LeftWinger

Ronnie has to be in for me. 665 appearances over 19 years according to Wiki. I remember him working at the club doing the ground tours and he was an absolute gentleman. My mum sent him a thank you letter after we did the tour there and he sent us a Christmas card back.

Wharton-Rice-Bellingham I'm only half joking as well 😂

Just doing some calculations based on total revenue if the season ticket prices were a lot lower and we offered free tickets to U12s and the incentive of free season tickets next season if promoted. I'm assuming we're going to sell around 9,000 tickets this year. The split between adult, senior, young adult, under 18s and under 12s are purely guesses - anyone have any idea what the split is likely to be? The uplift figures based on the discounts are purely guesswork as well - so any feedback on the likely uplifts is also appreciated. Prices are done as an average based on the fact there are different price levels for adult, senior and young adult tickets. If we sell 9,000 tickets and 10% of them are Under 12 - it's only generating £54,000 in sales. Why not give the Under 12 tickets away - increasing the number of younger supporters getting to the games and also making it more accessible for families (meaning more adult tickets sold). For instance - if I wanted to get season tickets for all my family in the Blackburn End it would cost £1,098. Under the alternative pricing above, it would be £658. Much more affordable in the current climate. I don't think it's unrealistic to expect season ticket sales to increase from circa 9k to 13.5k (look at Bolton and PNE) by dropping adult, senior and young adult prices by £100, knocking almost 60% off the under 18 prices and letting under 12s in for free. Total revenue is actually slightly up. Appreciate you're getting less walk ons during the season and policing costs will be higher - but you're also making more money in food and drink sales on matchday.

I read some comments on their forum and retention of the ball in difficult areas was something they rated him very highly at.

Looking at the accounts from 21/22 - our total matchday income was only £3.353m for the season. That covered 13.77% of the wage bill. Our matchday income represented just over 20% of our total turnover of £16.65m. Compare that to someone like Brentford who you would think we would generate a similar level of matchday income should we get promoted.... Brentford's matchday income represented 7.39% of their total turnover. Rovers total turnover for the season was 11.8% of that of Brentford - it's the TV money where it's at. Rovers could certainly afford to offer free season tickets in the Premier League should we get promoted. Gav's suggestion isn't as ridiculous as it sounds - we'd probably only need to find just under £3m to bridge the gap when you consider the matchday income will also include corporate income and food/drink sales. If Ayala and Dack were on £17k a week each - that's more than half of our total matchday income for the entire season spent on two players. Players that managed a grand total of 31 appearances between them in the 21/22 season. Our salaries represented 146% of turnover in 21/22 - completely unsustainable. We need to get promoted.

I guess the biggest issue would be around FFP and the drop in income having to be bridged elsewhere.

Ah that's where I remember it from then haha. Seems like a no brainer to me to boost sales.

Don't know if it's been mentioned in the the thread, but along with lower pricing, it would be good if they offered a free season ticket for next season if the club gets promoted. Don't get promoted - and we have the benefit of increased season ticket sales this season. Get promoted - and we're not overly fussed as the TV money would dwarf the cost of giving a few tickets away. I'm pretty sure I've seen this done locally before. Maybe by Burnley even?

JDT currently 5th favourite for the Celtic job (10/1). Nice to have our manager actually doing a job that means he gets linked with other clubs for a change. Only Maresca, Rodgers, Knudsen and Moyes shorter in the betting. I can't see them going for JDT with some of the other names on the list. Mowbray and Allardyce at 100/1.

Excellent thread. I'm only making one change from the opening line up - Bellamy in for Dunn. I was tempted to stick Jermaine Jones in midfield over Sherwood (his work rate was incredible), but took the option of Sherwood with him being better on the ball. Hendry misses out due to not being the best with the ball at his feet. Friedel Emerton Berg Henchoz Le Saux Sherwood Tugay Bellamy Jansen Duff Shearer

Completely agree with this. Think it was the 2002 World Cup where he became the first keeper since 1974 to save two penalties in the group stage of a World Cup. He was just completely reliable. I can definitely find more goals where Schmeichel is at fault (or lobbed or chipped) than Friedel being at fault. I remember thinking it was stupid when we signed him when we already had Alan Kelly and John Filan - both of whom were excellent keepers. How wrong I was!

We were only one goal in a game away from getting into the play-offs. Something as simple as having someone on the near post to hack Coventry's injury time corner away and we could have been planning a trip to Wembley now. Fine margins at this level - I'm all for anything that can improve us even if it's only slight improvements. It all adds up.

I'm hoping we are fairly well down the road with signings....gives us chance to get the paperwork submitted before the deadline in September 😂

I'll tell you what struck me most about that list.... With Ayala and Diaz going, if Kaminski goes as well, every player on that list is British.

Or imagine a front three of Duff-Shearer-Jansen - with Jansen cutting in from the right on his left foot.

Just gone through some of the comments on him from earlier in the season on this thread. I was massively underwhelmed early on as well, but he's been much better in the second half of the season. However I must say that I'm underwhelmed thus far. It appears we have a over paid for a relatively limited player. However I’ve been unimpressed with Sammy so far For me he looks a poor man's Dack. Strange signing indeed He's not a bad player, but I am just struggling to see what he offers that Dolan doesn't and Vale is an able deputy for I'd echo the 'strange signing' verdict for now He's been anonymous for the vast majority of minutes he's played so far. Waste of £2m Poor signing, especially at £1.8m Its a message board and people judge players by their perfomances to date. Underwhelming is mine Underwhelmed to say the least. Markanday has caught my eye more than this fella and he seems to be in Siberia somewhere. Posh saw us coming big time and had us.

Top 3 managed 54 league starts between them.

I was having a look before at how common it is to find a 20 goal striker at this level. Over the last 10 seasons it's been achieved 47 times in the Championship. I was most amazed that we had two of them in 2014/15 (IIRC) - as Rhodes and Gestede both hit 20 league goals for the season. How on earth we didn't make the play-offs that season I do not know. 6 players reached 20 goals that season - 2 of them played for Rovers! A 20 goal a season striker would have got us into the play-offs at least this season.

This comment... “We all know what happened in the January window, there's no need for me to talk about it. Fans are clever,” Tomasson admitted.

Is that the one where you can eat something that you've dropped on the floor?

Is that a measure of a footballers ability? Find me a new striker that is 8 years better than Gallagher and left back that is 5 years better than Pickering.

We played 3 matches in September. He didn't start any of them. We won 1 and lost 2. "When he was out the team in Sept we tended to win" Tended to win one game.

When Buckley has started: W8 D5 L7 When Buckley hasn't started: W15 D6 L12 So if anything, we are ever so slightly better when he doesn't start, but not much in it. A more surprising one is Sam Gallagher. We've won 18 of the 30 games that he's started - 60%. We've won 5 of the 23 games he hasn't started - 22%.

It's probably only three players away from being able to compete in the Championship though. Definitely needs a goal scorer in place of Vale.

He's taking them on a journey.