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Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:07 am
by claretcarrot93
He has just said on twitter that it was a joke of an appointment and anybody else they would have stopped up.

Maybe that will put to bed the great uptheclarets myth that we were going down no matter what.

Good job it worked out well with the next two appointment's especially the latter.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:15 am
by claretonthecoast1882
If Robbie says we will win the Champions League in 2 years time will that be gospel too ?

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:19 am
by MACCA
Just the jilted lover feeling Coyle haters that dont put the blame at the board/Laws door for that relegation.

Bad appointment, lack of investment , cheap options taken.

Thankfully we learned our lesson on the 3rd promotion, and the only risks we took, was with the midfield cover.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:24 am
by martin_p
We had a significantly better side in 2014/15 which still went down. That team wasn’t good enough to stay up unfortunately and it was too far away from good enough for throwing lots of money at it to make much of a difference.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:26 am
by Lord Beamish
Just like OJ was guilty AND the LA Police were corrupt, Laws was a terrible appointment AND we’d have gone down anyway.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:27 am
by SalisburyClaret
Laws signed Dean Marney - he is therefore exempt from any criticism in my book

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:28 am
by Burnley1989
From what I was told Blake was one of a few players who behaved very unprofessional towards Laws. I don’t like my boss but he’s the manager so you just get on with it.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:32 am
by Rileybobs
As much as I loved Robbie Blake, as a player it wasn’t his job to judge whether a managerial appointment was the right one. Maybe it was this attitude of Blake’s and some of the other senior players that also contributed to our relegation.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:35 am
by IanMcL
What's the issue with your boss then 1989?

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:43 am
by Claretforever
That side should have stayed up regardless of appointment. They downed tools!

We had 20 points at the half way stage, something we’d be glad of right now, and to only get 10 points, 3 of which came v Spurs in the final game when already relegated, was shocking.

Our players weren’t good enough for the Premier League as some of our batterings show, especially away from home, but the team could have kept us up.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:43 am
by ElectroClaret
"....anybody else and they would have stopped up." is a ludicrous thing to say.
Suppose the "anybody else" had been worse than BL? (Unlikely, but certainly not impossible.) What RBs coming out with here is just an opinion.
Admittedly, its a more informed opinion than most, but an opinion nontheless.

its not chiseled in stone.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:47 am
by CharlieinNewMexico
Lord Beamish wrote:Just like OJ was guilty AND the LA Police were corrupt, Laws was a terrible appointment AND we’d have gone down anyway.
OJ was never found criminally guilty (that time)

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 8:47 am
by Bordeauxclaret
We weren’t that far away from staying up, a half decent appointment may well have done it.

The attitude of the players was a disgrace though.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:00 am
by Lord Beamish
CharlieinNewMexico wrote:OJ was never found criminally guilty (that time)
He was still guilty. He did murder his ex-wife and her new partner.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:06 am
by CharlieinNewMexico
Was found not guilty. Actually.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:13 am
by Devils_Advocate
We had some good professionals in that team who dont just change overnight plus I though there was a real fight and siege mentality the first 3 or 4 games under Laws. Unfortunately Laws was just completely out of his depth in the Premier League.

I would say in terms of management appointments from Ternant onward he is the only mistake the board have ever made which is a measure of their massive success but boy was he a big mistake.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:15 am
by Lord Beamish
CharlieinNewMexico wrote:Was found not guilty. Actually.
But he was still guilty of murder. That’s why he had to pay loads of money in the civil action against him. He was only found not guilty at trial because the LA Police were lying bunglers.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:23 am
by CharlieinNewMexico
He wasn't found guilty of murder. He was only found guilty of owning (and failing to protect) people that were on his premises , and therefore, was sued up the backside. That's a civil liability, not a criminal one.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:25 am
by Lord Beamish
CharlieinNewMexico wrote:He wasn't found guilty of murder. He was only found guilty of owning (and failing to protect) people that were on his premises , and therefore, was sued up the backside. That's a civil liability, not a criminal one.
Call it what you want. He murdered his estranged wife and her lover. He’s guilty. If it makes you feel better, I’ll put the word in inverted commas; “guilty”. Better?

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:28 am
by martin_p
Claretforever wrote:That side should have stayed up regardless of appointment. They downed tools!

We had 20 points at the half way stage, something we’d be glad of right now, and to only get 10 points, 3 of which came v Spurs in the final game when already relegated, was shocking.

Our players weren’t good enough for the Premier League as some of our batterings show, especially away from home, but the team could have kept us up.
We actually had 15 points from the first eleven games then just five points from Coyle’s last eight games so the rot had already set in results wise. The team just weren’t good enough. Law wasn’t good enough as a manager either but I think to suggest another manager may have kept us up is fantasy. We’d managed to get to 15 points by winning five of our first six home games probably on the back of the excitement of the play-off win. Once that home form had gone, while Coyle was still at the club, we were doomed.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:31 am
by CharlieinNewMexico
Lord Beamish wrote:Call it what you want. He murdered his estranged wife and her lover. He’s guilty. If it makes you feel better, I’ll put the word in inverted commas; “guilty”. Better?
I mean you can TRY to rewrite history ....

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:33 am
by Down_Rover
We will never know who threw their hat in the ring for the job. Laws may have been the best of a bad bunch.

We were a very unfashionable club who, to many, had the look of a team going down. Not the most attractive thing to have on one's CV

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:34 am
by Lord Beamish
CharlieinNewMexico wrote:I mean you can TRY to rewrite history ....
You’re being quite a bore about all this, and diverting the thread from its original topic; therefore, I’m out.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:41 am
by fidelcastro
claretcarrot93 wrote:He has just said on twitter that it was a joke of an appointment and anybody else they would have stopped up.

Maybe that will put to bed the great uptheclarets myth that we were going down no matter what.

Good job it worked out well with the next two appointment's especially the latter.
Is there more than one tweet on this from him?

The one i've seen reads that there's a good chance he'd still be at the club that he loves if it wasn't for Laws! :shock:

Breathtaking arrogance!

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:44 am
by Devils_Advocate
martin_p wrote:We actually had 15 points from the first eleven games then just five points from Coyle’s last eight games so the rot had already set in results wise. The team just weren’t good enough. Law wasn’t good enough as a manager either but I think to suggest another manager may have kept us up is fantasy. We’d managed to get to 15 points by winning five of our first six home games probably on the back of the excitement of the play-off win. Once that home form had gone, while Coyle was still at the club, we were doomed.
The season Dyche first kept us up we had 14 points from the first 11 and then lost 5 of the next 6 games (had the rot set in then). I think picking out runs of games in the Prem isn't really a good reflection as if you get a few hard home games in a row or draw a couple of home games rather than win then picking up points over that whole period can be tough.

Im not arguing we would have stayed up but in that Coyle bad run he had some decent performances but our couple of really good results were draws so only one point

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:48 am
by Wile E Coyote
blake sounds like a disrespectful clown, no need for this stuff so long after the event.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:56 am
by martin_p
Devils_Advocate wrote:The season Dyche first kept us up we had 14 points from the first 11 and then lost 5 of the next 6 games (had the rot set in then). I think picking out runs of games in the Prem isn't really a good reflection as if you get a few hard home games in a row or draw a couple of home games rather than win then picking up points over that whole period can be tough.

Im not arguing we would have stayed up but in that Coyle bad run he had some decent performances but our couple of really good results were draws so only one point
But Dyche had a significantly better team than the one in 2009/10. It’d managed 93 points in the championship as compared to the 72 Coyle’s got, that’s almost a point every other game. It was a team capable of turning things round.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:59 am
by claretblue
Burnley1989 wrote:I don’t like my boss
I’ve made a note of that Burnley1989! :shock:

See me in my office before you leave for home! :x

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:10 am
by aggi
Burnley1989 wrote:From what I was told Blake was one of a few players who behaved very unprofessional towards Laws. I don’t like my boss but he’s the manager so you just get on with it.
A few players have said similar things. Poor from the players but also from the manager for not being able to control them (although Howe was vilified for clearing out some of them when he came in so it was probably lose-lose).

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:13 am
by claretonthecoast1882
Poor Owen's record at every club since moving on to better himself answers if he would have turned things around had he stayed

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:26 am
by houseboy
I still believe if Coyle had stayed we would have had a far better chance than with Laws. When it was announced he was our new man I actually genuinely believed someone was having a joke. The Coyle haters on here should try to remember what he did for us. Okay his record elsewhere is poor, apart from St Johnston, but he did good things for us. It may have ended badly but his ties with Bolton took him back, just like Howe with Bournemouth and he hasn't had one tenth of the stick that Coyle got. As it happens things have worked out well for us (and infinitely better than for Bolton) so we should bury the hatchet with Coyle I think, all this animosity toward him does no-one any good apart from those who need a bogeyman.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:33 am
by martin_p
houseboy wrote:I still believe if Coyle had stayed we would have had a far better chance than with Laws. When it was announced he was our new man I actually genuinely believed someone was having a joke. The Coyle haters on here should try to remember what he did for us. Okay his record elsewhere is poor, apart from St Johnston, but he did good things for us. It may have ended badly but his ties with Bolton took him back, just like Howe with Bournemouth and he hasn't had one tenth of the stick that Coyle got.
Well there are ties and ties. Howe played all but two games of his professional career at Bournemouth and had been their manager for three years before arriving at the Turf. Having spent pretty much the whole of your football life at a club and therefore having family and friends there are ties, playing for a club 50 odd times over a couple of seasons doesn’t compete.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:40 am
by Blackrod
We may have stayed up with another manager but it’s doubtful. As mentioned above I also think the Dyche team that went down was better. A poor appointment and if there’s any finger pointing it should be at the board or Flood. They have got a lot right since though. As for Laws why wouldn’t he have taken the job with his attachment to the club and area. Some of the abuse he gets is awful. He did have a very good playing career with us which we shouldn’t forget. ( As for OJ Simpson you’d have to be plain stupid to think he was innocent).

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:40 am
by Bosscat
houseboy wrote:just like Howe with Bournemouth and he hasn't had one tenth of the stick that Coyle got.
Ah but Eddie didn't lie to everyone house... his wife not moving with him, them having a baby and his Mum dying had a huge influence on his move.

Nobody disputes what Owen did for us ... taking a team of misfits and making them into a Premier League side. Its the method of his departure and what he has said afterwards that wrankle with a lot (me included).

Brian Laws is a great bloke and was a great player for us but he was massively out of his depth taking on a PL team used to getting "krispy kreme donuts" and "Irn Bru" as a reward when they did well..... joking apart..... The players could have done more but they will have been instructed to play Brians way.

One thing I will always thank Laws for is Dean Marney one of my favourite Clarets in recent times.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:47 am
by TVC15
Laws did sign Dean Marney and that was a great signing for Burnley - think he paid about £800k from memory.
What I would say though is that I can’t remember many fans (me included) being overly impressed with him as a player under Laws or Howe.
It was SD who transformed him as a player and he enjoyed arguably the best years of his career under Dyche. And whilst SD was the biggest single reason not far behind was David Jones whose partnership with Deano was one of the best we have had in many a year - they were perfect for each other.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:51 am
by Darthlaw
The fact Laws failed to win back to back league games in his whole tenure as BFC manager said enough about his adequacy for the job, for me. As has been said many times before, it wasn't his fault for taking the job - he never should have been offered it.

The only issue I take with Laws himself was offering the silly contracts to get players on side. I think both Carlisle and Jensen went on record saying they got the best contract of their career under Laws.

Would we have stayed up with a different manager? Probably not, however I would have preferred one of the managers who wanted silly wages and a silly 'staying up' bonus, rather than the long term financial waste afforded to Laws. It's hard to measure but the impact of heads dropping from appointing a manager from the division below, well on his way to relegation, should be factored too.

Its quite ironic that our current, most successful, financial system is heavily geared towards performance based pay, which would have better suited then.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:54 am
by claretonthecoast1882
Darthlaw wrote:The fact Laws failed to win back to back league games in his whole tenure as BFC manager said enough about his adequacy for the job, for me. As has been said many times before, it wasn't his fault for taking the job - he never should have been offered it.

The only issue I take with Laws himself was offering the silly contracts to get players on side. I think both Carlisle and Jensen went on record saying they got the best contract of their career under Laws.

Would we have stayed up with a different manager? Probably not, however I would have preferred one of the managers who wanted silly wages and a silly 'staying up' bonus, rather than the long term financial waste afforded to Laws. It's hard to measure but the impact of heads dropping from appointing a manager from the division below, well on his way to relegation, should be factored too.

Its quite ironic that our current, most successful, financial system is heavily geared towards performance based pay, which would have better suited then.

Back to back games in the Prem or the whole time as manager including the championship ?

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:54 am
by JohnDearyMe
Devils_Advocate wrote: Im not arguing we would have stayed up but in that Coyle bad run he had some decent performances but our couple of really good results were draws so only one point
Yep i thought we were excellent against Arsenal in our 1-1 draw and that was just shortly before Coyle left.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:00 am
by ClaretTony
claretcarrot93 wrote:He has just said on twitter that it was a joke of an appointment and anybody else they would have stopped up.

Maybe that will put to bed the great uptheclarets myth that we were going down no matter what.

Good job it worked out well with the next two appointment's especially the latter.
Is this the same Robbie Blake who walked out of a game at half time and the same one who went running to Coyle at Bolton?

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:04 am
by beddie
Would we have stayed up under someone else,we'll never know. Laws did the best he could,unfortunately it didn't work out. He still gets some unnecessary stick on this board imo, had he kept us up he would have been a claret ledgend. Didn't BK say long after Laws had departed that there were very few applications for the job or have I dreamt that. As for Robbie he will always be a ledgend but he really didn't need to say that about Laws, it's disrespectful.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:04 am
by claretcarrot93
ClaretTony wrote:Is this the same Robbie Blake who walked out of a game at half time and the same one who went running to Coyle at Bolton?
Nope a different one pal

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:05 am
by Darthlaw
claretonthecoast1882 wrote:Back to back games in the Prem or the whole time as manager including the championship ?
Whole time, PL and championship.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:07 am
by claretonthecoast1882
Darthlaw wrote:Whole time.

:D That is seriosuly s**t, I had never heard that achievement before

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:09 am
by Spijed
Darthlaw wrote:The fact Laws failed to win back to back league games in his whole tenure as BFC manager said enough about his adequacy for the job, for me. As has been said many times before, it wasn't his fault for taking the job - he never should have been offered it.

The only issue I take with Laws himself was offering the silly contracts to get players on side. I think both Carlisle and Jensen went on record saying they got the best contract of their career under Laws.

Would we have stayed up with a different manager? Probably not, however I would have preferred one of the managers who wanted silly wages and a silly 'staying up' bonus, rather than the long term financial waste afforded to Laws. It's hard to measure but the impact of heads dropping from appointing a manager from the division below, well on his way to relegation, should be factored too.

Its quite ironic that our current, most successful, financial system is heavily geared towards performance based pay, which would have better suited then.
You've probably described the position most managers face at clubs who get relegated from the Prem.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:09 am
by CrosspoolClarets
The way Coyle jumped ship in a way almost unprecedented in that league knocked the stuffing out of the club and few wanted the job at that time. Laws was poor but he had my full sympathy.

But now, Eddie Davies and Phil Gartside have both passed away sadly, Coyle’s career is ruined and Bolton FC are up the creek. It turns out to be us who benefitted from Coyle’s treachery so we should take the moral high ground and move on - Blake should too.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:10 am
by TVC15
JohnDearyMe wrote:Yep i thought we were excellent against Arsenal in our 1-1 draw and that was just shortly before Coyle left.
We did and Fletcher has a perfectly good goal ruled out. I also remember that game for the first 25 minutes when Fabregas gave one of the best displays I have ever seen from any footballer on the Turf. He could have easily scored 4 goals and it seemed like there were at least 5 of him on the pitch - we could not get near him. He then got injured and had to go off and we started to play well.
The other game I remember we played really well and should have won was the 1-1 draw v Villa. We were excellent that day against a really good villa team and they got a late equaliser from Heskey who came on a sub - bad mistake from Jensen.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:11 am
by SalisburyClaret
There’s too much blame here - nobody did that much wrong -

The board/ Flood had very little time to find a manager with decent experience (Laws had managed over 700 games) and the appointment was made with half an eye on the worst case scenario. They needed to make the appointment quickly so as Laws had time to work in the transfer window

Laws did his best in the circumstances. Some players struggled with his appointment. At this point step forward the person who was appointed as Player/Coach - Graham Alexander. If you want to apportion blame maybe some should come his way?

At the end of the day a Laws/Alexander partnership put together in very little time would seem as good as we were going to get in the limited time available

Hindsight - it’s 20/20

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:16 am
by Devils_Advocate
martin_p wrote:But Dyche had a significantly better team than the one in 2009/10. It’d managed 93 points in the championship as compared to the 72 Coyle’s got, that’s almost a point every other game. It was a team capable of turning things round.
Thats a different argument (and getting into a circular one) which I think has a lot more merit than saying the rot had set in because we had a bad run.

You used a bad run for your argument so I was just showing that bad runs are common for good bad and all the teams in between and it has happened often with Dyche but its the overall picture you have to look at.

When Coyle left we were in a better position than most would have expected going into the season and we had a real fighting chance of staying up

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:19 am
by Darthlaw
Spijed wrote:You've probably described the position most managers face at clubs who get relegated from the Prem.
I can't think of many teams, threatened with relegation, who have appointed managers from the league below, on a downward trajectory with their current side.

There's of course the deflation or apathy of a non spectacular appointment but the negative/incendiary effect of Laws appointment is rarely seen, as I see it. Steve Bruce at Newcastle is possibly the closest bud he had seen success in the championship and managed in the PL, previously.

Re: Robbie Blake on Brian Laws appointmemt

Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:21 am
by TVC15
SalisburyClaret wrote:There’s too much blame here - nobody did that much wrong -

The board/ Flood had very little time to find a manager with decent experience (Laws had managed over 700 games) and the appointment was made with half an eye on the worst case scenario. They needed to make the appointment quickly so as Laws had time to work in the transfer window

Laws did his best in the circumstances. Some players struggled with his appointment. At this point step forward the person who was appointed as Player/Coach - Graham Alexander. If you want to apportion blame maybe some should come his way?

At the end of the day a Laws/Alexander partnership put together in very little time would seem as good as we were going to get in the limited time available

Hindsight - it’s 20/20
Disagree - the board made a big mistake in appointing Laws. He had no experience in the top league and whilst he had been a manager for a long time and enjoyed bits of success he had not had a good time for a couple of years at least prior to him coming to Burnley (Sheff Wed ?).
It was a very strange appointment - and nothing to do with hindsight. There is no way in a million years he would have got another job in the Premier League at this time or even been considered for one. TBH there weren’t any championship clubs knocking his door down either.

But the board are entitled to make mistakes. They have got a hell of a lot more right than wrong in the last 20 years or so.

As for Robbie Blake - absolutely loved him as a player but he is out of order still holding this grudge 10 years later. This is the same Robbie Blake who sat on our bench one Saturday afternoon whilst he was waiting for Wigan or Birmingham to buy him.