Blackburn Rovers: Your opinions on Valerien Ismael sacking

We asked you how you felt about Valerien Ismael’s exit from Blackburn Rovers on transfer deadline day and it seems the timing has got you puzzled.

Here is what you had to say:

Elliot: When the side rallied at the back of last season, I was willing to give him a chance into this season. But it’s never got going under him and I don’t feel the players were ever particularly happy either.

I don’t think we’d be here if Lewis Travis and Dom Hyam were still in the squad but the squad is still better than this.

Jack: Correct decision to roll the dice and get someone else in, but should have been made a month sooner.

Horrible mismanagement of senior contracts in the last few seasons has led us to where we are now, but Ismael hasn’t got the best out of the players we have and some shocking substitutions have cost us points in big games.

No faith in the board to make the right appointment but we need someone who can lift heads on the pitch and in the stands now. If only we’d ended things with Tony Mowbray on better terms…

Ferg: Whatever the issues with injuries, ownership, style or system, the slide down the table and lack of belief has felt palpable and he’s seemed bereft of answers.

I quite liked his honesty and frank approach but if that only translates as relegation form… sorry Val, but it was the right time to go.

Cruise: Though we can have sympathy for things that were outside Val’s control (the games being called off; the injury crisis; most of our Championship experience being sold hurriedly as the September window closed and replaced with unproven overseas players), nevertheless he seemed like a yes man that did not have what it takes to eke out a win with the players he had.

Something had to be done if Venky’s were serious about trying to stay in this league.

The Rovers fans I talk with and the forums I follow, the vocal majority wanted Val gone back before January, and at some point during this crisis where Venky’s are being slaughtered on socials and now in national newspaper articles as “disconnected from the fans”, you can’t ignore that clamour.

Jack: I don’t necessarily blame Ismael for the form we’re in and quite liked the way he spoke as our manager.

Our absent owners and the senior staff members have a lot to answer for. They sanctioned sales for a load of senior players over summer and replaced them with cheap inexperienced targets from lower leagues in Europe. Pep Guardiola would struggle to keep us up at this point.

Steve: With a worse win ratio than Steve Kean, the writing was on the wall. But the trigger should’ve been pulled earlier to give another manager time to bring in some players. Unless that was the plan.