JHRover

Good grief, they've somehow made themselves appear even more diabolical than they appeared after yesterday's statement. No doubt shitting themselves now they're realising what this actually means and national attention growing as powerful media and journalists take notice, so a slimy attempt to backtrack by piling it all on Jackson. Horrendous. Clearly trying to get him removed by the Telegraph and replaced with someone else. I've criticised the Telegraph many times but individually and publicly targeting Jackson is outrageous. I really hope the Telegraph double down here and go to war on the Club. Who the hell they think they are at Ewood, like all crooked, corrupt evil regimes around the world they want the media in their back pocket and support 'reporting' as long as it's the version they tell them to report.

The truth disappeared from the nest of vipers that is Ewood Park a long, long time ago. They've managed to maintain a facade of the truth during that time by having the right people in place to 'handle' the media aka Waggott, Mowbray, Eustace, Broughton and JDT. All gone, fed up of being used to legitimise a corrupt and poisonous regime, and not replaced, or at least not convincingly. Only the deluded and naive have continued to believe that the party line put out is accurate. It might make some feel better if they convince themselves that every comment and press release from Rovers' end is the gospel truth but it simply doesn't stack up. That's why I shook my head with bewilderment at far fetched claims and praise for Gestede, Waggott, Pasha and Ismael for their 'honesty' simply because they sat in front of a friendly interviewer and answered comfortable questions. Doesn't mean they are telling the truth or providing an accurate account of things. With the amateurish Pasha now in charge it is clear that he hasn't got the skills that the likes of Waggott had - he was a crafty old goat but at least he was crafty enough to recognise a need to keep the local media and fans quiet. The clown Pasha instead thinks he can silence criticism or questions through direct conflict. Highly unlikely to work out well for him unless the Telegraph back down and toe the line. It was clear that the regime would attempt to crack down on dissent after the diabolical performance of the stooges earlier in the summer and the building furore over their negligent mismanagement of the club. Only a couple of away wins has prevented outright rebellion and they are clearly concerned at ever falling gates. Hopefully the Telegraph now position themselves as the mouthpiece for the anti-regime movement. In a time of civil war (which this is, and will remain until they're gone) we need every friend we can get and the local media can be a powerful tool. It won't quite be Newcastle/Mike Ashley levels of local media pressure but it can help and that's important.

Probably get announced a week beforehand with tickets at Category A prices as well.

It really won't take much this year for a mid-table side to slide into serious relegation trouble. That includes us. Need to keep the points flowing and not have a barren run. As poor as Sheffield United have been there's no way with Wilder in charge that they are going to be near the bottom 3 come the business end of the season. I thought QPR and Swansea would struggle this season, both have been pretty solid in recent weeks. Oxford have just had two excellent results with a draw v Leicester and win at Bristol City.

Why can't the game be replayed on Tuesday or Wednesday this week and then at least we get the benefit of their player being suspended? I know it will inevitably be played at some point in October or November but why when we've got a free slot and can get it done immediately? If Ipswich won't travel for it then award Rovers the 3 points.

What we really need is for the ref to abandon the United v Chelsea game in similar circumstances with United winning. No way they'd make them replay it from being 2-0 up so we'd have a chance of arguing ours should stand. Not looking likely mind their pitch holding up reasonably well in the deluge.

2025 - today's game called off after 80 minutes due to a waterlogged pitch 2024 - Rovers v Portsmouth postponed due to a waterlogged pitch 2022 - Rovers v Millwall postponed due to snow 2021 - Rovers v Swansea postponed due to a waterlogged pitch (2 days after this game Rovers release a club statement acknowledging issues with the pitch and blaming 'extreme weather' and a high number of games 2012 - Rovers v Brighton postponed due to a waterlogged pitch Now I'm relying on the power of Google and my memory but I cannot recall a game being cancelled, abandoned or postponed due to the weather prior to 2012 in my lifetime, and I was born in 1990. Maybe someone can confirm if I am not correct there. Let's focus on games affected by the rain or snow. There has always been a river running past the ground into which the pitch drains and yet strangely this didn't seem to be a chronic problem for 20+ years, it seems to have become a major issue, particularly in the last 3-4 years. I'm sure that some will claim that this is because of 'climate change' and we are suddenly getting a lot more wet weather than we used to. Or maybe it is actually because Rovers have failed to invest adequately in maintaining and improving their facilities, which I think is pretty evident from a simple visual observation of Ewood Park, and this is one element of it biting us in the arse. Edit - our match with Aston Villa in the Cup in 2010 was postponed due to snow and ice

So Wilder's return to Sheffield Utd confirmed. Has there been a more pointless and ridiculous series of events than what we've seen there since the play-off final? Sack a bloke who got 90 odd points and a play-off final, appoint a young coach with minimal experience of the Championship/promotions, it's a disaster and then go back to the bloke you sacked a few months later? At least the owners there have had the courage to admit defeat and go back to a safe pair of hands and sensible appointment. Would have been easier for them to turn to someone totally new rather than swallow their pride and go back to Wilder but his record there speaks for itself. Expect them to climb the table quickly and I'll be having a little bet on them making the top 6 again.

Almost as though between April and summer he concluded that staying here beyond next summer was no longer an option. Perhaps linked to the fact the club has been unwilling to extend any senior contract and has sold off everyone else of quality.

Sondre Tronstad makes Blackburn Rovers contract admission | Lancashire Telegraph This interview. April 2025. Yes I will blame the club. They are responsible and the one constant in years of shambolic activity.

Pointless asking questions at the Fans Forum. Even if they answer them we have good reason to believe that they won't be genuine honest answers and even if they are won't be accurately minuted so that everyone can read them. I have zero interest in whatever fanciful figures you want to throw out there for what we spent in the summer. I do not for one minute accept or believe that we spent that amount and whatever we did spend was comfortably covered by what we brought in. Some might call that astute, but if it means we finish 10 places lower than last year where's the benefit? Venkys could send money over, they chose not to. Choice. Difference being the owners of Wrexham, Derby and Middlesbrough were willing to put money in.

Question - why, when we've sold over £50 million worth of players in 4 years (averaging out at £13 million per year, convenient that this is roughly the amount we lose each year) - are we not able to afford to pay our players as much or more than Wrexham or Derby? Please answer me that one.

Yes. Because it is important and directly affects how the club performs. Must be nice to just want to sweep things under the carpet and pretend everything is well and gross negligent chronic mismanagement doesn't matter because 'it's in the past'. Gestede, Ismael and Pasha would just love that if everyone fell for the 'new era' spiel again and forget all about the chaos of the last 4 years that they have delivered. If only life was so straight forward. Unfortunately unless we finish 7th or above there should be an inquest into what has gone on here and why and serious questions asked and answers demanded. Not just a shoulder shrug 'it's in the past' routine. The club will never, ever get anywhere if it doesn't at least accept and recognise past failings and ensure they won't ever happen again. Under this regime it is just being set up for the same in a couple of years.

Tronstad has said more recently in a local media interview that he was very happy at Rovers, loved being here and would like to extend his stay. So which one is accurate? With Travis you are doing exactly what the club want people to do - making out as though the club is nought but a powerless spectator in the debacle. You're contradicting yourself here - suggesting his comments about wanting to stay at Rovers weren't true and yet attaching importance to his recent comments to BBC Derby which of course are going to offer a different narrative. The club is to blame for his departure. Surely you can accept that basic principle?

90+ points, 2 points deducted, play off final, arguably unlucky to lose late on to Sunderland. If that had happened at Ewood the manager would be given years in the job off the back of it. Wilder clearly the best man for that job, the new owners there very foolish but falling for the laptop / football manager spiel like so many others have in 'modern' football apparently needing a 'head coach' and 'structure' and 'alignment' but in doing so have cost untold time and money. No. You need to just support a good manager when he's done well. Bit like us with Eustace.

Why not appoint Coyle then? Or George Burley, Nigel Worthington or Micky Adams?

The club engineered the Hyam, Brittain and Travis situations in the same way they have engineered the Tronstad one - they made no serious efforts to keep any of them. Firstly they stubbornly refused to even discuss new terms when the players were excelling last season, even when Eustace threatened and eventually did walk out over it, and then when they did get around to 'discussing' new terms (which is a stretch, I suspect there was very little negotiation or discussion) it is clear they were offering appalling terms to such players to the extent I've seen moves to Wrexham and Derby described as 'life changing'. Anyone associated with Blackburn Rovers accepting this should be ashamed of themselves. So they certainly aren't going to get a shred of credit or acceptance on my part that having deliberately allowed the contract situation to develop that they then hurriedly cash in close to deadline day to eke out a few million rather than nothing. Again, if they had dealt with the contracts appropriately and interest had materialised we could have commanded a far better fee or simply rejected it with no serious consequence.

We've brought in almost £55 million in player sales since 2021. Why can we 'not afford' to pay our best players as much as or more than Wrexham, Derby or Middlesbrough? Why could we not have instigated contract negotiations earlier than May/June? (If they ever actually happened, which I don't believe). You're getting mixed up again. Venky/henchman choices are not the same as what we can afford ad could do if we wanted and they allowed it. If they allowed us to spend the money we brought in we could have offered these players the going rate. They chose not to allow this. It is their decision, and the consequences are on their heads. It isn't bad weather, covid, FFP, small crowds, bad luck, location or any other ridiculous excuse you and others want to hide behind. It is Venkys and their mates. Enjoy.

I think it is clear that the sole objective and barometer of success for the summer transfer window was to successfully offload certain players - those with cash value, expiring contracts and larger wages. The timing, impact, effect of those departures totally immaterial and of no concern to the owners or their henchmen. We are now a club that measures success based on how much (if anything) it can bring in from selling important players and whether it can cut costs further. That's it. Quite clear from the interviews with Gestede and Ismael that there is no footballing objective here - no pressure on either to deliver certain results, league position, points, improvement. If we limp our way to 21st they will be more than happy ahead of another summer and year in the job.

If they were serious tickets would be on sale now for the Derby game with every tom, dick and harry associated with the club being sent promotional material, adverts, offers to try and get them back in for such a special occasion. This includes everyone on the database, lapsed season ticket holders, and the general local population of East Lancashire - posters, digital adverts, etc. What we will get is tickets being put on sale 3 weeks before the game at Category A prices with standard 'efforts' made on twitter and Facebook and that's your lot. That they are seemingly expecting to be able to rinse people for hospitality for a 12:30 game against Derby County, suffering the humiliation of our former management team, captain and numerous other players turning up, tells it's own story.

You forgot the 'range' of 'Macron' anniversary merchandise released a couple of weeks ago, including these two classics Simply laughable stuff.

What a desperately unlucky club we are. I suppose that's what happens when you are owned by billionaires and located in a total backwater like Blackburn (less than an hours drive from Cheshire/Manchester and same commute as players for Liverpool/Man City/Man Utd). I mean in the space of 6 months we've lost our manager to Derby because he wanted to be nearer to home so much so that he cut short a 3 year contract and dropped a chance at PL promotion to join a club at high risk of relegation to League One. We've lost our mainstay CB to Wrexham on deadline day because he wanted to move on elsewhere (despite publicly stating the opposite earlier in the summer) We've lost our mainstay CM captain who had been with the club since being a teenager because he 'wanted a change' and move down the country to a Derby side unlikely to be any more than mid-table this season. We've lost Batth who played every time he was available last season, who had zero qualms about joining Sunderland, Norwich and Rovers quite recently, apparently because he wanted to be closer to home at Derby. We've lost Weimann for the same reasons despite him having about 5 years down in Bristol. We're now publicly preparing for Tronstad's departure because he wants to go back to Scandinavia (despite him publicly stating earlier this year that he was very happy here and would love to stay). Awful back luck really. Shame. Also quite odd how this misfortune doesn't seem to occur at any other club in such significant, large numbers, even clubs that haven't got billionaire owners and those based in far flung locations like Norwich or the NE. Ever so slightly convenient that it is absolutely nothing at all to do with any of Venkys, their henchman, Gestede, Ismael or anyone else working for the Club. No sir, nothing to see here. If ever you want to know what idiots they take us for just think about the above. Their assessment of supporter intelligence is such that they think people will buy all this. Sadly some will, and those people deserve what is coming.

There won't be any time or patience if results don't improve because at less than a point a game relegation is quite likely. It isn't the fans that are 'hell bent' on preparing for relegation it is the Club due to voluntarily pursuing a policy of rapidly dismantling a proven competitive squad and replacing it with a totally inexperienced questionable quality squad at low cost. Unless you are very, very good the likelihood is that this policy will result in a deterioration in results, something you seem to accept with all the talk about 'patience' which basically means we should accept a decline in performances, results, league position as a result of choices the management have made this summer. Why should we accept that rather than expect an improvement on last year? I'm not interested in a team that can 'grow together' - as pointed out a combination of a wage cap not competitive at this level, an obsession with cutting costs, a high risk recruitment strategy and general unwillingness to compete financially in this division this means there will be no growth or project because the minute a player proves himself of quality in this league we will be vulnerable to him being poached by a rival e.g. the mighty Derby. We had a squad that had 'grown together' with people like Travis, Brittain and Dolan who had been at the club for years, often since academy days. It is as much short term now as it was last summer only with a lower cost base.

We had a squad that finished 7th on the final day after spending the entire season sat in the top 6, despite being so badly mismanaged that the manager ran off to have a relegation battle with Derby rather than try and finish the job. I think everyone in football would focus on retaining the best parts of what was there last season, and add to it to try and go one better in the hope of getting into the top 6 this season. That means keeping the spine of the team, adding some depth and more quality. I don't agree that they 'ran out of steam'. Their efforts were derailed by another negligent January transfer window failing to improve the squad in any shape or form and then by the club allowing its manager to walk out because it wouldn't give him the tools to build or strengthen us further. There is zero evidence available that the new signings possess 'more steam' than those that have left. Infact a number of them are unlikely to be up to speed or familiar with the physical demands of the Championship and will take time to adjust. I don't agree there is a strategy other than saving more money and dumbing things down further. No I'm not behind it. I think it will end in relegation to League One, or at best several years of struggle in the Championship, neither of which were necessary given where we were last season. 'Build value' can't be done due to our contract approach - how can it? - even if these new players turn out to be world beaters we won't pay them the going Championship rate - so they will be off at the first opportunity. The only way we can build a quality squad is by paying them a competitive wage and offering 3-4 year deals. Otherwise it is a revolving door.

Is the club being smarter? Offloading people like Travis (academy developed and cost us nothing) and then having to take a big gamble going into the foreign markets paying cash to bring in someone injured, unfit and unproven at this level I don't see as 'smarter' - I see it as taking a massive gamble. Pats on the back that the new guy falls within the 'wage cap' but you have to factor in the money we've shelled out to bring him and others in that wouldn't have been needed had we paid the existing proven crop more money. 'Building a squad that wants to be here' - the last crop of players wanted to be here and their efforts in the first 6 months of last season proved that. A more committed, united, hard working group you would not find in the Championship under Eustace and led by the senior players. That's been dismantled - deliberately - for non-footballing reasons. It doensn't mean the previous players didn't want to be here and doesn't mean that the new lot do either - they'll be here because we are paying them more than their last clubs and will be out of here as soon as they get a better offer elsewhere. You make it sound like there's a grand strategy to build a great side in place - but by your own admission and the 'wage cap' that will never come to fruition because players will want away the minute another club comes sniffing or Rovers decide to cash in because we aren't willing to offer them pay or terms in keeping with the Championship standard.