Opinion: Tony Mowbray’s Blackburn Rovers decision highlights investment challenges his replacement will face

The 58-year old has been in charge at Ewood Park since 2017, but is set to see out the expiration of his contract this summer.

Mowbray has been with the club through thick and thin, having seen the team down to League One and back up to the Championship during his time in Lancashire.

This season has been quite the success for the Englishman, despite a failure to reach the play-offs.

A difficult second half of the season, amid uncertainty around the club and poor injury records, has seen the team’s promotion challenge fall off a cliff.

This is a great warning to the owners of the club that it will take investment to reach the Premier League once again.

That lack of investment likely cost Mowbray a chance at earning a shot at promotion through the play-offs, or even a top two finish to go up automatically.

Given the form of Ben Brereton Diaz before his injury issues in February, signing a secondary striker to ease the burden off the Chile international should’ve been a huge priority in January.

However, instead the club was left in the lurch as fans and even players remained unsure of what the future was for several key players and even Mowbray himself.

That the former West Brom boss was uncertain of his future and had to later announce his own departure in a press conference does not indicate that this a well run club with a shared ambition.

Whoever does replace Mowbray as the next manager will have a lot of work on their hands, with the futures of Brereton Diaz, Ryan Nyambe and Darragh Lenihan all still unclear.

Those are three key players in the side that any new boss will want to utilise or even build the team around.

It is clear that Mowbray and the team deserved better this season and a great chance at earning