In many ways Gary Bowyer is a poster boy for young, gifted, British coaches. A journeyman lower division full-back, he joined Blackburn Rovers almost a decade ago, initially working with academy players. He rose to run the reserves, then twice looked after the first team on a caretaker basis and, finally, became manager.
Yet if Bowyer's is a dream job, it remains far from perfect, anything but nirvana. The problem is that Venky's, Blackburn's owners, want the team to win promotion from the Championship but Bowyer's room for transfer market manoeuvre is rather restricted by a £54.5m debt and the need to trim an overblown playing staff, currently around 53 strong. Considering the club's latest set of accounts showed that wages to turnover ratio – ideally no more than 50% – had escalated to 136%, painful cuts are essential.
It is a big responsibility for a 42-year-old who, last season, prevented Rovers from being relegated to League One at the end of a campaign that saw the club go through five different managers – Steve Kean, Eric Black, Henning Berg, Michael Appleton and Bowyer. Berg lasted 57 days, Appleton 67.
The era when Blackburn, propelled by Alan Shearer, Stuart Ripley, Jason Wilcox et al won the Premier League in 1995 seems light years away. Optimism, though, refuses to die, not least on the part of the former foreign secretary Jack Straw who, in a radio interview only last week, recalled explaining to Condoleezza Rice, the former US secretary of state, that Ewood Park really was the centre of the football universe before adding: "And it will be again."
Bowyer knows there is much work to be done first, both on and off the pitch. "I tell my staff and the players we can only concentrate on what we can control," says a man limited to recruiting free transfers and consequently heavily dependent on his ability to improve and organise players through coaching.
He is operating in a league defined by fine margins where little details matter. "The Championship is a relentless and ruthless division," he says. "You've got to stay calm and remain level-headed. It's a very competitive division. There's not a great deal between the teams and three wins or three defeats can leave you flying up or flying down the table. Everyone is looking for consistency. The play-offs offer a lot of teams a great opportunity."
Blackburn can inch a little nearer the top six by beating Reading at Ewood on Saturday but the good news from Bowyer's viewpoint is that, barring an extraordinary offer, he will be retaining the services of Jordan Rhodes, his star, £10m-rated striker, for a prospective new year play-off push.
Last week the manager made the journey to Pune in India, flying to Mumbai before making a long car journey to the home of Venky's poultry and pharmaceutical business for a meeting with Anuradha Desai, Blackburn's chairwoman, and other board members.
"It was very constructive, positive, well worth it," Bowyer says. "The owners told us we don't have to sell Jordan Rhodes in January. He isn't for sale. They have learnt from past mistakes and are determined to be successful. Blackburn fans have been through a lot but everyone is working hard to put things right. The owners realise stability is important; no one wants to go through a season like last season again."
Weaving through the streets of Pune, variously sharing highways with luxury cars, rickshaws, tuk-tuks, cattle and the odd elephant, not only reminded Bowyer that "football really is a global game nowadays" but overwhelmed his senses.
"My wife and daughter are envious of my trips," he says. "Culturally India is an education. The extremes really hit you, extreme poverty and extreme wealth co-existing very closely."
Brockhall, Blackburn's rather more tranquil state-of-the-art training ground situated amid the Ribble Valley's beguiling beauty, feels like another world – but Bowyer and Venky's hope it holds the club's passport back to the Premier League.
"The facilities here are first-class," Bowyer says. "Our academy's got category one status and we've got some fantastic young players we're bringing through."
In darker moments he can pick up the phone to his father, Ian Bowyer, the former Nottingham Forest midfielder. "My dad was very successful playing under Brian Clough. I don't think anything that happens in football surprises him, so he's always there for me, listening and offering advice."
Goodness knows what Clough would have made of the latest chapters in Blackburn's history but he would surely have cheered one man's emergence from the chaos and confusion. "Coaches and managers, like players, need breaks," Bowyer says. "Sometimes you just need opportunities. This is a great one for me."
