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Tony Bloom probably the best/most successful club owner in the last 15 years. Local man done good. Transformed Brighton from a league one club into an established premier league team that qualified for Europe. Very smart man who brought in a load of other very smart people and worked hard to create a club which looks nothing like the one he bought. In the last 15 years our owners have completely transformed our club, in the reverse opposite manner. No smart people, no good decision making. Shebby Singh, Suhail Pasha, Shaw, Agnew, Gestede et al. Steve Waggott looks like Jeff Bezos against that list. Appalling.

The Brighton model (when they were promoted from the Championship) involved spending more than they received, which can be done under FFP rules as fees spent are divided over the course of a contract where fees received are counted as 1 singular payment, even then, I seem to recall (correct me if I am wrong) that Brighton would have been in trouble for breaching rules had they not gone up, such was the extent of their overspend Rovers do the polar opposite Brentford, Coventry, Middlesbrough etc operate/operated closer to a player trading model, although all invest a much higher proportion of monies from player sales than Rovers

This goes to show how difficult it is to grow and achieve with a football club using the 'Brighton' model. You can keep selling players for more than you paid, but in our case the club has stagnated while that has happened. Clubs like Brighton. Brentford, the dingles, have bought cheap, sold high and progressed the league position of the club. To do that, you have to keep reinvesting the money wisely and appointing smart football people. We've done none of that. It's all on the owners and reason 358 that they need to go.

In many ways, you can't blame players for prioritising the short form of the games, as it all comes down to money ultimately. We'd likely all be the same in their position. But I do think, until the ECB and players stop prioritising things like The Hundred, The IPL and other short forms of the game over first-class cricket, we'll continue to get poor results like this Ashes series so far.

Ah that must have been what I saw. Thanks!

far from perfect, but basically yes, obviously this is based on estimated/guessed fees, and is only transfer fees, no other income/expenditure https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/championship/einnahmenausgaben/wettbewerb/GB2/plus/0?ids=a&sa=&saison_id=2010&saison_id_bis=2025&nat=&pos=&altersklasse=&w_s=&leihe=&intern=0 # Club Expenditure Arrivals Income Departures balance 1 Swansea City €308.57m 345 €394.08m 351 €85.51m 2 Blackburn Rovers €91.02m 376 €163.26m 388 €72.23m 3 Bristol City €101.47m 384 €146.88m 381 €45.42m 4 Peterborough United €26.28m 473 €67.42m 479 €41.14m 5 Wigan Athletic €76.89m 445 €111.09m 439 €34.20m 6 Watford FC €400.63m 467 €434.47m 466 €33.83m 7 Barnsley FC €26.90m 469 €55.87m 466 €28.97m 8 Milton Keynes Dons €4.04m 429 €21.43m 429 €17.39m 9 Blackpool FC €13.39m 508 €28.42m 514 €15.03m 10 Oxford United €5.92m 433 €19.48m 421 €13.56m 11 Portsmouth FC €16.60m 478 €29.25m 479 €12.65m 12 Charlton Athletic €29.80m 488 €42.26m 485 €12.46m 13 Reading FC €71.14m 398 €81.90m 400 €10.76m 14 Plymouth Argyle €11.11m 411 €20.29m 413 €9.18m 15 Rotherham United €6.38m 476 €13.75m 471 €7.37m 16 Preston North End €26.12m 396 €32.47m 392 €6.35m 17 Bolton Wanderers €31.93m 429 €36.94m 438 €5.01m 18 Doncaster Rovers €1.78m 467 €6.79m 465 €5.01m 19 Birmingham City €136.20m 437 €140.90m 438 €4.70m 20 Wycombe Wanderers €1.92m 405 €5.78m 403 €3.87m 21 Scunthorpe United €2.11m 472 €5.88m 477 €3.78m 22 Coventry City €71.33m 366 €74.41m 370 €3.09m 23 Burton Albion €2.04m 482 €4.98m 477 €2.93m 24 Hull City €228.74m 436 €231.53m 438 €2.79m 25 Yeovil Town - 501 €760k 506 €760k

I'm similar, I don't watch enough. I think the County system and structure when we play our first class games. We need quality over quantity

Sorry, just to be clear, is Harry Berry saying that we're £80m in profit from transfer sales across 15 years? Thinking about it, i'm sure I saw a stat somewhere, maybe last year that had us and Swansea (?) at the top of a chart regarding profit made from transfers over the last few years.

Is Boland that good Gav? He swings into you and Keeper stood up, isn't that something new? Maybe we should have taken Woakes or Cook? We havent replace Anderson and Broad in terms of quality but also hitting line and length. Lynn always like to take a wicket early, when he doesnt, he goes searching more so why not play on that. Pope's dismissal was stupid..

Surely that has to be the final nail in Gueye's coffin? Dead man walking look in his eyes, and complete lack of confidence in his demeanour throughout. Remember, football is a game that is built on feedback, and if that is the kind of 'support' he gets from his club captain and team-mates on a daily basis, there is no way back for the lad. If I was him I'd be asking to play centre half or something or go out on loan to a lower division, as it is clear he has the striking prowess of a gnat on a windscreen in Championship terms. Whilst it is a shame for the lad, it is much more of a shame on those who brought him to the club, who clearly haven't a clue what is required to compete effectively at this level of football. Time to move on, Maktar. The video re-confirms that Sondre Tronstadt is a solid, reliable and effective performer, and that Todd Cantwell is a show pony.

Australia have 5 of the best bowlers in the world, look at the number of wickets Starc, Cummins, Lyon, Boland and Hazelwood have taken. We have Archer, who is world class on his day, our 2nd highest wicket taker is Joe Root, let that sink in! All the populist nonsense about us being 'under cooked', not enough warm up games etc is rubbish, our real issue is this current crop of players, career wise, have not had enough cricket in Australian conditions. To add to that, I think it was K-Hod who initially called this out and he's spot on, if you don't take catches you don't win matches. I would concur and no amount of warm up games helps with getting the very basics right. Lets face it, in Australian conditions, we are a long way behind this current Aussie team, especially with the ball, its that simple.

I don’t watch enough county cricket to say Chaddy, so I don’t have any answers. All I know is we don’t seem to be producing the standard of cricketers we used to do. It seems that county cricket these days isn’t as intensive as the Sheffield Shield competition in Australia. It’s like in Rugby League, we have nothing over here as intensive as the “ State Of Origin “ series that they have over there. Our players aren’t used to that level of intensity. That’s why we regularly get hammered when we play the Aussies. It didn’t used to be that way.

Excellent post which nails it completely.

Is the County championship of good quality? Does it provide good players? If you look at the top 3 batsman county championship div 1 run scores, its 3 players who couldn't perform at Test level. Are younger batsmen knocking the door down to say to National selector Luke Wright and head coach McCullum pick me instead? I think the County game need restructuring to produce better quality but better players? Like why are playing Cricket at County level in Early April, late September and October

You don’t have to be a genius to realise that cricketing conditions out in Australia are totally different to the ones in England. I would have thought it was imperative to get some playing time out there before the test. Knock about stuff in New Zealand isn’t the answer. Conditions out there are more like the UK. Having said that, we just aren’t good enough, the batting is especially poor. Too much one day stuff has done for us I’m afraid.

Why couldn't their do catching practice on the bench? What's wrong a couple of hours practicing batting and catching practice then rest on a bench before session of catching on the bench for a hour. Sounds fair and reasonable to me

Think it was Only One Jack Walker making the point ref being on the beach chilling between matches and not doing any fielding practice that nailed it for me. I'm all for players having time off, but at 2-0 down in the series, with the manner of some of our performances, the optics on it weren't great.

I am a die hard (like us all) had a season ticket since I was a young lad, both my sons also have season tickets and the idea of stepping foot in Ewood at the moment gives me great anxiety. I can't believe the state of the club, the 15 year decline and I also can't stand how some fans are still insisting on having a glass half full mentality towards the circus that was once our world renowned and respected club. We are a complete and utter shadow of what we used to be, there isnt even a single grain remaining of what we used to be (other than a cob web ridden trophy cabinet and a stadium that is no longer fit for standard), we are simply a laughing stock in comparison. Once a very proud town club that achieved the unthinkable, been done by barely any teams since (outside of the normally expected "big clubs"). How any fan can sit and be happy about the current state of affairs is beyond my understanding, to even give Venkys a shred of appreciation is even further... The only thing that will promote a positive fanbase reaction is for the owners to sell up and the full board being replaced, anyone that thinks otherwise is a complete and utter fool. Have the owners provided money? ... Yes, have they done it simply to keep the lights on? You can't argue... Is that good enough? No... There is no ambition even from a simple marketing campaign, nevermind with the club. I am sick to the stomach of seeing idiots who believe they have a MSc in Business arguing the toss about the potential in BRFC like they themselves know how to handle such a big business. Fact of the matter is, we are still a club with potential... A decent buyer would snap the hands off to buy our club providing they had the money to burn to rectify all of Venkys mistakes, they would instantly become the messiahs of Ewood if they had even a minor shred of capability/credibility. Some of the fanbase needs to get their heads out of the sand.

Yes and what happened in summer and what has followed since has finally provided the tipping point for thousands more after 15 years of this lot. As i said we kicked off a Championship season with only 11 thousand home fans after finishing high up the table last season. We got 11k in league 1 there should have been at least 3k more in the home sections so the red flags were there in August.

any chance you can post it and/or a link here? Edit - is this it?

I'm not disagreeing with you over McCullum and the staff. I think our pre test series preparations like a couple of proper warm up games were wrong. I think Vaughan, Tufnell, Botham, Lloyd have slammed that decision. You can not go to Australia and not prepare correctly.

Just seen some PR on a Harry Lister - great video reel but is he any good?

Listen, I think there's a lot of credence in what you're saying. I just think, with different coaching, these players are probably capable of playing differently.

Comedy with Big Mak, the fact Todd says that shows what they think of him day in day out in training.

Is ripping up again going to change things, would Pope or Duckett play different under another head coach? I'm not unsure. They played that way and I don't think they can play different. Maybe, the lack of accountability is because Stokes and McCullum think these are best 7 batsmen in county cricket and we don't have players knocking on the door. Would a Dom Sibley or Hameed been better choice than Pope. Should Bethall play even tho he hasn't even got a first class hundred? maybe we need to restructure the County Cricket to focus more on quality or quantity?