Brilliant post showing there is no real engagement with any of the concerns other than "you need to be more enthusiastic" which is an entirely seperate matter. Playground stuff really. Only thing I'd add is it is a certainty that not all of the unproven kids we are relying on as squad fillers will come good. It's never happened before even with some promising academy teams. How many ex Rovers youth are playing Championship level now? Again not masses. To assume they will all be adequate is going against the whole of Rovers history. I'd put that question to him myself but am on ignore! But since it's never happened before, I'm pretty certain it won't happen now, and definitely not all in the space of one season. Mind you more worrying than fans' blind optimism is that the club seemingly are ok with this strategy which once again points to their negligence.

Apart from one has more promotions from this league, has seen significant improvements in their club in a much shorter time frame and have international management under their belt. You are right it's not a challenging question but one with an unfavourable answer to TM.

Ignoring the only and things issue, even assuming pedantry, what about all the other things people have issue with?

Great post, excellent summary that I have tweaked slightly - and not to make the situation better either. My only consolation is that there's always a team who surprises you who you think will struggle and everything points to that but does better than expected. Hopefully that can be us because on paper we look weak.

These why shouldn't TM be involved in the recruitment/scouting/coaching set up doesn't half irritate me. The answer is obvious that he is incompetent and corrupt. In such an instance a manager having involvement is a real issue. Its like saying why shouldn't I be able to drive to work? And in principle it's fine, it's right and natural that I do. However if I can't see the road or am a drunk driver the natural and obvious thing to do changes. I shouldn't be anywhere near a car. Same with a manager in this situation too (although the natural and obvious thing to do would be to pot him as well.)

Can't see what you are bothered about. Just because 2 are often injured, one has only had a couple of games there and one is inconsistent - can't see what the fear is at all. I mean I hope Buckley and Davenport can make it there but it is wildly optimistic to assume they will. They could and there's some encouraging signs but that's all they have been - signs not consistent performances there. That makes it a real gamble assuming that they can be relied upon.

Absolute horse manure. Sacking Sam appointing Kean Listening to agents over Williams & co Letting agents lose on our transfers Overseeing/allowing the destruction of the fan base including quashing all protests Agnew and Shaw Sheeby Singh 5 managers in a year Financial irresponsibility in the championship Cutting off the funds drastically to Bowyer and Coyle making it near impossible for them. Appointing Bowyer over an experienced man Appointing Coyle No communication with fans Firing Coyle too late Having a stupid set up where the manager picks his boss. Letting Ewood Park corrode. Yeah great owners these. Definitely the worst. They have allowed 10 years of people to rip off our club. Can't see how anyone says that's acceptable.

The reason it's a "frigging problem" is that known is the only quality that seems to matter. Competence seems irrelevant. I don't know your business but I assume you only employ those you know who have a certain level of competence. To do otherwise is a conflict of interest and unethical. Given how crap and overly awarded his associates are it easily falls into the conflict of interest category. They perform poorly but are paid handsomely. As for appointing your own boss/CEO that's a whole other level of problematic and conflict of interest. Not sure I like the language you're using - cess pit, the most rational move on. Patronising at best. Ignoring that I think I have two issues with your question here. Firstly why refer back to these arguments regarding TM - perhaps because there has been so many appointments that appear dodgy? Pears, Ayala, Venus and Waggott to name a few, so if it happens with frequency it's likely to happen again. Why wouldn't fans be cautious in such circumstances? As for best to move on even though TM isn't up to it. Why? I mean if a problem needs fixing pretending it isn't there isn't going to solve anything. Giving it a clean slate doesn't make the problem go away. I mean if my car makes a horrible noise and has the check engine light on me moving on is not going to solve the problems! Likewise with TM the issues won't go away or be fixed by giving him a clean slate. I've also got real issues about how this lowers standards too. If there's no consequences for poor performances then it basically legitimises them and standards drop lower. We see that with TM anyway under certain elements of the fanbase but for goodness sake let's have some standards at our club. Saying last season (and the last few before that) don't matter is basically legitimising failure.

One thing TM always does is exceed expectations on how low he will go and how bad he is. To suggest we are better than Belgium is rediculously dishonest and deluded. For a guy who complains about comparisons with 95 (false ones at that) he doesn't half make some more outrageous ones himself. And let them decide their own fitness. Lunatics running the asylum, conflict of interest and gross negligence all immediately spring to mind. Glad the standards are so high.

That's the worry isn't it? That's what happened for Coyle. It didn't help he got no money to spend either but so many of the transfers were last minute it almost was a write off of the first month of the season.

Oh come on now. None of them have even cemented a place in the team. How on earth can we be relying on them to get us promoted. Where's the evidence for this? I mean Ayala getting on the pitch would be a bonus. Travis has never had a huge amount of goals in him. Optimism with no evidence to support it. I think we can take an educated guess on the finances based on the evidence of the last few years. Stuffed if I know why all evidence is ignored these days for blind optimism.

Well obviously in a football sense! Am in no way comparing it to say the Pandemic, loss of loved ones or the many injustices around the world. That would be silly. But then I don't think I, or anyone being negative, is doing so. Obviously the word is not being used in its clinical medical context. I've known a couple of people who have had depression and that is grim. But again, I think anyone could see from the context, no one was thinking it was clinical depression inducing. Or maybe you mean you don't think it's depressing in a football sense which renders the whole of the above moot. Perhaps you mean it would have to get a lot worse to class as depressing. In that case I'd say this slow death under Venkys is as bad as it gets and what it lacks in spectacular at the moment it makes up for in being unable to change the course.

Yes not sure how people can think this if TM couldn't manage it with a better squad how on earth will he do it with a weaker one.

Indeed, but it is a depressive situation is it not? I mean from squad to management to owners it all looks appalling, which seems pretty depressing to me!

It's interesting that some people are getting annoyed that others are negative about the upcoming season. I'd suggest on a message board you are going to hear opinions that you don't like. It goes with the territory. I'm astounded though that they are surprised at the negativity. We have a manager out of his depth who specialises in making things worse, we have a paper thin squad reliant on crocks and kids, most of our better players are out of contract within the next year or so and we have the worse owners in football history. Gee, I cannot think why anyone might be a tad worried about the upcoming season.

I remember when Rangers had an embargo. They had a number of players lined up for the day it was lifted. Funny how we are incapable of similar. Also how can TM sound surprised that 10 players left? I mean he knew contracts were winding down and loans returned. It's not like that was sprung upon us...

Some good points, well actually some terrible points (from Rovers pov) that are well made. Experience is pretty limited. And as you say this is a best case scenario. There are other problems as well as the ones you point out. Firstly Gally on the wing - a terrible waste of his attributes and hasn't worked for years. Johnson is just as likely to have a bad game as a good one, if not more so. In fact he is an utter liability for a third of the games he plays. Bereton for all his international exploits has still looked poor in a fair number of Rovers games, as well as menacing in others. We can't be certain Pickering will make the step up. And at centre half there's huge questions as to what ability a player will come back with after a serious injury, even assuming they have returned to fitness (Greako and Thompson spring to mind.) And to reiterate your point - this is the best case scenario. Losing that many players is going to kill the team and arguably our Championship status. I'm sure some of them will run down their contracts - it's the way these days. How do we replace them when even when we sell them we'll get a fraction of their value? And this is on top of any others who need replacing. Johnson won't last more than a year too. So we potentially are looking at 5 players needing replacing from the first 11. And it's not beyond the realms of possibility that cover for Ayala will be needed. In short half a team. It's a very worrying sign. Have to say it's the only building project I have seen that goes backwards. We have to get the close season transfers totally right. And that's a huge ask even for a competent one much less TM

Swag will be loving all these embargos flying around. If we are in it it's a great excuse not to spend and there will be lots of "we really want to sign X and Y". If we aren't in it we urge caution as we are looking to avoid embargo. Got to make sure we don't cross over the line so need to hold off signings. Cue lots of "we need to be careful" comments. Either way no signings will be coming.

I was just about the post the same. We gave our second choice keeper a longer deal than the first. We gave an injury prone over 30 a 3 year contract. And yet we struggle to get more than one year extensions done for other players and have lost out to Preston and the like to players too. Quite the contrast.

See my issue is Everyone and their dog knew Ayala was injury prone. Every Boro fan said he is decent but has glass ankles/goes missing in January etc. So he clearly had injury issues before hand. Given the rest of our centre backs bar Warton were injury prone that was a stupid risk to take. It also meant that if we got any unexpected long term injuries - and we did - then we were always likely to struggle. Given we knew about all the defensive issues we knew it would be a risk and one we needlessly imo took. Had we gambled on Ayala and brought in a less injury prone CB to replace Williams and moved him on it would have been less of a risk. As it was it was a stupid gamble - the odds of were in favour of this situation developing. What are we supposed to do? Make sure we don't only have crocks in the centre of defence? As for the youngsters people would love to have - firstly CB is a key position which requires experience. So we were adding extra risk by using so many youngsters. secondly Elliott got played in a rediculous number of positions which can only have harmed his impact for Rovers. Especially when he was false 9. Getting them in is only the start. Using them properly matters too.

Great post. What gets me with fans and the manager who have this position is that it observably cannot work. Ignoring the basic premise that if it were that easy to just chuck in a load of youngsters then every team would do it. And they don't for a reason, all the other assumptions are observably untrue as well. Injuries. We have seen how much our centre backs get injured. Fans and managers have witnessed how much time it takes for players to get up to speed after serious injuries. Why are we suddenly not going to have these injuries? Why are suddenly our serious injuries going to buck the recovery time needed? Or look at experience. We have seen how well JRC, Buckley and Chapman have done. And whilst there is a debate as to how well they have done, none would say they have performed strongly. Promising, imo yea, but consistent to be relied upon players? That's asking a lot and doesn't seem to line up with where they are with their progress. Or all the untested players coming in. If you have supported a football team for any length of time you know that not every youth player makes it. That's a fact. So why suddenly do all of ours beat the odds and make it? Then there's the development argument - look at the time it's taken some of our players to progress. Young players very often take time to develop. And yet suddenly it's as if that process is to be ignored/sped up. Why? How? Then there's relying on Bereton and Gally for goals. Haven't people seen the stinkers they have had or how the manager has mismanaged them? Why is that going to change? Am all for a bit of optimism but let's not ignore reality. Sadly the manager and some fans seem to be doing this.

All this talk of changing the system, which system are we talking about? We played 2 versions of 4-3-3 last season, one with Armstrong and one with a false 9. We also played 4-2-3-1 as well as some wing back monstrosity and a 4-2-2-2 at times. Other than the first dozen games we haven't had a consistent plan all of last season. One of the reasons we keep struggling so much.

Absolutely. Only 4 or 5 signings needed assuming... 1) none of our injury prone players are out long term or get injured at the same time. 2) every youth player makes the step up to championship level and rapidly. 3) Bereton and Gally start performing on a more regular basis. 4) The current youngsters with a bit of championship experience all progress as expected. Put simply, this is not going to happen. Pure fantasy. This squad would struggle even if the four or five players we bring in are world beaters. Oh, that's another thing, we are assuming all the signings will work out. Can see this happening though. It's not hope for the best plan for the worst at Ewood, it's plan for the best and ignore the worst even when it's bleeding obvious.

The other problem is in 12 months time we will need a replacement for the swapped in player yet with no influx of cash to do so. Every time we keep pushing problems down the road so all the crap can hit the fan at the same time. We are such an ill thought out, shoddy organisation with sod all planning. It drives me nuts. Especially coming from a bloke who always talks about building. Building? more like a demolition job one season at a time. Next time we go down we won't have as strong a squad and will stay there. Bloody charlatans.

Well I think there's one area which is shaping up to be an intriguing battle next season. That is what will win out TM's pride or greed? We all know next season we are going to get canned. With one of our strongest squads last year we limped to mid table. No Dack and cutbacks means we must be certs to be in the relegation mix. And that's where it gets intriguing (as well as terrifying.) Because on one hand TM has a huge ego. He cannot stand any criticism and thin skinned is an understatement. And the prospect of us being in a relegation scrap and pundits/papers questioning him, as well as fan dissatisfaction in the ground. He won't like that in the slightest. He has shown he can't cope with the mildest of criticism (which I should add is very justified criticism at that.) Will he stick it out when the criticism inevitably comes his way? With his paper thin ego it's doubtful. But on the flip side the guy is hugely into self preservation. He's stuck around despite the worst two runs in my time of supporting Rovers. There's been cringe worthy articles where he kisses the owners' behinds saying how honourable they are. There's the litany of lies and excuses - fans expecting a recreation of 95, fans responsible for Nayambe's fake injury (is he bollocks a nice guy). The guy has no shame or depth when it comes to self-preservation making you think he is here no matter what. So which will win out - pride or self preservation? Put it this way, it's the biggest battle we are going to see at Ewood anytime soon.