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Bloody hell haven't we suffered enough already?

It doesn't get round the fact, that drainage of the pitch is a known problem that the club have not resolved.

Gudjohnsen doesnt seem to be in the Iceland squad tonight and Kargbo wasnt in the Sierra Leone squad last night. So might be 2 down for the weekend.

The pitch was totally waterlogged. Regardless of what McKenna or Ismael wanted. The owners wouldnt pay for the overhaul a few years back due to cost. But yes. Its that nasty McKenna, nothing the club could have done.

River, pitch whatever. There was an absolute bucketfull of rain at Chorley but the ball kept rolling on a non league pitch. They wanted to lie in the fans forum minutes. The Lancashire Telegraph are saying they lied in their recent statement. Do we really think they wouldn’t get the groundsman to lie about this. You cant believe a word that comes out of the club.

You're DETERMINED to offer the pricks running this club every excuse to carry on neglecting it. We, not for the first time in the past year, were unable to host a game of football in accordance with the laws of the league in which we play. McKenna did what you would have wanted Ismael to do in his position, however much you ignore the point. Stop excusing this charade.

More importantly what were the Rover players told to do in the final 15 minutes. It was obvious Ipswich were trying to apply pressure to the Fourth Official re the pitch ..surely our players should have been relayed this info on the pitch with instructions to simply find put the ball out of play as far into the Ipswich half at every opportunity. Do not even consider playing football just launch into the crowd. Yes Ipswich get the ball back but we were winning against ten men ..a risk worth taking for the last 15 mins of a game which is on the verge of being called off. Ball into the crowd is not giving the ref an option but trying to play football which we continued to try and do finally did.

Agree with all of that, especially that he needs a loan next season, but we do have to remember, he is a 17 year old kid playing up an age group for the U21s, and is obviously also one of the better players for the U18 age group for England (based on the fact he gets regular minutes for England at that level) He is however not currently ready for anything above that level Edit - his development has possibly stalled over the past year or so as he has spent so much time sat on the first team bench or being 21st man etc rather than playing for the U21s etc, perhaps Rovers should have taken the line of "you are not ready for first team football.. play some games for the U21s", instead they have tried to half integrate him into the first team, which doesn't seem to have benefitted anyone Finneran compo will very likely never be fully revealed, although is probably sorted at this point and will almost certainly be in the initial 10s of £K, with the vast majority based on future achievements and sell on fees

Cos McKenna told them to do so? Also what did tell his players to do when losing and down to 10 players?

Speaking of compo, did the compensation for Finneran ever get sorted?

A lot of his goals this season seem to be penalties, scored one for the England youth side too. I dunno, despite all the hype I'm not really seeing why he was so highly touted, apart from a couple of nice moments when he first rocked up as a 15 year old. I agree with Rigger, doesn't seem ready for Championship football. Needs to sign that contract so we can get him out on loan. Suspect he will just leave in the summer for compo instead though.

Swag possibly on 6 months Gardening Leave/Notice till next month?

JDT is an idealist, not a very pragmatic coach or tactician who can adapt his approach during games. Would probably have gotten us into playoffs had he been backed during his first season. Second season was a disaster because he wanted out early and he refused to change tactics when it was obviously not working given the squad at hand. But you kinda see in his way of approaching games that he used to play as a striker - Sweden showed some great attacking moves against Switzerland the other day (Bergvall somewhat unlucky not to score twice) but he gets exposed for his lack of defensive thinking / tactical knowledge / experience when he's facing teams playing on the counter (e.g. the defeat vs Kosovo away). Which could also explain the strange pattern of rarely ever drawing a game when he was coaching us. Think he will be successful in the future if he finds an assistant coach that complements him a bit better than what Reijnierse does at the moment.

Not defending the owners as they should have invested in the pitch but refused, as @roverfan99 states. But the weather yellow flag warnings specifically mentioned "Ewood" & "Waterfall" areas in Blackburn would get heavy rain at 4pm. No such mention in Burnley for "Turf Moor" or in Chorley for "Victory Park". Unanswered for me is why did Ipswich subs warm up during HT not only in the wrong half but very strangely in the exact same area that the ref used the demonstrate the ball would not roll? Our groundsman saw it ans was clearly annoyed they were using the wrong area. I've mentioned this before but had no reply.

It wasnt problem until the last 12 months was it?

The thing is, that £40k investment will appease some, similar to when we failed to do a total overhaul of the pitch but they came out and bigged up that they had stitched the goal areas and again people defended the owners. But the owners were supposed to and eventually blocked the aforementioned overhaul which was needed after 30+ plus years, a few years ago. It would have cost I think £2m and included the pipes underneath. And yet some with the inability to realise that its just a PR attempted spin piece will watch and read similar rubbish to today and swallow it. Its not the clubs fault!

Why was this never a problem pre-2011 then?

As someone said previously it would Environment agency problem and its would take years to find a solution and money to pay for it

I call BS on the club's latest statement regarding the cancellation; a lot of excuses but no solutions. Same thing will happen again in the following season(s) if no investment is made. 1. River was a problem in the match vs Portsmouth last year - then why don't they contact city council and express that it's an issue that needs resolving a.s.a.p.? What have the club done/ invested into in the meantime to mitigate the risk themselves regarding an overflowing river? 2. The pitch is 36 years old ad so the drainage system couldn't manage to handle the heavy rainfall (75 ml) against Ipswich - tell the owners to put money in to upgrade it then? I'm no expert on this but were pitch covers used at halftime for example to stop some of it and to lessen the pressure on the drainage? Again, no other club in the area had their game called off on that day (Bolton, B*rnley, Man Utd etc.). B*rnley supposedly handled 55 ml with a new pitch/drainage system but we can't handle 75 ml? Is it really that much of a difference? Are we really that far behind in terms of 'drainage system technologies' as ridiculous as it sounds? New instalment takes anywhere between 6-8 weeks according to web sources and are preferably being done during off season/ summer when conditions are usually dry, so the time aspect shouldn't be a factor here. 3. The groundsman happily shows off his latest 40K equipment as if that shows intent and willingness from the owners when we've had games cancelled due to waterlogged pitch for the past 4-5 seasons and we nearly had to call off the game vs Stoke as well. But I guess he'll work for another few years without any complaints until his retirement while traveling supporters are getting robbed from seeing their beloved team.

It is. He even acknowledged the age of the pitch on the video and the drainage underneath. The owners refused to do the full pitch overhaul needed the other year. Only the gullible and naive would think it was totally out of the clubs control.

He did that old pitch isn't to blame for the Ipswich game being called off but the pitch couldn't deal with the amount of rain we got.. The river level wasn't a factor and he was loud in saying. Also said we cant touch or changing in regard to the river. Its not something Rovers can do anything about

Mowbray and Waggott both said publicly that Mowbray didnt get Waggott the CEO job

It's alright, they'll plant three trees to carbon offset it all. Though of course, that doesn't apply to us proles. Sell your car and catch the bus, you selfish peasant.

The LT article clears it up for me nicely, the facts are there for all to see. However, I can't reach the same conclusion as the club. It's not to do with the amount of rain we got because Chorley, B***ley and others in the local area all played at the same time, both less than 10 miles in either direction. It seems to be to that small matter of having a pitch that's nearly 4 decades old. I wonder whether that makes it the oldest or certainly one of the oldest pitches in the division, that wouldn't surprise me. Sounds like an expensive job, but not for billionaire owners who love the club like their baby.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/25539231.blackburn-rovers-address-ipswich-abandonment-ewood-park-concerns/?ref=rss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky