JHRover

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.

Since we were last in the PL the following clubs in the top 3 divisions have been taken over: PL: Newcastle, Dingles, Leeds, Everton, Liverpool, Leicester, Wolves, Villa (twice), Southampton, Crystal Palace Championship: Derby (soon to be twice), Forest (twice), Birmingham, West Brom, Reading, Fulham, Swansea, Blackpool, Peterborough, Huddersfield, Barnsley, Sheffield United League One: Bolton (twice), Wigan (twice), Sheffield Wednesday, Sunderland (twice), Charlton (twice), Portsmouth, Oxford Why wouldn't or couldn't we be taken over? What would they bring to the table? Well some pride, brains, semblance of a plan would make a big difference to what we have at the moment,

Strange one really. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about with Smith. Did OK with Brentford but they've progressed much more since he left them and Frank took over. Got Villa promoted but with that squad they had to go up. Since spent vast sums of money, narrowly survived the first season, good season last year and now that Grealish has gone sinking rapidly this. Not sure what Norwich are looking for. Smith doesn't come with the Allardyce survival expert reputation, they are highly likely to be relegated this year and if they were to go back into the Championship I'd rather have Farke in charge than Smith.

Ipswich have it sussed. £15 match for their Xmas home games or buy all 3 for £40. Seniors £20 for all 3. U23s from £12.50 for all 3. Under 12s are £1.50 per game. These are 'big' fixtures against Sunderland, Wycombe and Lincoln I haven't looked it up but I bet they are charging away fans more than £15. They are promoting and pushing it now - 6 weeks before the game - not leaving it until 2-3 weeks before. I bet they go close to filling their ground whilst we do the usual routine of charging through the roof hoping to milk the Xmas increase.

Maybe the other way of looking at it is that many people are deeply unhappy and concerned about this club and its future and will express that unhappiness despite being in a reasonable league position. Goes to show that dissatisfaction with our revolting owners goes way beyond matchday results or the XI lads who pull on the shirt on matchday. It also goes above and beyond the age of players in the team or whether they have come from the academy. If we were bottom of the league now and people were doing this the argument would be that the only reason they were moaning about Venkys is because we were struggling on the pitch. As far as I'm concerned this club is heading for the abyss whilst these people remain in control. It is a matter of when not if. I'll give Mowbray some credit here - he is overachieving at present IMO (shame about the last 3 seasons) and is keeping the club ticking over but we are on the precipice for as long as negligent owners remain and employ substandard administrators. Keep on losing season ticket holders by the thousands - where does the club end up?

I'm just curious why this is the only club in England that immediately goes bust the moment these wretched owners decide they've had enough. I say that because countless football clubs have had financial difficulties, administration, changes in ownership over the years and those that have actually gone bust can be counted on one hand - Bury, Darlington, Chester. The comparable clubs - Portsmouth, Leicester, Leeds, Middlesbrough, Bolton, Wigan, Derby, Southampton - all still going, have come through the bad times, still functioning. Why are we so different?

Last week Mowbray was going on about how he reached his peak in his mid 30s. Yet last year he was going on about Mulgrew being too old to play even though he gave him the contact in the first place. Not as clever as he thinks he is but unfortunately so many just swallow whatever he comes out with and don't question a word of it.

The thing that irritates me more than anything is that there will remain a substantial portion of people who think the most recent decline is natural, inevitable, a consequence of our level or comparable to the 80s or because we have fairweather fans who don't want to watch Championship football. The evidence doesn't support that. If we go back to 2013-16, a period when we were in a similar league position to that we are now, a time when the Kean, Shebby, Berg, Appleton mayhem was in recent memory, we were getting as many as 11,500 season ticket holders and average crowds of 14,000+ That's a fact, there in black and white for all time to come. Upper BBE open, DE open for home fans, better atmosphere all round. What has happened in the last 4 or 5 years, which interestingly coincides with the time Waggott and Mowbray have been running the show, has been a substantial and drastic fall from those numbers. The standard of football hasn't significantly changed - still run of the mill Championship. Arguably the club has been 'better run' or at least I keep getting told. The scars of the Kean, Shebby much further ago. Yet down from 11,500 to 7,000. Quite an astonishing fall really and I suspect nobody else can rival such a drop off in season ticket holders whilst in the same division. Hull have had a collapse but that was from their PL days. But we are talking 40%+ fall in season ticket holders. Incredible. The complete lack of accountability or concern for such a significant and calamitous drop is astonishing. No action from the owners, same old management continue with excuses, on the decline goes. Where does it stop nobody knows but I'd rather not wait to find out.

What good work is going on behind the scenes? I'm genuinely intrigued as to what this is and why this is any better or different to what any other professional football club does? Sorry if I've missed something but what I see is the very bog standard and basic stuff I would expect from any club at this level. Compare to what Accy Stanley do with schoolkids and it is not much. Giving out a few free tickets to local schoolkids is admirable but isn't going to make a blind bit of difference when the club is simultaneously destroying the bedrock of its support - season ticket holders - through a variety of ridiculous short sighted measures. To make up for the 2000 lost season ticket holders over the last couple of seasons it is going to take a hell of a long time and a hell of a lot of effort. As far as I am concerned the price for a season ticket holder, per game, should be no more than £15. That works out as £345 over the season. That is about average for the Championship. The club could then basically vary prices between £15 and £25 per game, protecting season ticket holders getting better value for money and a reserved seat whilst still being able to keep to sensible prices. Personally I wouldn't want to charge more than £20 per game ever but I also recognise that other clubs will screw our away fans and something has to be done to ensure away supporters don't just see Rovers as a cheap day out to travel in big numbers. It annoys me for example that when we go to Sheffield United we are likely to be charged £30+ and the same at Fulham when both their supporters have got into Ewood for substantially less than that this season. We dabbled with the 1875 membership scheme but didn't put it to use - the incentive to join that scheme should have been substantial reductions on the cost of match tickets but instead there was no such scheme. This would have enabled the club to offer tickets at Ewood to home fans for less than away fans. This is what Bristol City are doing next week where their supporters who are members get tickets for £5 less than Rovers fans can get them in the away end.

Anyone associated with the club and anyone of a PNE persuasion knows £30 is too much and that it will seriously limit the numbers being sold. But our esteemed £300,000 a year leader knows better. Unfortunately for us time and time again over the last 4 years we have been proven right and Waggott's policies have been proven wrong. Down to 7000 season ticket holders is his legacy and proof his policies had failed. I was under the impression he had realised the error of his ways and was trying to reverse it with recent price cuts and attempts to get people back. He gets a golden opportunity and reverts to type. It will be 16,000 if we are lucky and I expect another mad giveaway of a thousand or so in the family stands the week before the game to boost numbers from embarrassing levels. Good news for those working at Ewood who fancy a comfortable day at the office though.

Could do what Bristol City are doing next Saturday and charge less for home fans than away fans.

It's not 1995 anymore yet we're inviting the emblem of that era Dalglish down to Ewood and we are assembling a 'mosaic' on the JW stand of the title win. Always good to see people like Dalglish back at Ewood but imagine he is as shocked as the rest of us as to what has become of the place.

They will justify these prices on the basis that they are doing right by season ticket holders and that people have the option of getting it 'cheaper' by committing to a season ticket instead. Of course anyone with any sense knows that it isn't as simple as that and that many, many people have neither the money, ability or desire to commit to every game. If we believe the figures from the Sheff U game there were circa 5000 matchday ticket buyers on top of season ticket holders. Many of those people will have enjoyed the performance, result and atmosphere and need to be enticed back. The next home Saturday game is Preston. An attractive looking fixture that is perfect to try and increase that 5000 figure upwards. The challenge should be to persuade everyone who bought for Sheffield to do the same again and also to bring a friend or family member at the same time. Small increases and gains. Aim for 15,000 home fans from the 12,000 or so last week. Not brilliant if you achieve it but certainly progress and with a full DE would see 22,000-23,000 on Ewood and a cracking atmosphere. You could beat that if you were really determined and pushed it into new areas and marketed it properly but that isn't going to happen under this lot. £20 an adult anywhere in the ground. £10 for teenagers and £5 for kids with adults. Pack the place out. But no, Waggott decides to go with the £30 a head routine. He will be expecting a full DE of PNE fans and so will want the cash from them, in doing so limiting the home attendance. The thing is I think that he and Rovers want a limited crowd. I think they would much sooner have 15000 on paying £30 a head than they would getting 25,000 on at cheaper prices. Why? I don't think the club is set up or capable of hosting a crowd of that size, especially not in a local derby and the local plod will be sticking their beak in and setting all sorts of rules and demands on the club. I'm still surprised it is going to be a 3pm kick off, and expect that is on the basis we won't be selling 'cheap' tickets to fill the place. Imagine the stress Kayleigh and co. would have in the lead up to that one. Tinpot outfit run by tinpot administrators.

He must be on the lookout for another job after his Australian stint. His CV won't get him far so once again falling back on his friends at Sky HQ to do their bit. Hundreds and hundreds of managers have come and gone from PL and Championship clubs over the last 10 years and aren't heard of again yet this guy gets annual articles of sympathy and promotion. Of course it is also a coincidence that his agent was able to walk into the Sky Sports News studio and get a live interview absolving himself of any responsibility for the disaster at Rovers. Probably finds it odd that no club in Europe at any professional level will employ him as a coach. Strange isn't it. With such supporters as Moyes, Ferguson and co. yet can't get a job. Almost as though there is more to it than endorsements from fellow managers. I wouldn't wish him on anyone but the dingles and I'd like to think that his name is so tarnished on the football grapevine that he will remain unemployable despite the media mafia's attempts to rehabilitate him. Stuff like this the reason I'll never have a Sky subscription. Scum of the earth IMO.

What you need to understand Chaddy is that if any of those managers had been at Rovers they would still be here. Managers, provided the owners like them, survive here regardless of results or performance. The only think the top people in India are bothered about is having someone in place grateful to them and willing to do things their way, including flying out to India Other clubs won't tolerate poor runs of form and will make a change. Rovers will just sit by and do nothing because it is easier and cheaper to stick than it is to twist. This is why dysfunctional clubs - Cardiff being one - have had promotion to the PL recently because they make changes and try to get somewhere. Mowbray would have been toast last season at any other club and he knows it. He is very lucky to still be managing this club. Just because we keep him regardless whilst others get sacked doesn't mean he is better or that the Venky way is correct because in the longer term we know it will get us nowhere and we will be in a sorry state sooner rather than later with the contracts.