did we not let him go in some kind of Warburtonesque move where we waived compensation to let him leave?

[Peevemor]

As has been said, Williamson's time at Hibs coincided with a very difficult period for the club. We were knocking on £18m in debt and TV income reduced drastically. Cuts were being made everywhere - eg. Paul Fenwick was sitting in the stand as playing him would have cost too much and Williamson's own wages were cut.

In saying that, some of the football was horrendous. It was during his tenure that, for the first time in my adult life, I missed a match at ER to which I could have gone (Dundee Utd. midweek - it was televised). I simply couldn't be bothered.

[Turkish Green]

What Mowbray achieved at Hibs will always be tainted for me by the SC semi in 2006. Nevertheless, who knows how things would have turned out if he had not gone to WBA in 2007.

[SanFranHibs]

I was never someone who hated Williamson. He had a tough job and arguably saved us from relegation in the Sauzee season. I'd also accept that his job was made harder by the slashing of the budget.

However I question whether he would have had the ability to coax the team into 3rd place in the way Mowbray did. Mowbray undoubtedly inherited a good crop of players, better than any other recent manager, but I often feel this is, unfairly, used as a stick to beat him. Personally I think he deserves praise for the style he stamped upon that team, the players he brought in to compliment the players he inherited and the improvements he oversaw in a few of the players, most notably Garry O'Connor.

I would take it slightly further PB....I have never been so excited watching a Hibs team since he left. Of course we have put in a few memorable performances, maybe even as recently as last year :wink: , but overall his team played football like I want Hibs to play. Every game? Of course not. Taken from a Guardian article..
A year into the task of revitalising Middlesbrough, Tony Mowbray has made them fun to watch with Premier League potential . And that article mentions that whilst achieving this he was forced to slash the budget by 40% and sell 2 of his star players. Mind you the same article reads that he has increased the number of clean sheets by the Boro defence. He must have learned that after he left Hibs :greengrin Maybe I am just getting sentimental but I am sure we would have had more development players in our first team, especially in this division, under Mowbray. We seemed to have lost our way. We have a good development team but are not bringing them through, so we never sell them on now, just loan them out. We don't buy many players that we can sell for decent money. I think at the moment we have 2, JC and SJM.

People on here saying he was a failure. I don't recall many Hibs managers doing particularly well after their stints at ER. Stubbs is a 100% failure since leaving ;) We have won the Holy Grail but maybe Hibs are the poisoned chalice :greengrin

Maybe some managers are just too quick to take the next step 'up', which I think Stubbs now realizes. English championship v Scottish championship? An easy choice on paper but sometimes they must know they are going to be on the back foot from the start. That is a tough division. I certainly applaud their ambition and appreciate that after a couple of seasons in the Scottish championship a manager will not be swamped with offers from top clubs but Rotherham? Stubbs even admits in the interview he would have to show potential signings the stadium only as the training facilities are so bad.

I can assure everyone I am not trying to detract from winning the Cup.....but had we not come back and won the final Stubbs tenure here would not be looked on as 'successful' as the Stubbs interview suggest several times.

People should stop arguing who is/was responsible for certain players/crops of players. Nobody hold its against Ferguson that Rooney came through at Everton. Do we even know if Williamson actually had much to do with the young Hibs players even getting taken on at the club? Probably the youth Scouts. It is what each manager achieves with the squad that he has. Mowbray made some great, if not long term, additions. Mowbrays team was exciting. Which is why our season tickets then we on the rise. Even some of my Scottish friends in L.A. would drool over them sometimes.....none of them Hibs supporters.

Good luck to Mr Mowbray.

P.S. And to Mr Stubbs....and most importantly to Hibs tonight !!!

:flag::flag:

[SingaporeHibs]

In the 36 years following Hibs, there is no doubt in my mind the Football under Bobby was by far the worst. And that's a big comment given some of the rubbish we've all seen. Towards the end of his spell I was actually thinking I'd had enough, didn't think I could go on turning up to watch it. The man nearly turned me off doing the one constant that had always been in my life. Thank god he left! Tony came and changed the whole feeling around the club. It was night and day. Tony did far more than just manage the team.

[Super_JMcGinn]

In the 36 years following Hibs, there is no doubt in my mind the Football under Bobby was by far the worst. And that's a big comment given some of the rubbish we've all seen. Towards the end of his spell I was actually thinking I'd had enough, didn't think I could go on turning up to watch it. The man nearly turned me off doing the one constant that had always been in my life. Thank god he left! Tony came and changed the whole feeling around the club. It was night and day. Tony did far more than just manage the team.

Nowhere near the worst and probably better than the way we are playing at the moment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_div_1/3130066.stm
Remember this game ? And that semi over Rangers ?

A lot of histrionics where Bobby was concerned and probably has something to do with him being an ex currant bun more than anything. I seem to remember my dad telling me Alex Miller got the same kind of stick for much the same reason.

[Dashing Bob S]

Love the bones of the man. He gave us some of the best football I've seen at Easter Road.

And he won us the League Cup. (Collins merely had to go along and pick it up.)

(Yes, he had flaws - absolutely zero eye for a keeper is bad enough, but tolerance for professional saboteurs in goal like Clown and Zibi took it to new heights.)

[sleeping giant]

Still can't believe he joined in the huddle at Easter Rd.

[GordonR]

My opinion of Williamson has eased a bit over the years, although I admit I wasn't mad on him at the time.

He blooded the youngsters at a young age and gave them the chance to learn their trade. They had a few rough edges and he helped knock them off, reducing our wage bill whilst never really being in any danger of getting relegated.

Williamson's biggest achievement was the legacy he left for Mowbray which was a pretty good one.

How many Hibs managers have inherited as good and promising a situation as Mowbray did?

John Collins.

[SirDavidsNapper]

John Collins.

Neil Lennon

[The Tubs]

Got WBA into the Premier League and a FA Cup Semi Final, wouldn't say that's exactly a failure.

He done ok at Coventry too considering their circumstances.

Think his time at Celtic & Middlesbrough could be considered failures in fairness.

So all in all, he failed at HALF the clubs he's been at since Hibs :greengrin

Even at Boro he wasn't that bad. Took over when they were near the relegation zone and had them in the playoffs, only to fall out twice at the end of the season. Boro did the right thing, though.

[ballengeich]

We played a lot of good football under Mowbray and the crop of young players developed under him. Possibly coaching rather than management is his strength and he'd be better as an assistant.

Blackburn is a nightmare job as was Coventry due to the financial situation at both clubs. The only reason I can see to accept it is that an in-work manager is out of danger of being offered the Ibrox gig.

[Bishop Hibee]

Good luck to him. I know a family of Hibs/Blackburn Rovers fans so have a soft spot for them. He got us playing a fabulous style of football blighted by his inability to sign an average keeper and our neighbours' financial doping.

[Betty Boop]

Gave me some of the best and (worst) times of my Hibs supporting life, the football was magic tho. Good luck to you Mogga. :not worth

[IGRIGI]

After getting his Celtic team to do a huddle in the middle of the ER pitch I hope it's a complete and utter disaster for him.

[heretoday]

Mowbray was good for us. I hope he turns things around. Blackburn is a big club.