JHRover

I see Craig Honeyman has taken to twitter to praise Venkys for their latest cash injection. Claims they are fantastic owners who deserve so much for how they support the club and community. I kid you not. A quick Google search will tell you Craig Honeyman is involved at HSH sports and was involved at SEM. He's also from Middlesbrough. Doesn't take much to join the dots around here.

I suspect this is at the insistence of the Football League. They will want to see evidence of actual cash going into the club rather than into holding/parent companies. When QPR were in bother one of the outcomes was they had to agree to convert 'debt' into shares and I suspect this is a similar arrangement/motive - I can't see any other reason than for FFP requirements although I stand to be corrected.

I don't read anything into that. At this early stage of pre-season the first team squad and u23s will all train together. It will be fitness work only for the first couple of weeks so little point in splitting them up. Mowbray will also do his usual trick of using a number of the u23s in pre-season games against lower league opposition and then not use them when the season comes around.

I think we are a PL/Championship club in name, facilities, history, reputation - run as a non-league outfit in terms of ownership and management. Other clubs at this level are perhaps Championship or League One in the above but are Championship or above in how they are run. Sadly for us even with a bottomless pit of cash and thriving academy/brilliant facilities ineptitude from the owners down renders it all pointless. I'm not sure what makes Pasha and Waggott appropriate people to be running a club of this size or what either has done in earlier life to qualify them for such important positions (other than Waggott being Mowbray's chum). Pasha - who knows other than the owners 'trust him'. That doesn't mean he is up to the job of doing whatever it is he does.

We are hopeless. That was my point. Barnsley show how to operate and we are a million miles off it. This is because of the owners and their goons and not because of Blackburn Rovers, which could and should be so much better.

Apparently they're off to Scotland for some training but no friendlies up there. Anyone heard the same?

Nothing wrong with a club policy of investing with a view to accumulating down the line. A few major flaws though. Firstly - the structure at this club isn't there to effectively carry out this policy to great success. To do it you need an overarching plan and structure, overseen either by the owners or a competent board of directors. We have neither, the whole thing revolves around Mowbray and his mates. Couple of problems there - Mowbray and his mates aren't particularly good, and I don't know why anyone from the owners down thinks they are. Also removal of the manager brings the whole thing crashing down which naturally implants reluctance to get rid of him. That should never be the case as the manager should be judged purely on results and axed if they aren't good enough. Not here though St Tony is our great leader and the club cannot function without his oversight. Secondly it should never be the central focus or core of business. The focus should be solely on promotion and assembling a squad - quickly or gradually - that is good enough to achieve that. The problem here is that much of our business is done with zero intention of promotion but with the focus being on individual development and profit Thirdly - and this is the giveaway - even in cases where we have done well and massively increased values we aren't proactive or decisive enough in ensuring those players are secured and our investment protected - Armstrong is the current one but there have been others and will be others to follow. If you want to profit greatly from these players you have to be willing and able to get them on long term deals - 4 or 5 years - and then sell when the big bids come. We're going to lose Armstrong for a fraction of what we should get and then next summer we will be doing the same on Kaminski, Travis, Nyambe.

When you look at the dreary names we've had here or linked with the job here and the bungled managerial appointments and compare to how Barnsley operate it is chalk and cheese. Which is why on a fraction of the losses they actually got to the play-offs whereas we plod along wasting millions. They've done two things in the last week that haven't happened here in a decade and won't happen under these owners. Firstly they've had their manager headhunted and snatched away from them as he performed so well last year. Secondly they've responded to that by targeting and lining up a replacement in a matter of days who doesn't come from the washed up or cheap and cheerful brigade.

Can the club afford to risk that and just hope these people find out via friends/relatives? Or should they be ringing these people up/posting leaflets to them begging them to renew? A good friend of mine who goes to every game home and away has no internet or smartphone and he's 63. He doesn't buy the Telegraph (can't blame him given the quality) and he only knows about season tickets being on sale because others have told him, not the club.

Ah - I must be off the list as I haven't had anything.

Has anyone else had any communication from the club regarding season tickets? I was thinking letter in the post, text message, call, email? I haven't. All I've seen is what is on the club website and in the Telegraph. Bad news if you don't have internet or buy the Telegraph.

I always wonder - are we looking at these players and deeming them to not be good enough for our high standards? Or are we not even looking? Or are we interested but unable to get any of these early deals done due to financial or incompetence reasons?

I see Luton have signed another - Mendes Gomes from Morecambe. Always looked decent whenever I've seen them play. Meanwhile Mowbray is too busy sharing his tactical acumen with the Brereton fanclub.

I'm confused again. So our market this summer is free agents and loans. So why aren't we signing free agents? Birmingham, Luton and Huddersfield to name 3 clubs who we should be expecting to finish above are signing players on free transfers. If you want to use that market you have to move quickly to catch the good ones. Is this a serious policy? Waiting until they are all signed up elsewhere then bemoaning a lack of options? Expect some more Mowbray snobbery or nonsense about players demands to justify inertia in the market

How can Huddersfield be in a position to sign Rhodes and co. and only charge £249 for season tickets Yet we aren't in that market and have to charge £400 with our billionaire owners? Something doesn't add up.

He's already at it. only yesterday quoted in the Telegraph talking about expectations- again suggesting we are on a long term journey with the kids and expectations need setting accordingly. What a way to try and flog tickets. All a load of rubbish. There's no journey it is just a hand to mouth existence from one season to the next and he gets away with it.

Spot on. Truth be told these clubs - United, Liverpool, City, Everton - are looking for one thing for their promising youngsters and that's regular game time at a decent level of football to aid their development and give them what they won't get playing for their u23s every week. They aren't going to feature in their first team squads nor any other PL clubs so the next best thing is minutes in the rough and tumble of the Championship - ultra competitive and almost a PL 2 these days. You don't need to be well connected or have particular principles to benefit from this - just indicate an agreement to ensure these players aren't wasted and do get regular game time, and don't burn your bridges by taking a kid and then never playing them. Some Championship clubs won't be willing or able to make that commitment because they use loans to fill gaps or add depth and see these kids as people to add competition or fill in for injuries, but at good old Rovers we see the loan market as a cheap and convenient way to build a squad for the season - regularly having no alternative options in key positions such as CB. These managers like Guardiola and Klopp will see that and see we need these lads and of course will be happy to send them here - just up the road - and cover nearly all their wages in doing so. It isn't a financial exercise for them and they don't care about the money - it is all about player development. At Rovers it is a financial exercise because it avoids the need to issue contracts or pay transfer/signing on fees. It would be the same anywhere else if they were offering to use these players every week. We do benefit from location to some degree but so do others. But Mowbray seems to treat this as some sort of feather in his cap that he has special contacts and connections when really it isn't the case.

Amazing that West Brom would go for the Barnsley manager and not Mowbray. Expect Barnsley to repeat their last 3 tricks and headhunt an obscure European manager - this is how well run clubs operate - have a back up plan and know who they want. We'd just wait for Mowbray to leave and then see who threw themselves at it and give it them.

I think the only logical explanation is that like everything else at Rovers they are waiting on authorisation or the nod from India before it can be done. Season tickets, new contracts, transfers, accounts - all late Either that's because of rank incompetence or because of a fundamental problem with how the club operates. I believe the most likely explanation is that Venkys aren't communicating and have left the club to drift and rot (again). Their insane business practices are now likely to see us embargoed and facing relegation back to the 3rd division. Yet still they go on Facebook and sing the owners praises.

I suspect very lazy journalism in play. Brereton all the rage at the moment with his Chile involvement so people are looking to write about him and bring him under the PL umbrella. They don't like these players not being part of the PL circus and want to bring him to the attention of PL fans. Who to link him to? Well just up the road we have Bielsa - ex Chile manager himself - ideal. Have to say though if there is any truth to it we can see how poorly Mowbray has done with him over the last 2 years.

You have to be pretty bad to get relegated from this division. Remember that despite having Coyle for 9 months we still collected 51 points and should have survived. We've come full circle now though and Mowbray will be hailed as a genuis if he manages to guide us to safety. Almost as though the last 4 years never happened.

I can live with an embargo. I can live with poor players or poor football. I can't live with the continued employment of the people who put us into that position.

Interesting but I fail to see how this happens in the timescale available. We've got 6 weeks until kick off day. During that time Derby now have to submit amended accounts, the League need time to scrutinise them, then if they feel Derby are guilty of wrongdoing they will have to charge them and then go through the disciplinary process to determine a sanction, and then if that is a points deduction for last season (relegation) then of course Derby will launch an appeal. Dealing with all that will take more than 6 weeks. I expect the League to wobble and try to impose a points deduction on next season instead. I just hope Wycombe have lawyers at the ready.

Surely given our ticket receipts and matchday revenues are less than many clubs then the impact of losing that income is less? Mowbray likes to tell us about giant clubs Stoke and Middlesbrough and the mighty Bristol City getting full houses every week. Amazing how their management have come up with ways of overcoming such lost income yet at Rovers the loss of our support has been so disastrous. I'm not sure who will have lower wage bills than Rovers come the end of June with the departures and squad size we have. I suppose most clubs are desperate/determined to avoid transfer embargoes because they actually want to invest/improve and succeed. I'm not sure that's the case here.

Our odds on Sky for relegation are longer than they were in 2017. Suspect that might change over the coming weeks.