JHRover

Probably just realised that what his 'sources' at the club say and what actually happens are often the opposite and that he's been played for a fool just like everyone else involved with this operation.

They got taken over last season by one of those imaginary consortia that wouldn't ever buy a debt ridden struggling 2nd division club.....

Even Waggott could see the writing on the wall - announcing to the public in 2023, before a ball had been kicked, that his target was survival (despite finishing 7th and an FA Cup quarter final the season before). Two years on and they've worked damn hard to get us here. That squad was far too good to deliver relegation and the annoying interventions of JDT and Eustace derailed the operation. Fortunately both were forced out of here so that staff more receptive to the plan could be brought in. What we are now seeing is the culmination of a 2-3 year plan, orchestrated by the owners and delivered by their underling(s). Time and time again we are swimming against the tide with these owners dragging the club backwards every way it can. Still some can't see it. They deserve Venkys and what is coming next.

It's conscious, deliberate and planned. Venkys and their henchmen would rather rule over the wreckage of a League One or Two club costing them what they are prepared to spend than admit defeat, step aside and hand the club to someone prepared to fund and invest in a Championship club. Nice people? Selfish lowlife such that their own egos come before the status and survival of the club.

We won't be hiring him, we'll just be giving him work experience to keep him busy and try to get a job done on the cheap. Meanwhile almost 4 months on and still no replacement CEO for Waggott. Who is picking up 'the slack' that he was covering last year? The work that required a £400k a year salary seems to have just fallen into the cracks between those that remain. Interesting.

If Hyam wasn't keen to get out of here asap, especially if a club with ambition is sniffing, then I'd be questioning his sanity. If he has a choice between sticking here for 6-12 months until his contract expires trying to lead a collection of foreign signings to enough points to survive, or heading off somewhere to collect a pay rise and get a 3-4 year contract at a club that actually wants to get somewhere and do something, it is a no brainer.

Count yourself lucky that he's still here and the regime haven't seen him off. He will be the 'project' for January, expect Jackson to release stories about him being homesick and refusing to sign a new deal during November / December. I suspect the only real ambition at the start of the summer was to ensure that Dolan, Brittain, Hyam, Travis, Tronstad were all out of the door for as much money as possible. A normal functioning club would have moved heaven and earth to keep as many of them as possible after last season's efforts, but no, at Venky Rovers the only aim is to get them out asap. Deliberately and consciously breaking up the core and spine of the side that finished 7th last season. I've seen some classics on the delusion scale in my time following this club but the suggestion from some that the club are getting shut of all that lot because they failed to get us into the top 6 and we are trying to improve on 7th has to be the best one yet. Laughable. This is deliberate managed decline. It has been for the last 2 years and will continue for as long as the two stooges can get away with it. The chickens will be home to roost soon though.

Don't you just know it. £2-3 million cash guaranteed from Wrexham, a top earner out the door. In his place a loan and miniscule contribution to his wage with an 'option' to buy. Job is a good one indeed. Couldn't have designed it any better. Meanwhile the regime defenders will point to Hyam's (self inflicted) contract situation, and 'versatility' of the incomer and continue to try and argue it is a job well done.

Deliberately. I hope people remember this when we are struggling to retain Championship status. Or will it just be shoulder shrugs and excuses?

At least there's no worry hanging over us about potential last minute departures. With the exceptions of Hyam and Tronstad I can't imagine anyone having any interest in any of our players and there's not much noise about either leaving this window. We've already quite efficiently got rid of the assets.

Why do you have to? You can increase the budget if you want. I can guarantee Derby have significantly increased their wage bill this summer judging by their recruitment and desire to progress as a club. Wrexham another. Birmingham. Charlton. All budgets that will have shot up. We didn't even need to increase or break our wage bill. Could have simply maintained what we had but that would have required the owners to maintain their financial input. They clearly don't want to. Their choice, we have to live with the consequences of those choices. Constantly looking for cuts and reductions and hiding behind 'wage structure' is just a race to the bottom.

Right. So that February 2024. At the time Gregg Broughton was Director of Football and it was another 3 months before he left. Around that time Rudy Gestede, fresh off the back of a playing career, was 'shadowing' Waggott by following him to meetings etc. allegedly with a view to him pursuing a future role in football senior management. Broughton, a bloke employed to run the football operation and presumably the 'knowledge' at the club (to be fair he quickly got us JDT in his first act at the club which in my opinion is the best managerial decision made at this club since 2004) is ignored/sidelined by Waggott, and then within 3 months of appointing Eustace we have Gestede taking up the role of 'Head of'. You think all this is normal, logical, conducive to anything other than total chaos at the club?

Mowbray said the owners are nice caring people. All the evidence shows they are the opposite of that. What people say and impressions people get often don't correspond to actions and what happens.

I'm not sure he would, certainly the installation of Gestede (no track record or experience) by persons unknown happened 2-3 months after Eustace arrived. When Eustace got the job officially Broughton was still Director of Football yet appears to have been a lame duck from January 2024 onwards and by most accounts Waggott was the one who gave Eustace the job. It's little wonder we are the shambles we are when you look at the number of different people and jobs there have been making decisions. Even in the last 18 months we've had Waggott, Pasha, Gestede, Broughton, JDT, Eustace and Ismael all applying their own thoughts and plans, and probably others in the background we don't get to know about. I don't think it is much of a stretch to imagine Eustace was told one thing when he joined in February 2024 and by the summer with Gestede in the driving seat something completely different was being pursued. Agree he will have known before he took the job what a shambles the club was and the ferocious appetite it had for cost cutting.

Ah right so everything is fine at Rovers' end, it's just the 'model' that Eustace didn't like?

Any thoughts or observations on WHY he wanted out? Or does that just get swept under the carpet along with everything now he's the big bad wolf?

Everything you see and hear down there just stinks of corner cutting, cost cutting, going through the motions The photos of Ewood, flaking paint, ad boards, naff attempt at installing safe standing rails, just cheap and tacky. The Blues Bar stuff - tells me that they have this in their crosshairs as the next mothballing exercise. Keep on reducing it until most people don't bother going, tell them to go into Jack's Kitchen instead. They've already done it during the week, match days will be next.

Derby are fresh out of League One and survived last season by the skin of their teeth. We are an established Championship side having been in it for 7 years and should have finished in the top 6 last season Notwithstanding that Derby have had a tougher run of games than us - Stoke, Coventry, Bristol and Ipswich - why are you attempting to use Derby's results so far as a metric? Should be embarrassed given the head start we've had on them over the last 5 years.

Should have, would have, could have, context needed, performances good - all meaningless 3 points from 12, 1 win and 4 defeats is all that matters and if that doesn't alarm you then I think you are deluded.

Yeah but what about revenues? One look at the Blackburn End should set alarm bells ringing in the directors box after their needless price hike there but I think Yasir is just about to collect his bonus for increasing revenues off it.

So after being preached to for the best part of 10 years that we need to use our Category A academy more, use home grown players rather than pay for them from elsewhere, pathways into the first team blah blah blah we spent the whole summer doing the complete and total opposite of that and are now selling our academy graduates to the likes of Derby, Charlton and Peterborough after putting in years of development. It's almost as though we're just making it up as we go along.

But if the club wipes its own face then we get the worst of both worlds IMO. We have a miniscule budget, which is uncompetitive in the modern day Championship, and highly likely to result in relegation at some stage or another from which we will never come back if sustainability is the aim And at the same time of this little to no pressure on the bastards in India to take steps to offload the club. No financial pressure just means they can leave us to rot for longer with zero pressure on them. At least if the club continues to drain them of millions of pounds a year, money they HAVE to find from either sales or their own pockets, this maintains a degree of pressure on them. If they reach a stage where the cupboard of players to sell is bare and they haven't got the ability at the Indian end to shovel the cash in then a default beckons which brings the whole thing crashing down. I see it a bit like when Hitler talked about the Soviet Union - need only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down. The trouble is kicking in the door - the best and probably only way of doing that with this lot is financially - a pressure on them to transfer cash - we have seen first hand that in the last 4 years they have been actively cutting this in any way they can. They are under pressure, clearly, the more this can be maintained the nearer breaking point is.

Everyone, and particularly those who have enjoyed prolonged lucrative employment under them, have labelled the owners as kind, honorable, proud and caring people. I imagine being flown out to India once a year, put up in luxurious accommodation and dined at their palace whilst they say lovely things creates quite the impression to someone used to working in English football. Actions speak louder than words. Takes nothing to talk a good game about your values and principles, but 15 years of destruction proves that these people are not kind, honest, well meaning, they are appalling people who have dismantled a well functioning proud football club and tarnished its standing in the game. No amount of fruit and water on the veranda in Pune changes that.

Good business would have been retaining the squad that got us into the top 6 last season for low cost - simply by offering appropriate new terms to Batth, Hyam, Travis, Brittain, Dolan and Tronstad. Good business would be investing from a position of strength whilst things are going well on the pitch and not totally dismantling a good squad for no real reason other than saving on wages and giving Rudy a project to prove himself. End of the day if Derby finish 21st and we finish 22nd then they are laughing all the way and our business has cost the club tens of millions and possibly its existence by sliding into League One. We can say with some confidence that we wouldn't be in relegation trouble had we kept last season's squad intact. Can we say the same now with what business we have done? I don't think so.

It's been said above but Mowbray is an unusual character / bloke in football. He's obviously got a lot of good traits. Pretty much everyone loves him for his man management, his 'arm around the shoulder' approach, his way with people. I imagine players, fans, chairmen absolutely love his approach, sitting around a table chatting about his principles and ideals. You see it from most of the clubs he's managed - he's very popular with fans and players alike and there must be good reason for that. He's probably great to work with because I don't think he will ever rub people up the wrong way or throw his toys out of the pram. He just isn't the sort of bloke for that sort of thing. He most definitely isn't a Warnock or Allardyce sort who would only focus on the team and results, with Mowbray there's an obsession with individuals, development, personalities which I think overrides results and league position. The fact he was able to put up with the Venky freak show for over 5 years tells us something about his personality - both good and bad - as opposed to Lambert/Eustace/JDT who couldn't stomach it for more than a few months before fleeing. The good part is it allowed this club to appear normal for a few years and to plod along as 'stable'. The bad part is that we were never, ever going to get promoted out of this league because he just doesn't and didn't have that burning ruthless desire to do it. These comments show that is still the case. Even when he'd done the hard part and got us into the driving seat for promotion he didn't have what it took to get us over the line.