Mate, that's a really poor do. You should be getting her a ticket for the game as well. It is her birthday after all.

That's a helpful and appreciated reply. I still can't get away from the fact that even when you factor in your other info PNE - a much smaller club than us - are still doing better with season ticket sales, which really isn't good. When you consider the fan base we had, goodness just consider the potential fan base from the last game of the League 1 season or even the sales of ST under Bowyer, you can see we are massively underperforming in this area. As for "them" caring. I'll believe it when I see it, and as yet one potentially good managerial appointment aside, there is very little to suggest they care or are listening. Just two pieces of evidence on this: TM staying in post all season despite a second half season collapse of epic proportions and season ticket prices. On top of the previous 11 years of misrule I think it's fairly safe to say they don't give the proverbial flying...

Basic GCSE business studies states you have to entice the consumer. You can either do that by making a desirable product or having a price where people think it's worth giving it a go. Results is imo the primary thing but given we have had another collapse and given the product (for all JDT's positive intro) is limited in the amount it can be improved for the consumer in the close season then the price has to be competitive and an attraction. Add in the cost of living crisis and price becomes even more pertinent. If this is basic GCSE business stuff than how come our CEO and marketing team can't get it?

Just checking I'm not misreading this. Are you saying these clubs are lying on their website about how many tickets they have sold? If so I struggle to see why they would or even if they could do so. And if this is your stance, I'm a bit confused as to how you can be sceptical of the veracity of the ticket sales yet are accepting as to how the owners/CEO have the best intentions for our club.

Why can't we express the negatives when the appointment is made? I'm really not following this at all! Of course I want him to do well, and I'm really pleased it's not TM in the driver's seat and it's not a terrible appointment. But it doesn't make it a choice without issues and think it's fair to share these when analysing the new appointment. And if we should be deliriously happy Venkys haven't appointed an absolute stinker- that in itself shows what a dark place the club is in and how low our standards have fallen. To just be pleased it's not a total arse up. Goodness, this lot - Venkys to be clear - need to go and soon.

Tell you what I am sceptical about JDT but I'd rather him than Kompany any day of the week. Kompany may have a better chance of getting youngsters from City on loan, and may be a bigger name for attracting players, but in terms of past managerial performance and experience JDT beats him hands down. Much rather have the guy with proven success in a smaller league than one who, as you say, hasn't done that well at all.

Never said it was. Although it is often a factor. Didn't realise that. Good to know someone has some experience of the Championship. Mate I've looked at the positives and the negatives! I think it's called balance, if not realism. No appointment is ever going to be completely good or completely bad (well Kean but he wasn't a manager but a con job) so there will be pros and cons. It's ok to acknowledge both. It doesn't make you a super fan pretending the latter don't exist.

My first thoughts are meh. I think JDT benefits from the same things TM did - not being the previous incumbent and being an actual manager. That created a lot of optimism for TM, and I think likewise for JDT. Not being Mr Death Spiral nor one of the dollopers mentioned as a candidate shines a significantly positive light on JDT. Perhaps more than Is warranted. There are positives, he's won a few things as a manager, and the director and head coach set up isn't something we have tried before. And hey, it is so, so good to try something a bit different and innovative. Negatives for every foreign manager who succeeds there's one who fails (thinking the Leeds Danish manager as the first who comes to mind) and the guy doesn't have a huge track record of success. The lack of English Championship experience, especially as a manager is also a big worry. I think had it not been such a laborious process and this was plan A, I'd be a tad more.optimistic. But it's clear we have been stumbling around in the dark a bit and landed on this, which doesn't inspire confidence. So overall meh. Could have been much much worse and not a bad appointment but I'm not too confident either. One last thing - whilst it is more by dint of not being TM, welcome JDT. Delighted the lying, incompetent has gone and I can at least have a shade of optimism.and enthusiasm at games going forward.

@Miller11great post. After the sneaking the training ground attempted sale though which Waggott must have had a hand in, I find it hard to think of him as a good guy.

No to Warne. Compared to Ainsworth I'd say he doesn't compare favourably. Hasn't kept Rotherham up with a better base than Wycombe have. Wycombe are doing well to be league 1. So Ainsworth of the two. Warne I'm not sold on.

Don't like to be the spelling police but you have missed a few letters. There's a l and a u after the C, followed by an l e s s after the E. There's also a t before the O and after the O there's an s s e r. There's also a space between the e and the t.

How many managerial novices do well in the championship? Can't think of many - most of them struggle. That alone makes Ferguson a huge risk. What we need is a price smart operator on a limited budget. The Rowetts and Neil's of this world. Missed a trick when both of them were available on a free.

Not trying to be hyperbole whatsoever. Imo we have solely appointed poor managers like TM. We have also appointed people who don't even deserve the moniker of manager and are far worse than poor! Kean wasn't a poor managerial appointment he was corruption and incompetence personified. But to not have had a single manager under them get us into the championship playoffs - that shows what a bad lot we have had since day 1 of them rocking up. Like you I would love to be surprised but the record so far is pretty dire.

See here's the thing for me Gav is it does seem orchestrated. If it was just random cluelessness then statically they would have got one appointment right by now. I thought they had with Lambert, but credit to Venkys, they could spot a dud quicker than I could on that score. I'm not sure in Rovers history we have ever had such a bad run of managers. Certainly not in my lifetime. Nor can I ever recall another club of similar size having such a run of poor managers, which I think speaks volumes.

This is a bit of a silly comment. Of course there are differences in circumstances - with every situation where a club needs a new manager. Just off the top of my head the circumstances and situation at Watford's hire and fire policy is very different to say when Southampton potted Adkins (I think) after 2 promotions, to England looking for a manager after the Big Sam articles to name but three (admittedly extreme to show the point) examples. To say all vacancies and searches are normal or all due to poor planning simply isn't true. Even at a most basic level, a club struggling for months to get someone vs a club who takes a few weeks shows a difference in quality of the managerial search. I'll give you another more recent example. Spurs managerial appointment last summer was a farcical process. They ended up with about the 5th choice guy. To class that search as them needing a manager the same as other clubs at that time would have been incorrect as it was a badly handled process. Contrast that with the appointment of Conte more recently. All needing to fill vacancies are clearly not the same. Absolutely agree with your last statement 100%. And IF we are taking our time because of that, then that's fair enough and I'll be delighted with a good appointment. I'm pretty sure though, that's not the case. Basing it off the fact we had plenty of time to do the ground work before TM left and our previous horrific managerial searches and results I'm pretty certain we are disorganised and dithering. In particular having known this was in the offing for quite a while I would have suspected the work to have gone on before now.

Firstly I'm not sure others dithering about really is the bar we should be aiming for. Bit of a straw man argument that others are doing equally badly. Also Burnley in particular is a different kettle of fish. Not knowing what league they would be in till significantly later than is may factor into the delay, as am sure the candidates available and the attractiveness of the position changes depending on this. It's also worth saying this isn't our first rodeo when we have had some... issues appointing a manager. It's not a one off struggle. The last 2 appointments have seen some very left field and limited candidates which again makes me a tad reluctant to give them the benefit of the doubt. Finally managerial search aside, when you consider income, results, the training ground saga, the ground the picture it paints looks pretty grim across the board. Hardly cause for optimism.

I find the highlighted statement incredible. There's plenty of evidence of the shambles at Ewood. Dealing in facts: Fact is we have terrible season ticket sales and sales in general. It's much lower than the Big Sam years. It's lower than the Bowyer years. Goodness it's not tapped in to a fraction of the 30k who came to see us celebrate promotion. Then there's the advertising boards, so many were blank last time I went to Ewood. Just two fact based pieces of evidence that demonstrate we aren't pulling up any trees in this area. The ground - unless you walk around with your head in the clouds you can't help but see the disrepair. Maybe I'm imagining the rust and weeds. Managerial search = we've known TM's contract is up for months and months now. Even if waiting to see wat league we ended up in we could have done a bit of contingency planning/preparation. Blimey I run a small charity, and we are always contingency planning and planning for various scenarios to try not being caught on the hop. So the lengthy delay is indicative that we haven't planned this very well at all. Especially given this was expected. The biggie for me that there's bugger all improvements is our non response to results on the pitch. Crap run after crap run, and TM goes on regardless. That doesn't seem like progress to me. In fact it suggests they don't care at all. Others have argued it far better but to say there is no evidence is living in an alternate reality.

For the life of me I'm struggling to see where the club is improving stuff is coming from. From what I can see the manager has crash landed the last 3 seasons without censure or removal, going on several runs that would have seen him booted anywhere else. This to me suggests no one gives the proverbial flying about our results, which in my humble, out of the know, uneducated opinion are kind of a big deal.

What grates me is how many good candidates we have missed out on over the years. Neil looks to be doing well at Sunderland - broke their 4 year struggles and got them back up. But really given he matched us with PNE on a much lower budget we should have been all over that when he left there. Same with Rowett at Millwall. Matching us with much less resources. Thought that his credentials were proved by how well he did with Brum and how badly they did afterwards. Not sure who currently fits that bill but surely there is someon overlooked who's doing/done a good job with limited resources.

Bit too far of a drive on an evening mate! Especially being exiled on the wrong side of the country.

Cheers. I'm not that familiar (gone are the days of trips to Morecambe of an evening. I miss those) but saw his name bandied about a fair bit. Given how bare we are up top it seemed a bit of an odd one. However if we have better options than that's fair enough.

And the race for 4th which with the CL what it is is more desirable than trophies for many teams. Lots to play for tomorrow - 6 games I think which have something at stake.

Couple of questions on this. Wasn't McBride doing quite well for the reserves? Given we have a lack of strikers - which will get worse when Bereton inevitably goes - it seems a tad odd we are letting him go. Also on Davenport. Not sure I saw enough to make an informed opinion but at times he looked promising. Never got a consistent run with TM in charge - look at the difference in Buckley when he had a run of games in a position . But I did think there I saw a few sparks of talent in there that suggested he was worth a run in the team and investigating whether he was worth keeping. Have a feeling we may end up regretting letting him go.

I hope you are right. That said Coyle was being suggested for the Blackpool job (possibly in league 2 maybe league 1) and even then he was an outsider for that. And who was it who had turned down TM (Northampton?) Neither were really appropriate yet they ended up here.

Look guys. We all know it will be a HSH guy. The last 4 have been when there have been much more obvious candidates, so why would anything be different this time?