Tony Mowbray reveals his plan for Blackburn and opens up on his cancer and health battles

Tony Mowbray reveals his plan for Blackburn Rovers and opens up on his cancer and health battles in the last few years.

The 62 year old sat down with the club’s media discussing his return, his ambition, philosophy, squad management, personal motivation and tactical approach.

On the 12th of May, it was confirmed that Michael O’Neill wouldn’t be extending his stay at Blackburn beyond the 2025/26 season, having been in interim charge.

In O’Neill’s 15 games in charge of Rovers, he won 5, drew 5 and lost 5, and finished 20th with 52 points from 46 games played, 5 points above the drop zone.

And since then, Blackburn had been on the search for his replacement, and after struggling to bring in Slaven Bilic, it opened the door for Mowbray, who was in charge at the club between 2017 and 2022, a win percentage of 40.45 having won 108 out of the 267 games he managed.

“It feels quite amazing,” he said to RoversTV.

“I’ve been back a few times this season and watched some games. It feels like home. It feels you know I spent a long time here. Five and a half years in a modern day football is a long long time I spent here and had some good times.

“Felt as if we built a pretty decent team. Didn’t quite get over the line to to reach our ambition of trying to get to the Premier League. But I think we had some good times, some you know and good memories.

“For me it’s almost like coming back and trying to finish the job really. I think, you know, ultimately the aim for every team in the Championship has got to be to try and get to the Premier League, yeah, and my longer term aim would we can do that, first and foremost is to make the team very competitive in the Championship is a pretty brutal league as we all know and you can beat the teams at the top and you can lose to the teams at the bottom. It’s you know, you’ve got to find a level of consistency.

“Having watched the team a few times this season, I think they’re being extremely hardworking and honest team. I think, you know, now I’m here, I would like to bring a little bit more attacking threat to the team so that we can score more goals and hopefully bring some hope of being at the top end of the table and and you know, football is there for people to dream and we’ve got a our dream, my dream at the start would be to take this club back to the Premier League.

“But I’m coming in first and foremost with all the things I try to bring to any football club of of integrity, honesty, hard work, knowing that the fans will, you know, expect to want to win. We want to win, I want to win, the team will want to win, and we’ll try and achieve all those things together.”

On how much has it helped you that you perhaps understand the town and the supporters of this football club already, he replied: “Yeah, I think so. But listen, at the end of the day, football it’s it’s forever changing. I think there’s the demands are always to win football matches.

“And I think as a football coach, you understand that my job is to come here and and try and help this team win football matches and make it a a good weekend or a good midweek for the supporters who come and pay their money and watch the team, and they want to be proud of their their football team and that’s what I’ve always felt really when I go to football clubs is to give the people the supporters the people who pay the money and come and watch with with the hope that they’re going to win is try and give them something to enjoy that they’re looking forward to the next game and that’s what I’ll aim to do is try and put a team on the pitch that plays on the front foot and is exciting and puts the ball in the box and there’s lots of efforts at goal.

“Look. My words are pretty cheap and easy for me to say at the moment. I have to do it on the training ground and on the grass and and then send the team out on match day to play with enthusiasm and love of the game and drive and for them young players to find their inner child when they were always the best player at school and in their district teams. And so go and express your talent, go and play, go and enjoy yourself in a football field.

“And that’s part of the basis of how I coach and how I manage is to try and give young footballers confidence and belief in the talent that I know they’ve got. And sometimes it gets suppressed and confidence is low.

“I try to create an environment on the training ground and on a daily basis where everybody’s smiling, everybody wants to come into work and enjoy it and be around it and then come match day, they know it’s business day and we have to try and win.”

Interviewer: “Football changes as you mentioned, but will the DNA of a Tony Mowbray side always be the same?”

Mowbray: “Oh, well, it’ll try to be, I think I’m long enough in the tooth now to first and foremost look at the group of players you’ve got and it’s no good saying right, we’re going to play a really high intense fast game if your centre-halves aren’t very fast and they’re not mobile, they’re not comfortable being on the halfway line. If you haven’t got individuals who can beat men and get past the full-back and put the ball in the box, what’s the point of the midfield players running into the box?

“It’s so you have to look at the players you’ve got and try and build a team. And then hopefully as we prove that we can be competitive. Um either you trade your way to to new players or to you know you you identify the ones that are going to help the team become successful, as in any football club, some people will stay and some people will go and new players will come and new heroes for the supporters will be created and yeah, I will look to somewhere down the line have a team that can dominate the ball, can play most of the game in the opposition half, create lots of chances and hopefully score goals.

“And as I’ve always said to teams, if you’re going to be in a competitive position come the end of the season, you’re going to have to score a minimum of 70 goals. Who’s going to score them 70 goals? And so when you look at the squad, can you tick 15 next to that centre forward and 15 next to that one and 10 next to this winger and as a running midfield player, can you put eight next to his name? And so can you think that your team can get to 70 odd goals? All the things I will start as of today really looking at the squad, watching a lot of videos, watching a lot of games from last season, watching um all the players that I haven’t seen enough of. I think I’ve been three or four games last season here at Ewood. And obviously I’ve watched a few more on the TV because just about every game’s on the telly these days.

“So I’ll spend a lot of time now getting to know the players before I personally meet them all. And then when I have my chats, my one-on-ones with them, I’ll have an an idea of what I think they need to work on, what they need to improve on, what needs to be better, or what they’ve got to keep doing.

“And yeah, I’m sure we’ll all get on great. You know, I like football is a starting point for me. I like young guys who want to prove to the world and show their talent to people. I’ve just, as I said earlier, I’ve got to give them the confidence and the belief to go out there and express that talent and put it on the pitch week in week out.”

Interviewer: “How hungry were you to return to management? And at what point did the possibility of returning here come up?”

Mowbray: “listen, it’s nothing to hide. I’ve been through a tough couple of years a journey of of dealing with cancer, had two major operations. But on the recovery of those operations, operation one and operation two, you feel the strength coming back. You feel the energy back and you know a few managers recently I know Martin O’Neill somebody I know very well you know talking about energy to do the job when your left energy to do the job I think you need energy to do the job and my wife has been so happy that this opportunity has come because I’ve been you know driving everybody mad in the house I’m full of energy all my highlight of my day has been walking the dog but watching there’s so much football on the TV these days, I have my tea and I sit and watch every game that’s on the telly, but it’s been burning away really. I need to get back to work. It’s what I do. Because I watch some games and think why on earth is he doing that? Why are they and yet the proof of the pudding is going to be in the eating of out here and fans will I know what football’s like. I’ve been in it a long time. You lose and everybody knows why you’ve lost or you win and you’re great and everything’s great and that’s not the case. Sometimes you can scramble a win from a set player or a dodgy penalty or whatever. You’re not always great because you win and always terrible because you lose.

“And for me, the work’s mainly done on the training ground where you’re trying to create this identity of what we do, how hard we work at trying to win the ball back, how organised we are behind the ball when we’re out of possession, how many men we commit to an attack, how many men we put in the ball when we’re putting the ball in the box, who’s stopping the transition if they head it out and it doesn’t just drop to them and they have another attack the other way. So all of the stuff about football, it burns away in me and I want to hopefully help young footballers become better players and think more about the game and understand it.”

Interviewer: “You sound as hungry and as enthusiastic as ever.”

Mowbray: “Thank you. I listen, it’s burning away. I can’t wait to get started. I do think football’s changing a lot, when this opportunity came along, I have trust in the people at the football club really who who I’ve worked with in the past and there’s some new faces that I will develop relationships with and I’m sure they’ll be fine. I’m looking forward to, as I say, getting started, developing new relationships and, you know, reinventing the old ones yourself, for instance, and a lot of the team that work around in the media is the same as when I left, but it’s great to see some familiar faces and it’ll be great to build some new relationships.

“The main relationships is going to be with the players and them understanding that I’m there for them to make them hopefully better footballers to help Blackburn Rovers have a better team and be more competitive and look at the top end of the table and I’m pretty hopeful we can do that pretty quickly.

“I think in this league it’s very small margins between the teams at the top end and the teams at the bottom end. And as I said, on any given day, and I’m sure there’s lots of examples of, you know, Rovers going away and winning against a decent team in the league who finished a lot higher than them last year. And we have to we have to find that consistency in the performance of how we’re going to do it.

“And I hope my energy can rub off on a few and they can feel that I’m not a bad human being. I’m there to help them. I’m there to try and help the club move in a forward direction, an upward direction, to the point of somewhere down the line, we genuinely have ambition to get to the Premier League. And I know that’s there and that always has to be there.

“But if we can get to a point where we will be very frustrated if we didn’t make the top six or the top eight, we need to do that quickly. And I think we can looking at the squad of players I’ve watched over the last few days. I think there’s some optimism to be had. And yet there’s lots of things that need adjusting as well. You know, it it’s number of goals I talked about there. We have to score more goals. This football team for how organised and how hardworking it is. Need to have more end product. Need to put the ball in the box more and score more goals.

Watch the full interview at the top of the article.

Here’s how fans reacted as Tony Mowbray reveals his plan for Blackburn and opens up on his cancer and health battles..

@GeeNelsss: He’s already won me over. Some big teams have come down from the premier league, West Ham and Wolverhampton. No mention of little old Burnley 🤣🤣

@Muddboy27: Yep, totally sold after this interview. His enthusiasm is totally on point and clearly done lots of homework already. Love his passion for man management, giving players confidence and building a team that will excite. He gets my full backing. Go get ‘em Mogga! #rovers

@Bbrovers1994: The more you listen to him the more you understand why they went back. His passion for #rovers will be unmatched. I love how he plays out little scenarios in his head. I know we can all be fickle and results matter the most, but I’m starting to slowly like the appointment. Wonder who he means where he wants his energy to rub off on a few and that he’s not a bad person… already put RG in his place I reckon, and said leave the signings to me son. I hope anyway. It won’t be players as he hasn’t met them yet. Defo board member.. #rovers

@terrencetalis: The more I watch…. The more I love Mowbray 😍

@malstar79: You can’t help but want him to succeed after watching this interview. Heart and head at loggerheads but I’d love it if he has control of signings, brings in some championship players and he succeeds next season. I don’t trust the board for obvious reason. Arrrrgh! 🤯 #Rovers

@mrjohnnymoo: Like he’s never been away.

@LeftBehindPoet: Some really good lines in this, not fluff just facts. Playing a style that fits the squad, players in their correct position (Gally wanted to be a W.B? 😂😂) but the killer and we all know it, you need 70 goals who is getting them? #Rovers

@robjyoung: I’m now convinced we’re getting promoted after watching this

@jmills1009: What a human he is

@JoshHarding123: Look, I wouldn’t have had him back and still need convincing massively that it’s the right decision. He’s had the best side we’ve had since coming down and didn’t get us in the play offs for 4 years🤷‍♂️ it’s going to have to be something special to get us to higher than 15th 🫣

@TheWalrusBRFC: We’re blackburn rovers. We got our Mowbray back. Hate the regime. Love rovers. Mowbray deserves the backing of the supporters. All supporter groups should now try to help fill Ewood Park. A new CEO and a football manager in. Fresh start. #Rovers

@RoversXtra: Mowbray speaks so well, and he’s got a vision and passion what I’ve heard in his interview. Hopefully, it shows on the pitch

@MattGregzy: From my point of view it’s clear as day as to why Rovers have appointed Mowbray. He’s the only person to ever say a good word in public about Pasha… if TM gets his way and adds some good champ experience to our squad I think it will be a huge improvement on last season. However… there is too many boardroom members currently and internal divide will soon become clear as TM wears his heart on his sleeve and will let the fans know one way or another. I think RG is arrogant with a chip on his shoulder, let’s hope Curwood and TM rid of that #Rovers