7 hours ago, windymiller7 said:

I would!

As soon as I learn how to piss petrol!!

Have you ever seen the film Backdraft?

Put that in the context of pissing petrol & I bet it brings tears to your eyes!!

If it is Eustace then he should be welcomed as that's more positive than I feared. 

However it is not dealing with the main problem and I am sure his agent will ensure he has a severance clause in his contract stipulating that if Venkys so much as break one promise or lose their case in India, he is entitled to leave with a big pay off.

I'd also insist on direct comms with the owners & a guarantee from them that if they lose their case in India they put the club up for sale at face value & write off any debt they have lumbered the club with so that we can move forward with a clean slate.

That's the only way I'd be persuaded to come here if I were him.  And I know it wouldn't happen.

5 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

 

 

"Swift action" scares me in that:

a - sounds very much like panic stations; and 

b - we don't function well under pressure, as per the last 2 Jan deadline days.  They HAVE to get this right, there's no margin for error. 

That was a solid article in the Mirror too, gave a good recent potted history of the last 18 months.

If as suspected the bits where attendees swore to secrecy were concerning JDT's as-yet-unannounced departure, or the McGuire transfer fiasco, I presume the reason for the need for secrecy would be to protect the club from legal action (in the case of JDT) & to protect the McGuire transfer appeal.

I may be wrong, but that would be an entirely valid reason for a cloak of secrecy at the present time, & not something to level at the fans who attended as being in cahoots with Waggott or somehow lured into his trap. 

1 hour ago, Glosrover said:

They’ll probably fill it out wrong or send it to Ricky Tomlinson……..

Or indeed not send it anywhere, just save it.

4 hours ago, arbitro said:

Mowbray had a bad run pretty much every season and Bowyer did too. Prior to them we didn't have a manager in situ long enough for them to go on a bad run. How many managers have we appointed who we had to pay compensation for? I think none. The conclusion I draw from that the owners don't really consider the manager/head coach an important role.

I think you've forgotten (or more like had surgically scrubbed from your memory) the bald headed muppet under whom our footballing demise started...

But like you say, given how 💩 that incumbent was, it does support the premise that the owners don't consider it an important role.

(I can't bring myself to type his name, but his level of incompetence is certainly befitting of this thread.)

Thanks guys, got there in the end.

Great content (putting aside the sheer depressive nature of it all).

I agree JDT is not perfect, but I do feel the contributors were harsh on him (albeit i respect their opinion and do see the logic to their argument). At the end of the day the model he works under relies on him being given the tools to implement his philosophy, yet every window those above him have failed.

He was made promises (initially on arrival, and then again last summer) which were broken, budgets slashed mid-window, record sales proceeds not reinvested, kids when he wanted experience. It's absolutely impossible for him to do his job in the prevailing circumstances, so to lump him in with those above him as part of the problem, and now only trying to protect his own reputation, is way off the mark imo.

2 hours ago, Herbie6590 said:

It's been a crazy week in Blackburn Rovers World & our loyal panelists try to make sense of it all.

Corralled by host Roger Whiteside, listen to Ian Herbert, Linz Lewis, Katharine MacNamara & James Marsh as they struggle to separate fact, fiction and raw emotion.

Part 1 - Has JDT passed the point of no return?

Part 2 - Duncan McGuire - where does this rank in club record embarrassments?

Part 3 - Where do we go from here?

Hopefully listening provides some catharsis for all beleaguered Rovers fans right now.

 

Listening links here:-

https://www.brfcs.com/magazine/podcasts/the-'what-now'-show-is-it-down-to-the-lake-i-fear/46

I can't access this, keep getting a bad gateway error??

Gobsmacked, except not.

I've no idea how these things are done, or how things can go so horribly & identically wrong twice in 12 months. I like GB overall and don't genuinely think he is the person who actually made the mistake. If he is he has to go, but even if he isn't he has to be considering his position following his statement last year that lessons have been learnt. He's either cocked up twice, or he's been badly let down by others again & been left hanging out to dry.

Neither is good for him professionally, and if it's the latter he has my every sympathy as he has had nothing but obstacles put in his way by the set up at Ewood since he walked in the door.

It all stems from the owners. No plan, no ambition, no competence, no interest, no communication, no empathy, no respect, no passion, no responsibility, no accountability, no transparency. 

We're an absolute embarrassment; there must be a full and independent investigation into what's happened here by the incoming football regulator. No self respecting club, agent or player is going to touch us with a barge pole in any future window without there being a change of ownership and / or full transparency about what happened, how & what proper steps are taken to stop the rot.

We've sabotaged ourselves in terms of transfers for a decade to come.

7 hours ago, AllRoverAsia said:

How many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer my friend is living in Pune, the answer is living in Pune.

Meanwhile ....

 

My favourite version of that song, which I only recently discovered!!

He can always say no, if so.

But fair enough, I agree that might be an issue. That said, if there's knowledge of illegal behaviour having been engaged in then an NDA might not be worth the paper it's written on.

Maybe someone can try & get Salgado involved, he knows a lot about what went on during the early years I believe, and he has an ongoing afinity with the club.

11 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

And not only that but they replaced him with a no mark never was. And when the no mark never was nearly relegated us they kept him on . And when the no mark never was actually relegated us they still kept him on. In my experience of the modern football scene that is pretty much unprecedented.

Something smelt to high heaven then and it smells a lot worse now.

Not only that, they extended his contract in improved terms!!!

9 hours ago, Jimmy612 said:

He rightly absolutely slayed them. JDT might be struggling with this group, but absolutely no wonder. 3 completely abysmal transfer windows in a row. If any fans think he’s the problem, they are in fact part of the problem. 

I was arguing with some yesterday, them saying he has no plan B and his subs are wrong / ineffective. 

Well yes, because he has nothing of any worth to choose from after such a poor window.

He is a coach, not a manager. He is reliant on the club signing players he identifies who have the qualities for him to coach them into the style of play that fits his approach, otherwise the model doesn't work. That's been clear from day one, "ask Gregg, the club knows what I want, it's up to the club to get it". 

Well that's 4 tranfer windows now, has the club provided him with any of his preferences? Clearly not, with incomings being full of loans & short term freebies despite a £20m sale & the on/off/kind-of-back-on-again/on/done-deal/oops McGuire deal to boot, as the project he was promised has changed completely & the finances rug has been pulled out from under Gregg's feet by the owners.

Only one place where fault lies. Nothing to see in JDT's direction. 

19 minutes ago, NeilInBristol said:

Any one go yesterday? What was the mood and atmosphere like?

Supportive at first as we started reasonably brightly, but got gradually more nervous as the game progressed, then was toxic by the time they went 2 up. Chants against Venkys & Waggott, fans arguing amongst themselves as to whether JDT was culpable (imo not).

40 minutes ago, Herbie6590 said:

Spot on. We need points now…then chuck it all in a skip on 1st June & start again.

Ooh, another project, how exciting!!

(I get the sentiment though)

14 hours ago, Neal said:

Tbh, I know he's had injuries this season but he hasn't got the best out of them. His substitutions have always been poor and his game management from winning positions are even worse. 

 

As much as I like the guy I think he's getting a lot of leniency because of his character and ambition but the goals against column doesn't lie and I don't think we've got a bad defence. 

 

At this point it's starting to seem like it's him doing us a favour and he doesn't want the opportunity any more then he should leave and allow someone to come in  who wants it. 

 

I'm coming at this purely as an assessment of his performance this season. Don't get me wrong, I think he could likely move on to bigger and better things and whilst we are under Venkys we'll continue on downwards trajectory.

 

That aside it's still possible for a manager to come in and easily sort out our defensive issues and move us up the table. 

I feel that the bad defence thing only applies to the last 10 weeks, which coincides with Wahlstedt deputising for the injured Pears. If a defence, which has itself suffered from injuries caysing the need for regular rotation, has a young, inexperienced and nervous keeper behind it then it's likely only going to go one way...

Seems strange to say given the problems Pears has had in his tenure, but had Pears not got injured & Wahlstedt not been thrown into the deep end so soon after his arrival, we'd probably only be 4 or 5 points off 6th place...

3 minutes ago, Rogerb said:

Rovers v Newcastle on bbc1 on Tuesday 27 February 

Seems a long way off right now!!

On 01/02/2024 at 00:32, DE. said:

If tomorrow doesn't see some major moves on our part I hope JDT tears the owners a new one in the pre-match presser and resigns on the spot. We know they value their supposed pride and that would sting. 

Won't happen, but, if only. 

I guess he nearly did...

1 minute ago, TommyRovers said:

Frustratingly this will fuel so much speculation and drama which isn't what we need. How I miss being a normal football club. 

I don't believe he has walked nor that he has been sacked. Poor way to handle it though.

What do you understand to be the reason then? You're usually on the pulse I think...

You can never measure the success of a transfer window the day after it's closed. All the new arrivals deserve the opportunity to show what they can do, they ought not to be judged on the basis of previous deals that came good or went sour, or in the context of when / how they were signed. We've certainly got numbers in (4 first team squad members out, 8 in is it?), experience & a bit of no-nonesense clout, all of which we have been in dire need of these last 2 months, so amen to that at least.

None of us know exactly what the position is re finances; is it true that Wharton needed to be sold to keep the lights on for 6 months (sounds plausible, albeit inexcusable in the grander scheme of things) or rather is it true that the AW deal was genuinely in the balance until so late in the day that it was impossible to spend the money wisely in 6 hours (also equally plausible)? 

Who knows. Taking a step back, losing AW itself is something we all knew would happen & £18m plus is too much to ignore, especially given the benefit of hindsight in not selling BBD, Rothwell, Lenihan, etc when the chances were there, and missing out on big money for Dack due to unlucky injury. Hopefully he succeeds & gets a bigger move & we get further add ons. What galls most is how soon it's happened in his development, but even more than that is that it's Palace he's gone to,  a very average club all things considered. Such is where our esteemed owners have positioned us in the food chain.

For those criticising GB, I do feel that's unfairly harsh. It's nigh on impossible to focus on well organised, proper long term recruitment if the budgetary goalposts shift so significantly (like they did in summer, like they probably did last week when the High Court hearing - which the club is seemingly confident will go Venkys' way - was unexpectedly delayed, and like they seemingly did this week with it taking 4 days to complete the AW transfer).

One thing that is inescapable is that there has been no true ambition shown by Venkys in all their tenure. There've been words said, platitudes given, even no shortage of money spent (just very badly to cover theur own mistakes), but no real plan that has been devised & followed through cohesively, hence lurching from one window to the next without any real progress.

That's on them and only them. Until they go it'll be more of the same I'm afraid. Sad but true.

4 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

From the BBC

Hull are now in advanced talks with Burnley over a loan deal for winger Anass Zaroury.The Tigers are having some window, having already brought in Fabio Carvalho from Liverpool and Abdulkadir Omur - better known as the 'Turkish Messi'.

Now that's what you do when you want to get promotion

I seem to remember the business that Stoke did a couple of summers back was lauded on here as being light years ahead of what we did... didn't work out too great for them in the end, might be similar for Hull.

Just trying to focus on potential positives!!