JHRover

I can't think of any reason why the owners would run the club the way they do, why they would be happy to flush away £20 million a year yet persist with mediocrity but hey ho, that's exactly what they do. So I'd say allowing Armstrong to go or not being arsed to give him a new deal is small fry on their list of misdemeanours. There's actually not much difference with Marshall - he was another asset that was allowed to run his contract down, we were told time after time the club was trying to keep him (despite selling everyone else) and then when he went to Wolves he spilled the beans on the reality of the situation. Mowbray's already used the embargo as his excuse for no business done to date. I think he's grateful for it.

I'm not sure what is a 'nonsensical conspiracy' about not believing that they've made Armstrong a reasonable contract offer. Of course they are going to claim they have. No club in history has ever let their best player go without at least telling their fans that they tried to keep him. Flip it the other way around - exactly what has the club done over the course of the last 6 months that makes you believe that there is a juicy expensive contract extension sat waiting on the table for Armstrong to sign? Is it the fact that they can't even do the absolute basics of running a club without prior approval from India? Can't even sort out tickets or shirts let alone complex contract talks. Or that Mowbray wanted to keep several of those out of contract yet failed to do so? Not really a conspiracy theory. I just think the people down there are liars and will say anything to cover their own arses and avoid grief from the fans. I fully expect a Ben Marshall scenario where he ends up admitting that there were never any talks or offer made on a new deal. Was that a conspiracy too or did that really happen?

Why not use the wages freed up from the 15 other players that have all gone and not been replaced? Why not dip into the slush fund we had when Mowbray wanted to give Smallwood, Samuel and Graham new deals last summer?

Latest 'update' on the smooth the path to transfer project is that allegedly Armstrong still has an offer on the table that would make him the club's highest paid player. This is an interesting development. I wonder who has recently added the info about him being highest paid player into the equation? it hasn't been mentioned before.... They really must think we were born yesterday.

If this was unusual territory for us then I might believe that it was down to Covid supply delays or issues with switching to a new manufacturer. But given we are always among the last to release new kits, even when we've been stuck with Umbro for years, that we often turn up for pre season games wearing kits from the year before, given we are late with everything else including ticket sales then I'll file it in the tray with self inflicted issues Maybe not something that causes concern to most, after all whats a new kit and a few weeks of delay? Well its pounds through the tills so quite important actually. Also says something about the setup and image of the club, which you can't put a price on.

I heard that we will have a behind closed doors game v Wigan this weekend

Quite astonishing that it seems some people are willing to just erase last season. I fully understand that some are desperate to get back to watching live football at Ewood (I dearly wish I was one myself). I'm not sure why that means that the slate should be wiped clean. It is almost incomprehensible that Mowbray is still the manager of this club. His performance and body language last season, never mind the results of the team, clearly demonstrated that he had lost the dressing room and was ready for the sack. Because he's surrounded himself with sympathisers and sycophants at the club and the 'inner circle' he'll have a small army of people working away to eradicate last season and, of course, criticism or doubts about him moving forward. Should he be here? No Does he deserve to be here? No Yet we have to put up with it because of the joke owners and joke structure we have here. After 4 years most of us know how this is going to unfold and are bored stiff of the same old story. It's hard to have any optimism when you know the setup isn't good enough and also know that it won't be changed regardless. No HOPE.

I can see it now. End of the season, relegation, Mowbray's excuses about late recruitment, relying too heavily on loans, too many kids, transfer embargo. Of course all without any admission that responsibility for all the above lies either in India or the corridors of Ewood/Brockhall. I've no doubts they will try and sweeten the Armstrong deal by begging for a kid on loan in return. Saves them the hassle of finding someone else or spending any of the money. A bit like selling your multi million mansion at a knock down price but getting discounted rent on an apartment for 12 months in return. At least you've somewhere to live but you'll be in a mess when that arrangement comes to an end.

I'm not an expert in these sort of things. If I was maybe I could find a job on £300,000 a year. But I do know that the vast majority of other Championship clubs have all complied with whatever requirements the EFL set, including filing their accounts on time and providing the information required to satisfy the authorities that they were compliant. Last time I checked the whole country has had to deal with Covid issues so unless I'm missing something I don't know why, yet again, this club seems to have had a harder time in dealing with these things. A bit like our invisible new kit. Yet most other clubs seem to have found theirs somewhere. If anyone can explain the above then maybe I'll review my opinion which is that we are just run by a collection of con men, shysters, liars and incompetents who have no place at a Championship football club. They will tell us anything and come up with every excuse in the book for their failures.

So who takes responsibility for that?

I've already made my judgment. I've seen enough already and won't be sucked in by them again - this is how they keep going indefinitely - by large scale turnover in players - self-inflicted - that leaves people craving 'stability' and constantly awarding them more time to oversee the changes. I think I said we would only sign either a loan or free in defence. Which is what happened. I also predicted that we would be left short in defence, and lo and behold ended up borrowing a couple of teenagers to see us through the second half of the season. I thought Ayala was a decent signing. That doesn't mean I would have given him a 3 year deal and that was also before the club started crying poverty and put prices up by 25% to cover losses.

Spot on. We will lose money every year in this division (unless we get very good at selling players for big profits). But the scale of our losses are drastically increased through poor ownership and management. Ignoring player sales it does not cost the best part of £20 million a year to finish mid-table or bottom half. Preston, Barnsley, Millwall, Luton - and others - all finish mid-table or higher without losses remotely near ours. Yes we have a bigger stadium and nicer training ground/Cat A academy. Those things do not cost so much more to fund. Competent and interested ownership would quickly be able to reduce losses and increase income. Sadly that requires more imagination than Waggott putting £50 on everyone's season tickets and selling a couple of new t-shirts in the shop. It requires a root and branch overhaul of the entire operation.

Yes - completely at odds with the wailing and whinging from Mowbray and Waggott about financial hardship. So skint that we have to squeeze more and more out of disillusioned fans, yet enough room on the budget to hand out a 3 year deal to Ayala. Same goes for Smallwood, Samuel, Leutwiler and Graham who were needlessly given contract extensions in the midst of a pandemic for no reason. Another 5 figure sum down the drain. The two sides to Rovers these days. Always find the money from somewhere if certain people want it but then the basics like looking after your support and stadium are neglected.

I posted a letter to the Club last week, requesting a response before the end of the month otherwise I would not be getting a season ticket. This covered all my various issues and concerns around the running of the Club whilst trying to ignore Mowbray bashing and getting on to the owners. I'll post it on here at some point. I had two missed calls on my phone yesterday morning from two different mobile numbers. I couldn't answer as I was busy at work and no message was left. I half suspect that at least one of those was someone from the Club calling me. I'm not ringing back numbers that haven't left me messages so lets see if anything else happens.

I think the other thing to remember is that pouring £20 million a year into a Championship club isn't especially unusual or unique to Rovers. There are other clubs in similar sorts of figures. This is the price of it these days. The alarming thing here isn't that the club is losing that much a year. Its that we've done it every year for 10 years with the same owners, the 'debt' keeps on piling higher and higher. Other owners have done it but run out of money, given up, got bored, thrown toys out of the pram and walked away. Other owners take a keen interest in their clubs, actually use the money to better them by trying to get to the PL or improve their facilities and structures. You rarely see reports on PNEs losses or how much 'debt' they owe to Hemmings, which granted won't be as high as the figures here but still substantial. I think Hemmings also wrote off his 'debt' which inevitably makes things look healthier but changes little on an operational basis as long as Venkys don't seek their 'debt' back. Here the club decays and withers whilst the wage bill keeps on ticking over. Andy Holt can spend fortunes improving Stanley's facilities and giving out free shirts to kids whilst our £20 million a year buys us Waggott's salary and new deals for Smallwood and Gladwin. This has generated a stockholm syndrome situation with many fans who see that eyewatering 'debt' figure and think it will be called in or need to be paid off and as a result we should be grateful for Venkys. But really it will need to be wiped off sooner or later.

If Venkys were running the club properly, learning from mistakes or providing anything positive in return for their 'investment' then I might be impressed or grateful for their support. A club losing £20 million a year should not be fighting relegation in the Championship, should not have a filthy stadium or non-league pitch. That sort of investment should at least see us as a powerhouse in the Championship with PL standards throughout. As it is I cannot and will not be grateful. They deserve nothing but contempt.

Couldn't be less interested or motivated if I tried. Reckon this is the first time I'll be missing a first team friendly since 2010 and the worst part is its my choice to do so. A sign of things to come perhaps.

Yeah but without Venkys we'd be Wigan or Bolton (with their 9000+ season ticket holders).

Relegation costs an immediate £7 million in lost income and much more in lost ticket and merchandise income. If there's anyone down there working out pros and cons of selling Armstrong I suggest that's where they start. Waggott and Mowbray probably so deluded they still think promotion is achievable.

They could start off by clearing out the cluster of con men around the place.

Just imagine how uninspiring it must be for a player to turn up for pre-season after that run last year to find the usual suspects all still in place, as you were, ready to do it all over again. Why would anyone want to be part of that?

Preston have just announced that a negative lateral flow test will be required.

The only way the Telegraph get their information is from the Club. We know that - because the people working there now simply don't have the connections to anyone else for their intel - and we can be pretty confident that the Telegraph wouldn't run with a headline of saying Rovers had rejected a bid unless someone at Rovers had given them the info or go ahead to do it. Question then becomes why would someone at Rovers pass that information on to the Telegraph? Why not just stay quiet or deny a bid is in? Answer is because it suits them for the Telegraph to run with it and plaster it all over social media and the paper. Why does it suit them? Because they want him gone but I suspect have been disappointed at the level of interest so far and numbers on the grapevine. If the local media runs with this it prepares fans for the sale, gradually reducing expectations on the fee, and also puts other clubs on alert that they might need to put their bids in pronto. Venkys clearly don't have a clue and as they showed with Cairney and Raya are happy to sell assets at an undervalue. What they won't be happy with is if people think they have offloaded Armstrong because the club is skint. That damages the egos of the billionaires who never refuse a cheque and love the club. The answer to your last question is that you increase the cap in these sort of circumstances. Speculate to accumulate. Surely there's room on the payroll to do it after offloading 15 and dishing out sympathy deals to Gladwin and Smallwood?

Seems a bit ridiculous all this when Bamber Bridge are playing Preston in front of a sell out crowd.

Where did I say they were lying? I don't think they've the capability to lie. More that whoever is drip feeding them stuff from the Club is playing them. Why? Because Mowbray and Waggott clearly want Armstrong sold, but also want to cover their own arses when he is by telling everyone that there's a contract extension sat there unsigned thereby shifting culpability away from the people running the club and onto the player for refusing an offer. They're very good at this sort of thing. They don't like blame heading their way or landing on the owners doorstep. So it's all about the player having his head turned and not about Rovers failing to secure star players down to appropriate contracts. The club have been unable or unwilling to extend contracts of any senior players over the last 18 months (other than the 12 month Johnson extension). They've been dormant and inactive for months, unable to even do the most basic or simple of things such as communicate or sort tickets out. I'm supposed to believe there's a reasonable offer on the table for Armstrong?