JHRover

End of the day the manager can't really win with his team selections. If we do what has worked in the previous rounds and go with the same side that did well in getting to this point there are accusations of not bothering with the cup or playing our second string. If he'd have dropped them all and gone with the same side as at Norwich he'd have been accused of risking our league form for a 'pointless' cup competition and not rewarding the youngsters who had done well previously. There are lots of people who talk about giving our youngsters an opportunity to shine and develop in proper games - so I'm not going to criticise the manager for doing just that. Personally I've no issue at all with the team he put out and I've no real problem with the performance. They were the better side overall, they bloody well should be with the money spent and side they put out. Despite that I thought we settled down after a dodgy first 25-30 minutes and for the middle third were ok. Their 2nd and 3rd goals came from little - a misplaced pass into nowhere from us, a 15 yard wall set for the free kick and inexplicably not giving us a free kick but hey ho that's no surprise in these sort of games. I then look at the remaining sides left in the competition. Am I bothered we aren't in the draw? Not really. I know the money men would love a 'big tie' and it would be a good experience for the players but as a supporter I don't feel like I'm missing much not getting a game against United, Liverpool, City etc. Whoever it was at Rovers who decided to refer to the game as a 'potential giantkilling' on the website before the game needs a dressing down. I think that sort of language is a disgrace especially when we are talking about a club we were well above this time last season, but fits in well with some of the defeatists down at Ewood. As with everyone in the Championship it is about the League and focus on that.

As I said last week the Carabao Cup draw pitting us against Forest at Ewood was made on 10th November. No announcement about tickets was made until 25th November, then it was 15th December before the website, twitter or any other media channel of the clubs made any reference to the game. Since then there have been a few reminders. That does not suggest a club keen on getting as many people as possible to the game. It suggests a club that couldn't care less and is run in amateur fashion. Only yesterday an advertisement appeared aiming to 'cash in' on the Forest fans by opening the Legends Lounge. £10 a time to include a first drink. So basically £10 for your first pint and £5+ thereafter when you can go into a pub 5 minutes away and drink at £3 a pint. If there was strategic thinking the Legends Lounge would have been advertised weeks ago, but in typical Waggott fashion it is last minute afterthought aimed at cynically grabbing extra cash from a suprisingly large away following. Unfortunately he will probably use a poor turnout as evidence that pricing doesn't really matter - cheap tickets yet a small home turnout will be used to justify why he doesn't cut prices for league games.

So i've been back through the last few weeks and can confirm that today's announcement on the Riverside being closed shortly followed by a ticket price reminder are the first posts by Rovers about the Nottingham Forest game since the tickets were first put on sale on 25th November. This means that since the draw over a month ago there was one tweet on 25th November announcing prices and then today's reminder. Now when Waggott is sat in his office baffled by poor sales figures perhaps one thing he should be asking is whether 1 reminder in a month is sufficient marketing or promotion for a cup clash against a PL side. I'd suggest not - it is the bare minimum effort and therefore no surprise to see a poor turn out. Maybe one day they'll try and push sales and market things but until then we will be held back.

I see they've now taken the Riverside off sale which looks to be an embarrassing acceptance that we aren't going to sell remotely enough to justify opening it. Not sure what happens to those who have already bought tickets in the Riverside. See the Forest goons are lauding their support. I must have imagined the last 10 years when they've maxed out at about 2000 coming to Ewood in the league. Rovers now have this hidden away on the website with a poster "Affordable Premium Football". I'm not sure what that means because the Carabao Cup isn't Premium but usually a chance for sides to make wholesale changes and is "affordable" here suggesting that all the other games we charge more for not affordable?

Where are the FFP obsessives when this sort of thing is going on? You'd think a club hard up and desperate to boost revenues would at the very least ensure it had stock to sell in the shop in the lead up to Xmas Conclusion? As I've been saying for years, FFP is a convenient excuse for not spending, but there's scant evidence that it is taken seriously by the club when it comes to trying to deal with it.

I think it is all just a way to get messages back to the money men in India every now and again. If those writing the cheques each month are satisfied that value is being generated in the players and that if we don't get promoted it isn't too much of a problem because the value of the squad is increasing then it vindicates positions and spending, meaning they get another few years in place to keep going. It's the never ending project which keeps people like Pasha and Waggott well renumerated for years on end whilst the project actually achieves nothing. Because we don't have what it takes nor the determination to get promoted (our transfer business last January and this will show that) but also because when we do finally get value into players we neglect their contracts and they walk for little/nothing.

You've hit the nail on the head there I think. There's a reason why Mowbray and now JDT persist with talk about value, kids and this passing around lark. They are expected to deliver this - it is part of their remit because someone has decided that this is the way to go to maximise development/player value.

No effort being made by Rovers to push this leads to only one conclusion. They don't want a decent number turning up.

I don't mind dull boring football if it gets results. I don't mind getting a goal up and then protecting the lead if it works. I've no problem hanging on at home against Birmingham and Huddersfield if we see it through and win. I've lost count the number of sides that have got out of this league playing that way - Burnley under Dyche the prime example - never won plaudits for their play but ground out results doing just enough each week to get them over the line. For all the talk about nice football and playing your way out of this league the reality is that the route to getting out of it is to be pragmatic, give nothing away and ensure you protect a lead when you get it. That is why I have been so pleased this season with our results when we have got our noses in front. Because it is not to be sniffed at that we never let a lead slip and had won 6 on the bounce at home. I don't accept that is a fluke. This league is too inconsistent for that. But the flip side is there in black and white. To never recover so much as a single point, and rarely even look like scoring, when we go behind in games is very worrying and has to change one way or the other. It cannot be the case that we lose EVERY game we go behind in Sad to see but there are a significant number of Mowbrayites out there who seem to be hoping this goes wrong so they can say it was a mistake to let him go. People who were happy to sit back and relax when he was taking us on annual runs of relegation form and sitting on his arse sulking like a child during games but now want JDT out after 20 games presumably partly because he won't make tea and biscuits and reminisce about the good old days in interviews. I hope he lives and dies by results. Currently after the last 2 games there are problems and he needs to earn his corn by addressing them. We might well slide down the table - let's see, hopefully we don't and we get out of this rut. There are clearly issues he needs to sort and if he can't then the pressure will rightfully grow.

I've long been of the view that Waggott got his job at least in part because he convinced the owners that he would save them money. That his huge salary would be worthwhile because he would save them much more than that each year in cutbacks. I also suspect he is on some sort of bonus scheme for the amount he saves them. Would make sense. This, if true, is likely to be the reason Brockhall keeps getting mentioned. He will have had his eyes on that since the day he arrived. It needs protecting at all costs. He's already taken us down to 8000 ST holders and dropping each year, when he swans off into retirement there's a big rebuilding job that needs to be done but he won't be seen again in these parts and doesn't need to worry about picking up the pieces of his disastrous management.

Last I heard we were short on money, needed to generate as much as possible and needed to reduce reliance on the owners for FFP reasons. Then we find out that yet again we have insufficient stock in the shop and no plan or option to replenish the stock. So the money gets spent elsewhere. Once again what the club say and what the club do are at complete odds. If you need every penny you can get then you ensure you have sufficient stock to last beyond September. If you don't need the money then that's strange but you have no right to use FFP as an excuse every 5 minutes.

Just another in a long, long, long line of reasons why we need Waggott out of here ASAP. Not content with decimating attendances and running the club like a cornershop his piece de resistance is and always has been to get shut of or vastly scale back the Brockhall facility. Nothing - nothing - he has done in 5 years is representative of ambition, investment or growth. It is ALL about cutting, reducing, scaling back and saving. 'Floated the idea'- you don't employ surveyors to draw up plans and submit planning applications if you are floating ideas. It was a clear attempt to get it through on the quiet. Dirty, grubby, underhanded and with ulterior motives. Just like everything else Waggott has done and lied about.

So yesterday, 4 days before the game in Marbella, Rovers finally announce that the Ajax match is open to supporters to attend. I've seen various people who have booked at short notice to go out on Friday to watch this. Yet no mention or information of arrangements for the Hearts game on Friday. 24 hours later, and 48 hours before the Hearts game is played, Rovers then announce that the game is open to supporters, free admission, at a stadium in Coin, about 30 minutes drive from Marbella. A short while later, Rovers provide an 'update' that the game is actually taking place at the Marbella training centre, that it is behind closed doors, but that Rovers fans can attend by registering via a link that isn't yet available. Then on the Rovers' official website there is a similar story but saying this is at the Malaga training centre. I assume this is just someone getting Marbella and Malaga mixed up. What a shambles.

Hilarious reading Waggott's comments in the Telegraph today. He really does think we are all idiots. So we can't split the Darwen End down the middle when Burnley come. I must have imagined that happening in the PL when nearly 30,000 were on Ewood. He has an answer or excuse for everything but apply any thought to it and it's seen to be rubbish. We all know that he's going to charge £30 a time and try to fill the DE with Dingles. It's his big day to make some cash. So why he's trying to con us into thinking he's going to limit them or mentions the league rules on allocations I don't know.

Because Chaddy they don't want people there. Supporters are little more than an irritating afterthought especially if the Club isn't going to profit from them.

Done deliberately IMO to ensure as few as possible attend. They've been saying for weeks that they are playing twice this weekend and have refused to divulge information on where, when and critically if fans will be allowed in until the 11th hour. I got some flights sorted but were £140 to come back on the Monday instead and have an extra day there.

Completely agree. In football you have to strike whilst the iron is hot and things are unfolding in a positive manner. You never know how long it might last before things start to turn sour or unravel. If you have even a sniff of promotion you have to go for it - you never know when that chance might come again. If we repeat our start to this season - even with horror shows a plenty away from home - we are going to be in the mix. Anyone happy with mid-table or even challenging for the top 6 from where we are right now I think is being pessimistic. We have to hope that if anything we improve with time and hopefully a few reinforcements in January. At the moment we have a bright young squad but a Club that stays in the Championship is at risk of that quickly falling apart. Stay down and Brereton goes in the summer, as does Ayala, wouldn't surprise me if a couple of others attract interest like Kaminski, with no money to spend it becomes a further 'project' of development taking more time. JDT has a very high win percentage and has delivered more wins than any other manager in this league this season. I can't look beyond that right now. Yes there are issues and concerns, but his job is to win football matches and he has done that to a good degree so far. Its a lot better than I expected and I dare say most people expected. It might not last, we might slide down the table, or we might get better as time goes on. we will have to worry about that if and when it happens. Right now he gets a solid mark from me on his start to life here and I'm intrigued as to how this season is going to pan out. Sometimes things just work out well. That's what I'm hoping is the case with JDT - we've seen it elsewhere over the years in the Championship - Norwich with Lambert, Burnley with Coyle, Huddersfield with Wagner, Sheff Utd with Wilder - sometimes unexpected things happen and you have to make the most of it whilst you can, not idealise about 2-3 years from now when in all probability half this squad and manager won't be here.

Madness would be sticking with a bloke clearly floundering in the name of 'loyalty' and watching their Championship status go up in smoke because of it. We've done it twice with Kean and Coyle and both times suffered relegation when a change made more quickly might well have saved us untold trouble and millions of pounds. You're right - there's no loyalty from Wigan - but Richardson gets a nice big pay off having established himself as a manager whilst they were in a mess when he would never have got the same elsewhere. No loyalty works both ways - you think he'd have stayed loyal to Wigan if like Jones a PL club had come in for him? No - he'd have done what was best for his career just like Jones has and so Wigan have to do what is best for their league status.

I see Coventry are going to go into the World Cup break with 2 games in hand on everyone else. Should never have been allowed to happen yet here we are. Their postponed fixtures should have been made up so that everyone went into the break having played the same number.

We've got more empty seats in our ground than any other club in England and yet we are charging some of the highest prices in the division for a season ticket. Only a cynical cash grabber like Waggott, only interested in immediate cash flow and his own position, would think that is a good idea. All the evidence - sales, attendances, rivals performance - show it is causing the Club harm and yet he still carries on with it and the underhand inferences that the reason for poor gates is the fault of fans and not those setting prices.

As I suggested over 6 months ago I suspect the reason the Riverside idea is a non-starter is because Waggott doesn't have the authority to do such a thing. To get approval for such a relatively major task would require him to go to India and request permission and funding to do it, which he clearly is unwilling or unable to do these days. Whether that is because the owners aren't taking calls any more or because he simply wants to keep his head down and not bother them we can only speculate, but it is clear he isn't in the business of asking India for money to do things. Hence why there is a 'non starter' approach to the suggestion of rail seating. he can't use the FFP excuse because it is irrelevant to such a job, and numerous other Championship clubs have already installed it - yet he is nipping that one in the bud from the start. I wish some more probing questions were asked - has he had it costed? If so how much would it cost to do? Has he raised it with the owners as something they might be willing to fund? I suspect the answer to all those things is no. Life is easier for Waggott to do the bare minimum required to keep things going saving costs wherever possible and doing nothing that will require unnecessary capital outlay

I think we know what will happen if it does get called off or moved. There will be a 4-5 line 'apology' from the authorities and clubs dreamt up by someone in an office who has probably never paid to go to an away game in their life. Then that will be the end of the matter. No action, no compensation, just get your tickets paid for and shut up. For all the talk of treating fans with respect I see precious little evidence of it from clubs and particularly the ghastly EFL who time and time again leave the paying supporters in the lurch.

Yes that's what I was thinking. I suggested a 1-0 win because that was what they awarded Ipswich after Bolton failed to turn up for their game the other year. I moaned about this situation at the start of the season and people shot me down saying that it didn't matter, that it wasn't their fault and that they would have to make the games up at a more inconvenient time. I disagree - I think it does matter. First off because it makes a mockery of the league for a club to not be able to fulfil its fixtures no matter who is to blame. Secondly because all these clubs they have postponed against also have to fit the extra game into midweeks causing extra difficulties for them. End of the day they have gone into the deal at the Ricoh for reasons only known to them after selling off Highfield Road. I presume one of the reasons was financial. In doing so they have left themselves open to risk of being tenants and some agreement whereby they don't control or have exclusive use of the venue. That's their choice but I don't see why the league or rival clubs should be messed about because of it. About time sporting and financial sanctions were imposed. Fines and games awarded to the opposition if they aren't capable of hosting matches, or they find somewhere else to play that is less convenient to them. Most non-league clubs have their own venues and can play there every week so I don't accept there is no alternative for a relatively wealthy Championship club.

I was critical of the decision to let Coventry 'get away' with the situation earlier this season. As far as I am concerned being unable to host games on their own ground is a major issue that needed dealing with robustly by the authorities, instead they were just allowed to postpone them all, catch the games up and play them at a time that causes havoc to other teams' fixtures So no doubt if there is an issue with our game there we can forget about the League dealing with the situation and we will probably just get an 11th hour postponement and then have to listen to someone telling us how they really care about supporters. Whilst this situation isn't entirely their own fault the reality is they don't own or have exclusive use of their stadium nor have responsibility for their own pitch so no sympathy. Everyone else manages. The League should be setting a deadline of midday Monday. Before then it should be moved to a neutral venue between here and Coventry and be closed to home fans If after then they can't host the game at their ground a 1-0 win should be awarded to Rovers. About time the League got a grip and started dealing with repeat offenders. Bolton another lot who got away with allsorts for years.

We must have a different view on 'building'. I'd say assembling an entire squad in one transfer window, many of whom are loans, on money few other clubs at this level could afford or be allowed to spend, is the opposite of 'building'. You mention wealthy benefactors yet don't mention tens of millions of borrowing from 3rd parties to prop the club up? It's working so can't fault it so far but in reality Burnley have done this summer what any other parachute laden club has done over the years - used the Sky money to 'have a go' at bouncing straight back. If they succeed it resets things. If they fail then drastic cuts will be inevitable. Same applies to WBA, Watford, Norwich. Burnley no different.