The abrasive Scot is more likely to be hopping mad, not just because his players have badly let him down in a campaign which started so promisingly with European football returning to Ewood Park, but because he is in pain with gout.
"He's limping quite badly," his assistant, Tony Parkes, said. "More so because it's press day," added the Blackburn stalwart by way of a mild apology for his boss's failure to turn up for the weekly media briefing.