v Hull City (h) 15/4/23 @ 19.45pm

[neophox]

Hull lost one game last two months...against Burnley ..hard to beat at the moment.

[Torgeir]

On 15/04/2023 at 23:09, bluebruce said:

Other players who have done far more over the season than him being out of form doesn't make Gally any deadlier. He is also playing poorly. So I'll repeat the question, what is it about Gally's performances recently that makes you feel he should start? Was it when he dicked up that inviting ball over the top? When he fell over in the box for no reason waiting for a cross? The way he looks clearly unfit and you could see it in his face when he came off? Or something I've missed?

Look, I just think we're stuck in a pattern and could do with simplyfying our tactics in the final third. It's a game of opinions, I'd prefer someone else over Gally but I would definitely not consider putting him on the wing again like last night and let the highly ineffective Dolan play centrally. I'm pretty sure Dolan didn't play how JDT wants his no. 9 to play yesterday. If he did then I don't know what to say.

[Torgeir]

On 15/04/2023 at 23:24, roverandout said:

Bwaahaa Bwaahaa...oh you're serious 

 

 

What a daft comment. 

[Torgeir]

On 15/04/2023 at 23:13, BlackburnEnd75 said:

Start with Gallagher...

No, neigh, never no more

 

 

No, not on the wing. 

[47er]

2 hours ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

"Years of underfunding"? I hold no candle for the owners who have made many bad decisions but they have been losing £15m - £20m a year for many years.

They haven't been losing money because they've been spending too much on players! There are many reasons why they've lost money but basically its because they are clueless and should never have got involved in football.

If they continue to cut back on player recruitment then they'll lose more money, we'll have a squad of under-19's, get relegated and then they'll lose even more money.

But much more importantly we'll lose our club.

[roverandout]

48 minutes ago, Torgeir said:

What a daft comment. 

I'm just kidding 

[USABlue]

That Leonard slide when he almost made contact I found myself wondering had that been Gally where would he have been.  Penalty spot,? Standong by some defender?  Bet not going for goal kike the kid.

[Mashed Potatoes]

7 hours ago, 47er said:

They haven't been losing money because they've been spending too much on players! There are many reasons why they've lost money but basically its because they are clueless and should never have got involved in football.

If they continue to cut back on player recruitment then they'll lose more money, we'll have a squad of under-19's, get relegated and then they'll lose even more money.

But much more importantly we'll lose our club.

They spent £4m- £4.5m on bringing in Brittain,Hyam and Szmodics this year who replaced Nyambe,Lenihan and Rothwell. I would have thought that with players coming through our academy signing 3 players a year was a reasonable rate of recruitment. The idea that you will lose lots of money if you don't spend even more money  signing players went out with Mel Morris and is the sort of thinking that the forthcoming new system of regulation in football is designed to prevent.

[Mattyblue]

So why was there a net spend of £4million+ in replacing those three players again?

[Blue blood]

10 hours ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

"Years of underfunding"? I hold no candle for the owners who have made many bad decisions but they have been losing £15m - £20m a year for many years.

Not the same as investing in the squad though, by a long stretch. 

I mean not letting contracts repeatedly run down might be a start. Owners are culpable on this from blocking sales of players (Bereton) through to having mugs in place who let contracts run down en masse (last season). 

There's stacks of examples where the squad hasn't been invested in. Could pulling in £10 mill and spending £250k on transfers, not replacing Armstrong, using loans to patch up a defence for years, not spending in January when we were in a good position (twice!) 

Hard to say the squad has been funded adequately. You could argue it's those below then but given they don't seem to care and allow them to continue, it's hard to say it's not the owners fault. 

[47er]

2 hours ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

They spent £4m- £4.5m on bringing in Brittain,Hyam and Szmodics this year who replaced Nyambe,Lenihan and Rothwell. I would have thought that with players coming through our academy signing 3 players a year was a reasonable rate of recruitment. The idea that you will lose lots of money if you don't spend even more money  signing players went out with Mel Morris and is the sort of thinking that the forthcoming new system of regulation in football is designed to prevent.

As has been said, they got £16M for Armstrong and spent nothing---no replacement. You can't just pick one year out of 12 and conclude they've done well.

The only way they will ever get their money back is for Rovers to be promoted but they don't seem worried about it either way.

What use are they? There is no plan for steady progress just sporadic effort every now and then.

We could be like Brentford now, it didn't take them this long. Brighton were in the Div 1 when we were an established Premier League team. Burnley have gone up 3 times, the second 2 with parachute money but not the first time. They simply got the right manager and backed him.

Edited April 17, 2023 by 47er

[Mashed Potatoes]

9 minutes ago, 47er said:

As has been said, they got £16M for Armstrong and spent nothing---no replacement. You can't just pick one year out of 12 and conclude they've done well.

The only way they will ever get their money back is for Rovers to be promoted but they don't seem worried about it either way.

What use are they? There is no plan for steady progress just sporadic effort every now and then.

We could be like Brentford noe, it didn't take them this long. Brighton were in the Div 1 when we were an established Premier League team. Burnley have gone up 3 times, the second 2 with parachute money but not the first time. They simply got the right manager and backed him.

After Newcastle had their cut we got £10m for Armstrong. Brentford were in the Championship for 7 seasons before they got promoted.

I'm not defending the way Venkys have run the club - but I don't agree with the use of the word "underfunding" given the amount they've spent. 

[47er]

1 minute ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

After Newcastle had their cut we got £10m for Armstrong. Brentford were in the Championship for 7 seasons before they got promoted.

I'm not defending the way Venkys have run the club - but I don't agree with the use of the word "underfunding" given the amount they've spent. 

Its not "funding" its expenditure. Millions wasted because they didn't know what they were doing. They are now paying a

fortune to keep the club going at the level they brought it down to with no end or resolution in sight. This can't go on for ever.

Will the generations of the future have a Blackburn Rovers to support? Whose fault will that be?

[rog of the rovers]

An interesting but I'm sure a purely coincidental stat.

Since the turn of the 21st Century Rovers have played on 'Grand National Day' 15 times. No fixtures between 2000-2004, also not having a fixture in 2007, 2009 and 2010 and of course, the COVID pandemic prevented live sport in 2020.

Played 15

Won 2

Drawn 9

Lost 4

Points 15

For 15

Against 17

 

Both victories some time ago, both at Ewood. Southampton 3-0 in 2005 and Ipswich 2-0 in 2014.

 

2023 - Hull City (h) 0-0

2022 - Blackpool (h) 1-1

2021 - Cardiff City (a) 2-2

2019 - Stoke City (h) 0-1

2018 - Bristol Rovers (a) 1-1

2017 - Barnsley (h) 0-2

2016 - Wolves (a) 0-0

2015 - Reading (a) 0-0

 

Lets hope Sky move our fixture off Grand National Day next year!

Edited April 17, 2023 by rog of the rovers

[Glosrover]

On 16/04/2023 at 08:38, SIMON GARNERS 194 said:

I think its looking more and more likely that with some proper financial backing from the venksters and some decent centre forwards,next season will be the one for posssibly real celebration.

Like most I wanted it this season but what I have witnessed these last three games has convinced me we just dont have what it takes sadly.We will have to bide our time further...as galling as that may be.

sadly next year's Championship may end up being ruined by each of Everton, Southampton and Leicester being in it - complete with parachute payments and vaguely competent management.  

[bluebruce]

Some talk about how we didn't reinvest after selling Armstrong, and I'm not saying we shouldn't have spent a little to do so, but if I remember rightly we barely passed that year's FFP as it was, and I think that was including 'selling' our training ground for another 15 mill ish.

[Herbie6590]

 

[Blue blood]

1 hour ago, bluebruce said:

Some talk about how we didn't reinvest after selling Armstrong, and I'm not saying we shouldn't have spent a little to do so, but if I remember rightly we barely passed that year's FFP as it was, and I think that was including 'selling' our training ground for another 15 mill ish.

That's a good point, well made. However to not bring in any replacement, not even on a free, was foolish indeed. Surely we could have avoided having nobody? Surely there was a bit of wiggle room to bring in a striker. Also that was 4 windows ago and he hasn't been replaced, so they haven't looked to do it even when things were less financially pressing. 

[chaddyrovers]

54 minutes ago, Blue blood said:

That's a good point, well made. However to not bring in any replacement, not even on a free, was foolish indeed. Surely we could have avoided having nobody? Surely there was a bit of wiggle room to bring in a striker. Also that was 4 windows ago and he hasn't been replaced, so they haven't looked to do it even when things were less financially pressing. 

Mowbray was going to bring in Maja on a loan to buy that summer. then in January Mowbray didn't think we needed a main striker signing as we were playing Buckley as false 9. Then in the summer we signed Hirst on loan to buy which didn't work out for us but in January we failed to bring one in for the reasons GB already stated. One should have been signed for sure

plus we only got around 10 million for AA as Newcastle had 40% sell on clause for him

Edited April 17, 2023 by chaddyrovers

[roversfan99]

We failed to bring one in this January due to incompetence.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

2 hours ago, Glosrover said:

sadly next year's Championship may end up being ruined by each of Everton, Southampton and Leicester being in it - complete with parachute payments and vaguely competent management.  

This was the season to do it if we were going to do it. Torpedoed by managerial incompetence in the transfer window.

[bluebruce]

18 minutes ago, Blue blood said:

That's a good point, well made. However to not bring in any replacement, not even on a free, was foolish indeed. Surely we could have avoided having nobody? Surely there was a bit of wiggle room to bring in a striker. Also that was 4 windows ago and he hasn't been replaced, so they haven't looked to do it even when things were less financially pressing. 

I certainly think we should have been able to spare about 2 million or so for a new striker. Sometimes it's easier said than done though, and you can't find anyone for the price you have in mind or who you think represents value for money. There's no point spending for the sake of it, or doing a bad deal. That said, I think there's been a real failure of imagination at the club for a while, the transfer market being no exception. You would hope now there's a settled system and a DoF, that can start to change, but so far they've still failed to bring in a striker.

A couple of other points though. I'm not sure things have been less financially pressing since, that would be one for the people more familiar with the accounts, but from what I've heard the last few years we seem to just scrape under the limits each year. The wage bill is meant to have been reduced considerably though, so maybe that can start to change. Also, the sounds from the club do suggest we've 'looked to do it', but that we've failed. They've talked about missing out on striker targets near deadline day for the last few windows I think. Of course, you don't win any prizes for trying to sign players, and it's even possible it's just been smoke and mirrors, but we can't categorically rule out that they've tried. The failings may be incompetence on our behalf (some history to back that up) or budgetary constraints (history for that too).

Another thing to consider is that the training ground sale didn't happen til what, March? Knowing the poor lines of communication between India and Blackburn, those running the club over here may not have known that was on the cards, and just seen an impending deficit in the books that was about 10 million over our FFP limits. This would reduce what they felt they could allow for signings. None of this is to say it's acceptable, many of these problems stem from a lack of competency, imagination, planning and structure at the club, often starting in India. The contract rebel situations in particular have been costly, probably costing us something in the region of 30 mill in player assets (another 5 for Arma if he was fully contracted, 15 ish for BBD, 10 ish for Rothwell, Lenihan and Nyambe combined). It could be less but however you slice it, it's a lot for us.

Thankfully Diaz's emergence took some of the goal burden away for a while, but now he's off the boil and leaving in the summer. Unless Leonard starts smashing in goals (and probably even if he does) it's imperative we sign a decent striker in the summer no matter what league we're in. If we have to trade to make it happen then so be it.

[Groundhog]

I was just listening to the Kidder Street Noise podcast today and they mentioned that Hyam was telling the Blackburn End to calm down during the Hull game, was this true? What was going on? Didn't see it from where I was sat. He didn't have the best game but I admire him as a player, and he seems like a true pro. 

I'm going to get pelted for saying this but I do think the pressure and frustration from the crowd got into the players heads a bit - they're an inexperienced bunch at the most, not many players used to grinding games out in a top of the table run in, when it matters. For me it's one of the main reasons, along with the squad size and depth, that we drop off every year. The system doesn't help, although I can see why it works. It requires them to play a perfect ball out of defence and have a player control under it under pressure, if you're second guessing yourself and your own ability you're less likely to pull the trigger, accept the ball on the turn and going for it - too scared to mess up. Not blaming us as fans, as it works both ways, but I could feel it ramping up. 

It just showed when they brought someone on with natural ability like Wharton who can take the ball under pressure, play on instinct and naturally make room for himself with feints, dropping of the shoulder etc it comes natural to him and he could take the pressure off the team and move us forward. We need a target man who can do the same up front.

I hope the players see that when in the first half JRC played a long ambitious diagonal ball straight out of play, he got a round of applause appreciating the effort. We don't mind the odd misplaced pass forward, as 2 out of 5 times it might stick. 

 

[SuperBrfc]

3 hours ago, Groundhog said:

I was just listening to the Kidder Street Noise podcast today and they mentioned that Hyam was telling the Blackburn End to calm down during the Hull game, was this true? What was going on? Didn't see it from where I was sat. He didn't have the best game but I admire him as a player, and he seems like a true pro. 

I'm going to get pelted for saying this but I do think the pressure and frustration from the crowd got into the players heads a bit - 

I don't know what happened in regards the Blackburn End. However, Hyam has looked very shaky these past couple of games. That's unlike him, as he has generally been solid up until the last couple of weeks.

I have to admit, my first thought upon seeing him all over the place recently, misplacing passes etc, was that the pressure has got to him. These are all pressure games now, we have effectively two shootouts coming up in the next two. They know how crucial it is for us to pick up points at this stage, the business end, and some won't be able to handle it.

It wouldn't surprise me if he was trying to calm the Blackburn End down, if he felt that the crowd wasn't helping. Though if that is the case, I'd have to question the mentality.

I also worry that it is getting to all of them, to be honest. There hasn't been a winning mentality at the club for a long time. We've fallen apart numerous times under previous managers when in promising positions. Under Bowyer, Sheff Wednesday away, 3-1 up and we blow it to draw 3-3 towards the business end, then we had the Yeovil at home debacle. There are too many to mention under the previous manager, but I remember him, last season, saying something like "they've never been in this position in the League before". Give them an excuse to slip up, why don't you?

Accompanying all of the previous bottled moments, has been a seemingly constant "never mind lads, we go again next week", "It's a project/journey/process", and "nobody expects us to do x, y, z..." attitude about the place for years. That's why we bottle it in key moments, imo. Excuses are made for failure and potential reasons for failure are given by management in advance of us messing up! It's why I think a defeat tomorrow will end our season.

It feels like a massive game against Coventry, with everything hanging in the balance. Win and it should give the squad a surge of confidence, hopefully. Lose and that's probably us done for the season, as I think heads will drop.

[Mattyblue]

Doesn’t matter how inexperienced you are if you are a player intimidated by Ewood you may as well give it up as a career…

Edited April 18, 2023 by Mattyblue