JHRover

We aren't in a position to lose any more players, let alone the few we have who we know can contribute something meaningful and positive to the team. I feel like I say this every summer. We are having an exodus of players out of contract or loan. Last count was ten having triggered extensions on Nyambe, JRC and Rothwell. The only thing the people running Rovers should be thinking about and worrying about right now is how we replace those ten players. Lots of work to do, not much time or money to do it and not much of a good record in past seasons. At a club or with a manager with an ounce of ambition the aim would be promotion, and players recruited with that aim in mind. Here the standards and ambitions are drastically lower and the aim on that front will be to find loans and frees to fill in gaps for the season, and with a bit of luck hope someone from the academy does the job on a small salary without needing to bring anyone else in. It baffles me as to why there would be any desire, focus, effort or even consideration of getting rid of people like Armstrong and Rothwell at this juncture. We know from experience that those two are two of a very small number of players we have that have the experience and ability to threaten the opposition. Yet the impression I get is that a large part of our efforts and focus is on trying to bring bidders to the table for those two, which if it happens will wipe out virtually all our goal threat (assuming the two oafs don't suddenly come good) What sort of club is this?

As predicted we are now in the 'dust settling' phase. Go off on holiday, keep quiet, let the catastrophic run and performances of January to April drift into the distant past. The local media are busy away doing their bidding by regurgitating interviews about which players and positions we need to address, how the summer provides an opportunity. All this does is implant things in people's minds - makes them think it is business as usual, that there's no decision to be made, that anyone entertaining ideas of him going are barking up the wrong tree, that the only issues for discussion here are which players we let go and which we bring in, and subconsciously prepare them for full steam ahead with Mowbray come July. Him and Waggott aren't daft. Keep quiet, say nothing, let the dust settle and then by July most people will have forgotten about last season and those who haven't will be shot down with the usual 'its in the past' 'whats done is done' 'we need to look forward, not backward' stuff. Eventually desperation to get back to watching live football for many will trump any particular interest in who is running the show or how bad they are at it. Not all mind, I'm sure season ticket sales will be evidence of what people really think of the shambles.

Might as well have Zinedine Zidane or Jogi Low lined up. No vacancy though so they could offer to do the job for free and Mowbray would still be here.

All will finish above us and I'll have a bet at least one of those three finishes in the top 6.

Both Birmingham and Nottingham Forest granted Category 1 academy status for next year. All these other clubs growing and improving meanwhile Waggott wants us to knock ours down and lose it. Note that these clubs are Championship not PL and don't have parachute money so we can put that little excuse to bed.

We had almost a year to appoint him after he left the Ireland job and he was desperate to get back into the Championship. We could have been proactive and made a move. We missed the boat. Cardiff got themselves a good manager and we are still lumbered with a poor one. Can say the same for Forest with Hughton and Middlesbrough with Warnock. These sort of managers aren't gambles.

Mick McCarthy lost 3 of his 22 games at Cardiff. They'd lost 6 on the bounce before he went in What is old or boring about that?

"Managed to escape" suggests his position was under serious threat but he has somehow talked his way out of it. I don't believe that has happened. Venkys simply have no interest. Never have, never will. That's why Kean was able to wreak havoc for 2 years without intervention, why Coyle was allowed 8 months of abysmal results and why Mowbray is still here. It may make people feel better about things if they think Venkys are interested or keeping track of things but it really is just plain old fashioned couldn't care less.

I think it went further than that. I think Lambert was sold the same bull%hit that we fans have been sold since day 1. That we have billionaire owners that never refuse funding requests. That the owners love the club and want it to prosper and succeed. That they will provide a war chest to get promotion. It goes on and on. They and their associates/stooges have been trotting that line since day one of their ownership and continue to this day. It's all nonsense and hollow words. The actual reality of what happens in comparison to what they say/claim/want people to think is very different. Lambert probably saw what many others see - a once great club with all the facilities and structure in place to succeed and thought the owners might back him on that. It was a sensible move by him to include a break clause in his contract if it didn't work out. But maybe it suited them just as much - they got Paul Senior in on a similar sort of temporary arrangement to keep the locals quiet for a few months and then he 'resigned' at the end of the season. He's the only one of their 7 managers who was able to walk out and get a similar job elsewhere. The rest have all ended up in the backwaters of League Two or abroad. I think the penny dropped quite quickly with Lambert that they weren't going to stump up the considerable cash that would be needed, so he then moved on to plan B which was to sell Rhodes for big money and in doing so get permission to spend those funds rebuilding the squad, avoiding the need for the owners to cough up the funds. Then when they wouldn't even authorise that it was quite clear there was no way forward. We'll get the same this summer with Armstrong if he departs - anyone thinking cash will be reinvested is deluded.

Relegation is estimated to cost an immediate £7 million through diminished media income. That's before everything else - tickets, merchandise, sponsorship all dropping too. Thats a year, assuming you only go down for 1 season. This is where the idiots running the club lose track of things. Last time around they sold Hanley, Duffy, Marshall and pocketed the £8-9 million thinking they were clever, yet that was wiped out by the relegation they delivered as a result Bleating on about a wage structure and not being able to offer players or potential managers better terms. Yet the costs of relegation massively outweigh paying off a failing manager, or coughing up for a much better one. So if the options are to sell Armstrong for £7-8 million, spend very little and drastically increase prospects of relegation, or keep him, but at least secure Championship status for another year, then there's a cost/benefit argument to be had. Unfortunately here there seems to be very little logic or football based decision making. If the past is anything to go by then it will be a case of do everything we can to sell Armstrong with absolutely no strategy for what comes next. Then its ring up City or Liverpool and ask if they can send someone cheap for the year.

The vast majority of clubs, most of them with better management than Rovers, disagree, and have had them on sale for weeks or even months. I think those clubs know more than Steve Waggott and Venkys and the proof will be in eventual numbers sold.

Wait until Wilder goes to WBA, do nothing, all the decent options get jobs elsewhere and then the loonies on Facebook and Twitter can base all their arguments on "who could we get FFS" as a reason to keep Mowbray in place.

So Huddersfield, one of the few sides as bad as us last season, have already made moves bringing in Rhodes and Matty Pearson on free transfers. We can debate the qualities of those two but they've got themselves, for no outlay, two experienced and proven performers at this level nice and early into the summer. What are we doing? Who knows but it isn't looking good.

Season ticket update: Clubs definitely or possibly in the Championship next season who have tickets on sale now: Huddersfield - yes - from £249 Middlesbrough - yes - from £420 Barnsley* - yes - from £235 Sheffield Utd - yes - from £357 Stoke - yes - from £294 Coventry - yes - from £210 Forest - yes - from £365 Luton - yes - from £400 Bristol City - yes - from £355 Cardiff - yes - from £249 Swansea* - yes - from £249 Bournemouth* - yes - from £550 Brentford* - yes - from £419 QPR - yes - from £225 Millwall - yes - from £385 Peterborough - yes - from £349 Sunderland* - yes - from £340 Oxford* - yes - from £299 Lincoln* - yes - from £359 * - don't know if they will be in League One or Championship yet still on sale Clubs definitely or possibly in the Championship next season who haven't bothered yet: Rovers Preston Birmingham Derby Reading Fulham* West Brom* Hull* Blackpool* * have changed or might yet change division So this means we are one of five clubs not to do anything yet despite being clear as to our position and league status and knowing that with our capacity/stadium social distancing could be achieved with relative ease compared to others with much smaller grounds or bigger demand. You can also excuse Derby and Birmingham to some degree given they were fighting relegation until the last couple of weeks and Derby are in the middle of a takeover saga. And just look at those prices. Assuming Waggott freezes or increases prices then we will be joint fourth most expensive in the division behind only Middlesbrough, Bournemouth and Brentford. Two of whom have been in promotion contention and have little grounds in much more affluent areas than Blackburn. Can't wait to see what he has got up his sleeve this summer.

Won't Kaminski have to be sold this summer, for the same reason as Armstrong, that we risk him going for nothing next year? Then it is Pears and the Greek lad for a Championship season. Not a reason to be confident really.

So why does it keep happening? Was the Ribble Valley BC thing another error or just ineptitude by the club allowing such a major plan to leak out ending up with egg all over our faces? It wasn't that hard to find. It was on Macron's main website not hidden away. Like I say, it happened a couple of years ago with 10 Bet too. The club can control it. As you say these companies are signing contracts and agreements with Rovers. Are you suggesting Macron have breached their contract already by putting it on their website? Or is the more likely alternative just that Rovers work so slowly and poorly they are late to the party with everything? Do you think for one minutes that Man Utd, Liverpool or Arsenal would allow such stuff to happen?

The point i was raising was that Macron 'announced' the deal late last week/over the weekend. It was posted on Facebook with a link to their website showing their clubs and Rovers were one of them. It happened several days before yesterday's club announcement. A similar thing happened when we got 10 Bet in 2018 and they announced it, along with our new kit, before Rovers had revealed either. Ribble Valley Council announced the Brockhall scheme several days before the club said anything that then forced them into an announcement. There's a trend here - if you follow Rovers' official channels you will be the last to find out about things.

Funny how that keeps happening isn't it? Alternative is that the people at Rovers haven't got a clue and keep getting gazumped on major announcements.

Looks like Macron have 'done a Ribble Valley Borough Council' and announced plans and deals on their own website before the club could be arsed to get round to it. These pesky third parties going off announcing things before Rovers have the chance. How hard can it be to announce things properly rather than waiting for fans to go off and unearth it on other websites forcing the club into an announcement?

Yeah if you go on the Forest website they have a decent range of Macron gear. Far bigger selection than in the umbro stuff at the club shop. It showed original prices and sale prices, their full prices were less than our Umbro sale prices. I'm OK with Macron but we will see what designs they come up with and how Waggott prices them.

Absolutely. It seems to have become lost somewhere along the line that the sole objective and metric of a professional football manager is to get results and achieve targets - points, promotions, prizes, league positions. Generally speaking only those managers that consistently achieve these last in the industry, those who can't or don't do it consistently fall by the wayside and end up on the scrapheap. Instead we get all this other nonsense. Part of it is because the manager is constantly making excuses and covering for his own shortfalls whilst dealing with idiots who don't understand football. Another part of it is the way the game is going, not just here but everywhere, where there always has to be a 'project' or 'journey' involving a philosophy and style of play. Gone are the days where a good manager goes into a club and just drags a team up. I'm not surprised Mowbray goes down the road of claiming to play nice football or claiming to use the academy a lot because these are boxes ticked on the alternative measures of a manager - when targets arent hit or results not delivered then just fall back on the other stuff. It's distraction tactic stuff deployed by a manager not getting results and lapped up by those who bizarrely attach importance to these other issues. Sadly we've ended up in a situation where the managers major failings will be forgotten and overlooked and instead he will get credit for throwing in youngsters, in the process hoodwinking people into thinking we are on another journey.

If Mowbray has been told anything of the sort about who he should use then he should resign. He is the manager and his job is results. How he does it should be inconsequential and If you want promotion you get the right manager and let him get on with it. I don't think Farke, Warnock, Wilder, Dyche and co. would ever have got promotion if they were instructed that they had to use players from the u23s. Lack of room in the budget? How can that be the case when we've got losses of £20 million a year? Where is the money going if there's no room to sign players having let 10+ go already this summer? Phil Jones, Grant Hanley, David Raya. Between them there's about £25 million in transfer fees recieved in the last 10 years. That pays for the academy.

What i know is that even in League One our manager didn't pick Chapman and he struggled to even make the bench in the Championship, spending most of his time putting in woeful performances for our u23s. If we had a new manager I might accept the clean slate and try again routine but nothing has changed here, so no. Any decision to keep him around will be purely financial in an effort to achieve some sort of payment for him or drum up bids from somewhere, not because Mowbray thinks he will be playing for us.

So much for the bright future and journey. So the business so far this summer has been to offer Elliott Bennett a new deal, invoke 12 month extensions for Nyambe, JRC and Rothwell (still no sign of long term deals), offer Amari Bell a deal which he hasn't signed and keep Harry Chapman (who Mowbray refused to play and shipped out to Shrewsbury). What's the destination again? League One?

Makes the job easier for the staff down there the less people turn up. Still get paid and can always blame Covid if the owners take any interest.