Well actually we could have it both ways. Cut prices, sell far more, bring in the same cash. If the club had marketed the Preston game properly - £20 a head and got tickets on sale weeks ago with big promotion behind it then there would have been 20,000 or even 25,000 on Ewood. Many on the food, drink and merchandise. Instead, due to short sightedness, it is looking like 15,000 on if we are lucky, crap atmosphere. Meanwhile only this morning the club has released a statement on the website encouraging people to buy their replica kits quickly because they have nearly all run out and there are no large sizes left in stock. It doesn't appear as though there is any plan on getting further stock in. Maybe if we had increased stock levels we would have some to sell over Xmas and bring in some extra money?

I have as much evidence as you do. You believe Waggott, I don't. That's the only difference. It isn't a conspiracy. I think he is a liar and cannot be trusted and think there is plenty of reason for that. You want to accept everything he says as the accurate reality and convince yourself that this is the truth. I have zero interest in the wage budget and what is needed to 'manage it'. That is irrelevant to the point I was making which is to cast doubt on whether these players have actually been made improved offers worthy of consideration, as you have repeatedly claimed. What evidence do I have? Very little. What evidence do you have other than what Waggott has told the Telegraph? What I do know is that in the summer we supposedly made efforts to keep Bell and Bennett who both decided to move on elsewhere, that we supposedly made efforts to tie Armstrong down to a new deal who decided to go elsewhere and that supposedly now for at least the last 12 months we have been making efforts to secure the futures of Rothwell, Nyambe, Lenihan, Brereton and yet despite that time and claims of improved offers not one of those players has signed up. Now you might expect at least 1 of those various players to have accepted 'improved' terms and yet none of them have. Not one. What does that tell you? It tells me that either offers haven't been made for them to accept or alternatively that the offers are so poor that all those players would sooner go elsewhere. Someone like Lenihan isn't getting a PL move. He's staying in the Championship. Having graduated from our academy, been here all his career and established himself as captain and effectively guaranteed his place in the team you might expect him to fancy sticking around. Yet despite an 'improved' offer he'd rather head off to some other 2nd division club? Not sure I'm buying that. Of course Waggott as the CEO keen to protect himself, the manager and Venkys is going to attempt to divert blame away from those at the club and towards those players. That is just common sense. He is hardly going to hold his hands up and admit that no offers have been made, that the club has botched the process or that the offers made are poor ones. He'd probably be sacked if he admitted that. I don't think anyone is suggesting 'overpaying' for players. All the information I have heard is that Nyambe is on quite a low wage by the club and Championship standards. It isn't very long ago that you were trying to justify giving Ben Gladwin a 6 month deal to use our training facilities to get fit so I don't think it is unreasonable for a player like Nyambe to expect a substantial pay increase. Rothwell is another who was signed from Oxford, probably on small Championship wages, and has grown in importance When we look at the frivolity of this management team over the last 3 years then relatively low earners like Nyambe and Rothwell have every right to expect a substantial increase. I don't understand why I need to meet Waggott to be able to have a view on him. He lied last year about compensating supporters out of pocket, and went one better by increasing prices by 20%. He was in the Red Rose suite earlier this season telling people Lenihan would be signing in days and that we had a striker lined up from abroad. None of those things happened. I never met Steve Kean either. What does that prove?

Why do you take him at his word?

What evidence do you have that improved offers have been made? The word of Waggott? How do you know there is nothing more the club can do? Even if offers have been made, how do you know that they are the limit of the club's capabilities? I think it is just as likely that: a) No improved offers have been made b) If they have there is more the club can do to get those over the line c) Looking at the numbers who are out of contract and have failed to sign new terms it is clear there is a serious issue with securing players to new deals which suggests there is a lot more at play than greedy players asking for too much money d) I look forward to them joining Championship rivals and then you'll have to invent more reasons why we couldn't keep them when it becomes obvious that their demands aren't excessive or unreasonable.

Get through December without a horror run of results and we will see what Venkys are made of in January. We've always been told that money is no object and that if we are in a healthy position in January they will back the club to make additional signings to try and get us to the promised land. Lets see if that actually materialises because I won't be holding my breath. Noticeable already how all the talk is of potentially having to sell Brereton, Lenihan, Nyambe and Rothwell, four of our most experienced and important players. Utter madness to even contemplate selling any important player given the position we are in unless there is a clear plan of investment and new players lined up to come in immediately afterwards. Of course given Brereton's rapid rise this season there may be interest from bigger fish that we struggle to resist which is understandable but again - he goes once there is reinvestment and replacement lined up. I won't be impressed if we get the usual deadline day player at Brockhall who doesn't sign nonsense.

I genuinely think that the people down there would rather have 15,000 on than 25,000 if the bank balance at the end of the day was the same. E.g. they'd rather sell substantially less at a high price and have half the ground empty than they would fill the ground with much cheaper tickets and still be in the same position financially afterwards. That's of course assuming takings from the extra thousands on things like food, drink and merchandise didn't add to the pot substantially, but even the non-financial advantages - a full ground, much better atmosphere, home advantage and growing new support - seem lost on this lot. I find myself hoping we get a draw against United or Liverpool in the FA Cup. Not because I want to play them but because I'd be fascinated to see how the club dealt with it. They think 15,000 v Preston is a busy day at the office so imagine getting 30,000 on with all the media and corporates. Waggott would be loving it financially but I think the operation would be completely shown up as inadequate and incapable of hosting such events.

Some of us were concerned when ludicrous and unnecessary contracts were dished out, like to Ben Gladwin so he could use Brockhall. We were told that it was the right thing to do and that it wouldn't cost the club much or cause any issues. Same thing happened in the summer of 2020 when Mowbray and Waggott decided they were going to give month long extensions to 7 players, hardly any of which were used as we drifted to a mid table finish and they were all then released. Point is of course that straight away there is hundreds of thousands of pounds wasted, for no recognisable return, when the club could easily have let those players go and the loss to the club would have been insignificant. If we hadn't bothered with the Gladwin one and saved £5000 a week for 6 months we would have an extra £120,000. That's £2500 a week extra for Nyambe for a year straight away. But no, we can't afford to meet his demands and instead will lose him for nothing along with a big cash windfall were we to sell him under contract.

Their agents have confirmed that improved offers have been made? Where was that then? I'm not aware of any agent that has commented on the status of his client's contract negotiations and would be very surprised if any of them did as they wouldn't get many clients So we are back to relying on what Waggott and Mowbray have said in their press conferences. If you want to believe what they say good luck but I won't be.

All not well behind the scenes at Sheff Utd. Only earlier this week there were reports that their Saudi owner was trying to sell up or bring in more investment. It was a strange situation when Wilder left. Jokanovic seemed like a solid appointment for a club looking to bounce back but it hasn't really got going. Presumably he was looking for serious backing in January to rebuild their squad and it wasn't forthcoming. Handing the job to Heckingbottom just sounds like they want a coach in place who will do as he is told and not complain whilst perhaps promoting some academy lads through. All sounds lovely but will ensure they don't get promoted any time soon and with Heckingbottom's track record I wouldn't be confident of staying in the Championship long.

I'm afraid that is just not acceptable. 1) Have offers been made? Who says? Mowbray and Waggott? Well of course they are going to say that. They are hardly going to tell supporters that the club has done nothing. 2) Even if offers have been made and they represent improvements on existing terms, of course if those improvements are so derisory or insignificant then yes the club and those running it can be blamed. Like making an improved offer to buy a car by upping the bid by £5. An improvement but ridiculous and not worthy of consideration. That is the buyers fault, not the seller, in this case the club, not the player. 3) Mowbray and Waggott can be blamed because under their management over the last 3 years they have squandered vast sums of money on needless contracts and signings. So if the club is now struggling to find the money to pay these lads more to keep them there has to be consideration of why that is the case and the chronic waste of funds overseen by this manager and his pal upstairs. 4) As I keep on coming back to this point - none of the players out of contract supposedly offered improved terms have taken up the clubs offer. Not a single one. Have a think about the number of contracts expiring soon or that expired last summer. Not one of them decided to accept the clubs 'offers' and 'improved terms'. I think that tells us all we need to know about the quality of those offers, if they even exist at all, which I am doubtful of.

I wonder with Grayson whether he is struggling without his mates of Snodin and Miller in the dugout. At Blackpool (first spell), Leeds, Huddersfield and Preston Snodin was his assistant but in his last 3 jobs he hasn't been. Sometimes managers rely heavily on assistants that do certain jobs very well for them or understand what it is the manager is looking for and when that partnership ends things aren't quite the same afterwards. It was similar with Clough and Taylor - after Taylor went his own way Clough never hit previous heights. Wenger and Pat Rice - when Rice retired they fell away from contention. O'Neill with John Robertson - after Villa Robertson retired and O'Neill didn't reach previous levels. Even Mourinho with Rui Faria who left him at United and since then Mourinho hasn't won anything. I'd have had Grayson here a few years ago including when we went into League One but after his last few spells he seems to have lost his mojo.

I don't remember any serious interest or reports of it in Celina. Freeman was similar to Brereton - it suddenly came about a couple of weeks before the window slammed shut and raised eyebrows because it seemed completely bizarre that we suddenly had the cash at our disposal to go and sign QPRs star player. QPR weren't playing ball though and rejected the approach, which led directly to us moving for Brereton instead. If we had that cash to spend and had targeted Brereton earlier he would have been signed earlier that summer. Instead we had to get him on loan with an agreement to buy in January because we were so late with it - certainly doesn't suggest there was much of a plan. I think that one of the Venkys decided to chuck some of their own cash into the transfer pot - no doubt in a phase of interest and excitement following promotion - and it was a case of spend it now or risk it not being there in January. You mention the other players brought in that summer - you are correct there were plenty of signings - but none of them major cash buys which is why suddenly throwing money around on Brereton in the final week of the window seemed so odd and inconsistent. Prior to the Brereton deal and Freeman bid there had been Jack Rodwell and Joe Rothwell (free), Armstrong (£1.5 million), Palmer & Reed on loan and Davenport for a small fee. So 2 loans, 2 free agents, Davenport for a couple of hundred grand and then Mowbray's project Armstrong for a reaonable but not massive fee. Then all of a sudden £7 million goes out on a teenage striker in the last days of the window? Very strange.

I agree. The cash we spent on Brereton I don't believe was available to Mowbray from the start of the summer window and had strings attached - it could only be spent on a certain category of player. I don't think there is any chance whatsoever that the money could have been split into 2-3 decent sums invested into 2-3 different positions, because if it could Mowbray woud have done that instead. It has too many similarities to the Rhodes deal - last minute, sudden, unexpected splash of the cash to such an amount the selling club couldn't say no. I suspect it was a bonus that Mowbray felt forced to use due to pressure from upstairs and also the risk that it wouldn't be there in future windows if he didn't spend it there and then. This is life in Venky world.

My prediction for the January window: - Intense planning and John Park working every hour of the day to line up good players - There's a budget if the right people come available butt we won't spend for the fun of it - Claims that if players are sold those proceeds will be reinvested and they will be replaced - At least one of Rothwell, Nyambe or Brereton sold. - No money spent on replacements. - Shuffle the deck on loans with Poveda going back and similar coming in the other way - Player(s) at Brockhall on deadline day with his suitcases ready to sign but for various reasons doesn't but conveniently that players name gets leaked to the local media and therefore satisfies supporters that efforts were being made yet unsuccessfully.

That may or may not be correct although I challenge anyone to name me a club other than perhaps petrol/gas fuelled Chelsea and City that aren't trading/selling clubs. Lets not make out that we are a special case or that we are up against things any more than anyone else. What we are talking about with these lads isn't conventional trading/selling. It is being forced into selling mid-season because negligence and mismanagement has put us in a position where we have no choice. There also needs to be an examination of why such players would be 'determined' to leave this club. With the possible exception of Brereton, and I still think clubs will want to see him maintain his form before moving for him, none of these players are going to get offers from clubs in higher or better divisions. The likes of Lenihan, Nyambe and Rothwell will be going to other Championship clubs. These are players who have been here since they were boys or in the case of Rothwell we gave the opportunity to move from League One to a higher division no doubt on substantially better money than he was on at Oxford. It certainly alarms me that these players would be 'determined' to leave Rovers whilst we are in a healthy league position IF we are trying to keep them here. Just what do players really think of this place if someone like Lenihan is 'determined' to get out of here and move to another Championship club when he has been here all his career, we have developed and made into our captain and pillar of our team? It tells me there is something very wrong behind the scenes. Of course we will get all the usual stuff about greedy agents and players demanding too much money and how poor old Rovers can't meet those demands. But this is a club somehow losing £20 million a year so I don't accept that somewhere in that astronomical amount of money there isn't scope to pay these players what is needed. Since last season about £100,000 a week must have gone from the wage bill with the departures of last summer so paying these lads a few grand a week more will not change the picture. I predicted several months ago that as January approached we would get the usual shenanigans of players going missing, being dropped and mucking around and sounds like that is now starting to happen. A lot of people will be deceived by a reasonable run of form and decent league position and think none of this matters or we can simply dip into the market and replace these lads no problem. Longer term it will be a problem especially if it is true there are FFP issues because losing these lads for a pittance is not in keeping with a club managing FFP effectively.

All the odds suggest a Rovers win. We are in decent form other than the Fulham debacle, our home form is decent with defeats only against West Brom and Fulham and should be even stronger having flushed away 2-0 leads against Coventry and Luton. Peterborough's away form is beyond dismal with all but one of their away games ending in defeat. Really we have to win this one but then I keep reminding myself that the games where we are favourites and expected to win we tend to struggle. Mowbray seems to prefer it when expectations are lower. A tough game at Stoke on Saturday but all the focus needs to be on getting the 3 points tomorrow and worry about Stoke on Thursday/Friday. I hope Mowbray doesn't muck around making changes with Stoke in mind and then let points slip v Posh. Focus on the next one. I'll never forget our midweek fixture at Reading a couple of years ago when he went there making changes against a relegation threatened Reading because we had a game v Middlesbrough at the weekend and we ended up getting 0 points when Reading were there for the taking. If we can get the 3 points here and take something from Stoke it will be a healthy week's return of 5 points from 9. 4 points from 9 wouldn't be too bad but would see us lose ground on sides above us. Less than 4 points from 9 would be very disappointing given the form of Bristol and Peterborough.

Officially it will be announced at about 9000 - similar to the Fulham game. In reality I don't think there will be 7000 through the turnstiles.

My first visit to Ashton Gate was in 2012 after we were relegated from the Premier League. On that occasion their ground was dilapidated, away fans housed in a converted terrace on one end of the ground, the main stand falling to bits. Not much around the ground for drinking or spending. I think they were getting crowds of about 11 or 12,000 in those days. Fast forward to today and they have rebuilt or refurbished all the ground, they have numerous bars inside for fans to use and they have an array of places outside the ground on club property where people and families can congregate and get food/drink. Crowds down this season - about 18000 in total Saturday including 1,000 away fans but the last few years they've been over 20,000. Now obviously Bristol is a much bigger place but it is interesting isn't it. They haven't had 30,000 a week turning up, far from it. They haven't been in the PL or had parachute cash to throw around yet they have still been able to grow their support whilst floating around the middle of the Championship, keeping within FFP rules, rebuilding their stadium into a smart ground, and are able to offer things to generate lots of extra money on the side. The old attendance excuse - that they get bigger crowds so it works whereas with 10,000 a week at Ewood it can't work - is nonsense - case in point being Accy Stanley who offer things such as cask beers, pre and post match entertainment all with a couple of thousand home fans turning up. We have the Legends Lounge in the Darwen End - standing empty and unused every week. Surely something could be done to get that open as a second Blues Bar or an away designated bar. Shepherd the away fans off their coaches and into the Darwen End. Put food and drink on pre-match and make some extra cash that way? The away 'fanzone' - basically a shipping container used to serve beer from - has been unused most weeks. I think they opened it up again when Sheff Utd came but expect it will be closed again on Wednesday.

It's like most other businesses - antagonise, upset, alienate your customers and most will give over spending their money with you. Football slightly different in that there will always be a basic number who will keep on coming regardless and there is a lot more loyalty to football clubs than to most businesses, but the fundamental principle is the same. If you are expecting people to hand over their hard earned cash you'd better treat them with respect or give them something that they enjoy or makes them feel valued. In any other industry you obliterate your customer base and do nothing to change it then you go bust through rank bad business performance or the staff/management get changed In the parallel universe of Blackburn Rovers however the perpetrators of the poor performance keep on going, getting very well paid for it regardless and many fans blame their fellow fans for the issue. Beyond bizarre.

An alternative to flogging the training ground in a seemingly desperate last minute scramble to avoid a points deduction would of course have been to run the club in a sustainable or semi-sustainable manner rather than once again allowing costs to spiral out of control and that going hand in hand with ever decreasing revenues and income. I'm not interested in Covid and the figures from the last 18 months because there are steps in place to exempt Covid impact from FFP calculations. So the brigade who keep trotting out the 189% of turnover to wages figure need to go back to pre-Covid which is what is important. It is telling of course that we are in the same boat as Derby and Reading, two other basket cases, whilst the actual sensibly run Championship clubs whether that be Preston, Millwall, Barnsley, Bristol, Luton all seem to have stumbled across the magic formula of maintaining mid-table competitive status in the Championship without racking up obscene debt, losses and being in permanent danger of falling foul of FFP. Maybe it was the 'plan' that we would sell Dack for a healthy sum and that would be used to get us out of any trouble but I don't call that a plan. Of course player sales are part and parcel of life at this level and are needed from time to time to boost the coffers but a plan of relying on selling him and hoping that he didn't get injured, lose form or not attract serious cash/interest. I could even understand or accept it if our business model was to rely on a big sale from time to time to plug the shortfall, but that is not the plan because to do that you have to invest cash into obtaining those players to begin with (not relying on loans) and you have to ensure your best players are under long term contracts that enable us to command substantial fees in the event interest comes along. This isn't what is happening here. It is just a complete disaster of a situation and they all share in the responsibility. The owners to their credit are seemingly able and willing to chuck in cash that goes way above and beyond what many other Championship clubs are able to do which should be an advantage yet as our league positions show has counted for very little. They just take so little interest in the requirements of running a club at this level that money is squandered all over the show, in a boom and bust model where we go from having a massive bloated expensive squad to a threadbare one running low on assets of value and reliant on the loan market. They also allow and seemingly want a structure where the club is run by people who may not be up to the task in hand or be empowered to do the job as needed which means people like Waggott are left to run things like a cornershop operation for years on end whilst presiding over decline, falling sales and yet there is no consequence to that. People keep telling me the issue here is having too big a wage bill and outgoings being too high. Well how about revenues being too low? What are we going to do about that?

I'd rather be on 20 points now and own Brockhall than be on 26 with it out of the clubs ownership and set to lose most of our decent players for nothing because we can't renew their contracts. Bit easier to make up 6 points than it is to get hold of a setup like Brockhall. I'll come back to my question again which still hasn't been answered properly. Why is it that we are in a position whereby we are having to sell valuable fixed assets to avoid FFP sanctions despite having billionaire owners whilst pretty much everyone else in this division can manage their finances without breaching FFP and without selling training grounds? Nothing has changed has it? The club is as much of a financial basket case run by charlatans and incompetents as it was 10 years ago. According to the 'experts' in the media - and I use that term loosely because I think most of these people just regurgitate what Waggott tells them - the Brockhall sale was required to avoid sanctions. So hold on, are we really supposed to believe that a sale of Adam Armstrong for £15 million was barely worth even half of the shortfall we had to make up to avoid a sanction? Seriously? Our finances were in such a hideous state this summer that the £10 million(ish) cash we got for Armstrong was still leaving us £16 million short of what we needed to avoid sanctions? So a shortfall of £26 million needed to be plugged? This a club that limited transfer spending to relatively small fees over the previous 3-4 windows since the purchase of Gallagher in 2019? How on earth can that happen? It is either gross mismanagement or something sinister going on because I refuse to accept that we can be so far off the scale in return for a Championship relegation scrap and a squad with very little transfer value. It might be acceptable had we now got a squad filled up with valuable established players on hefty contracts with value in them but that is a long way from being the case.

So the extent of Reading's punishment for exceeding permitted losses by almost £20 million is a 6 point deduction. Better than nothing but not exactly a game changing sanction is it? With their squad they will likely have more than enough to survive and can go again with a clean slate. Not sure it is worth selling the training ground for or cutting costs back and risking Championship status over, or allowing all our best players to leave for nothing because we supposedly can't offer them better terms. Think I'd sooner ensure we had a good quality squad of contracted players and take the 6 points myself.

So last week Sky Sports 'randomly' decide to do an interview with him and how tough he had things here. In an 'exclusive interview' with someone called Adam Bate (would love to know his background and associates) about how poor old Steve could relate to Steve Bruce and his troubles at Newcastle where unhappy supporters wanted him gone. And then a week later he is appointed at Hibs. Amazing coincidence. Barely mentioned on these shores in years and in the space of a week there's an exclusive interview and he's appointed at Hibs. I don't believe in such coincidences, not where reptiles like those at Sky Sports are involved and it seems he still has friends there willing to jump to his aid whenever he needs a 'leg up' or some positive publicity. Seems he knew he was getting the Hibs job so pre-empted any backlash by getting this interview out into public last week. They know all the tricks these scumbags.

Yep. And in the next few months we will get the prominent national journalists doing articles telling us what a great World Cup it is going to be and how Qatar have pulled out all the stops and spared no expense whilst they get their all expenses paid trip and luxury accommodation thrown in. The previous faux outrage at FIFA corruption, human rights issues, unsuitable weather and wrecking the domestic calendar so they can play in winter will all be banished to the history books and they'll be on telling us how great Qatar is and how we should all spend our money supporting it. There will be barely any mention of the uncomfortable reality of things because it would show them all up for the hypocrites they are. And yes - Southgate and his team are at the forefront of that hypocrisy - he never misses an opportunity to use his position to make comments about the rights and wrongs in the world yet will be off to Qatar participating in a competition that anyone wanting to send a message over would boycott.

Is he? I mean he has a decent level of experience, mainly in the lower leagues. His PL or top end Championship experience is just in the last 3 years, before that he spent most of his career either in the lower divisions with Walsall or mid-table with Brentford. He did ok at Brentford whilst selling his best players but after he left Frank got them to the play-offs and then to promotion, which Smith couldn't manage. I think he's ok but no more than that. He doesn't strike me as a promotion expert like a Bruce or Warnock and he doesn't strike me as a survival expert like Allardyce, Hodgson or Pulis. He certainly has popularity among the media but I suspect that is down to his reputation for playing nice football and being a nice bloke. As others have said - if Norwich had one eye on a promotion push next season then Farke would be the man for that. If they are desperate to survive this season in the PL there are other options out there with better track records than Smith.