He's not so far off holding the purse strings, in the past, whenever he's gone back cap in hand to the owners for more funds either because they've underestimated how much players cost or their wage demands, or he's cocked up, or due to a spate of injuries, funds would appear to have been forthcoming.

Dack was a stroke of inspiration there's no doubt about that, fairly left field and by far the best signing of the lot all things considered. My argument would be, if you're given the funding to bring in around, I don't know forty or fifty players over five years either permanently or on loan, you'd expect a few belters as an absolute minimum and under a genuinely astute manager, a lot more than that.

"Played a blinder" is perhaps stretching it a bit far as clued up, knowledgeable and hands on owners shouldn't have allowed the situation to get to that point in the first place. But yes, they did exploit the loophole just before it was closed off which to me demonstrates their continued commitment to the cause. Now if only all that money and genuine intent could finally be put to good use under skillfull and shrewd operators on the ground at Ewood with their finger on the pulse of the supporter base.

Ah the two Mr. Flip Flops who are now seemingly quite content with Mowbray steaming in..... Sorry guys, no offence, my point was more that if the only focus of our transfer activity in January is to sign non entities from Scotland on pre contracts for next season that isn't necessarily indicative of major regime changes coming in summer. Mowbray isn't the man to take us forward at this level, never was and never will be. A temporary and slightly better sequence of results than we had last season doesn't change that but I'm getting concerned that the owners view on Mowbray's future might change like the wind on the back of a couple of decent results or vice versa.

They cost £11m. (£1m, £3m and £7m) We only netted around £10m for Armstrong (should have been more but for the contract situation) and similarly there's a good chance Brereton will leave for nothing or a lot less than his true worth for the same reason. I wonder how many players Mowbray has signed in his near 5 and a half seasons here? A hell of a lot and off the top of my head I'd genuinely only say Dack/ Armstrong/Brereton/Kaminsky/Elliott/Harwood Bellis Tosin and Reed (who he wasted anyway) were good signings. May be the odd one I've missed so apologies to them. I'd say that's a dreadful ratio in comparison to the numbers of players he's actually signed, the amount spent on wages and the dead money frittered away on loan fees.

So you're happy to stick with Mowbray then?

You're clearly on the wind up Gav, Gallagher has been an absolutely abysmal signing. Clubs in our current position simplycan't afford to get it wrong when spending that much and he's also one of the highest wage earners. What makes it even more unforgiveable was that he was here before and didn't look all that then. (Albeit substantially better than he does now)

All desperately worrying if like me you are hoping Mowbray will be long gone by summer. Players on pre contracts don't help for the remainder of this season and what if a new manager came in and didn't fancy the players he'd been lumbered with signing?

Good post, one of the main reason revenues and attendances have been dropping like a stone is we have Mowbray in situ as manager under whom we have zero chance of success and Waggott as CEO who isn't fit to sweep the car park as another poster (arbitro?) aptly pointed out previously. Eventually people will just lose interest. I wonder what excuse these two give when quizzed about decline in revenues and attendance? Turkeys don't vote for Christmas, my guess is they both play the Covid card and hope the owners either don't notice attendances are up everywhere else or that they've currently got enough problems in their own Country to take decisive action here.

Exactly. I'd have a very hard time renewing my ST if either Waggott or Mowbray got a new contract tbh. And that's after fifty years and not even Steve Kean or Owen Coyle finished me off.

Also now the completely renovated Fox and Hounds on McDonald's roundabout.

Aye, like Christian Walton. Edit: If you make enough duff signings I suppose you're bound to get the odd one right eventually on the law of averages.

Because that isn't permissible for FFP purposes!

Taking the thread back to the original topic of Mowbray, Ssturday's game at Bristol City was a microcosm of us under him imo. First half, against a team bang out of form and confidence we never turned up. This was followed by a much improved second half display. In the end a draw was probably fair but a team going places would have scented blood and found a way to win yesterday. Whatever anyone's views on the owners, under a better and more ambitious manager we would do better. Someone who could get the players to put a shift in for 90 mins as opposed to 45 would help. Mowbray out Waggott out Venus out.

Ok so just assuming for a second in a weird parallel conspiratorial world that the explanation for the Training ground move isn't the obvious one that it's to get round FFP and it is in fact a machiavellian plot to cash in on it by the owners. Why not just sell it now?

Thank goodness for a bit of common sense on this thread.

Wouldn't say he was a Fans favourite exactly, when he was here I think most people wondered how he got in the side every week and assumed he must be in possession of incriminating photographs of the manager. After he left however he became a cult hero because given he had been that bad, every time anyone from either side missed a sitter the cry of "Beamo" went up for many years thereafter.

His exact words were along the lines of "I want to make sure the Club's all right when I'm gone". Once he had gone the Trust's Solicitor Paul Egerton Vernon announced in the LT that there was no specific pot for the Club but that it was hoped the profits from the other Companies would sustain Rovers. Whether this was Jack's actual intention who knows, but to play devil's advocate the amounts needed to remain competitive at the top end of the Premier League were rising all the time and the family had either no interest in football, or a passing interest but weren't willing to risk the family silver on the Club. I know several of the family to say hello to and I would say they are exceptionally nice people in a social capacity. As owners however the last straw for me was when they announced they were withdrawing funding from the Club and then one of Jack's other Companies Fly Be subsequently appeared as sponsors on the front of Birmingham City's shirts. As Rovers needed a net influx of funds of c £2m - £3m p.a. at the time and Fly Be presumably flew a large number of flights from East Midlands Airport I suppose the moves were sensible in a strictly commercial sense. I bet Jack was spinning in his grave at that point though.

Hardly, they've injected £16m quid into the Club for an asset they already own because there was no other way round it due to the ludicrous FFP rules!

You and me both den. It's obviously completely incomprehensible to a normal person how you can lose £20 or £30m p.a. without batting an eyelid. Even if they can afford it however you'd think they'd get far more pride and enjoyment out of it had they taken a much closer interest and kept a much tighter rein on things over the years and they'd lost rather less money on us and we had been somewhat more successful. Maybe they've come to that realisation? I think however after 11 years everyone's reaction will be "I'll believe it when I see it". And rightly so.

Speaking entirely personally, whilst it would be nice, communication with the fans would be someway down my list of priorities behind things like bringing in a decent Manager, CEO and Coaching Staff, renovating the stadium, replacing the pitch in full and upgrading the training facilities at Brockhall to state of the art standard where necessary. After eleven tough years we now need actions not words. I don't want to hear mealy mouthed platitudes about how wonderful I am as a supporter and how I can contact them any time with suggestions then nothing changes. Conversely to use an extreme example to prove a point I wouldn't give two hoots if we all woke up one morning to discover the Riverside Stand had been replaced with a shiny new date of the art facility and no- one had known the first thing about it. ** **I'm not aware of any such plans BTW it was a hypothetical example.

Agree with all of that.

You have heard of FFP right?

Probably because the managers of those Clubs haven't run such bloated squads for years and/or have traded sensibly to stay within FFP as opposed to stockpiling more and more players without ever having to sell anyone. Couple of key points here. To all intents and purposes Brockhall is still under Club ownership. If the owners wanted to cash in on it at any point they could just have sold it to an external party at any point before anyway. Secondly the Armstrong money didn't come in in time for the latest round of FFP calculations hence the need for the accounting exercise. I don't deny it has been gross mismanagement (by imo Waggott and Mowbray) and a lack of oversight by the owners that led us to this stage in the first place.

Sorry, this part is absolute rubbish. Of course they're putting money into the Club. Our wage bill alone far outstrips our income. Who do you think pays Ayala £30 k p.w.? Gallagher £20k p.w? Poveda £10k p.w. (apparently) to sit on the bench? Balaji might not have turned up with £16m in crisp £20 notes in a wheelbarrow at the point the accounting exercise with the STC took place but unless you start hearing stories that players haven't been paid for months you can be sure the money has come into the Club at some point. They have also backed the Club up to the limit they are able to under the current FFP rules. Will these rules change in future and would they be able to put more in in future if they wished? Who knows?