Mowbray: club didn’t want me

TONY Mowbray would have stayed at Blackburn if the owners had offered a new contract in January.

Mowbray (58) took charge of his last Rovers game after five years at the helm with this win at Birmingham on Saturday and will leave when his contract is up on June 30.

Owners the Venky family have totally blanked him.

“If the club had come to me in January and said we want you to stay I would have, definitely,” says Mowbray (below).

“I’m just a football guy. The way my brain works is if it wasn’t offered around the last transfer window then it wasn’t going to be offered.

“With total respect to the executives at the club, I felt they were just waiting to see what was going to happen. ‘Can we get into the play-offs, can we not?’.

Trust

“If we don’t does that mean I am a bad manager, I’m not good enough so you are not giving me a contract?

“If we did get in the play offs then I get a new contract. That’s not the way.

“You have to trust the guy leading your club.

“The fact there was nothing done, the answer was there right in front of me. That’s why I made the decision. I move on and I wish them well”.

Mowbray had Blackburn in contention for automatic promotion four months ago but they faded with five wins in 18 games.

Rovers finished eighth, the highest in Mowbray’s tenure, and he added: “I have still not heard anything officially from the club about my future.”

Superb goals from John Buckley and Ben Brereton Diaz and a second-half reply from Kristian Pedersen left Birmingham boss Lee Bowyer’s job on the line with four victories out of the last 30.

He sees chairman Zhao Wenqing today with City in turmoil as two groups look to buy the club.

Fans went on the pitch to protest against owners Birmingham Sports Holdings, who are considering offers to get out.

“I want clarity, what the plan is and how we can improve,” said Bowyer after the game.