JHRover

I think it suits them down to the ground to tell people we are under restrictions even if we aren't. And yes I do think the stooges would go to those sort of lengths if it meant shielding the owners from blame and criticism when it goes belly up (which it will). Not our fault you see. Its those nasty FFP rules (that everyone else has avoided). Venkys have done all they can. I wonder if Sharpe is going to ask Waggott if he is going to resign after the training ground fiasco (costing the club how much?) and now potentially taking us back into an embargo after the 'slow build' was designed to avoid this position. His management- surely there should be consequences when it fails? But no it will be more shoulder shrugging and excuse making. Con men the lot of em

If Parker was from Blackburn, played for Bolton and Wigan and wore a tracksuit on matchdays he would have a very different reputation in the game. Not long since he was being linked by the media to the Spurs job. London based, ex Chelsea, Spurs and West Ham and wears fancy clothes so he's sorted. Not sure what the fuss is about, he should have got Fulham up with that squad.

To be honest these top roles at top clubs don't even get advertised very often. The club will have had warning of the departure (worrying that the last bloke saw League One Sunderland as a career progression). To be sat here without the position filled is an absolute joke but to be expected here. At the top clubs they go out and headhunt the right director/manager/coaching staff to fit whatever they are trying to do. Here it is either promote from within or wait and see who throws their hat into the ring.

Late May or early June was the last timescale set at the Fans Forum. Another 3 weeks of sales lost. Too late for me anyway. Even if I'd have wanted one I'm not sitting around all summer waiting. The money has been spent elsewhere.

His agent/people at Rovers will link him with all and sundry until someone puts cash on the table. Another 'link' the day after being voted POTY. Coincidence? I think not.

Not sure what the issue is for Bradford or why they are limiting capacity to a mere 4000 in a 25000 stadium and not allowing away fans. I was under the impression that restrictions were due to end on 19th July meaning the club could let whoever they wanted in to watch without distancing and capacity restrictions. Seems not. More goalposts being moved.

At normal organisations of this size and significance the place doesn't go dormant when the CEO is on his jollies. Business continues 365 days per year. Yet I get the distinct impression that unless Mowbray gets his conversion with India and returns from his hols and instructs everyone else then the whole thing just grinds to a halt and gathers dust. Chip shop attitude and approach to a multi million pound business in one of the most competitive industries in the world.

Oh I agree, the product is garbage and the price keeps going up. I expect we are facing a slump of significant proportions whilst the status quo remains. No hope and no ambition will see to that. Which makes it even more important that the club does everything it can to shift as many tickets as possible. We haven't got the cushion of a huge dormant fanbase who will sign up regardless and it looks like we've already decided that we aren't going to show any ambition or give fans something to believe in. As it stands we could have 20,000 people on Nuttall St with money in their wallets and the club couldn't take it. Again I keep coming back to the fact that rival clubs get them on sale months before we do. They sell more than we do. That tells me they know better and sell early for a reason

That with red collar would be very nice

Do you think this way of operating is remotely good enough for a club at this level? We are already joint last to announce prices. This happens every year, covid or no covid. Only a couple of weeks ago Waggott said they would be announced in 'late May' or 'early June'. He's now missed both of those dates, and the latest is it 'looks like' we will have an 'announcement' within the next 'week or so'. Not only is this incredibly vague and poor - how difficult is it to fix a date and keep to it? But also interesting is the date here. Plenty of people have been making excuses for the club - saying they would be stupid to get them on sale before 21st June knowing what the restrictions are going to be, but if they are announced/released next week then this shows that the reason for the delay hasn't been anything to do with restrictions or waiting to see what happens. The arrogance of these people just assuming they can rely on loyal supporters to turn up whenever they are ready with their money. Think they are in for a nasty shock.

True, once the sale is complete then their power is gone. But I think there is so much more they could have done prior to sale. Lets be honest. Sit around a table with Balaji, Venkatesh and their associates and it would become clear in the space of about 20 seconds that they didn't have a clue what they were talking about or doing and were a danger to the future of the club. With or without their agent in tow it would have been clear to anyone remotely interested or concerned in the wellbeing of the club. If you are correct, and they couldn't afford for fund the club anymore then they had two alternative options. 1 was to effectively give the club away - to the fans or a consortium of local people - but forego a lump sum for the majority shareholding - in doing so ensuring people who cared about the club kept hold of it. They wouldn't have got their hands on £20 million though. 2 was to hold on to the club but refuse to invest any more money - this would have been a continuation n of their business model of the previous 4 -5 years. Ultimately another 3-4 years and increased PL income would have made them much more money and new ownership options would have come along. Now they might have had these concerns and doubts but were reassured or hopeful that it would all work out ok. That's their call. They were a Trust fund, set up, instructed and paid from Jack Walker's organisation to manage his interests competently and responsibly and to protect those interests long term. I also think it would be very interesting indeed to read the Trust deed and see exactly what requirements Jack put in there. I was always under the impression there were requirements to fund the club long term not sell it after 5-6 years. I don't think anyone could argue that they acted in the interests of the club in allowing the sale to go through. They wanted a sale and snapped off the hands of the first people who offered the cash. At best naively hoping it would work out will but more likely without a care in the world once the ink was dry.

In the last couple of days Fulham and Blackpool have both started selling season tickets. Fulham have frozen renewals at last season's prices starting from £349 and for new buyers prices start from £399. Blackpool are starting from £279 for renewals. There go another 2 rival clubs, so by my reckoning the only ones not to be selling tickets now are ourselves, West Brom, Hull and Derby. Amazing isn't it. This pandemic and all the problems it presents only seems to apply to Blackburn. Fulham, with a smaller ground, much higher levels of demand and relegation don't seem to be restricted like we are. Their owner/board don't see any point in 'waiting to see what happens'.

Says it all about what a joke of a club we have become that the highlights of the summer are potential 'windfalls' we get from David Raya reaching the PL with Brentford and Tom Cairney transferring to Sheffield United. Two players who have gone on to much better things whilst this club has gone nowhere. Two players we offloaded for relative pittances who within 12 months of leaving were worth vast amounts more. You would hope somewhere along the corridors of power at Ewood/Venky HQ someone would be asking why these players have gone on to better things and why we sold them for the small amounts we did. Yet I doubt it and suspect brownie points will be had for the few hundred grand that might come in for them now rather than the millions we could have had if we'd have kept them.

Bolton will be above us before we are in the top 6 of this division, never mind promoted. Wigan probably too. Then it will be just little old Bury as the 'look what we would become without Venkys' example.

I don't think we will be under an embargo. If we will be I would like to know how everyone else has avoided it given the impact of Covid 19. I firmly believe that the stooges at Ewood will be using FFP as a convenient excuse for a lack of spending. Hell of a lot easier than admitting the owners have turned the taps off and helps justify no spending, price hikes and player sales. If we are under an embargo then Waggott and Cheston should both resign for taking us there after starting with effectively a blank canvas in 2017 and spending the last 4 years claiming to be managing things sensibly. Just where does the money go?

Not to worry. It will soon be late May or early June when Waggott said they would be announced. Another miss by the club. Bit of a habit this isn't it? I'd have a lot more respect if they just admitted that for some weird reason the owners have to authorise everything and there has been radio silence from them. This is why we can't extend deals and why Mowbray is still going through the motions.

Mowbray will be on his post-season holidays, so won't have been around for the photo with JRC. Only when he's back from his jollies will things click into gear at Mowbray F.C. once he instructs his subordinates and 'advises' the owners as to what the target is and what needs to happen. Until then we drift.

Just a bit of gap filling by the club. Tumbleweed stuff in recent weeks with no games so apart from the odd contract extension and 'Good luck' or 'happy birthday' message so this is their attempt at communicating and reminding fans 'we're still here' Let's see some action not the same old boring words.

As other clubs at this level, above and below, are showing, the general attitude is that it is a good idea to sell them rather than 'wait and see' what happens with Coronavirus. As it stands, and as it has stood for months, the expectation is that at least 25% of grounds can be filled from the start of next season. Some might 'get off' on predicting that it will all unravel and we will have to go back into a lockdown but really this has to end, and soon, and people and businesses have to approach life as though it will. Approaching life with panic and hysteria every time a variant appears or positive test numbers go up is going to mean we never get out of this. Proactive clubs, starved of fans and income for 15 months, would sell season tickets wherever possible, and deal with any issues down the line IF they actually happen. Not here though the logic appears to be the reverse. Do sweet F A for months and then expect to sell a reasonable amount in an impossibly narrow timeframe. We saw how that one worked last year with the insane 2 week sales window in September just as cases were escalating and lockdown became more likely. A pitiful 2500 were sold. As it stands there are only two clubs that were in the Championship last season and will be next that haven't done anything. Rovers and Derby. And Derby are in a real mess with their relegation battle, money issues and takeover chaos. Everyone else has got tickets on sale. This includes clubs with little grounds with far less room to play with than we have at Ewood - QPR, Luton, Bournemouth We are 'blessed' here because there's no way we'd sell more than 8-9,000 under this joke management, so even if we got to that figure we could still limit attendances to 25% of capacity and have no issues. And if it was 0 fans in the ground you would simply provide a range of refund options- give people their money back (what a novel idea), keep hold of it and knock it off future tickets (although Waggott lied about doing that last year) or invite people to donate it to the club. Everyone else has managed it - why can't we?

They should already be getting signed up and done now, during the quiet months, to avoid problems next season like we've had this. You say some will 'certainly' sign new deals? Will they? Will they even be offered new deals? If they are, will those offers be remotely good enough for good players who could get much more elsewhere? We've been banging on about contracts now for months and yet only a couple of senior players have signed new deals since before Xmas. One was Dack, who I believe had virtually agreed a deal prior to his injury and that was 'on ice' until he made a recovery. The other was Bradley Johnson who probably had something in his last deal for an extra year. Then there's the year extensions on the others that have had to be activated in the absence of new long term deals being sorted. Certainly seems to me there's an issue or inability at the club in getting new contracts sorted. And if that's the case what's the point in all this? What's the point in having an academy to develop players, persevering with them as they develop in the first team, attempts to build a squad, moans and groans about how hard life is and how unfair the rules are yet we can't even get our own house in order and can't secure what we have to protect our own assets.

So now that Preston have announced prices, on sale from Monday, by my reckoning that leaves just ourselves and crisis club Derby (nearly relegated, ownership issues) from those in the division last season to still have announced absolutely nothing on season tickets. Then there's WBA and Fulham coming down and Hull and Blackpool coming up who are yet to announce anything. Fortunately for those clubs they can rely on a solid core of buyers/promotion bounce to do them some favours. Shame about that pandemic causing havoc with our plans though.

Nobody is paying £20 million for Armstrong. The club can try and create a bidding war but it won't happen. If we got near to £15 million I'd be pleasantly surprised. That's not me saying Armstrong isn't worth £20 million. Because in this day and age I think he is - he has everything that attracts a premium price in today's world - English, scores goals, still young, bags of pace and good injury record. All those attributes should bump prices up considerably. We should be sat here relaxed and rubbing our hands like Brentford did with Ollie Watkins. We should have Armstrong down to 2,3,4 years and be putting our feet up waiting for someone to come in and bid for him and being able to name our price. Then its a win-win situation because if he was sold we'd be able to spend heavily on the squad and if he wasn't we'd be set for another 20 odd goals next season. But in view of his contractual situation his price will be much less. The crying shame is that even if we got only £10 million, a steal in today's market, there's little we could do about it other than accept the offer and yet Mowbray would earn all sorts of brownie points with the owners for increasing his value and landing them a windfall, when actually he should be hauled into an office and asked to explain himself for allowing this situation to develop. Sell Rothwell to generate funds to give Armstrong a new deal? Nah, that's just another excuse for offloading Rothwell. We've shaved about £100k a week off the wage bill with Williams, Mulgrew, Evans, Bennett, Downing, Bell all on their way, plus the Raya bonus for Brentford's promotion. If we can't give Armstrong a deserved rise and new deal now then we never will be able to. That's of course assuming the owners have authorised expenditure on any senior contract extensions. The only ones to happen have been the in-built 12 month activiation clauses which don't really count as new deals anyway.

Meanwhile League One side Sunderland had sold 21,000 season tickets by 1st June. Good job there's no pandemic on Wearside.

Someone on twitter called Tom Leach, who is writing for the Hampshire press and likely to be far more reliable than the Lancashire Telegraph copying gossip from the Daily Express.

And just like clockwork as the Armstrong to Southampton 'story' has been rubbished by a proper journalist another club, this time Norwich, emerges as being 'in' for him. I wonder which end these 'links' are coming from? Either Rovers or his agent would be my guess rather than the PL clubs.