JHRover

I'd be embarrassed and alarmed by the fact that Burnley, Preston and Bolton have all sold almost double numbers to us. Dress it up however you like but that fact is the most alarming, embarrassing and clear evidence our pricing and policy has failed. You'll get those pointing to the fact that Burnley are just coming down from the PL which inevitably will inflate their numbers but there's simply no excuse when it comes to PNE and Bolton. None. Neither of those Clubs has the benefit of kind, generous, billionaire owners restrained only by FFP either. I can see us limping to about 8500 season tickets. This will be dressed up as a success based on it being a slight increase on last year, Waggott will pat himself on the back and on it goes. Our crowds hover around the 10,000 mark whilst the rivals get 15,000+.

Also in the Riverside quite a few seats are classed as unavailable because they are right next to or behind the supporting pillars.

Good work. Better than I expected but still well short of where we need to be.

There are 5-6 uber positive people on twitter and social media like the one above who would vociferously back the Club even if we announced we were demolishing Ewood and groundsharing with Burnley from next season. Its almost like an illness, like they think it is a sign of weakness or failure to do or say anything that isn't 100% firm support of everything the Club says or does. The statement that the "owners have delivered an unbelievable change in direction of the club" is correct, but not in the way he alludes to. These owners have done little but damage this Club since their arrival. The less than £3 a week thing is another typical crafty statement aimed to minimise the high prices of Rovers and gap to rivals. Its like those who support the TV licence continuing often trot out that it is only the cost of a cup of coffee or whatever each week. End of the day it isn't because it is a one off substantial payment and a p1ss take so you can dress it up however you like it doesn't change it being unpopular. There's nothing wrong at all with moaning about the price of tickets. Infact it is only through that moaning and inability/unwillingness of people to pay these prices that the penny might eventually drop in Waggott's office of the damage he is doing. If the same number happily turned up and paid these prices then he'd just put another 20% on next summer to push it another step further. Waggott doesn't get this Club, fanbase or town despite 4.5 years of working here, and clearly has no intention of consulting with fans before setting prices. So its time the fans sent him a message he can't hide from. The only language he will understand is plummeting sales.

Its the fault of the media. Tomasson had a short and ill-fated spell at Newcastle, but other than that has had no involvement in English football. As a result he is treated as an unknown or 'flop'. They ignore his stellar career with Denmark, Feyenoord, Milan, and as a manager with Malmo. Meanwhile Kompany is much more recent and well known from his playing days as he was a popular player with City. Even though there's an argument Tomasson's trophy haul is just as impressive if not more with European honours on there. But it is much easier for the Sky numpties to promote Kompany.

My biggest concern is that the money people in India have either turned off the taps completely or down to a trickle, and it is because of this 'hand washing' that someone lower down the chain - Pasha probably - has the freedom to implement his own 'vision' for the club which we are seeing now. This can be good and bad. On the good side hopefully it will mean a more conventional setup with proper people running things but on the bad side it is likely to be an extremely limited budget - I just cannot see India throwing money at this without the manager persuading Desai to go with it. The transfer and contract activity of the last 18-24 months would suggest taps are off. Couple with the fact that Mowbray was shunned and left to run his contract down with no communication from India and that we did next to nothing in January to try and keep hold of our top 2 position all points to one thing to me - that the real power brokers here have gone dormant and aren't putting the extra money in. Time will tell I suppose. Ideally this new structure is the result of joined up thinking and a new phase with India backing those on the ground to get the job done but I've been burned with this before so will hold my horses on that.

I expect Middlesbrough and West Brom to be top 6 certs. With a full pre season and some good transfer business Wilder and Bruce will have their sides in contention. You'd expect at least one of Watford or Norwich with their squads to be in there too. Not sure Dean Smith is all he's made out to be (both Brentford and Villa improved after he left) and I think Norwich might struggle to hit the heights of Farke's time. Dingles will hopefully struggle but I suspect they will 'go for it' relatively speaking in the hope/need to get back up quickly. We need to hope they don't whilst their parachute cash dries up and then they will be stuffed. My dark horse tip is Sunderland. Think with promotion, some decent business, a decent manager and large support behind them they might be up there. Think we are in that category where if it all comes together we could be a surprise package but we could just as easily be in serious relegation trouble. I don't want to dampen the mood after a refreshing introduction with JDT but there's a lot to be done and a lot of unknowns at this point. Birmingham a disaster waiting to happen if Bazini takes over but I can't see that going through. Tips to struggle - Reading under Ince, possibly Blackpool, Rotherham, Wigan, Cardiff Us, QPR, Hull are in that unknown category with relatively new coaches and likely big changes to playing staff.

I'll be surprised and almost impressed if that is the case as if so we should at least surpass last season's efforts with time left to run and some optimism around the new manager appointment. Still a little over half of what Dingles, PNE and Bolton have sold mind

At least Tomasson has shown after walking out on Malmo after 2 successful years that he isn't afraid of moving on if the circumstances require it or he wants to try something different. Quite different to the situation with his predecessors who would hang on to the Rovers job until the bitter end knowing it wasn't ever going to get any better for them, In years gone by Tomasson would by now have arrived back from India after 2 weeks in Pune talking to Mr and Mrs Desai. On the positive side of things that would likely mean he came back with a healthy kitty and renewed optimism but on the flip side would have wasted time whilst also making the manager effectively unsackable and indispensible due to his direct link to the owners. This time around there is an air of more professionalism - no need to fly to India and an actual Director of Football welcoming him to Brockhall to get stuck into the task and as much as I am unimpressed by the lingering Lowe and Benson at least we have a well stocked support staff down there now. If India has finally put something in place whereby Waggott, Pasha or Broughton can operate with some sort of freedom and a proper budget we might be in business. But I'm afraid if they are making the Club wash its own face and operate within extreme limits it is unlikely to work.

You quoted me incorrectly. I didn't say I fear a disaster - that was the previous poster

Me too. This isn't really based on JDTs managerial skills or acumen. I am more worried about the state of the squad, what (if anything) is being made available budget wise and the capabilities of those running recruitment. There's a lot to do, not a lot of time and I anticipate not a lot of budget. You've got to be clued up, quick, decisive and have some cash to build a competitive squad and in a short timescale. The kids are only going to get us so far - as much as they can try to avoid it there is a need to go out into a tough competitive market and get signings done. If we fail to do this, or delay, we aren't going to be left with much.

Another friendly added away at Gary Bowyer's Dundee on Wednesday 13th July.

And a huge opportunity missed there, as despite starting from a low base and doing the hard part of getting good home form and a side in the top 2 at Xmas we managed to get circa 5000 extra fans on Ewood on a consistent basis. History at Rovers tells us that getting such a number of 'walk on' fans is hard work. Once you've got them at Ewood you'd better work your socks off to try and keep a portion of them. Even if we'd just retained the 8000ish ST holders and maybe persuaded half of those walk ons to get a season ticket we'd be looking at reasonable sales of 10,000 season tickets. Not great and still below local rivals but moving in the right direction. But the numbers we have at present suggest we've not only failed to capitalise on the numbers of last season but are now busy eroding the 7-8000 core.

I've spoken to at least 3 people in the last couple of weeks who have said that had there been a season ticket priced along the lines of Preston and Bolton - less than £300 - that they would have bought one even though they are unable to go to all the games due to work / other commitments. Their logic being that they can afford to cough up £250 ish now, they won't lose any sleep over that amount and would be willing to do so even though they can't go to every game. Now add £200 to that which is where we are now and those people, and probably many more, are unwilling or unable to make that sort of commitment when they are likely to miss a chunk of games anyway.

I think they will naively expect that the Tomasson appointment will suddenly prompt people into buying. It might encourage a few, but the big problem now is price. £429 starting price now is a heck of a lot for a side in this part of the country especially when most of the talk is about visions, journeys, young players. People want to see promotion as the aim if they are being asked to pay that much. The only real comparables on price are Middlesbrough and Luton. Middlesbrough will be promotion favourites, led by a top manager in Wilder who won't talk about young players, journeys or visions, he'll just go out, recruit good quality and give it his best shot this season. If people can see you are going for it they will pay expecting to see a good season. Luton have a ground holding about 8000 home fans and are having their best few years since the 80s. That combination means they can charge more and so they should as they won't be able to do what we will and hand over 5000+ tickets to Sunderland, Boro, Burnley, Preston. I expect to see an increase in the number of adverts and reminders, and lots of talk about it being an exciting new era. Probably a couple of decent looking loan signings too in an effort to shift a few. I think anyone expecting any meaningful reduction are being very optimistic. The money handed over so far will already be accounted for. At the very best they - might - just do away with the £30 increase but even if they were to do that we are still towards the top end on starting price. They had their chance and they blew it. Just like they had their chance in 2018 and blew it. 2018 v Oxford they had 27,000 home fans on yet no season tickets on sale or even prices to advertise - insanity. This season, despite awful sales of season tickets (a little over 7000) we managed to claw ground back over the season due to good results and league position, and by March we were back at 11-12000 home fans again. Season tickets on sale at a good price during that good run could have made a big difference, yet we wait until the last home game has passed and then charge top whack. Finally, could have salvaged the situation with an early, proactive and headline making managerial appointment. Send Mowbray on his way, communicate, get a good ambitious option in early doors and do what Preston did - promote it as a new era. Instead we've waited until mid-June and appointed something of a 'meh' manager - certainly not one that is going to get people flocking with excitement, though I wish him the very best.

Is there another club anywhere that has seen such a drastic collapse in attendances in recent years? I mean to go from almost 20,000 season ticket holders in 2011 when this lot turned up, to then almost halve your season ticket numbers overnight with relegation down to approx 11,000, and then in the space of the next 4-5 years fall from that down to less than 8,000 and now we are looking at falling well short of even that. All whilst we have stayed more or less at the same level on the pitch. Astonishing stuff which tells its own story of how this Club has really been run and what the people that matter - paying supporters - really think of things away from the internet warriors on Twitter and Facebook.

I just hope there is a plan for recruitment. What we don't want is Tomasson being led a merry dance, told that the Brereton sale will raise cash for good signings to come in, and then they 'do a Rhodes' and only allow a few loans and the cash disappears.

I think I'm down the middle road on this one. I am cautiously optimistic, but that's more down to the unknown quantity and doing something different hoping it works well than any info I have on Tomasson's managerial acumen. I think this is as much to do with the hope, perhaps silly of me, that this new structure and apparent continental setup is going to be more suitable for the Club and may work in our favour in this division. This is likely to hinge more on how clued up this Broughton bloke is, what power he has and what budget he has. This isn't an appointment that sets pulses racing or suggests we mean business as a Farke, Dyche, Bilic or Carvalhal would. But it isn't a depressing nightmare appointment as an Adkins, Woodgate or Ferguson would have been.

Yes, so if Rothwell goes there that tells us a story.

Whether you rate them or not the reality is that their departures were all dressed up as "no big loss" or "we can do better" yet the reality is all have gone on to better things, just like the trio will this summer whilst we are left scrimping around the loan market for replacements.

Where do you think they will go then? Latest rumours are Middlesbrough for Lenihan and West Brom / Forest for Rothwell. Want to have a bet we will finish above them 3 this season?

Rothwell, Lenihan and Nyambe will all be playing for teams either at a higher level or higher than us in the Championship next season. I'm pretty confident on that. Tells us all we need to know - higher clubs or clubs with high aspirations- want them. We won't get better than them. We've done all this before with Hanley, Cairney, Raya and co.

They (Waggott) went into the Lancashire Telegraph during the Covid ground closure and said that they would discount season ticket prices for the following year to compensate fans for those games that they had been unable to go into the ground to watch during restrictions. This was said to be an alternative to people seeking refunds for missed games. A few months later, despite still being under restrictions, not only did Waggott not offer this discount, but he also introduced a price rise. So in the unlikely event that they were to now backtrack or offer some form of future discount I would be very wary - this lot don't keep their promises. I suspect this failure to keep promises, lies, misleading statements and altogether treating paying supporters like dirt and for granted is a major reason sales have collapsed, along with expensive prices. I know personally the behaviour of the Club is more important to me than the price they are asking.

Sensible suggestion but one I don't think would ever happen here. Waggott would not have authority to make such an offer and Venkys work on 12 month cycles and budgets so wouldn't even dream of next year at this stage. Plus we'd get all the 'we don't know what league we are going to be in' (even though nobody else does when releasing tickets in February).

The other issue beyond pricing is what else can they do to tempt people? The best they can do price wise is to do away with the £30 disloyal fan increase. But even then it's still expensive by Championship standards. Tomasson intriguing but not an appointment that will make many sit up or rush to the ticket office. Ambitious transfer business? Not going to happen. Loans and cheap deals only. So quite scary really. Some of us have been warning of this for years.