JHRover

Offered squad roles? Either they are good enough and in plans to play or they aren't. I dont accept this idea of handing out contracts to players who aren't good enough. Presumably we are back to the same logic of not signing Bauer because we wouldn't guarantee him first team football every week which Preston did. End of the day if we are giving deals out it has to be with a view to these people playing rather than being categorised as squad fillers.

So sounds like Chapman, Bennett and Bell were all 'offered' new deals and each look to have rejected them and are likely to end up moving to League One instead. If that doesn't set alarm bells off then nothing will.

That's exactly what will happen All this talk about demanding £20 million is ridiculous. We aren't in a position to demand anything. Assuming we can't sort a new contract out then it is either sell for the best offer that comes along or keep hold and risk him going for nothing. A situation of our own making but a familiar one. If the powers that be want the money rather than the risk then he's going for whatever money lands on the table, regardless of whether we think it is good value or not. Before then they'll make out that he's a bad apple pushing for a move and forcing the club to cut its losses and get rid. Of course if he was under a long term contract the club would be protected.

All part of the conveyor belt. They'll just work down the list of alternative City/United/Liverpool u23 players until they find one they will send out for next to nothing to play every week.

So how has this affected us more than the other 23 clubs in the division, all but a handful aren't under an embargo and have begun recruitment in earnest ahead of the new season? Covid a convenient excuse here for all sorts of failures until the question gets asked how/why it has affected Rovers more than anyone else.

Surely if we are under a transfer embargo then both Waggott and Cheston should immediately resign their positions. I cannot see how their continued employment particularly on such substantial wages can be justified if they have led the club into another transfer embargo so soon after the last one. It shows that nothing has changed. It is only 5 years since we emerged from the last one. Since then we've been down to League One and supposedly cleared the decks and rebuilt in a sensible way. Many other clubs who have smaller attendances and commercial revenues than us manage to operate in sensible, sustainable and competitive ways and yet we seem to be on an endless cycle of boom and bust where we have a couple of years of reasonable spending/no sales followed by a couple of years of slash and burn probably resulting in relegation again. Mental way to operate but the people paid fortunes to keep a steady ship need removing if this happens. There's no excuse for it and it could cost the club league status. Of course if the owners gave a toss about the club they'd either find ways around an embargo or sack those responsible for putting us into it. But they don't and so here we are.

Downing the ideal player for this sort of setup. They have him where they want him and could exploit his desire to keep on playing and willingness perhaps to be mucked around at that stage in his career, so Mowbray and co. had a good lad on standby if needed. Makes you wonder though who often this sort of thing is happening - players getting lined up, under the impression a deal is to be done, hanging around and then all of a sudden the deal is off. I know deals are on and off a lot in football but suspect it occurs more frequently here with so much happening.

I think he did try, in his own pitiful way, but then quickly learned his attempts had achieved nothing. Partly because the schemes he came up with were so lame and also because he completely misjudged the way of things around here. The frankly embarrassing competition and jackpot prize if we sold 10,000 tickets - never going to achieve increased sales. The chance to win Dack's shirt by buying a season ticket - again futile. I'm not certain if these weird schemes were because Waggott is so clueless or because he just doesn't have the power to come up with something more wide ranging and comprehensive in scope and incentive. Anyhow, I think he has given up on that over the last couple of years and just decided for flat out get what he can from those whose loyalty can be exploited. Everyone has a breaking point though.

Can't argue with much of what they say. £36 is appalling and we are an embarrassment.

To be honest I'd never heard of any of those players until someone decided to 'link' Yates with a move here. As others have said I very much doubt we will be offering the money needed to tempt Blackpool to sell especially now they are a better run club than we are. Why do we need to bring through more academy players? Not much point IMO if we are just allowing their contracts to run down.

Waggott got the job promising to drastically reduce reliance on Venkys. Increase revenues and cut costs. Otherwise why else would they have agreed to him coming in? He's not very good though, and to increase revenues at a Championship football club it is a tough business no matter where you are, especialy at a club like Rovers in a region such as this with a dysfunctional setup. The season ticket disgrace and Brockhall stunt both have his tentacles all over them. Increasingly extreme and desperate steps to achieve targets. He'll do whatever he can to achieve that with scant regard for the medium to long term implications. This is his first and last big job in football, he wouldn't have got the CEO job at any other Championship club hence why he was floating around as a consultant at Southend and Gillingham before turning up here. Name of the game is to keep this one going until he's ready to retire and then the rotting carcass he leaves behind will be someone else's problem to deal with.

Sounds good. But do you really, seriously, think that we would be able to use proceeds from a sale to sign a decent replacement AND have change left? Read between the lines here. They're setting us up for sales and cutbacks. We've offloaded tens of thousands from the wages already, and the sum total of our business this summer has been contract extensions for Wharton and JRC who will have both been on small wages. Even if they were to sell Nyambe, get reasonable cash for him AND agree to Mowbray spending the money - do you seriously have faith in this lot to go and find a competent replacement? No - we all know what happens here. Nyambe goes for a couple of million, the money disappears into 'balancing the books' or we wait for the right player to come along and then we go and loan a highly rated 19 year old from City or Liverpool for the season.

Where does it say it should be £439? I thought it had been £459 since last season

IF I back down and and buy a season ticket it will be for the social side and seeing friends and filling up Saturday afternoons. The biggest thing I'm struggling with at the moment is the vile, shameless and grossly inadequate setup down there. As I've alluded to before, I can and have put up with some shocking standards on the pitch but having the p1ss taken out of me by the likes of Waggott takes some overcoming. Not sure I can stomach it and the thought of him and his mate rubbing their hands ahead of another year of it.

Well that's certainly what Venkys and their cohorts would like us to believe. Of course the alternative is that they are just in cutback mode and FFP provides an all too convenient cover story to do it quickly and substantially without criticism directed towards those at Ewood. Also provides Mowbray with his excuse for the next 12 months.

Plus one of the four higher, Preston, are offering cash back to anyone who had a ST in 2019/20 or 2020/21. This ranges from £30 to £70 so anyone renewing from pre Covid will have the opportunity of a cheaper ticket than at Ewood.

Bless him or anyone else who thinks we are going to be concluding ANY incoming transfers in the near future. Free or not we could have Cristiano Ronaldo asking to join for £10k a week and I don't think they'd get it done.

Leeds confirmed. Usually we would play 6 friendlies so I would expect a couple more. Wonder if Waggott will do a reverse Bradford and only open Ewood to away fans?

£240 for a season ticket at QPR. £299 for a season ticket at Reading. £235 for a season ticket at Barnsley. £399 for a season ticket at Blackburn. Go figure. Oh and the price off for renewals isn't a 'discount' despite what they would have us believe. It is simply honouring their obligations on refunds for not allowing fans in last season.

Count me out. I might have wavered on my anti Waggott and Mowbray position if the club had made an effort and tried to encourage people back by reducing prices (as nearly every other club has done) But instead, after waiting weeks for news, we get more of the same. They've made their bed. Time to lie in it. 5000 sales would surprise me.

Nobody on here has any evidence of anything. Unless you believe word for word what the club comes out with. That isn't evidence its just taking their word for it. They've a history of lying.

The point is to supply players when they are ready or good enough. As happened with Travis, Nyambe, Lenihan etc. If they are good enough they will force their way into the squad. Even when the manager isn't keen, he will end up with no choice. We've had more use from our academy than other clubs at this level and ought to have some real assets on our hands here. Nyambe should be RB for years to come. Trav should be captain in future. Lenihan will be captain now. Shame the club is allowing their contracts to run down but that's another story. My point is that our academy has and is doing the business. I see no reason to force things further by filling the first team squad with academy lads to make some sort of point about using the academy when it is being used already. Too much using it could easily be counter productive and jeopardise Championship status with kids and inexperience learning on the job. It needs to be more gradual - one or two a year coming through not offloading a dozen and replacing them all with the kids.

Its the same tale as with Corry Evans for me. If the club is moving them on with a view to recruiting better and progressing then fine. I support that 100%. Neither are great and neither are going to get better at this stage. Both have served the club well across their time here. Both however I presume are leaders and valuable experience in the changing room. I think it is a dangerous game to offload so much of that in one window leaving behind inexperience in this cut throat division. The reason for my concern is that I believe the manager would have kept both if possible. I think his comments on Evans and the 'attempts' to offer Bennett new terms show that. I've been clear that Mowbray is done and needs removing from the club but if he isn't, then the worst we can do is pull up and not even renew deals. This is of course worrying, because if we can't even get these sort of deals done, which the manager wants, what deals are we going to be able to do?

I prefer to face up to the uncomfortable and alarming reality rather than just making excuses all the time. Either he's been made an offer, which is so derisory that a one year deal at League One Shrewsbury is seen as a better bet, or probably more likely we haven't even got to the stage of putting a deal on the table, despite the club saying they were discussing it with him. I suppose you'd be happy for Adam Armstrong to join Hartlepool because that would be nearer to home and his family/friends?

If you believe that you'll believe anything.