Tell you what they are making what should be a straight forward idea into something difficult to understand aren't they? Once upon a time it was just 'tickets on sale until kick off' especially when you've 10,000+ set to be empty. Nowadays we have ticket office shut, digital tickets ok until kick off, club shop and telephone sales good until 5pm, i.e. until most people clock off work, but then bizarrely we aren't selling any this way after this time, though I assume the shop will be open pre-match just not selling any tickets for the game. Apparently on police advice though still waiting for someone to explain why it is ok for someone to buy a digital ticket at 7pm but not ok for them to go into the shop or ring the club and buy that way instead.

Reasons this won't happen: a) We've got no money b) He would require either a transfer or signing on fee c) He's 30. We have a policy of not signing players of that age d) The attitude at Rovers is why bother bringing in a permanent transfer when the job can be done by either an academy lad or youngster on loan.

I've just bit on Facebook and responded to one moron who wanted to lecture me on FFP rules after I criticised the lack of communication from the club on this and the Brockhall scheme. Apparently we 'had' to try and put houses on Brockhall because of Covid. I agree though that the numbers of Venky sympathisers aren't as great as they once were. Suspect having to go to court every few months to head off winding up petitions might have brought one or two minds into focus.

Waggott is a good reader of the atmosphere. He knows when to keep his head down and when he needs to re-appear and do a well staged interview / statement. For example the usual radio silence whilst they plotted at length to demolish Brockhall for a housing estate, hoping that it would go through unnoticed, and then within hours of local media (finding out about it from here) he was on the club website. It happened again in the summer when there was complete silence for months and then he appeared to brag about his new bus and paying the milk man on time just as the rumours were taking off about the Indian issues. He even got plenty of credit from the numpties out there applauding his 'honesty' simply for sitting down and doing a routine interview with in house media. So it wouldn't surprise me if he's getting ready for another similar stunt now the latest Court documents are circulating together with news about the adjournment until March. It won't come from India but he will try to keep the masses quiet and those in India comfortable with some generic nonsense about their 'commitment' that we tend to get once a year. No sign of the local media in all this who are presumaby quite happy with a situation whereby the club's existence is under immediate threat due to funding issues, better off concentrating on transfer tittle tattle, although I did notice that North West tonight decided to focus on us the other night now that we are struggling and sliding down the table.

When you are loaning out popular senior players who have been with the club since they were kids so you can save on the weekly wage bill and replacing them with random kids on loan on a fraction of the cost you know you have serious problems, and it is inevitable that these sort of decisions are going to have repercussions behind the scenes and around the dressing room. I daresay that this is already happening and is a factor in our nosedive. The perils of making your recruitment decisions solely on the basis of cost and convenience rather than considering wider ramifications. Save a few quid a week, pats on the back at Venky HQ yet destroy team spirit and annoy the rest of the squad causing further issues. That's before you get on to the complete and total lack of ambition and professionalism to be found anywhere other than in the head coach's office. Owners a disgrace, CEO not fit for purpose and a Director of Football who, if I'm being kind hasn't been given any real opportunity to prove his worth. Of course Gallagher will be looking elsewhere. It is abundantly clear that he will be earmarked for release / sale to get his substantial wages off the books as we have with every decent earner for the last 4 years. They lied to us and claimed they tried to keep some of them and made them good improved offers, but I think as time goes by it becomes more and more clear that this was little more than a ruse to keep the fans on side and try to shift blame to the player(s) and not the owners. Gallagher won't have had much of an indication on his future because we don't even know if we can pay the wages from one month to the next (cheers Venkys), so we are hardly going to be in a position to negotiate terms with a top earner. We are the club that sat back and allowed Mowbray's deal to expire with no communication until weeks after the season ended, that did nothing to keep the likes of Rothwell and Diaz, totally unprofessional, where the manager has no idea what, if any, money he is going to be permitted to spend and so is it any surprise at all that Gallagher is getting fed up being treated like a mug?

Yeah there's no way HMRC would have allowed us to run up that sort of tab without serious action being taken before now including winding up petitions, which even with the non-existent local reporting would have found its way into the public domain. It seems the basis of Venky's applications to the Indian court are that if the court doesn't grant the request then the club/investment goes bust very quickly. With that in mind I suspect that as long as the circumstances haven't significantly changed and as long as they can justify the amount they are seeking to transfer from India to the UK then it is likely to be granted again. The problem is funding beyond essential obligations, which is a separate issue for determination as those cannot be justified by threat of the club going bust without. The cash used to buy the player today will have come from the club's own 'resources' in much the same way as all our previous recent purchases. The club doesn't have very much money without external input but will have enough to scrape together hundreds of thousands to buy the cheaper end development projects on League One or Two wages. This is precisely what they've been building towards for years and what they mean when they talk about reducing the demands on the owners. Unfortunately for us keeping Venkys as owners but not having much / any extra funding from them is the worst possible outcome. One of our only chances of being rid of them is that they either can't afford to fund us any more or they get the club taken off them. If they get to a stage where the club is effectively covering itself at minimum aggro or cost to them it is more likely they'll just leave us in a drawer for longer to stagnate.

Such incompetence only ever occurs when it is a player coming in and when it requires cash from the owners....funny that.

Think of the brownie points Waggott will get himself if this one comes off. He'll be popular in India when they realise that the next couple of years of the circus are effectively paid for up front. Bonus time as he nudges up season ticket prices yet again?

Or the best one of the lot: "We've got to be careful with FFP, we are in the middle of a 3 year cycle so we need to wait a year and then we'll be good to spend in the next cycle" Tomorrow never comes.

The Head Coach / D of F structure was just a way for the powers that be to further distance themselves from scrutiny or accountability, whilst retaining control from the shadows. They set the budgets and make the ultimate decisions, but Broughton and JDT are the public face of it and are the ones who get the hassle from the fans and media. Only have to sit near me at Ewood and the number of groans and moans about the manager's performance, lots of criticism about around Broughton's recruitment yet the real issue here is the people upstairs, the people who have employed them, the people who have set the budgets and undermined them with extreme restrictions on recruitment.

It usually helps in retaining good players or obtaining new good players if you can convince them that you are a club with a plan, a vision and a destination e.g. Premier League asap. They can see that even if you don't achieve your objective that you will try and that it is a club worth being at. One look at this disgrace of an organisation: > pitiful summer transfer budget slashed mid window > Court applications to release funds every few months to pay wages and head off winding up petitions > CEO who boasts and lies about buying a new bus and paying bills on time. Announces survival as the aim despite spending 2 years pushing for promotion. > Manager and CEO/D of F clearly not all singing from the same hymn sheet > cost cutting and reduction the only plan > loaning out senior players to rivals to save on their wages None of the above caused by FFP rules Why anyone would want to be involved at any level is beyond me. I certainly don't want to be and I'm not a player with a short career to maximise.

Fortunately for us our support comes from way beyond the confines of Blackburn. The population of Blackburn is quite immaterial really, despite Waggott's best efforts to convince us otherwise.

JRC, Gallagher and Pears like new signings though. Dolan and Hedges too. There's no doubt they'll play that old chestnut when deadline day comes with no business done. Unless Brighton or someone send us a kid for nothing for us to develop in our relegation scrap.

Why make it harder for away fans when you can just impose additional restrictions on home fans. Added bonus of saving a few quid on ticket office staff.

Always someone else to blame. Sky, EFL, police, other clubs, Indian government, Indian judiciary, the weather. We should 'advise' the police that we are a business entitled to try and make money and the few hours before kick off, especially for cup fixtures, are probably our best opportunity for a late take up in sales. But no, easier to shrug shoulders, blame others and sit in an empty stadium.

Until recently I believed that every decision they made was motivated solely by short term cost savings. But now I am of the view they are deliberately pulling stunts like these either to antagonise people or to keep attendances to a minimum 20,000 empty seats and you won't open the ticket office on matchday. Wow.

Interesting, I didn't watch it but in what context are Sky presenters and pundits discussing a Rovers player during Leicester v Ipswich? I find that odd and quite unprofessional. Unless there's a campaign afoot to get that move done.

None of us know for certain that we are right or wrong, none of us will likely ever know the 100% accurate truth of the matter and very few will, and those involved will of course portay a certain version of events to pass the buck or cover their arses from the fanbase or owners. But if it's a choice between blaming the owners, the people who have caused or sat back and allowed more or less 13 years of failure and stagnation, or Gregg Broughton, I know which way my money is going. And if I'm wrong and it was all on Gregg or Silvester suffering temporary amnesia or forgetting how to do their jobs (not been a problem before or since) then the question is why have the owners employed and continue to employ them?

Maybe potential different owners would look at the £30 million+ we've p1ssed up the wall through negligence the last 2-3 years (Diaz, Armstrong, Lenihan, Rothwell etc) and look at the £20 million+ we are likely to bank with Adam Wharton soon (unless we balls that one up as well) and consider straight away that's half the money recouped just through better decision making. One good season and set of decisions away from PL football - if dingles, Luton, Brentford can do it then so can Blackburn Rovers. Speculate to accumulate and if you run out of money move on and let someone else have a go.

If it was indeed simply gross incompetence then how do we explain the following: a) That all the actors involved in that shambles - Waggott, Broughton, Silvestre - remain in position a year on and before and since then have had no issues at all in getting various deals over the line, including some of greater complexity than a 6 month loan deal. If it was indeed gross incompetence surely action would have been taken to remove those responsible or there would be similar examples of such chaos? b) That we have repeatedly over the years failed to get business done in the dying days of transfer windows, especially January? It seems to be a recurring theme that pre-dates Broughton and even Waggott. Common theme? Venkys c) We know that they have to run expenditure past India before it gets final sign off. Is Broughton going to go to India and seek permission to do a deal before he knows it is even a possibility? According to Broughton the pieces to the O'Brien deal fell into place in the last few days when Forest decided what they were willing to do. I suspect it was only in those late stages that they went to India for permission, and whilst they were waiting for sign off he did the 'leg work' of dealing with Forest and the player. There wasn't very much time otherwise. No I'm afraid all roads lead back to India on this one, either they actively stopped the deal going through or their negligence scuppered it at the 11th hour.

Because Broughton was under the impression that he had the ability and authorisation to do it. Hell they probably told him he did when he joined. His job is to have oversight and final decision making on transfers and the budget. We've heard this sort of thing many a time, about apparently there being good solid budgets and an intention to spend, it started way back at the start with the stuff about Ronaldinho and Beckham. From the word go there has been an effort to tell people that we are deadly serious and willing to spend big, but almost every time it doesn't actually materialise. Now this might be something along the lines of Balaji telling his underlings that they can do x, y and z, but then when it comes to final sign off from India the others get cold feet or don't agree to such an outlay. Or it might be one of the owners telling subordinates that they can do x,y,z and then when it comes to final sign off the phone doesn't get answered simply because they have better things to do with their time. I really don't know, but suspect it is something along these lines. Lambert was clearly under the impression he was getting a good budget, he was under the impression the Rhodes cash was coming for him to play with, then they pulled the plug. I suspect something similar with Broughton and O'Brien. He believed they'd OK it when final sign off was requested, but then found out that they wouldnt or didn't get an answer in time.

I still find it baffling that people believe that the O'Brien deal was ever going to be allowed to go through. I don't care what Broughton or JDT say or what people have been told, take a step back and look at all the transfer business this club has conducted over the last 3 years. From all the big wage earners being sold/released (Diaz, Dack, Ayala, soon to be Gallagher), to no new contracts to valuable players because they would cost too much (Lenihan, Rothwell), to Indian authorities blocking funding, to a policy of relying on the academy wherever and whenever possible, to not signing anyone outside of the age parameters and wage budget. I'm not sure where signing O'Brien on a substantial deal fits among all that or indeed if it was a complete balls up by the people at Ewood why they haven't been sacked, or why the finances for that deal have vanished rather than been allowed back into the kitty. I think it is safe to say that one needs filing under 'con job'. I don't doubt Broughton did the hard yards and got the deal lined up, I don't doubt the player himself was happy to come and play for a promotion chasing team under an ambitious manager, but as with the Lambert era what was printed on the packaging wasn't what was inside the tin and JDT and Broughton were made to look like fools by people higher up the 'chain'.

At the moment we have had 13 years of an Indian poultry company subsidising us at £15 million + each and every year with no realistic end in sight and zero willingness to engage in a sale or even employ competent people to run the club for them. They have no interest in the sport, the club or the town. They are now about £200 million down. Yet they are here. It's bizarre and inexplicable why or why they carry on with it, but they do. This shows there are people out there in distant parts of the world with the means and resources to do it even if they don't have any particular interest. Of course some interest would be preferable.

PNE and Bolton have proven it can be done, it works, it gets numbers up and they can function with lower losses than we have. So perhaps our great and wonderful leader could explain a single good reason why we don't adopt the same policies as they do, slash prices early and TRY to get the ground filled up? Apart from the reality, which is simply that word TRY which is too much to ask of him, effort and risk are in short supply so its much easier to rely on the default of maximum prices for what is a rapidly deteriorating product.

About 4000 sold in home ends on Friday evening so hopefully we can at least spare the humiliation of being outnumbered by tourists.