So often there's a bigger picture to be had. Increased turnover only one element of the overall picture. At this stage of the season, with a cataclysmic relegation to the 3rd division still a possibility and a direct rival coming to Ewood, yes I'd turn my nose up at increased ticket sales if I felt it gave us a better chance of avoiding defeat. Would be different if we were in Sunderland's position and going nowhere, or virtually safe, but that was never going to be the case when we started selling tickets to them, Short termism again. Lets all congratulate the management for saving on wages by loaning people out and getting rid of loads of experience from the squad. Well done. Increased revenue and reduced expenditure. Job done. But that could directly lead to relegation and a far greater cost.

Playing at home with 7000+ away fans behind one goal filling 25% of the stadium isn't normal. That's the point. Nobody else does it. It's not just a run of the mill situation that players are used to dealing with every week. So it's likely when we do it is going to have some sort of effect. We've a young, weak and inexperienced group. Sheffield Wednesday are at the opposite end of that scale. I'd wager the younger ones would struggle more than the experienced ones in such circumstances.

Pretty much agree with the lot of it. What a post. JDT by no means perfect but he had valuable assets. Ambition, drive, personality, a vision. I think back to last season, particularly August to February, and the first half of this season, and this was a guy capable of dragging this club out of the stinking cesspit that it has been dragged and into a potentially bright future. Alas as we saw with the Allardyce fiasco, as we saw with the Bowyer/Lambert fiasco, these owners and their minions will always find a way to derail and destroy any positive momentum or progress and set the club back years. I should have known better but I admit I believed. I genuinely thought that with the Director of Football approach and JDT leading it and after the season we had, going so close in league and cup, that the ingredients were there to take the next step and crack the play-offs. More fool me. I can't describe the disappointment I feel about the way in which once again these people have destroyed something that should have been good and positive and that fell into our lap almost by accident after Mowbray finally left. Yes it was clear that JDT was burned by the O'Brien fiasco, yet he stuck at it and we still went close last season. It was clear he was unimpressed by the summer's shenanigans yet he stuck at it, moved his family over, accepted the constraints and we, somehow managed to get ourselves sat just outside the top 6 in December with this squad. Then a third transfer window of nonsense, culminating in Adam Wharton being sold, the McGuire disgrace (what sort of club treats other clubs and players in such a disgusting and humiliating fashion?) and no reinvestment was the straw that broke the camel's back. Totally understandable for anyone with any self-respect to draw a line at being undermined by your colleagues. Of course ownership and a board with any finger on the pulse would have sacked JDT once it became clear that the damage was irreparable and the direction things were going. I agree that he was essentially saying 'f... you' to them and going gung ho wanting to be fired. Yet they couldn't even manage his departure correctly. It came far too late, even in the week it happened they took days on end to announce it. They're just a disgrace. There's no coming back from this in my book. It's happened too many times and I won't fall for it again.

Yesterday was summed up by the substitutions. We are 2 goals down heading into the last 10 minutes with another 10+ then added in injury time. So if we had anything about us we would have put them under immense pressure during that time and made them work their socks off to preserve their lead, they should have been hanging on for dear life. In the end it was predictable garbage and we barely laid a glove on them. Their keeper could have had a lie down in injury time. We bring on Chrisene, Ayari and Moran. Stood on the touchline coming on they looked like 3 little boys. Meanwhile the opposition bring on Callum Patterson and Michael Smith. Not exactly world beaters, far from it, but two big bruisers who have been there and done at in professional football. If I was their manager I'd have been delighted seeing us throwing them on for the last 10-15 and not a couple of nasty giants. Prior to that it was Buckley and Markanday coming off the bench. Another two who have no physical presence whatsoever and look like little young lads. Wednesday were packed full of size, stature, power. We all know where the reason for this comes from, saving cash and doing things on the cheap. 3 kids on loan coming off the bench to save our skins. How sad.

Its a completely different scenario Chaddy. You can't simply say that because we won an away game that there is no issue in giving away teams vast allocations at Ewood. You go away to Arsenal, Liverpool, United in the Cup and play infront of 60-70,000 you expect your team to rise to the occasion. It is completely different to hand over 1/4 of your stadium to the away team, who are in a must-win situation, and have them making all the noise. The Ewood atmosphere is poor at the best of times. There's an age old concept in football of 'home advantage'. It is why teams since Victorian times have preferred playing on their own ground rather than going away. It is partly, though not wholly, because they prefer being surrounded by their own fans backing them whereas the away team is having to play with a small number of their fans. Yesterday home advantage went out of the window from where I was sat. It was a decent atmosphere yes, but the Wednesday fans made a huge amount of noise and I am sure that the Pears calamity show in the second half was at least partly brought about by jitters from having their fans right behind him. Control the controllables. We can't control what goes on at Leeds or Leicester, but we can control what goes on at Ewood and make sure in must not lose games we aren't giving the opposition any advantage whatsoever.

With you 100% there. Its the feeling of hopelessness, and betrayal. Over the last 12 months or so I've felt not frustration, hope, optimism for the club, but feelings ranging from dislike to outright hatred. I'm ashamed to even be associated with it. It's tough. I certainly have had to do a lot of soul-searching and will again this summer, it certainly isn't normal peaks and troughs of supporting a football club, it certainly isn't enjoyable or healthy. But I'm not one who can just switch off my emotional investment in the club and walk away (yet). So I'm in this limbo zone which I suspect many others are where I keep going, keep coming on here, keep thinking about it, but just feel numbness and disgust and weary resignation. Its almost like a state of civil war. There's an enemy within that needs defeating and destroying before we can even begin to think about anything else, and peaceful coexistence with that enemy is no longer an option in my book.

Short term FC in full view today again Goalkeeper - had a very good keeper in Kaminski, got an offer, jumped at it, pocketed the cash and promote Pears to No 1. A costly decision but motivated solely by what they thought was a simple case of promote Pears and all would be fine whilst they pocketed the millions. Could end up costing us big time given some of the frankly laughable, amateurish goals conceded by Pears and Wahlstedt this season. Short term cash grab from 7500 Sheffield Wednesday fans. Happy days, helps pay the bills. But possibly a result that costs us Championship status and with it £10 million overnight, and I will certainly be wondering if a different outcome could have occurred had we not given up home advantage and invited the away side to build a wall of noise infront of which our weak defence and keeper collapsed. Short term cash grab by loaning out the captain in the first week in January. Short term cash grab by selling Adam Wharton on deadline day. Happy days. Yet two more proven capable players offloaded with no replacements, again potentially costing us Championship status. I wonder if any dots will be joined in the brains of those running the show or will it just be a shoulder shrug.

Birmingham have a track record over the last 4-5 years of pulling out results at the death to save their skins. With floundering Huddersfield up next then a game against a Norwich side likely to be resting I expect they'll get at least 3 points, if not more.

We're at home. we need a result and a drastic improvement after today, they're just coming to terms with a heartbreaking and exhausting 130+ minutes at Wembley and also have a tough game against Hull on Wednesday, just over 48 hours before they come to Ewood. They've lost 3 of their last 4 in the league. They're 9 points off the top 6 with 12 points to play for so lose on Wednesday and their league season is over. If this manager and squad had anything about them they'd be relishing this one to prove people wrong after today. Sadly we don't operate like that and we will relinquish any advantage we may have. Waggott will be hoping they buy loads of tickets so we can give up home advantage again.

If we go down then Eustace gets summoned to India, comes back with a budget and enhanced power, probably an improved/extended deal. Broughton gets sacked and Eustace heads up recruitment. If we stay up Eustace and Broughton stay and we continue on the trajectory of the last 2-3 years, sales, cuts, shite.

50 points wouldn't smash the highest points total for relegation, we went down on 51 in 2017. But yeah this year I'd like to think that 50 would probably be enough, but it would be uncertain and uncomfortable. First off it would mean Wednesday would have to win both their last 2 games for them to have a chance of finishing above us. They've still got West Brom home and Sunderland away so unlikely. It would mean Huddersfield would need at least 7 points from 9 against Swansea, Birmingham and Ipswich. That would require them to take at least a point or three off Birmingham, which would mean Birmingham could reach a maximum of 52 if they won their other two against Rotherham and Norwich. Even if those things happened you'd still have Stoke and QPR needing 4 points or more from 9 to finish above us. So I think unlikely, but possible, and I'd much rather grab a win at home against the 2nd worst team in the league so far this season to finish it off, rather than going up against bogey side Coventry or to Leicester knowing we could still go down. Trouble is we don't tend to deliver when the pressure or expectation is on. Away at Leeds nobody gives us a hope, no pressure or expectation. But at home, against a struggling side, most will expect a Rovers performance and win. We struggle with that.

The club have essentially trapped themselves on ticketing due to their high season ticket prices. Gradually increasing season ticket pricing to a point where we have one of the highest starting adult prices, despite the greatest number of spare seats, one of the least affluent and most competitive areas in the country, before we get on to the other nonsense that goes on here under these owners. this is only going to get even more problematic with increased Sky coverage, dodgy sticks, red button, less 3pm Saturday games. Not only does this all put many people off buying a season ticket in the first place, but also it prevents the club, or seriously restricts it, in offering 'cheap' matchday tickets on a regular basis, as to do so would effectively undercut or wipe out the price benefit of being a season ticket holder. This effectively means that we've got little alternative but to keep prices high to ensure season ticket holders still get 'value' for their money. Ultimately it means we will be stuck in a rut as you aren't going to get massive numbers of people paying £25+ to watch Championship basement battles, especially not on Sunday lunchtime, Tuesday night etc. There is a solution. Radically rethink the season ticket offering particularly on pricing and go down the route of Bolton and Preston. This doesn't mean just cut prices and sit back and wait for people to come. It means coming up with a marketing plan. It means getting them on sale early. It means pushing them in areas, communities, clubs, schools, way above and beyond the current 'efforts' of BwDBC only. Get the prices down, emulate Bolton The ground is immediately more full, and then the added bonus is you can start offering matchday tickets at £20 a head knowing that even if you did it every week a season ticket holder would still be saving £100+ over the season.

Simple explanation for it is that all other clubs have one eye on factors other than immediate cash flow. Factors such as positive atompshere, growth, medium to long term consequences of decisions, footballing concerns. Here we have a charlatan masquerading as CEO employed to take the focus off the owners and cut their expenditure. With that remit he will do whatever he needs to do to keep his figures looking well, and as we've seen with some of his 'policies' to date there's nothing off the table in pursuit of that. Last I heard one was renting out Ewood for Liverpool and Man Utd legend events, a clear sign to anyone just what sort of people we are dealing with here.

Eustace's has won 2 of his 13 league games in charge, and picked up 13 points from 39. JDT won 10 of his 28 league games in charge, and picked up 33 points from 84. Neither get credit for the 3 points against Stoke as neither picked the team or prepared for the game. JDT won games more frequently than Eustace has. Eustace has lost games less frequently than JDT did. If we go down then the season will have been 2/3 JDT and 1/3 Eustace. If we win 1 or more of our remaining 3 we are safe. If we don't then Eustace finishes the season with 2 wins in 16 league games, which I'm sure everyone can agree is an abysmal win return. JDT's points return had us on track for survival (whoop dee doo) hence we were never particularly close to the drop zone under him.

This is the problem we have and it will not change for the foreseeable future. The only way this season will be considered anything other than a decent one for Waggott is if we get relegated. Anything other than that, whether it be 7th or 21st, matters very little. Another season in the Championship, blame JDT, sold a few players for £25 million, academy model vindicated with Ash Phillips and Adam Wharton going for millions, no significant impact on results as we continue to be a mediocre Championship side. Wage bill cut again. Another 8000-9000 season tickets sold. Bonus time as the owners don't need £15 million of share issue next year, we can just use the Wharton cash instead. What's not to like?