It's Venkys.

Always has been, always will be.

Employees will come up with stories and excuses to cover themselves and avoid incurring the wrath of the Indians.

But ultimately they need to approve things. And they won't move quickly, and if they can't agree on things then it either drifts until too late or doesn't happen.

It's also partly down to our obsession with using the kids and academy so much.

Ultimately in this league you need know how to hold on in games, deal with pressure and fight back.

This lot have chiseled away at experience (cost) for 3 years and it should be no surprise when the kids struggle against battle hardened men in the Championship.

Reap what you sow.

It seems the penny may have dropped in the last two days of the window. But those signings may be too little too late given they won't even be match fit.

1 minute ago, 47er said:

Rest of the article was highly critical though. A step forward. At last acknowledging the anti-Waggot, anti-Venkys feelings of the fans. Brave by normal LT standards.

Oh yes I agree. I just think stating the 'nobody is interested in replacing Venkys and even if they did they'd need £20 million a year' line is just quite lazy and lifted from fans comments online. 

But definitely a step forward and the type of thing that will hopefully get the relevant people sweating

Hard to say as it depends on what the aim is and how far an owner wants to go. Nothing wrong with losing £20 million a year if you have something to show for it and the owner can afford it, but let's look at our peers - similar or smaller clubs who compete at this level each year and how much it costs them:

Millwall lost £12.6 million last year. The year before £13.8 million.

Preston lost £12.2 million last year. The year before £16.9 million.

Hull lost £7.9 million last year. The year before £9.7 million.

Luton lost £8 million and got promoted.

Watford lost £17 million despite a legacy of PL wages and costs.

Swansea lost £13 million

So just a few examples but I'd love to know why we couldn't quickly get down to that sort of ball park without any particular problems.

Good to see the Telegraph waking up to reality and doing something about it. Hopefully some of those who believe everything they read in the papers will wake up now.

"There is not a massive queue of creditable investors waiting to take over the club. Certainly not those with the ability to write off losses to the tune of circa £20 million a year"

Sadly he lets himself down with this, nobody, least of all the Telegraph reporter, knows how many people are or would be interested in taking over here, and nobody will know until the existing lot put the for sale signs up. Until then it is complete guesswork.

£20 million a year is another lazy figure thrown out there to inflate what is actually required to sustain a bottom half Championship club. It doesn't need anywhere near that amount.

They're a disgrace and should be ashamed and embarrassed.

They are also cowards, unwilling to face up to and confront what they have done and instead hide behind lackeys.

Their only defence after 13 years is that they pay the bills. Kind of sums it up doesn't it.

I long for the day that they are history and I never have to think about or hear their name again. It would be a bonus if their wealth and status came crashing down around them, and the least they deserve.

Must be the first time in football history that a manager/head coach has been banned from giving a pre-match interview to 'protect' him from talking about transfers.

Protect him from what? They've never been bothered before and he's had plenty of difficult transfer related business put to him.

Wouldn't trust these clowns as far as I could throw them.

Lowe will be here until Venkys go, they ain't going to risk that by thrusting him into the firing line. No he'll stay behind the scenes.

It'll be Damien Johnson. Internal, already on the payroll, knows the academy, ex player status wins free brownie points with some.

8 minutes ago, TommyRovers said:

No. The club have decided not to hold a managerial press conference for the QPR game. He will return to media duties after the game.

And the club are surprised/disappointed by the reaction of the fans and media to this?

Surely not even those idiots think cancelling the manager's press conference at short notice the day after a dismal transfer window closes will be construed as anything other than very alarming?

Well I said at the start of the season if JDT didn't see the season out then nor would I.

Looks like it is crunch time....

Just now, robfranlong81 said:

Great post.  Surely the owners won't want a relegation to League 1 which makes all this penny pinching and austerity even more frustrating.   The club is in complete stagnation - it's been clear that the money generated from the sale of Wharton has or was ear marked for running costs to get the club through to the end of the season. Complete slap in the face or every single fan. 

I think the people making 'strategy' decisions down there are arrogant enough to think that this route is going to comfortably keep us in the Championship.

I don't think it will and this season is proving that the gap really isn't that big once we get on a bad run of form. It really doesn't take much to go from a play-off chasing team to a relegation team, especially when you've taken a wrecking ball to your squad.

If we did go down I don't think the owners would care. I don't think they would have cared in 2017 had Mowbray not quickly jumped on a plane to India and sat down and persuaded them to 'go for it' and get back up. This time around that won't happen, they will just double down on their approach but this time reduce outgoings to compensate for the reduced income in League One and on it goes.

Numpties in the fanbase will just blame Broughton, JDT or the next manager.

Waggott and Pasha clearly aren't judged on results or performance, rather their ability to deliver the owners' agenda which is continual cost cuts.

23 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

This transfer window has been a sticking plaster over our structural problems to get us through the next 4-5 months. What they've done is kick the can down the road, in others words put off hard decisions until the summer.

They're hoping the court case resolves itself and the club can perhaps move forward. But there's a possibility that it won't - and we'll still be in this same situation in the run-up to next season.

As it stands, with so many loanees and the squad constantly in flux, there will need to be another rebuilding job in the summer, possibly searching for a new manager too.  And so it continues

 

This is always the case under these owners, Indian court issues or not.

The way they run things it will never change.

We always rely heavily on loans in important positions. This results in a never ending cycle of players coming and going every transfer window.

They have adopted an obsession with using the academy and the 'development' model. By its very nature the whole purpose of it is to develop players for sale. Therefore we need to create spaces in the squad and first XI to accommodate the next 'project' and move people out the other way to justify its continuation.

The contracts - we now have a strict wage ceiling which essentially means that the moment a player reaches a level of establishment in the Championship he isn't going to renew terms with us, because he knows he can get more elsewhere and we aren't going to budge on that. Some might call that prudent, I'd call it stupidity as it means we either see players walking for nothing due to failing to renew their deals or it means they wander off to rivals usually at a lower price than they should just to solve the issue before it reaches a crescendo.

End result is we are constantly going to be waving off our experienced proven players and having to try to replace them.

I don't think anyone really benefits from this, other than agents who can make a good sum shifting their players in and out on a regular basis.

Come the summer our position will be horrific, even if we survive in the Championship. Make no mistake the Wharton money is gone, as is the Kaminski and Phillips money, and they'll already be plotting the next departures.

They'll be hoping that Travis pushes for a permanent move and Ipswich or an other offer cash. The only problem on that front is that if JDT walks the next manager might want him here, and they won't be able to play the 'bust up with the manager' card again straight away.

Then they've Szmodics whose value will be at its peak and he will be getting fed up singlehandedly digging us out of the mire in games and knowing what the owners and execs are up to so suspect he'll be next up, they'll sell that one on his age making it a perfect time to sell.

Pats on the back all around except we are on a one way ticket to League One, fortunately for Waggott and Pasha league status and position doesn't matter and isn't their 'department' so it will be a shrug of the shoulders and more cuts/sales to plug the gap.

The McGuire permanent fee is obviously not being paid, we've agreed to a ridulously high fee option to get him on loan for the time being.

There is no way on this earth that as a Championship or League One club we are paying that sort of fee for anyone, even if he comes in and blows the league away with goals.

All it does is put him in the shop window for a rival to hijack the signing.

Lets be honest, we have no strategy other than to sell and cut costs and then try to fill up the squad with whatever cheap loans and frees come available.

Jettisoning two academy graduates who know the club inside out and have been here since boys, one to Palace and one to Ipswich, and signing John Fleck on a short term deal really does sum it up.

7 minutes ago, davulsukur said:

So the Wharton money will now just evaporate and we'll have forgotten all about it come the summer?

Come the summer they will have forgotten all about it or concocted some new excuse why we have no ability to spend. My bet is they will just revert back to the tried and tested FFP stuff, so despite having money we can't spend much of it because it would affect the cycle / wage structure too much.

Meanwhile Hull City are showing what can be done when you've an ambitious owner who wants his side to get promoted. Polar opposite to the mob running Rovers.

15 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

From the BBC

Hull are now in advanced talks with Burnley over a loan deal for winger Anass Zaroury.The Tigers are having some window, having already brought in Fabio Carvalho from Liverpool and Abdulkadir Omur - better known as the 'Turkish Messi'.

Now that's what you do when you want to get promotion

No FFP cycle talk there. Just action.

5 minutes ago, Tugayisgod said:

Oh shit 😱😱 what could possibly go wrong ?

 

Stage 2 or 3 of local media layering excuses for the owners failings

Are we a professional club or not? 

Shouldn't go into such deals if the requirements are too difficult to cope with.