Oh I agree, the product is garbage and the price keeps going up. I expect we are facing a slump of significant proportions whilst the status quo remains. No hope and no ambition will see to that. Which makes it even more important that the club does everything it can to shift as many tickets as possible. We haven't got the cushion of a huge dormant fanbase who will sign up regardless and it looks like we've already decided that we aren't going to show any ambition or give fans something to believe in. As it stands we could have 20,000 people on Nuttall St with money in their wallets and the club couldn't take it. Again I keep coming back to the fact that rival clubs get them on sale months before we do. They sell more than we do. That tells me they know better and sell early for a reason

That with red collar would be very nice

Do you think this way of operating is remotely good enough for a club at this level? We are already joint last to announce prices. This happens every year, covid or no covid. Only a couple of weeks ago Waggott said they would be announced in 'late May' or 'early June'. He's now missed both of those dates, and the latest is it 'looks like' we will have an 'announcement' within the next 'week or so'. Not only is this incredibly vague and poor - how difficult is it to fix a date and keep to it? But also interesting is the date here. Plenty of people have been making excuses for the club - saying they would be stupid to get them on sale before 21st June knowing what the restrictions are going to be, but if they are announced/released next week then this shows that the reason for the delay hasn't been anything to do with restrictions or waiting to see what happens. The arrogance of these people just assuming they can rely on loyal supporters to turn up whenever they are ready with their money. Think they are in for a nasty shock.

True, once the sale is complete then their power is gone. But I think there is so much more they could have done prior to sale. Lets be honest. Sit around a table with Balaji, Venkatesh and their associates and it would become clear in the space of about 20 seconds that they didn't have a clue what they were talking about or doing and were a danger to the future of the club. With or without their agent in tow it would have been clear to anyone remotely interested or concerned in the wellbeing of the club. If you are correct, and they couldn't afford for fund the club anymore then they had two alternative options. 1 was to effectively give the club away - to the fans or a consortium of local people - but forego a lump sum for the majority shareholding - in doing so ensuring people who cared about the club kept hold of it. They wouldn't have got their hands on £20 million though. 2 was to hold on to the club but refuse to invest any more money - this would have been a continuation n of their business model of the previous 4 -5 years. Ultimately another 3-4 years and increased PL income would have made them much more money and new ownership options would have come along. Now they might have had these concerns and doubts but were reassured or hopeful that it would all work out ok. That's their call. They were a Trust fund, set up, instructed and paid from Jack Walker's organisation to manage his interests competently and responsibly and to protect those interests long term. I also think it would be very interesting indeed to read the Trust deed and see exactly what requirements Jack put in there. I was always under the impression there were requirements to fund the club long term not sell it after 5-6 years. I don't think anyone could argue that they acted in the interests of the club in allowing the sale to go through. They wanted a sale and snapped off the hands of the first people who offered the cash. At best naively hoping it would work out will but more likely without a care in the world once the ink was dry.

In the last couple of days Fulham and Blackpool have both started selling season tickets. Fulham have frozen renewals at last season's prices starting from £349 and for new buyers prices start from £399. Blackpool are starting from £279 for renewals. There go another 2 rival clubs, so by my reckoning the only ones not to be selling tickets now are ourselves, West Brom, Hull and Derby. Amazing isn't it. This pandemic and all the problems it presents only seems to apply to Blackburn. Fulham, with a smaller ground, much higher levels of demand and relegation don't seem to be restricted like we are. Their owner/board don't see any point in 'waiting to see what happens'.

Says it all about what a joke of a club we have become that the highlights of the summer are potential 'windfalls' we get from David Raya reaching the PL with Brentford and Tom Cairney transferring to Sheffield United. Two players who have gone on to much better things whilst this club has gone nowhere. Two players we offloaded for relative pittances who within 12 months of leaving were worth vast amounts more. You would hope somewhere along the corridors of power at Ewood/Venky HQ someone would be asking why these players have gone on to better things and why we sold them for the small amounts we did. Yet I doubt it and suspect brownie points will be had for the few hundred grand that might come in for them now rather than the millions we could have had if we'd have kept them.

Bolton will be above us before we are in the top 6 of this division, never mind promoted. Wigan probably too. Then it will be just little old Bury as the 'look what we would become without Venkys' example.

I don't think we will be under an embargo. If we will be I would like to know how everyone else has avoided it given the impact of Covid 19. I firmly believe that the stooges at Ewood will be using FFP as a convenient excuse for a lack of spending. Hell of a lot easier than admitting the owners have turned the taps off and helps justify no spending, price hikes and player sales. If we are under an embargo then Waggott and Cheston should both resign for taking us there after starting with effectively a blank canvas in 2017 and spending the last 4 years claiming to be managing things sensibly. Just where does the money go?

Not to worry. It will soon be late May or early June when Waggott said they would be announced. Another miss by the club. Bit of a habit this isn't it? I'd have a lot more respect if they just admitted that for some weird reason the owners have to authorise everything and there has been radio silence from them. This is why we can't extend deals and why Mowbray is still going through the motions.

Mowbray will be on his post-season holidays, so won't have been around for the photo with JRC. Only when he's back from his jollies will things click into gear at Mowbray F.C. once he instructs his subordinates and 'advises' the owners as to what the target is and what needs to happen. Until then we drift.

Just a bit of gap filling by the club. Tumbleweed stuff in recent weeks with no games so apart from the odd contract extension and 'Good luck' or 'happy birthday' message so this is their attempt at communicating and reminding fans 'we're still here' Let's see some action not the same old boring words.

As other clubs at this level, above and below, are showing, the general attitude is that it is a good idea to sell them rather than 'wait and see' what happens with Coronavirus. As it stands, and as it has stood for months, the expectation is that at least 25% of grounds can be filled from the start of next season. Some might 'get off' on predicting that it will all unravel and we will have to go back into a lockdown but really this has to end, and soon, and people and businesses have to approach life as though it will. Approaching life with panic and hysteria every time a variant appears or positive test numbers go up is going to mean we never get out of this. Proactive clubs, starved of fans and income for 15 months, would sell season tickets wherever possible, and deal with any issues down the line IF they actually happen. Not here though the logic appears to be the reverse. Do sweet F A for months and then expect to sell a reasonable amount in an impossibly narrow timeframe. We saw how that one worked last year with the insane 2 week sales window in September just as cases were escalating and lockdown became more likely. A pitiful 2500 were sold. As it stands there are only two clubs that were in the Championship last season and will be next that haven't done anything. Rovers and Derby. And Derby are in a real mess with their relegation battle, money issues and takeover chaos. Everyone else has got tickets on sale. This includes clubs with little grounds with far less room to play with than we have at Ewood - QPR, Luton, Bournemouth We are 'blessed' here because there's no way we'd sell more than 8-9,000 under this joke management, so even if we got to that figure we could still limit attendances to 25% of capacity and have no issues. And if it was 0 fans in the ground you would simply provide a range of refund options- give people their money back (what a novel idea), keep hold of it and knock it off future tickets (although Waggott lied about doing that last year) or invite people to donate it to the club. Everyone else has managed it - why can't we?

They should already be getting signed up and done now, during the quiet months, to avoid problems next season like we've had this. You say some will 'certainly' sign new deals? Will they? Will they even be offered new deals? If they are, will those offers be remotely good enough for good players who could get much more elsewhere? We've been banging on about contracts now for months and yet only a couple of senior players have signed new deals since before Xmas. One was Dack, who I believe had virtually agreed a deal prior to his injury and that was 'on ice' until he made a recovery. The other was Bradley Johnson who probably had something in his last deal for an extra year. Then there's the year extensions on the others that have had to be activated in the absence of new long term deals being sorted. Certainly seems to me there's an issue or inability at the club in getting new contracts sorted. And if that's the case what's the point in all this? What's the point in having an academy to develop players, persevering with them as they develop in the first team, attempts to build a squad, moans and groans about how hard life is and how unfair the rules are yet we can't even get our own house in order and can't secure what we have to protect our own assets.

So now that Preston have announced prices, on sale from Monday, by my reckoning that leaves just ourselves and crisis club Derby (nearly relegated, ownership issues) from those in the division last season to still have announced absolutely nothing on season tickets. Then there's WBA and Fulham coming down and Hull and Blackpool coming up who are yet to announce anything. Fortunately for those clubs they can rely on a solid core of buyers/promotion bounce to do them some favours. Shame about that pandemic causing havoc with our plans though.

Nobody is paying £20 million for Armstrong. The club can try and create a bidding war but it won't happen. If we got near to £15 million I'd be pleasantly surprised. That's not me saying Armstrong isn't worth £20 million. Because in this day and age I think he is - he has everything that attracts a premium price in today's world - English, scores goals, still young, bags of pace and good injury record. All those attributes should bump prices up considerably. We should be sat here relaxed and rubbing our hands like Brentford did with Ollie Watkins. We should have Armstrong down to 2,3,4 years and be putting our feet up waiting for someone to come in and bid for him and being able to name our price. Then its a win-win situation because if he was sold we'd be able to spend heavily on the squad and if he wasn't we'd be set for another 20 odd goals next season. But in view of his contractual situation his price will be much less. The crying shame is that even if we got only £10 million, a steal in today's market, there's little we could do about it other than accept the offer and yet Mowbray would earn all sorts of brownie points with the owners for increasing his value and landing them a windfall, when actually he should be hauled into an office and asked to explain himself for allowing this situation to develop. Sell Rothwell to generate funds to give Armstrong a new deal? Nah, that's just another excuse for offloading Rothwell. We've shaved about £100k a week off the wage bill with Williams, Mulgrew, Evans, Bennett, Downing, Bell all on their way, plus the Raya bonus for Brentford's promotion. If we can't give Armstrong a deserved rise and new deal now then we never will be able to. That's of course assuming the owners have authorised expenditure on any senior contract extensions. The only ones to happen have been the in-built 12 month activiation clauses which don't really count as new deals anyway.

Meanwhile League One side Sunderland had sold 21,000 season tickets by 1st June. Good job there's no pandemic on Wearside.

Someone on twitter called Tom Leach, who is writing for the Hampshire press and likely to be far more reliable than the Lancashire Telegraph copying gossip from the Daily Express.

And just like clockwork as the Armstrong to Southampton 'story' has been rubbished by a proper journalist another club, this time Norwich, emerges as being 'in' for him. I wonder which end these 'links' are coming from? Either Rovers or his agent would be my guess rather than the PL clubs.

I've long suspected the people down at Rovers, mainly Mowbray and Waggott but also the others underneath them, are uncomfortable with the beast that is Blackburn Rovers in its current format. Former PL mainstay, successful club, PL ground, reputation, facilities, yet managed and overseen by a group of people very much not up to that level. This club remains a PL outfit in all but name and management. Awkward for the management incapable and probably not interested in Mowbray and Waggott have shown no real desire to harness the club and its assets and put them to good use, instead it is always about trying to dumb down, reduce, dilute and make excuses. So no suprises that possession of an elite facility in the lush surroundings of Brockhall is awkward for them. Both for what it represents - the pinnacle of Jack Walkers legacy still to this day setting us well ahead of rival clubs - and for the value it contains for raising cash and getting hands on it. Waggott will also know that the only justification for leaving Brockhall and moving to a new site (other than admitting it is financial) is some concoction about how it would be better or advantageous for it to be nearer to Blackburn and withiin BwD. Anyone with any understanding of the area would know that this is nonsense but unfortunately many people will believe it.

I had it this morning when I used Firefox but now using Chrome it is the old site.

I've heard some rubbish in my time but the suggestion that the training ground for Rovers needs to be or should be within the boundaries of BwD I think tops the lot. Of course if we didn't have a training ground to start with it would make sense to look as close to home as possible for a site to build one but this conveniently ignores the brilliant facility we have not 20 minutes from Blackburn which is set in beautiful countryside easily accessible from the M6 and A59. I too find it strange how Waggott made a comment about how it might be better being in BwD and then lo and behold someone I've never heard of before is turning up at fans forum meetings arguing it would be better if it was. It's one of the more daft suggestions I've ever heard. Brockhall is absolutely perfect as a location for a private training ground where professional players would want to work.

Why does anyone expect Waggott to honour refunds after what happened in 2019/20?

The owners will only notice it when the finance men raise it at the annual review. Waggott won't be bothered because he can just blame Covid and screw a bit more out of those who do go. Not long off retirement now anyway so his legacy of reducing the fanbase each and every season is certain to be intact. He can window dress by shutting the Riverside and moving the 1500 or so out of there and into the JW lower and BBE so it will look more full on telly. If they ever do notice or care about plummeting numbers it will be too late and they will be gone, many unlikely to return.

The pragmatic move would be to give Armstrong a long term new contract extension, protect our asset, build from there and make an assault on promotion. That is what a serious club would do. That is what Brentford have done with their star men which is why they've made so much money and been able to reinvest substantially in replacements. That is why Mowbray's talk about us copying Brentford is little more than lazy drivel to sound impressive. Actions speak louder than words. Given we haven't even managed to sort out deals like JRC and various other players who are on a relative pittance by Championship standards I think we can safely say that even if the club is trying to offer him a new deal (and I'm not convinced any serious efforts have been made) we aren't going to get very far for it. All well and good talking about a wage structure/ceiling but if it is the difference between getting £20 million for Armstrong or £7 million then surely it is a price worth paying to cough up on a wage increase? There is no other good outcome for Blackburn Rovers from this. The other options - those being keep him until January or next summer or sell him now - are damage limitation options. Best case is we get a reasonable fee for him (not that Rovers will benefit from it). If anyone at Rovers thinks we are getting £20 million for him with 1 year left on his deal then they need sectioning. This bravado will come to nothing and will achieve nothing other than wasting away precious time and making it even more difficult to source a replacement. I remain doubtful that a Newcastle or Southampton will be interested. I think it will be a case of Rovers then touting him around various rival Championship clubs who will then exploit our desperation and get him for a pitiful fee. If the intention is already there to use the loan market for such replacement then I suppose it suits those at the club to leave his departure until the last minute, that way nobody can expect reinvestment of funds and season ticket cash will already be banked.

Agreed. Most clubs can survive dark days because usually they only last for a few years and then a resurgence begins. The Boltons, Blackpools, Lutons, Portsmouths have had financially enforced hardship which has lasted 3,4,5 years but then they've come out of the other side of it soon after with what appear to be decent new owners who understand their clubs, clear the decks financially and put the effort in to rebuild it. We are now into year 11 of this ownership with no end in sight. Unique because most people would either have got fed up or run out of money by now. Venkys appear to have endless reserves of both. That period of time will wear down anyone. You can get away with 3,4,5 years of diminishing crowds, spiralling performance and neglect but we are looking at an entire generation here. It is difficult enough as a 2nd tier club in this area of the country but when you combine it with what we have here - will the club ever recover from it? I know Waggott and the people at Rovers will spin it and claim that work is done to engage with the community - pointing at the Community Trust and their work and the employment of this 'liason' officer or whatever he might be but it is barely scratching the surface. Proper efforts to engage fans - ticketing initiatives, improved matchday experience, travel to Ewood - all neglected because they require too much effort to put in place.