Teeheehee...

Interesting. Have there ever been any proposals to rotate Ewood?

While I understand the thought that a GK coach with top-level professional playing experience is preferrable, it does strike me as narrow-minded. Plenty of star athletes are ultimately dumb jocks... I can't speak for football goalie coaches, but, for example, the 'gurus' of (ice) hockey goalie coaching have tended to be random French Canadians who never played pro or 2nd-rate pros, rather than former stars. Maybe some have valid reasons to doubt Benson: inside info, not impressed by his warm-ups or you can debate how our keepers have developed/performed under him, etc. (I suspect some don't rate him simply because he looks like a bit of a dweeb haha) I have no idea myself! Forming strong judgments about backroom/support coaching staff has always struck me as a bit odd... I'll admit I've been hesitant to go along with the Benson criticism after randomly reading here that he's apparently a close confidante of Dean Henderson, going back to their Carlisle days. That's just one data point of course, but he may be a better respected GK coach than some give him credit for...

He was only a late Jan loan, so he did play 93% of Bordeaux's minutes after joining. I was unaware that previously playing in England could mean the GBE points calculation doesn't apply to him? But he well-qualified in any case given a combo of Ligue 1 minutes and continental minutes (plus winning the Swedish league with Malmo helps a bit). Certainly an intriguing option. Let's see... While I'm at it, Berget also qualifies, largely due to Champions League minutes. So, something to look out for in terms of the eligibility of potential Scandi links is whether their team played in the Champions League (or Europa...)*, which would also likely mean league positioning points, even if the Allsvenskan, etc. don't get a lot of points weighting. *Edit: as I look at it a bit more, that's for if they made it to the group stage in one of those tournaments. Hence, poaching players from Malmo FF after they made it to the CL group stage shouldn't be an issue. Only a couple points available if you play a lot of Europa Conference minutes...

Looks like the title change was poorly timed 🙂: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/20220494.blackburn-rovers-model-will-see-academy-side-unaffected-rule-change/ As the article says, doesn't really affect us with our current age make-up, and the number of allowed overagers expands from 3 to 5. So, sounds like a cosmetic change, unless this was sparked by specific complains about eligibility for the EFL Trophy of which I'm unaware...

Not speaking in favour of Warne or Ainsworth - I have no clue and I'm generally trying to avoid following our manager search too closely for my own sanity 🙂 - but I thought it'd be of interest to share just how relatively small their budgets have been while in the Championship. Figures are from the 2020-21 season. I'm sure everyone's aware they've had limited budgets, but they are striking visuals! Ignoring Derby and removing the £12m promotion bonuses for Brentford, Norwich, and Watford, that's an average wage of £29m, while Rotherham and Wycombe (presumably, they don't report wages in their small company accounts...) had wages around £8m. Rotherham had an overall loss of £867k while Wycombe apparently made a profit of ~£2m... With some justification, Rovers (and others) regularly cite the wage gap with the parachute clubs in the Championship, but there's another substantial gap for most promoted L1 clubs...

Since the start of 2016, Pardew's collective managerial record at Crystal Palace, West Brom, ADO Den Haag, and CSKA Sofia is 11-17-42. A 15.7% win record and 0.71 points/game, which translates to 33 points in a 46 game Championship season... .

Sounds like Butterworth struggled at Fleetwood Town... Nor did he quite grasp any of his chances with us last year. However, he is one of those players who may still have that it factor when he picks up the ball and runs with it. He did at least seem to finally manage an injury-free year, but it's also clear his fitness is still poor. Not too bothered about taking up what is likely a quite cheap one-year option on a long-shot. Extending Magloire surprises me... Figured his career at Rovers was over as Mowbray watched him with his hands on his head in despair in his last game with us against Blackpool... Apparently he managed okay at Northampton before his injury and I suspect there will be a manager somewhere thinking they can mould something from his obvious physical attributes (hence, his multiple loan opportunities), so perhaps we're hoping to recoup a fee for him from a L1 or L2 squad... And, again, can't be that costly of an extension. I was mildly curious about Joe Nolan given he seemed to get regular minutes when on loan at Curzon Ashton, but I also shouldn't be giving much notice to minutes spent in National League North 🙂

One terrible opinion of mine that I generally keep quiet about is that Chris Brown was better than he's remembered. Or at least you'd be surprised at the number of game threads with posters writing "Brown actually wasn't that bad today..." Don't get me wrong, he was ultimately shit haha. 0 goals across 41 games is horrific no matter how you slice it. He did have some comical misses... I do recall him putting in a hell of a workmanlike performance away against Charlton (checking now, we did have a 3-1 win where he played all 90 minutes back in March 2015, so my memory may not be completely messing with me!) Yeah, he clearly was/is a knob, but it was some welcome honesty. We all wish our players were boring, 100% committed, fitness freaks, etc. but that's often far, far from the truth... Marshall definitely had the talent... Seems it sadly took Marshall falling into depression to maybe get his head in order (or at least be honest with himself). He's a decent storyteller too.

Haha. Reminds me of a FM career mode a guy detailed on Reddit where he sought to turn Millwall into the most aggressive team ever: https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/comments/e42qkj/i_turned_millwall_into_the_most_aggressive_team/ If I remember right, he does end up with a midfield of Travis and Pearson haha (and Lenihan as a CB). He keeps at it for a while and I think he actually does achieve promotion eventually...

Yeah, that's the theory I laid out earlier this year, which made sense to me. Offer him a contract to 'protect the asset' given we'd be entitled to compensation if he turns it down, see how he does in preseason, then try to flog him off, or at least loan him out with some of his wage subsidised (as it turned out), if he doesn't impress. Chapman probably signed on knowing a) it's probably a better wage then he'd receive at any L1 club (and possibly the best wage he'll ever earn...), b) the compensation requirement may have effectively tied him to us anyway (how many clubs would've been willing to spend maybe £200-300k compensation on him last summer?) Wouldn't surprise me if it was a 'financial' decision that was out of Mowbray's hands. I ultimately don't mind as it makes sense to me and it can't have been too costly for us overall. Doesn't strike me as a 'ruse'. It's similar to how 'restricted free agent' rules work in North American sports. Goes back to the tension between giving players the freedom to choose their employer (like any normal labour market...) versus clubs being assured compensation for developing young players. Chapman ultimately had 33 appearances this year and presumably had a real opportunity to excel at Burton after finally showing some promise again at Shrews. Nobody to blame but himself... Will be curious to see where he lands. So bizarre. I remember Mowbray calling out Johnson for the same thing when he first came to Rovers. I recall Chapman also made some comment about getting over homesickness at Shrews. I think it's one of those odd cases where you bring in an immature younger player from outside of the northwest. It's an odd counterfactual, but you wonder how it would've turned out if he was simply a Blackburn lad coming through our Academy, although I suppose he ultimately didn't come through at Middlesbrough either...

Out of curiosity, is David Wagner an option, or is he considered damaged goods? Curious as to why his name doesn't seem to get mention. Got Huddersfield up, and then kept them up for one season before they finally fell apart. Arguably the luckiest promotion and the relegation survivors ever... they got promoted with a negative goal differential and then stayed up with only 28 goals! But ultimately deserves some credit for that... particularly with the budgets he was working with. First had a mid-table finish with Schalke and was fired before their follow-up yearlong faceplant... although presumably still deserves some of the blame for that. Then had Young Boys 2nd in the Swiss league before he was fired there, presumably under-achieving for them, but that doesn't strike me as awful... Not endorsing as I don't have any views/memories on his abilities as a manager/style of play. Forgive me if I'm overlooking something obvious! His name came to mind as I think of another German who has recently gotten promotion from the Championship...

Lengthy article in The Athletic today on our oncoming 'talent drain': https://theathletic.com/3286731/2022/05/09/blackburn-rovers-talent-drain-from-mowbray-and-recruitment-team-to-brereton-diaz-and-captain-lenihan/ (paywall warning!). No doubt a lot of this being fed to the journo by Mowbray's reps/friends, but always interesting when an 'outsider' journalist at The Athletic takes a deep dive on Rovers. Given the paywall (and I'm never sure how easy it is to get around their paywall!), some summary notes, much of which not news around here, but thought I'd share. Don't shoot the messenger 🙂: - In general, the piece seems to imply Waggott has emerged as the key decision-maker at Rovers... - Mentions Rothwell was going to Bournemouth for £4.5m (not the £3.5m often mentioned). Seems to lay the decision not to sell on Waggott, who wanted to prioritise the chance of PL football over the £4.5m. Mowbray thought he could net improve the squad with the two signings he had lined up as replacements, and Mowbray has suggested this could've corrected our lack of goals/depth down the stretch (Suggests Waggott again tried signing Rothwell to a new contract after, but no dice) - Mowbray had nothing to do with Waggott's hiring, who was brought in by headhunters Nolan Partners. Confirms that Waggott and Mowbray's relations have been strained for a while. Mowbray's agent informally asked about his contract situation in January, but Waggott's excuse was he hadn't been able to see the owners in India (Mowbray calling BS on that, but from what we know of Venky's, that may actually be 'true'... but a clear example to Mowbray of why this club isn't run right...) - Mowbray frustrated by high-quality personnel leaving with inexperienced replacements. Name checks Stuart Harvey, Andrew Mitchell, and Liam Mason. A concern that Harvey could raid our scouting staff. Venus and Park set to leave too, adding to the 'brain drain' (the definition of a 'brain' being stretched at times) - Waggott described by agents/outsiders as 'present' and 'professional', but often late getting back to them, probably due to rarely knowing his true budget. Some confusion if Venus or Waggott was the main point of contact. Suggests making Venus the 'sporting director' was considered at one point (essentially formalising some of his backoffice responsibilities). Venus still taking calls on player contract extensions, suggesting he and Mowbray still had some hope of sticking around. - Mowbray still likes Venky's, considers them 'decent' people, but the geographic isolation and a 4-man board of directors that can't actually make decisions is an ongoing problem. - Mowbray apparently gets on with Suhail fine, although the piece also mentions Suhail's never claimed any football background around Mowbray yet gets 'too involved' in contract negotiations, 'hindering' Waggott, with two agents saying they've stopped taking calls from Suhail, preferring to deal with Waggott. - Financials: likely would've breached FFP without training ground sale. Venky's pumping in an average of £15m/year since they took over. Venky's have been converting loans into shares of late (essentially writing it off), but are still owed £130m, with a shareholder deficit of £111m. Hence, Venky's are keen on promotion, which is worth £135m-£265m these days (depending on surviving relegation in the first year). Venky's don't want to pull the plug on their investment given the resulting 'stain' on their reputation within India's business community. - Mentions BBD valued at £15m, but only a small portion of that would be added to a limited transfer budget. Players don't feel too strongly about Mowbray leaving given pending contract expiries. More focused on their own careers/finances at the moment. - A positive: the junior system is 'healthy' with a 'thriving' recruitment network. Stuart Jones gets specific praise.

I can't recall the exact games, but even before his long shot against PNE, I recall Buckley finally properly connecting with a couple long shots that were blocked/deflected a few months ago. Deserved the stick he got for some of his poor shots earlier this year, but glad to see he's finally demonstrated that he does have that in his locker! And then Diaz with a follow-up goal-of-the-year contender himself... Sigh, this game is putting a smile on my face at least! Brown has had his hands full with Hernandez and Bacuna, but looking okay. (Always liked Bacuna at Huddersfield. Surprised he's shuffled on to Birmingham of all places after only half a year at Rangers?) Edun... I thought he had some decent appearances in the first half of the year, but has looked scrambly and nervous for a while now (including a dumb 2nd yellow...). Ah well. Maybe he'll look better in the 2nd half, but probably deserving of an early hook (although Mowbray seemed to be giving him some encouragement at the end there). I suppose that's part of what you use games like this for...

2.5m views now. Not too shabby... Was curious about this and according to here: https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/rovers, the Twitter account has added about 3k followers since that video was posted (the account's saying 289k right now), compared to the usual average of 25/day. Other comparions: according to that site, we gained about 4k followers during the couple weeks after Brereton first joined Chile in June, plus another 7-9k followers when Brereton got his first two WC qualifying goals in October. Now, the actual utility of those additional followers is obviously questionable... but can't hurt I suppose. Some extended scenic shots from the account this morning. Drones can capture some awesome images... (and high-level shots also hide some of the neglect 🙂)

Apparently the video on Twitter is now at over 1.2m 'views' (how a 'view' is measured on social media is always questionable of course!): For comparison, our top highlights videos, e.g., the Gally celebration after his PNE goal, typically get about 20k views. Certainly has got some traction.

TV money is under 'Media' income. It is something I've been curious about for years now. Lots of criticism on here about Rovers' commercial nous, some with plenty of merit, yet we've also for years been "punching above our weight" on commercial income since relegation. Part of the reason we've been plunking along at ~£15m turnover vs the £10-12m you see from the likes of Wigan, Barnsley, PNE, etc. One interesting addition to the accounts this year is under 29. Related Party Transactions, which previously only touched on Blackburn Rovers Community Trust rent/expenses, but now includes the details of the training ground sale, as well as now mentioning that Venky's provides £795,000 of advertising income. (A suspiciously round number could suggest that's the max the EFL allows Venky's to pump in before it's considered to be on 'non-commercial' terms...). So, that would suggest Venky's is part of the explanation, but not entirely. Given our apparent brief transfer embargo and the training ground sale, I suspect the EFL demanded some more clarity from our accounts this year before clearing us of FFP. It's hard for me to judge against other clubs, and I'm not as in tune to the commercial team's apparent failings as others on here, but there does usually seem to be a decent stream of sponsors trumpeted on Rovers' social media. Recoverite snafu this year aside (and perhaps the commercial team should get some credit for quickly pivoting to Totally Wicked, if imperfectly!), perhaps our shirt and kit sponsor deals have been decently lucrative after all? I don't know!

Was just about to post that! Swiss Ramble with one of his inimitable account review threads for Rovers: I'll give the accounts a skim through at some point, just been slammed with work of late! But one of my first impressions is they're not as bad as I had suspected/amateurishly forecasted (if still 'bad', albeit 'more of the same'...)

On a positive note, Butterworth got his first senior goal shortly after subbing on for Fleetwood Town yesterday. Play starts around the 40 second mark of the highlights below (3-2 loss to Burton. Chapman played the full 90 minutes. Didn't have a hand in any of Burton's goals, but he does deliver a decent cross for a shot that hits the post) And McBride got an assist laying off a one-two for a long range strike after subbing on for Queen's Park FC (I do question if reporting such updates its even worthwhile for a SL1 loan haha, but there ya go)

why was i programmed to feel pain

D'oh. Just realised I forgot to add Joe Hilton, who is worthy of mention given he's seemingly had a decent run with Hamilton. He's held on to the starter's role after initially taking over from their regular keeper, Fulton, due to injury (and, as I note below, maybe poor results with Fulton). Joe Hilton - Hamilton Academical (currently 8th in the Scottish Championship) 16 league starts + 7 cup starts, 9 unused subs, 1440 league minutes and 630 cup minutes, 5 league clean sheets and 2 cup clean sheets. - Hamilton are currently last in the Scottish Championship in goals against, but it's worth noting there's an extreme split between his starts and Fulton's starts: 1.06 GA/G for Hilton vs 2.17 GA/G for Fulton. Extrapolating Hilton's results would place them 5th in GA. - On the negative side, he is now out with a knee injury for 4 weeks. So, he's missed the past two starts.

Thought this was kinda funny. The Athletic thought Millwall's performance was worthy of an article as it was the only time in the past 5 years that a Championship side had ended a game with zero xG (and it's happened only twice in the Premier League). https://theathletic.com/3173258/2022/03/10/explained-millwalls-0-0-xg/ (might be paywalled for you) :(

Thought I'd do another loan roundup (no, YOU should have better things to do on a Sunday...) Hayden Carter - Portsmouth (currently 10th in League 1) 10 starts, 1 unused sub, 826 minutes, 1 goal, 0 assists - Seems to be getting universal plaudits from Portsmouth fans, who are already hoping he'll stick around for another season-long loan. Looking like a successful loan spell so far! - His screamer of a goal, which has already been posted, but why not post it again: - Don't think his little nutmeg earlier was posted, so that's a fun little watch too: Sam Burns - Scunthorpe (currently bottom of League 2) 8 starts, 2 subs, 1 unused sub, 624 minutes, 2 goals, 0 assists - Mostly getting starts on an apparently awful Scunthorpe side. - His 2 goals came in one game. You can see both in the last 30 seconds of these highlights. One scrappy, the other a decent finish: Harry Chapmen - Burton Albion (currently 15th in League 1) Since returning on loan: 1 start, 5 subs, 2 unused subs, 176 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists - Had 9 starts (+ 1 EFT start), 4 subs (+1 FAC start), 3 unused subs, 824 minutes (+ 75 cup minutes), 1 goal, 0 assists during his initial loan - Seems to be relegated to a 2nd half attacking sub role for his second loan spell on a Burton side struggling for goals Daniel Butterworth - Fleetwood Town (currently 19th in League 1) 3 starts, 3 subs, 316 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists - Minutes/starts are inconsistent, and apparently played out on the wing a couple times rather than up front. Would hope he'd be lighting up L1 (and he's not that young at 22 anymore), but at least finally getting some semi-regular minutes. Tyler Magloire - Northampton Town (currently 2nd in League 2) 7 starts, 2 subs, 2 unused subs, 634 minutes, 0 goals, 0 assists - I imagine he's simply auditioning for a L2/NL-ish contract next year at this point, but good for him seemingly nailing down a starting spot in a 2nd place L2 side after some mixed previous loans Louie Annesley - Woking (currently 18th in National League) 13 league starts (+ 1 FAT start), 3 subs, 1,229 minutes (+ 90 FAT minutes), 0 goals - Regular starter. Seems to be placed all over the park (I think I've seen the BBC have him down at RB, CB, MF, and LM) Dan Pike - AFC Fylde (currently 4th in National League North) 14 starts, 1,247 minutes, 0 goals, at least 1 assist (can't find a tally, but see video below) (combining his two loans as I think they were only broken up by injury) - Suppose you'd hope he'd be at a higher level this year, but at least getting a lot of minutes as a regular starter. Can't really find any comment/review of his overall play. - Video of a cross assist: Joe Nolan - Curzon Ashton (currently 12th in National League North) 6 starts, 1 sub, 554 minutes, 0 goals, - Seems this loan is actually over now (think it was always only a 'short-term' loan), but got a decent amount of minutes while he was there anyway. Connor McBride - Queen's Park (currently 4th in Scottish League 1) 2 starts, 4 subs, 285 minutes, 0 goals - Always an odd one considering there were earlier murmurs of a (EFL) L1 loan. Now seemingly only a semi-regular at a pretty low level... was missing from the lineup for some reason yesterday.

Was keeping my head down outside of the away section... regret asking the friend I was with (a former PL academy keeper) to see what he thought of Kaminski before the game 🙃 Wilson's a whiny little prick, isn't he... Mitrovic at least seemed to have a sense of humour about his flopping. What was with that chunky Rovers staff member seemingly giving an earful to Zeefuik as he was on his long way back to the bench? Bizarre, especially if Zeefuik's injury is sounding legit. Was obviously worried when JRC had to be drafted in at RWB, but he was actually alright. He wasn't 'good', but a hopeful sign of him finally starting to get his groove back... For what it's worth, the Fulham fans around me were quite impressed by Gallagher. Obviously not familiar with him failing to get his feet right over and over haha, but a welcome spirited display from him. Confused why he didn't start.

🙂 loved that! Probably would've enjoyed it a bit more if the goal-less drought wasn't hanging over us, but I'll take that performance! Ultimately, can't fault any player too much (delighted for Khadra in the end!) Dolan was a beast. Great to see him 100% healthy again. A tip: Every time van Hecke's ballplaying starts giving you heart palpitations, quickly remind yourself he's Dutch and probably knows what he's doing. Baffled that QPR are where they are in the table after that performance. Their CBs were awful.