JHRover

I agree the League is the focus and priority. However winning is a habit and I don't accept the Cup is an unwelcome distraction. A good cup run can help keep momentum going. We are playing in a local derby against a side in the division below us with a healthy travelling contingent so that alone requires it to be taken seriously.

Fully agree. Any signings made this month should be focusing purely on the next 22 games and winning them. The prize is there to claim. Long term project signings can wait until the summer when we know which league we are in, who leaves and who the manager is.

This club's biggest problem has been allowing our best players to run their contracts down and not getting top dollar for our assets. Whether that be Tom Cairney, David Raya, Adam Armstrong or the latest raft of soon to be out of contract players, all of them went or will go for less than they should. I'd like to avoid a similar scenario unfolding again yet that is precisely what is going to happen come the summer. Somewhere along the line people seem to be ignoring the countless millions in transfer value these players possess and focus on a few grand a week difference on the 'wage structure'. Strange that paying them more (deservedly so given their importance and performances) is seemingly a no-no and a risk not worth taking yet at the same time forgoing millions in asset value is absolutely fine, not a problem. I could perhaps buy into this 'wage structure' and the seeming obsession with sticking to it if this was a club run on a sound financial footing and competing at this level whilst breaking even and debt free - like Brentford managed to do - but we are a long way from that and always will be under these owners. They won't do anything serious to deal with that and appear to even enjoy it or certainly be comfortable with it. The only chance we have of being sustainable at this level whilst competing is by ensuring we keep our academy products when they reach the first team or at least ensure they have real value to the club in the event a sale comes along.

It seems to be good news on the half season ticket sales front yet lets not forget that we were recently selling 10-11,000 full season tickets at this level sat in mid-table so whilst we are moving in the right direction total sales of around 9,000 for season tickets is not really progress, it is just a repair job on the numbers we were looking at in the summer fuelled by good results and performances. No doubt Waggott will be patting himself on the back but just imagine if we'd have sustained sales of 10,000 like we were getting before he turned up and then added a few thousand on top. I was delighted with the crowd on Sunday as I expected it to be low at the time and price of £30 an adult so really good to see the BBE lower full (not a full BBE as some have said as upstairs remains shut) and the Riverside was noticeably busier. Circa 14,000 home fans on is progress the challenge now has to be to keep it and increase it, not look for ways to try and milk the extra for more money. Personally I would be looking at a flat rate of £20 for home tickets for every remaining game this season. And I would put tickets on sale now for every remaining game. I don't understand this thing of waiting until 3 weeks before the game to start selling match tickets. Do it now. Promote it everywhere. Contact all ex-season ticket holders. Schools in other areas. This won't happen.

If Nyambe, Lenihan or Rothwell are being advised to refuse good contract offers from Rovers (supposedly increased wages) at a club where they are settled, playing every week in a good team and loved by the fans to hold out for a potential PL move then they are going to be disappointed. Rothwell not a chance. Lenihan highly unlikely. Nyambe probably the most likely due to his physical attributes which might make him attractive to someone like Palace to have a crack at polishing up but still unlikely. Even with all that if they sign new deals and then PL clubs want them they will still get them as money talks - signing an extension with Rovers would not dissuade clubs higher up. I think it is more likely that whatever it is Rovers have offered or are offering isn't worth the time of day. I think we will find out in time to come that rather than months and months of 'talks' to try and keep these players that actually there has been very little (if anything) and that we are looking at a Ben Marshall situation whereby he was painted as the villain for wanting a move or asking for too much money and then we find out the club did nothing to try and keep him The big clue is Mowbray and his situation - the owners clearly allowing the situation to drift with the manager - a bloke they like, trust and who this season has done a good job. He has admitted he has no idea what their plans are - so are they really pushing to get these players signed or are they just leaving Waggott with his extremely limited resources to try and sort it?

My question is how the hell are we losing £20 million a year if we have a 'wage structure' that means we can't even pay the likes of Nyambe what he wants? Second question is which clubs does he or his agent think are willing and able to afford those wages if Rovers can't?

They are being kept alive by the ineptitude of Norwich, Watford and Newcastle. Our last hope is that Newcastle do some serious business and get their act together quickly because I wouldn't put a bean on Norwich or Watford surviving in their current states. Ridiculous that after 1 win all season they are still in the mix and not adrift but that sums up how rubbish the PL is outside the top 6-7.

No complaints from my end if we get to the start of February with what we have. perhaps shuffling Poveda/Clarkson for a couple of replacements IF we use our budget on tying down Nyambe, Rothwell, Lenihan, Kaminski. Travis to long term deals. IF we get to February and have not resolved the contractual situation, have not retained this squad and have not strengthened then that will be utterly unacceptable and will do nothing but confirm my long held suspicion that the owners couldn't really care less. Prove the doubters wrong - do some serious business or at least ensure we are keeping this good squad together.

Or if he hasn't got a pay rise.

The other huge difference is that Gallagher will be a top earner on big money by our standards given where he came from yet we have managed to find scope to at least match or even improve on that whereas the others who are on much less are supposed to accept we cannot match their demands. If I were Lenihan - club captain and in outstanding form - and the club had just agreed and sealed a new deal with Gallagher on double my wages I might be asking Waggott and co why they didn't value me in a similar ball park? Likewise if I were Nyambe on £5k a week and Gallagher has just got another year @ £15k per week then I might not take the Club's pleas of poverty too seriously and stick to my demands a while longer. We've obviously got the money if needed.

Again it is the inconsistency of it all. Maybe things are tough for the owners in India - yet a few weeks ago we discovered they had 'paid' over £16 million to buy the training ground off themselves supposedly for the sole purpose of dodging FFP sanctions? I have no reason to doubt that the Club - Waggott - have probably reached their limit on what they can offer these players without the owners sanctioning further funds to get it over the line. My belief is that because Mowbray has been unable to go to India and put forward a strong case to Mrs Desai for the extra funds that the owners have effectively left the club to wash its own face in recent months. We all know that on its own steam the club can't afford to do much - same goes for most at this level - it needs the owners to cough up the extra required.

Just have to hope that Mowbray gets chance to fly to India at some point between now and May. If he does and he can meet with Mr and Mrs Desai I'd be confident of him coming back with the resources to secure these contract extensions. If he doesn't then he won't get his meeting with them and I doubt will get the funds required.

I get what you are saying but it comes back to this: An extra year for Gallagher, at say £15,000 per week, is an extra commitment from the owners of about £700,000-800,000 (assuming he gets no pay rise). As you say his performances to date unremarkable and unlikely to see a profit on the fee paid for him at this point. Work for him to do to deliver a profit. An extra two years for Nyambe - lets say he's on £5000 a week now and wants £10,000 - that increase would be a commitment of £500,000 from the owners, yet immediately it would see his transfer value go from £0 in the summer to multi-millions. Overnight, just by signing the deal. I get the owners might be reluctant to increase the wage bill but it isn't as simple as that - there has to be an analysis of what happens if they leave for nothing - it costs the owners millions more in lost value and having to source replacements in a difficult market. And lets remember that whilst these deals might add substantially to the current wage bill, it would still be way, way, way below what it was last season which we are told had to be slashed only because of FFP rules.

Good news on Gallagher although with my Mr Negative hat on again I do have to raise a few concerns. Happy that he has signed an extension and happy that this seems to suggest that there is at least something happening at the club and some steps being taken to protect assets. This is the first 'major' contract extension in over a year since Dack extended his deal and by most accounts that one had been agreed and drafted before his first major injury. So it has been a long old time since the Club tied down a senior player. And yes - I am aware that Wharton, Buckley, Dolan and JRC are now 'senior' players but their previous deals were not and converting what were effectively youth or u23 level deals into something reflective of their newfound status would not have been onerous on the club. In terms of Gallagher I come back to what I said previously which is that I find his extension quite odd for 2-3 reasons. Firstly it is likely that he will already be one of our biggest earners having joined the Club from Southampton where he will have been on a big wage. Secondly we were under less pressure to extend his deal than most others in terms of timescales and performances. These two factors suggest something amiss with the other players. How can it be that the Club has the resources and the proactiveness to secure Gallagher for longer yet has been unable, supposedly after years of talks, to secure lower earners yet more integral performers such as Lenihan, Nyambe and Rothwell to new terms. My theory remains that someone upstairs at Rovers has realised that there has been a cock up with those other players and they are desperate to avoid the same happening with Gallagher. Particularly in the cases of Armstrong and Brereton someone in India shelled out big transfer fees to get those in here and both will have turned a healthy profit, albeit much less than we could have got had they been under long term contracts. As it stands, unless we get promoted, we will be forced to sell Brereton in the summer and we will get a fee reflective of his expiring contract - healthy but not a jackpot like we should get. It wouldn't be the first time that certain players are treated differently to others - for example the owners won't strictly be out of pocket if Rothwell or Nyambe walk for nothing as they strictly cost the owners nothing to bring to the club. Gallagher cost them a lot. I hope and pray that I am wrong with this and that new contracts follow for these others. I can understand Brereton not committing at this point but the rest - Nyambe, Rothwell, Lenihan, and yes we get onto Travis and Kaminski and even Buckley - need new, long term and improved deals otherwise the club is going to be left in a vulnerable position regardless of what happens in the next 4-5 months. I'm struggling to understand why when the owners are pumping in the best part of £20 million each year and have recently 'sold' our training ground for £16 million to 'dodge' FFP rules that somewhere among that vast sum of cash and Armstrong sale there is insufficient cash to pay someone like Nyambe what he is after. As others have said he will almost certainly not get a PL move this summer so who is paying him substantially more than Venkys can and how?

Huddersfield is £30 a head on the Blackburn End and Riverside for a 2pm Sunday kick off. So that puts paid to that being a 'big crowd' although they might shift a few thousand given it is one of their easiest away trips. I see Birmingham are charging from £15 for their home game v QPR at the same time (live on Sky). Less than 1,000 tickets left.

Anything but a win would be a let down and that applies whether we were chasing promotion or fighting relegation - Barnsley have the lowest points haul in the league for good reason - they have been the worst side so far and anyone at home should be disappointed with anything less than a win. Of course it isn't so simple and sides will come to Ewood to try and stop our forward players and grind out results and the best sides will drop points against the weaker ones. The key of course is not to panic. Nothing will be lost if points are dropped but then there needs to be a response. Our biggest problem under Mowbray has been that he is a streaky manager - when things are going well the football can be good, goals flow and we look like a team going places but then when we have a setback that usually ushers in 6-7 game barren spells where we slide down the table. Setbacks OK if it is a setback and not a month long horror run. Having said all that I and many others will have looked at this tranche of Hull, Barnsley and Huddersfield as a great opportunity to put a serious gap to the teams behind us. After the Hull debacle we really need a win to keep things going.

Correct we can offer players whatever we want and there is nothing stopping the owners offering the players £1 million a piece for promotion if they want it desperately enough. What I'm getting at is that bonuses have to be declared and above board. There will be bonuses in their contracts - so it isn't as simple as saying that because we are doing well they will give them another bucket load of cash on top of that - they would have to insert that as a term into their contracts either by amending their contracts or by giving them new ones. That would be a complex job. Otherwise what are the players relying on? Waggott's word? Some people on here might be daft enough to take what he says as the truth and not question it but I doubt players and their agents would do that - they would want this bonus system in writing and watertight which is where the contract comes in. These things can't be written on the back of a fag packet - there will have to be tight provisions for how much they get, when it gets paid, how long the Club have to cough up, differing amounts for different appearances etc. More likely of course is that all this is already in their existing contracts and will have been provided for when signed years ago. Perhaps Venkys offered substantial bonuses at that stage in comparison to other clubs. I think the suggestion something has recently changed and that Balaji has suddenly dangled a big carrot for the players given their good position is unlikely.

I don't think anything has changed - my point is that I don't think the owners have done anything here - the bonuses referred to in the story will have been included in the players' contracts when they negotiated and signed them and will be entirely normal for a Championship football club to offer substantial bonuses to players in the event of promotion to the PL. I don't think the owners have done anything recently. FFP is flexible and down to calculations and interpretations and there are all sorts of loopholes. Only today Bristol City have announced losses of nearly £40 million for the last year yet I don't see them selling training grounds because their owner will find a way to manage it. I'm pretty sure (again not certain as I haven't had chance to check the rules) that you can't just decide to offer massive bonuses mid-season beyond what is set into the contracts. Also bonuses have to be declared to the authorities.

I don't think so. I don't think you can just decide to insert new bonuses into deals half way through them. For this to be above board they would have to agree new deals with the players. The Football League have stringent rules on bonuses and what you can do. The likelihood is that promotion bonuses were inserted into all the players deals back when they signed them and therefore IF we ever get promoted we will have to pay a lot out money. That incentive has always been there and will be in just about every players contract at every club.

I hope that Rovers are genuinely angry and take steps to push this. Yes I've seen the tweets and the apparent 'complaint' to the EFL seeking an investigation but I often wonder how determined Rovers are to push these things and demand answers. I suppose one thing is that the Club will have incurred substantial expense in hotels, travel etc. for the players which might encourage them to go further with it. When it is the supporters who are mucked around usually we will get a couple of disgruntled tweets and perhaps a couple of players having a whinge about it or thanking people for their support but then it all dies down and gets forgotten about. I don't think there is any chance of Rovers compensating almost 3000 supporters all of whom will be out of pocket This really is just unacceptable and sums up what a complete lack of interest there is in supporters from clubs in this country. We arrived at the ground at Hull and went to get some programmes and although some of the people there were sympathetic and helpful there was also a feeling of 'what are you lot doing here?' I agree that I think clubs got quite comfortable with the ease of matchdays last year without the aggro of thousands of fans turning up and a lot of club staff would be quite happy to see a return to that.

Not sure this is some great discovery or exclusive. It goes without saying that all the players will have some sort of promotion bonus in their contracts and that when you add together 20+ senior players and the management team that cash is going to be significant. We also know that there is a tendancy here for clauses to be put into contracts that are - shall we say - weighted in favour of cash down the line rather than up front - whether that be transfer fees, wages or bonuses the way they like to do things based on what has been said and heard in the past is that they like to spread payments across several years or make them contingent on certain targets being reached - so it would not be a surprise to see deals with substantial bonuses in place to sweeten the deal. Not sure this really makes much difference with those out of contract in the summer. I would hope in our position there is little/no appetite on either side for those players to leave in January. I'm not sure on the legalities of it but I'm not sure this is a new development - I don't think you can just dangle massive bonuses beyond what is in their contracts from when they signed them. Might be wrong on that but would expect the league to be quite strict on bonuses and how they are distributed. You can't just have a good start to the season so offer the players a huge pile of cash if they maintain it.

Points in the bag for me. We should be desperate to play Boxing Day to keep the momentum going and to take on a very average Hull side without their manager. At the start of the season I'd have taken 51 points and survival. We should be aiming now for 75 points and the play-offs as a minimum. 11 wins needed to get there asap. Don't care what the others do if we focus on ourselves and aiming for that points target.

I don't think Gallagher has actually signed a new deal yet has he? That isn't to say he won't do, but we've heard these things before about something being 'imminent' and then it not actually happening. It wouldn't be the first time Waggott has told people that things are happening that then don't. Then come the excuses as to why it didn't happen - goalposts moved, covid etc. But yes - it does fly in the face of common sense as to why they would be willing and able to offer Gallagher what he wants but not the other lads. I come back to my original point that perhaps they haven't made offers to the others as there is no capital outlay to protect in people like Rothwell and Nyambe - whereas Gallagher was a big buy for someone in India and they are eager to ensure he doesn't walk for nothing like the others.

If it is true that Venkys have to approve any bids for our players before they are sold (which Mowbray says is their decision) then I would be quite confident of keeping Brereton until the summer. By the time a bid comes in, it then goes to India for them to think about and a response comes back January will be done. They don't do things quickly and I don't believe the manager has any direct contact with them in any event so if they won't even speak to him I can't see them speaking to interested clubs. If they would rather shift him now than wait and see what unfolds over the next 23 games they need their heads looking at but then again we know that already. I still maintain that either these players haven't been offered new contracts or if they have they are utterly derisory and not worth the time of day looking at. I really struggle to comprehend how players who have been here for years, progressed through the academy, clearly enjoying their football at the moment at a club in a good place in the league would want to turn down improved terms to take their chances elsewhere in the Championship. Who are all these clubs that are in a position to offer them substantially more than we can at this moment in time? No looking at these players they don't have many options at present. Strike me as the sort of performances they are putting in to try and convince the club to pull out all the stops to keep them here. Going to look extremely suspect come the summer if they've taken us to the play-offs and been star performers in the Championship and then toddle off to sides finishing miles behind us in the table. Listening to Mowbray's comments he is trying to put public pressure on the owners to make them suitable offers.

Anyone thinking that restrictions will only last for 2 weeks or believing this 'circuit breaker' talk just needs to remember what happened last year. They went on and on and on about a 'circuit breaker' in November last year and we weren't properly out of restrictions until this summer. It went on for months and months and months. The test will reverse once the restrictions are in place. At the moment it is forecasts that are being relied on to determine things i.e. what might happen in a few weeks if restrictions aren't brought in. But once under restrictions it will be a case of waiting for the data to arrive that proves it is safe to release them and it being unsafe to do so until that data appears.