2025 Summer Transfer Thread. 😂

[JBiz]

Just now, Exiled_Rover said:

£60m despite absolutely slashing the playing squad since Mowbray left. 

A flat £20m a year come what may. Not shady at all.

Tinfoilhat.gif

Seriously though, the owners are cunts in reality. Why imagine a stick to beat someone with when there are weapons strewn all over the floor? 

[Tomphil2]

6 minutes ago, JBiz said:

Different argument all together - the examples I could give you all have owners that invest.

There’s a difference between being a club plant, and acknowledging that a future without a billionaire means a different reality (especially comparing parachute clubs)

We are heading into that different reality anyway with billionaire owners and that is the hardest part to take because it seems by design now.

We can't keep throwing the neglect line out just like the bad advice one wore thin.

If we are going to regress to where Reading or Bolton have ended up, to where Charlton were until now then lets do it without these shysters. Just pull the plug, take your goons with you and lets have a cold hard fall then we can pick up the pieces and start again and find the real Blackburn Rovers again.

[JBiz]

1 minute ago, Tomphil2 said:

We are heading into that different reality anyway with billionaire owners and that is the hardest part to take because it seems by design now.

We can't keep throwing the neglect line out just like the bad advice one wore thin.

If we are going to regress to where Reading or Bolton have ended up, to where Charlton were until now then lets do it without these shysters. Just pull the plug, take your goons with you and lets have a cold hard fall then we can pick up the pieces and start again and find the real Blackburn Rovers again.

I’d love a fan owned Blackburn rovers at any level, I’m all up for that but it’s a difficult scenario to enforce without support from the government etc.

The meddling with football clubs by foreign owners is just another example of the dereliction of duty by politicians, governments et al in regards british infrastructure 

[JHRover]

17 minutes ago, JBiz said:

Different argument all together - the examples I could give you all have owners that invest.

There’s a difference between being a club plant, and acknowledging that a future without a billionaire means a different reality (especially comparing parachute clubs)

Why do we have to accept a future without a billionaire? Most of this league have done

[roverandout]

John swift linked to a free transfer to Portsmouth.  That's the kind of signing we should be all over 

[Crimpshrine]

58 minutes ago, JBiz said:

What should it be relying on;

1. Turnover? People won’t come till we change owners or are promoted

2. the owners investment? We want rid of the owners…

Answers on a postcard,

If the owners took an interest, invested in new players when the FFP position was/is favourable ( last season / now ), when the chance of the playoffs was there ( January )  and actually showed some ambition then the fans would come back, turnover increase. We could get promoted and that would pay the wages. 

It's not going to happen but you asked for an answer. 

How do other clubs pay wages without selling all their best players ? Answers on a postcard.

[Bbrovers2288]

1 minute ago, roverandout said:

John swift linked to a free transfer to Portsmouth.  That's the kind of signing we should be all over 

He isn’t an unknown from the Swiss/ Belgian/ Hungarian/ Slovakian/ Slovenian league who has a patchy looking montage on YouTube though so it’s not our market 

[...]

What is their actual plan. 

Plain Black and White you should be fighting tooth and nail to keep our better players and to be trying to lock down others up for grabs.

What is their actual business model. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me.

[JBiz]

1 minute ago, JHRover said:

Why do we have to accept a future without a billionaire? Most of this league have done

We don’t have to accept anything but our owners have no interest, that’s a fact.

Whilst I’d support anyone trying to arrest that terminal issue, basically calling people plants and liars because they don’t “catastrophise” to a similar extent, is just dumb.

[JBiz]

3 minutes ago, Crimpshrine said:

If the owners took an interest, invested in new players when the FFP position was/is favourable ( last season / now ), when the chance of the playoffs was there ( January )  and actually showed some ambition then the fans would come back, turnover increase. We could get promoted and that would pay the wages. 

It's not going to happen but you asked for an answer. 

How do other clubs pay wages without selling all their best players ? Answers on a postcard.

But they don’t! And they won’t! So why the fuck are we even discussing it.

Other clubs - not all, but successful ones like our ambition, have people involved who CARE!

[JHRover]

2 minutes ago, JBiz said:

We don’t have to accept anything but our owners have no interest, that’s a fact.

Whilst I’d support anyone trying to arrest that terminal issue, basically calling people plants and liars because they don’t “catastrophise” to a similar extent, is just dumb.

I disagree.

I think there are a lot of people out there, who knowingly or otherwise are set to defend the Venky Regime come what may.

Someone at Rovers 'leaking' something to Jackson or Nixon and then them regurgitating it to other 'journalists' isn't beyond the realms of possibility. Nor is someone invested in the regime having a spout off on twitter to defend their antics and their employers.

Anyhow,  doesn't actually matter either way because my prophecy of doom is coming true, as I said it would in January and ever since. No amount of insisting that Brittain was offered a great new deal will change that.

[Crimpshrine]

32 minutes ago, Tomphil2 said:

 

Real question is have we got another one installed into position on behalf of someone else with the remit of turning over the entire squad to a lower budget one to grow and sell ?

 

I think so.

Gestede's last playing stint was for Steve Kean in Australia. Adam Owen is very much involved in the cost cutting and his last job was with Steve Kean at Hibs. Pasha worked for Kentaro/SEM who installed Kean in the first place. 

I am convinced the same network of agents are still running the club. Pasha, Owen, Gestede are all there to save money for Venky's and make money for agents. Don't ask me what Venky's get out of it, it's a mystery. How did Gestede turn up from nowhere and suddenly get to be the main man ? 

[JBiz]

7 minutes ago, Crimpshrine said:

I think so.

Gestede's last playing stint was for Steve Kean in Australia. Adam Owen is very much involved in the cost cutting and his last job was with Steve Kean at Hibs. Pasha worked for Kentaro/SEM who installed Kean in the first place. 

I am convinced the same network of agents are still running the club. Pasha, Owen, Gestede are all there to save money for Venky's and make money for agents. Don't ask me what Venky's get out of it, it's a mystery. How did Gestede turn up from nowhere and suddenly get to be the main man ? 

This shit just kills me. Why is it so hard to just acknowledge that the owners are negligent?

[Crimpshrine]

1 minute ago, JBiz said:

This shit just kills me. Why is it so hard to just acknowledge that the owners are negligent?

I acknowledge that the owners are negligent.  They let agents run the club for them.

[Tomphil2]

14 minutes ago, Crimpshrine said:

I think so.

Gestede's last playing stint was for Steve Kean in Australia. Adam Owen is very much involved in the cost cutting and his last job was with Steve Kean at Hibs. Pasha worked for Kentaro/SEM who installed Kean in the first place. 

I am convinced the same network of agents are still running the club. Pasha, Owen, Gestede are all there to save money for Venky's and make money for agents. Don't ask me what Venky's get out of it, it's a mystery. How did Gestede turn up from nowhere and suddenly get to be the main man ? 

Yes another multitude of pure coincidences yet again.

[JBiz]

3 minutes ago, Crimpshrine said:

I acknowledge that the owners are negligent.  They let agents run the club for them.

Agents are locusts, not only bad for the environment but there are thousands of them. I’m sure we agree on that.

The line that I choose to draw is harking back to Steve fucking Kean. If you look hard enough, you’ll find any connection you want to see.

[Wing Wizard Windy Miller]

54 minutes ago, JBiz said:

they’ve never hired the best for the job, re board etc - we all agree on this. 
 

The point / question was simple? Are we hoping for more investment from the owners? Is this what we want? The people we lament day by day, the cause of all the issues?

We want them to invest?

It’s not that simple in my world. I will agree till the cows come home how much they’ve fucked us up, but I cannot sit here expectant of cash or investment from absent owners. 

I'm a little perplexed.  You agree that Venkys are useless.  You agree the club is poorly run. You seemingly want the club to be back in the hands of someone who cares.  Yet you seem to argue with anyone that expresses similar opinions and  bemoan their negativity. 

The new signings are likely to be crap.  Based on their previous playing history and fee.  It's fair to think that. That said, Rovers fans will always give them a fair chance because they wear the blue and white.  That will be at the ground though - not necessarily on an internet forum. 

[TimmyJimmy]

Deleted.

Edited Sunday at 00:11 by TimmyJimmy
Pointless commentary

[Crimpshrine]

16 minutes ago, TimmyJimmy said:

Winston Churchill once described Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside of an enigma.

Kind of sums up my thinking about the Venkys.

When the Walker Trust engineered the sale to Venkys I understood from the theories I read on this board and other places that Rothschilds, the investment bank and advisory, were intimately involved in completing the sale.  I was encouraged by that as I know the bank and some of the family and thought at the time that with their help we had struck gold when Venkys were confirmed as purchasers.

Perplexed by events since then I started digging a little.

I can find no confirmation that Rothschilds were involved but then the trust didn't disclose the M&A advisors, due diligence firms, or escrow agents.  The absence of a named bank therefore suggests the deal may have been privately financed or structured through corporate counsel and internal capital, rather than via such a high-profile investment bank. So how did Venkys arrive on the scene. Bit of a mystery.

Then there's their wanton disregard, even the perception of sadistic cruelty, towards the club. This just doesn't align with who they appeared to be.

They support multiple philanthropic ventures including hospitals in Pune, Hyderabad, Hosur, and Nellore, mobile clinics serving villages near Girinagar, the Venkateshwara school, a leprosy eradication programme covering hundreds of villages (supported by Emmaus of Switzerland), building temples etc., etc., seem like decent sorts.

How do you square that circle with the treatment of us. They're a bit of an enigma.

I don't think they are true billionaires, rich for sure but not billionaires in the sense of USD 1,000 million +. Take away what they need to run their businesses (much of their wealth is tied up in privately held subsidiaries which makes it hard to estimate that but they don't appear to have much if any long term debt so what funds they have seem consumed by their businesses.  Divide whats left by the brothers and sister and then consider Rovers gobbling up 20 million ish per year and ... a bit of a riddle.  How can they sustain that for 15 years?

They have zero interest in football, they are never in the country, they don't leverage the prestige of owning us in their marketing. We're like their crazy grandma locked in the tower that no one talks about.

Was the purchase money theirs. What's with the links to Switzerland. Kentaro?

Are they able to sell even if they wanted too.

We all want to see the back of them but are they really pulling the strings?

Don't know, just asking the questions.

The current and perpetual transfer window farces added to the above leave an awful stench in my nostrils. Things just don't feel right do they.

Are they somehow locked in and can't get out.

Exactly, Venky's continued ownership makes no sense whatsoever on the face of it. The fact that an (ex)Kentaro employee is running the club is suspicious enough in itself.  With all the hassle of the court cases and seized assets in India why wouldn't they sell ? There are a number of people coming to the same conclusions.

[Crimpshrine]

33 minutes ago, TimmyJimmy said:

Deleted.

Why you deleted that I don't know. The most incisive post on here for a long time.

[bluebruce]

Just seen this in the LT article about the JRC sale:

'After becoming an integral part of the Rovers team under Jon Dahl Tomasson, Rankin-Costello has waned. Callum Brittain re-established himself as the first choice at right-back under John Eustace and has remained so under Ismael.

Eustace did use the 25-year-old in central midfield, which looked a natural home, at the end of the 2023/24 season. However, the return of Lewis Travis and his partnership with Sondre Tronstad meant opportunities in the middle were limited.'

Thought it was ironic that all those players getting in his way look fairly likely to leave now. Not that I'm saying we shouldn't have sold him, he was never going to be robust enough to make it in more than patches.

[bluebruce]

2 hours ago, BankEnd Rover said:

It's impossible to judge Gestede under this regime, everything he's said in his interview has been constructed by someone else.

That is actually everything I need in order to judge him.

[pjt]

Question is are we going to be a trading club. If we are we need to buy and sell players?  Not  allow players to run down their contracts. One of the new signings comes good. Sell them. Have Brentford’s owners pumped £20 million a season in for 15 years?

[bluebruce]

32 minutes ago, pjt said:

Question is are we going to be a trading club. If we are we need to buy and sell players?  Not  allow players to run down their contracts. One of the new signings comes good. Sell them. Have Brentford’s owners pumped £20 million a season in for 15 years?

The club have been crystal clear - selling players will not impact our transfer budget. This makes being a trading club impossible.

[bigbrandjohn]

There is only one constant. Change. 

 A new manager brings a new way of playing and a new style of player to fit the model.

Gestede is a change in personnel and a change in contacts and approach. 

The strategy for keeping players until they are worth nothing has changed. Rothwell, Brereton and Dolan are unlikely to be repeated so anyone not signing contracts a year out will be off. 

The Indian Government is clamping down on foreign investments so a change in investment  approach is required.

If we make more good decisions than bad ones, we are winning. 

Brittain was solid but a sick note for  a good part of the season. Dolan was constantly criticized for chasing  up his own arse much of the time. I am happy to give the new signings  a chance  

It is what it is. Let's trust the process  If it goes tits up then we know what will happen.   

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 04:01 by bigbrandjohn