I'd prioritise getting promoted and ensuring we have a squad capable of doing so e.g. keeping our best players and adding to them rather than worrying about what we might or might not be able to fetch for our best players.

in theory yes if they were determined enough. I'm sure there will be some other excuse though.

An enjoyable and welcome win. Impressive in many ways against a Cardiff side in fine form on a ground we struggle on. Armstrong proving his values once again. Travis and Johnson very good. I agree that the presence of Graham in the starting XI makes the difference. A typical Rovers performance timed to come off the back of 3 abject results and to bounce back with an impressive and deserved away win against a good side. Mowbray has been doing this for more than 2 years. I wish it would change but we seem to go around in these circles, ruing missed opportunities against the weak sides of the league.

Ffp won't exist this summer. How on earth is it going to be enforced with no crowds and incomes dropping through the floor. The only reason we have to sell players is to raise cash. Nowt to do with Ffp

If we look at the pattern of the Bowyer era and compare to Mowbray it is almost identical. The only difference really is that Mowbray had to bring us up from League One whereas Bowyer rebuilt from the Championship. Either way both got on swimmingly well with the owners, including regular India trips, reasonable financial backing and saw positive progress for a couple of years. Then at the end of Bowyer's 2nd full season the phone went dead, the money stopped and his demeanour changed, and he was gone before the end of the year. It all sounds eerily familiar to me especially when I listen and observe Mowbray. Patterns emerge. I've no doubt Mowbray told them last summer that he was confident in reaching the playoffs after their significant outlay and to fall short may not go down well with them Of course in a normal world the solution is to replace the manager and back the new one but here it is to just refuse to pick up the phone and leave everyone in limbo. They clearly think a lot of themselves so telling Mowbray that there isn't any money or that we have to sell an asset to cover it whilst reality probably hurts the ego of the billionaires to whom no cheque is too much. This latest one may be Covid 19 provoked but the end result is.harm to the club at a time when in theory we should be perfectly poised to kick on next season with astute additions. Let's see what Bristol City do but I bet they won't cut corners. They are mental, but I do worry about what comes next. All self inflicted.

Bang on. It seems at some point in the last 5-10 years the ideal football manager template has completely changed. Once upon a time it was go and appoint the best qualified man for the role with the best track record and let him get on with getting results however he sees fit. It seems due to a combination of Brentford envy, influx of foreigners, people on their laptops playing football manager and the age Old desire to 'bring through the youngsters' that nowadays different is better. If you are foreign, untried, untested, have worked in a youth team or have a reputation for nice football you are ideal. If you are British, over the age of 50, been around numerous clubs and focus on short term results then no good. Some people never learn. Including our owners.

Read Mowbray's comments today and weep. I think we are back in late Bowyer/Paul Lambert territory with a wall of silence from India, no communication and likely no budget. Mowbray isn't completely daft and will know what to expect. His comments are to me of a man who is preparing the fanbase for an unpleasant summer with little to no money. I spent all last summer complaining about using the loan market to fill crucial positions like GK and CB. I was worried back then that we would face this situation yet many told me I was overreacting and there was nothing wrong with using loans if it saved us money. Well here we are. The spine of the team set to depart, a manager who is a failure in the transfer market and owners who are back to not communicating.

Steve Kean was doing a good job in the eyes of many outside Ewood Park. Those who witnessed the horror First hand knew different. I'm not comparing Mowbray to Kean but I'm not really bothered what People outside the club think of us. We shouldn't make our decisions as a club on perceptions or what appears nice. Even today many people seem to associate Mowbray with nice football. I'm not sure why because in 3 years I've seen little of it. It seems to be a legacy of positive publicity from his time at West Brom. The club should purely focus on the here and now. Forget about upsetting people, being nice, or perceptions. Make decisions based on the needs of the club. Remember when Southampton fired Adkins after back to back promotions to get Pochettino. Talk about bold, brave and ambitious.

If we are so far down their list of priorities that they can't even find the time in their diaries to hold a conference call to allocate budgets for next year then they simply have to go. If they have so little interest that we have to wait months for any communication then we need new owners. We aren't a video game that can go.in the drawer for a few months until they have the time to play with it. We are a multi million pound professional football club in one of the most competitive leagues in the world. I very much doubt a recent injection of shares represents them taking any interest. Rather I suspect it is essential equity to enable the bills to be paid and will have attracted minimal attention from the top dogs in India. I appreciate there are many issues for them to deal with and their.core business needs looking at but I can't believe the efforts some go to in order to try and normalise what is unacceptable.

This is my concern. There's nothing we can do about that lot gaining Cat 1 status. But we can sure as hell make sure we don't let ours go. Sadly I suspect it will only be a matter of time. Not because it isn't sustainable but because of chronic neglect and lack of investment. We've managed to hang on so far due mainly to the facilities in place pre Venky era but haven't made significant changes since they turned up. We've also had Waggott mention a few times about struggling to keep up with the requirements. Subtle hints maybe. Irony is that with People like Lenihan, Nyambe and Travis being our most valuable assets the academy deserves all the investment it gets. It would be another great slap in the face if the academy that Jack Walker delivered as his legacy slips to a lower category than the hillbillies up the road but it feels inevitable with this dreadful regime.

No other football club would even consider moving their manager upstairs to director of football and promoting their reserve team manager to the dugout. It is a non starter for countless reasons. Just imagine if Bristol City or Birmingham did the same in the coming weeks. It doesn't work. People continue to hope it does because they think we look better or get rewards for trying it, or that it increases the chances of youth progressing (though actually there's no basis for that) As I've said many times I'm not sure what relevance Johnson's record with the reserves has to do with anything. If that qualifies him to be manager then why not re appoint Gary Bowyer? He had a good record with the reserves, and has already proven he could step up to the first team. You can show ambition without needing to delude ourselves that it is 1991. What is wrong with targeting a proven successful manager and paying him accordingly? Most other clubs do it.

Its just depressing when reading Mowbray's comments. I could accept the rubbish performances and missing the play offs and even the manager having another chance next season if he was going to come out fighting and promise a new approach, ruthless action to change it, acceptance that it is last chance saloon time. But his latest comments are just awful. Basically incremental improvements are great, a dollop of 'making players better' to appeal to the money men, I work hard, I make people better. Talking again about this style of play which he obsesses over despite it being meaningless if we get put away by sides like Barnsley. I'm not interested in 'dominating'. Why can't he just focus on sorting the shambles of a defence out? Back at 2+ goals against per game now. It is also quite clear from the comments that he is sending veiled messages to India and hasn't actually spoken to the owners directly. 'I'll be waiting on a call and seeing what their expectation is and what they want to do' This has to be one of the more disturbing comments I have heard from Mowbray. Remarkably similar to the stuff Lambert used to come out with when he was waiting on answers from India but only got silence.

Wagner will be lucky to survive at Schalke after a disappointing season. We could position ourselves ready to strike. You seem eager to rubbish every ambitious suggestion. No wonder we end up with the jokers of the world like Coyle in the dugout. Stendel was sacked by Barnsley for non football reasons and didn't have long enough to turn around Hearts who were bottom when he joined. Gus Poyet - not my cup of tea but has a good record and is high profile and available. Methinks you will just try to find any reason imaginable to rubbish any suggestion. I came up with 16 suggestions all with proven track records. Yes they may cost but what's the point in going cheap on the most important job at the club when £150 million in the red?

I don't get paid £300,000 per year to run the club and don't have the 'skills' that Waggott has but I don't think it is rocket science nor does it require an elaborate plan. Shake hands with Tony, thank him for his efforts but time for a change in track. Get on the phone to Mick Mccarthy to start work ASAP. Pay him more than he was on at Ipswich. Give him a bigger transfer budget. Neither should be difficult to do given the state of Ipswich's finances. Offer him a 3 year deal with a massive bonus for promotion. If we don't go close or look like doing after two or three attempts then shake hands and move on. Don't ask him to go to India unless he fancies it. Don't try and force project signings on him. If he won't do it despite the above then work through the list above.

Mick McCarthy, Chris Hughton, Neil Warnock, Aitor Karanka, Slavisa Jokanovic, Gary Rowett, Alex Neil, Gus Poyet, Jaap Stam and Carlos Carvalhal - all are achievable managers for billionaire ambitious owners and all have strong recent track records in the Championship. Other options could include Mark Hughes, Tony Pulis, Lee Johnson, Javi Gracia, Daniel Stendel, David Wagner So there's 16 names I've just come up with whilst having a brew at my desk. The majority I think would relish an upward looking Championship club wanting promotion to the Premier League. There will be many others abroad and in the lower leagues that I haven't even considered.

I think, correct me if I am wrong, that we are now at 1 win in 8 games and 5 wins in 20 games. With three very tough ones up next I expect that to be extended. For us to have been in the thick of the play off chase up until this dreadful week despite pretty poor form prior to it highlights what this league is all about - any side that has any degree of consistency will at some stage or another be in the play off race. When you only need to hit 6th the reality is anyone in the mid range of this league will be close to it at stages of the season. Other than the impressive Bristol City victory (which in hindsight is less impressive than first thought as they are in freefall) we have been really poor now for some time, and attempts at blaming it on player absences, Covid 19 or a tough run of games don't cut it. In a normal world of a multi-million pound business there would be a thorough examination of these patterns, their causes and consequences. At the very least I would expect to see the manager project an image of someone under significant pressure to turn results around and yet listening to him other than odd snippets he really gives no indication that he is concerned very much about results or that there is any pressure at all from upstairs to rectify it.

I'm not sure what you are getting at here. Yes Blackburn is a town. What relevance is that to the aims, ambitions and prospects of Blackburn Rovers? Would the granting of city status suddenly transform our club and improve its prospects? Were Sunderland and Wolves small clubs and then suddenly became big clubs when they got City status? Are Preston in a higher category to us now? Are Leyton Orient or Salford bigger than us because they are based in big cities rather than a town? Its all meaningless. Suits those upstairs at Ewood Park to feed it to the fans though.

There's the difference. You don't think we can, I do think we can. Perhaps the owners need to learn that the more you pay the better you get. You'd think after the Warnock fiasco that penny would have dropped by now.

Its called ambition. Aim high, not low. Convince yourself that decent managers aren't attainable and you don't get them. Make those People good offers and leave them with a decision to make. I assume Venkys are richer than Berylson at Millwall? Does Jokanovic want to manage in the Premier League again against elite managers and players or waste the best days of his career in the Qatar micky mouse league?

If the EFL don't apply the points deduction then there will be a club getting relegated to League One instead who haven't been into administration. In the cases of Middlesbrough, Hull, Huddersfield or Stoke such a relegation could be financially catastrophic There would be lawsuits left right and centre and rightly so. The League will be hoping and praying that Wigan get themselves 13 points clear before the end of the season, apply the 12 penalty and they still survive. That way nobody complains.

Bury and Plymouth both had big budgets by League Two standards though admittedly both have had issues and yes he's done very well in getting them both up in his first season. Think he needs to prove himself at League One before moving up to the Championship

Again, so if it is correct that 1 or 2 of our prized assets will need to be sold this summer then I'm afraid that is another black mark against those running the show. If they have allowed such an imbalance to develop that we are forced to sell our family silver just 2 seasons after promotion then something has gone wrong. We've been told on a regular basis by Waggott that our business was being done with FFP in mind and so to find ourselves at risk (if true) is a failing. The alternative of course is that we are not at risk and it is just a convenient excuse. It is very difficult for me to accept that we may need to sell quality like Travis, Dack or Armstrong to make up for Mowbray's horrendous failings with Brereton and Gallagher, and that to put icing on the cake he will be given another summer window to cause further damage to the squad with flawed recruitment. The way it works normally is the manager pays for such terrible business with his job, then the next bloke is backed as much as possible. But we all know here from experience that their mate in the dugout will be as safe as houses

How is he going to do that when he admitted last week he has no idea as to his budget and probably won't do until he goes to India to request it, which is likely to be August? Even if by some miracle they decide to give him more money to spend, would you seriously have confidence in him using it to get to the top 6 next season given the huge wages he has used up on players he rarely uses? The aim shouldn't be top 6 anyway, in the same way his aim this season shouldn't have been 70 points. It is setting the bar too low. You aim for automatic promotion then take the top 6 as a consolation if that can't be achieved. You reckon any of the managers currently in the top 6 started the season aiming for 3rd to 6th?

Yes they are going to appoint their reserve team manager because their chairman is worried about FFP compliance and wants to make sure plenty of reserve players go through to their first team.

Just the 7 conceded this week then. Some things don't change.