I'm sure when the dust settles there will still be people comparing it to the 70s and 80s when someone left to join someone else in a bid to try and normalise what is happening at Ewood under the filth.

Fully agree. There's been something 'off' with the Sigurdsson situation for some time now. There was a 'rumour' doing the rounds that there had been a falling out between Sigurdsson and Eustace after he wanted to put him in the U21s and he 'refused'. I'm increasingly of the view that is nonsense fed by someone else behind the scenes. One thing Eustace has done exceedingly well in his time here is to create a close knit hard working group and he just doesn't seem the type for having a 'bust up' with one player. In the run up to January Eustace was, surprisingly I must say, very clear that he had plans for Sigurdsson and wanted him involved. Sigurdsson was putting stuff on Instagram about him training and involved with the team at Brockhall. Then the club have signed all this lot and Eustace has been clear that some or all are not his signings. I suspect there are financial/contractual shenanigans taking place with Sigurdsson and the club are trying, and succeeding, in forcing him out the door, against the manager's wishes, because he's costing too much for their liking. Could well be the final straw for Eustace. Don't blame him. Don't blame anyone for wanting out of this cess pit.

I don't think - still after all that has gone on and the warning signs we have seen - some people fully appreciate what a shit show this football club is and how infinitely preferable other operations are to this. Too many people look at it with Rovers tinted glasses, or look at it based on current league positions, or make assumptions that things 'aren't that bad' at Ewood or that our budget whilst small is still comparable to rival clubs like Derby. It's time to 'get real'. Derby are skint, yet financially in a better place than we are, despite going bust only a couple of years ago and just getting out of league one. Despite the fact that we've raked in over £40 million in player sales in the last 4 transfer windows. I would suggest that EVERY other Championship club beats us hands down when it comes to: ownership, board, communication, transparency, investment, planning, organisation, ambition, contracts, transfers, and many other departments. Eustace has about 15 months remaining on his contract here. He won't be getting an extension even if he wants one. Just like all our players won't be getting new deals and will leave between now and summer 2026. This isn't because they are all greedy, unreasonable, it is because the owners and their stooges will not sanction new deals. With that in mind Eustace has an impossible job on his hands. The ONLY reason to reject Derby interest and stay is on the very very slim chance he gets us into the top 6 and then through the play-offs to the PL because that would enhance his CV massively. Anything short of that - including a top 6 finish but losing in the play-offs - keeps him as a Championship manager having to work in terrible conditions and facing another summer of Venky nonsense. He doesn't want it, no manager wants it. He will have enough confidence in his abilities to get Derby safe between now and May and then he's in a far better position - CV enhanced further, and then at a club with support and a plan to look to the future. This club is finished under these owners, and it is time some people woke up to this.

Is there such thing as a 'walk on' these days if there's no ability to buy at the ground?

Another club, like Derby, that the happy clappers were using as evidence as to why we should be thankful for Venky benevolence. Both will leave us behind in the coming years whilst we stagnate with Venkys.

True. Would also cost. I'm thinking Ryan Lowe, Ian Evatt, Neil Harris or Des Buckingham. Tragic but remember Broughton was involved in some form in the appointments of JDT and Eustace. Now we're left to Waggott and Rudy work experience Gestede. What could possibly go wrong.

Another player mucked around and kept in the dark. Textbook Venkys and Maggott. Staggers me that there are still people telling themselves that the player is the issue here. We've seen this sort of thing so many times at this club in recent years and it's down to the poison at ownership and board level.

You know who is on the board - it is on the club website. It includes two people who nobody knows and I doubt ever come to Blackburn. I know you have mentioned contracts many times as have I - we seem to agree on that - it doesn't mean Rovers are going to sort it and for that reason the clock is ticking - Eustace has 15 months left and if he's treated like Mowbray won't get an extension offer and might fancy it if another club offers him 2,3, 4 years now. Security. If Derby made an approach and didn't offer him a payrise that would make no sense at all. The whole point of approaching an employee of another club is that you are prepared to offer them a better package than they are on at present.

The owners, board and club gave up on the playoffs in January. That's being generous because I don't think they ever had any intention or expectation of being in contention to start with and suspect the owners don't know or care and the board consider our top 6 position to be an annoyance and inconvenience more than anything else. When you view the transfer window for what it was - a betrayal of the manager and his team - and work from there you see that bridges have been burned. You see it again in his comments about contracts - himself and his players being totally let down and left in the dark despite deserving new and improved terms. He's got to look after his family - can he afford to turn down a 3-4 year pay rise at Derby when Rovers can't be arsed to offer him or the players better terms?

Isn't it a remarkable coincidence how we often have a player who is rumoured to be on the most money or worth money in the transfer market 'frozen out' of the club and offloaded?

Working at a skint club is one thing, but working at a skint club owned by Venkys and run by Waggott is another. I'd imagine that Derby is a vast improvement on Rovers in terms of getting business done, planning, organisation, ambition even if they're hard up. Their owner is a local supporter who goes to games and wants them to get better, they get 20,000+ a week turning up and are much closer to home for Eustace and his team. We saw last year with JDT that a spell unemployed was preferable for him than continuing to work for these shysters. Now obviously JDT could afford to be unemployed and walk away from the job whereas Eustace probably can't but it tells me just how unpleasant it must be having to work for the scum who own and run Rovers these days.

Wonder if Eustace will be on their list. Ex-player, Midlands based, I'm sure he'll be keen to make a move out of here and to a respectable club, and if they are focused on survival then improvement his record here and at Birmingham makes him ideal.

There's a blindingly simple way to deal with this situation. If it is true that Dennis is on £20k a week contribution from now to the summer, or that Sigurdsson is one of our top earners on a rumoured £18k a week, then come the summer if not before the money allocated to either of those two should be divided into 3 or 4 and split between Travis, Tronstad, Brittain and Carter and they be offered 2-3 year extensions with that as a pay rise. I'm pretty sure that they would all grab a £5k a week pay rise and an extra 2-3 year on top. Job done. Spine of the team secured for the foreseeable, some good news to give everyone a lift, this would not require budget increases or money from the owners as it would simply be reallocating cash that we have, allegedly, found on deadline day for Dennis or have been paying Sigurdsson to do nothing all season. Waggott wouldn't need to go cap in hand to the owners to do this. But I think our problems run deeper than getting more money from the owners, I'm convinced that there is instruction to slash and burn, cut costs and downgrade at every point possible. Pay rises are therefore out of the equation despite the nonsense they will come out with an an effort to convince the fans that serious efforts are being made. It is going to hurt when we watch these players and our manager doing well at other middling Championship clubs with an ounce of ambition but nothing new at Venky Rovers.

I'm curious as to how or why anyone thinks we are going to be so much as trying to keep any of our key players on new contracts. Even signing a handful of loans / short term deals in January has been a huge undertaking, leaving it until 11pm on deadline day, sacrificing key January fixtures, just to get three players here for 15 games until the summer from clubs desperate to be shut of them. Contract renewals a totally different ball game to that. People like Travis, Tronstad, Brittain are into their late 20s soon, they are going to be getting advised that they should be looking for a minimum of 3 more years and on a good salary, better than they are on at the moment. Is there any reason on this earth to think Venkys or Waggott are suddenly going to be offering 3 or 4 year contract extensions or wage increases?? Everything we have seen has been short term, make do, no substantial long term commitments, cut costs wherever possible. I anticipate the only thing on their minds will be saving another £10k a week by getting rid of those players in the summer and replacing them with more dross from the bargain bucket on 12 month loans.

In order of preference (and by that what I believe to be in the best interests of this club) 1) Venkys run the club properly and invest - after 15 years we know that isn't ever going to happen 2) Venkys leave and let someone else run the club properly and invest - I hope and pray that their legal issues/funding cuts in the last 18 months are a precursor to this 3) Venkys stay, but don't invest - we get the worst of both worlds - negligent owners whose appalling oversight cannot be balanced out by money invested. Over the last 10 years their ability / willingness to send over £15 million a year has at the very least allowed us to remain an average Championship club. Nothing to be grateful to them for but at least it's allowed us to do something. If that money stops they are absolutely no use to anyone, and aren't needed here. If the club is to wash its own face then the very least it needs is competent and engaged ownership and management to maximise its capabilities. My ideal scenario is that the legal and financial pressures they are under become unbearable to them to the point that they are forced to relinquish control of the club. It would be a nice bonus if their business empire and fortune collapsed with it.

By my count that's 16 wins in 90 Monday-Friday away Championship games since 2012.

Still trying to work out which bright spark decided to agree to bring forward the game to this week, just 24 hours after an inevitable last minute transfer deadline and knowing that we had 4-5 key players out injured.

Making out like Eustace has got everything / more than he asked for with SIX new players. Whoop de doo. Some, myself included, would read that and think that Nixon has an agenda to praise that slimeball Waggott and make anyone unhappy about our business to be unreasonable, Eustace included. It almost suggests that Eustace has been given more than he could ever expect or ask for therefore if we slide away it is nothing to do with the 'supremo'. Sickening stuff. Of those six two Eustace publicly admitted we signed because they were cheap squad fillers and replace two outgoings arguably of at least equal if not better quality in McFadzean and Baker (definitely in the case of Baker). One Eustace admitted in public that it was a club target and suggested that it was nothing to do with him in Kargbo, who certainly doesn't fit the experienced proven quality requirement. Same goes then for the LB.

I think we have entered a new era from that we had pre-2023. Back then when we lost people like Lenihan, Nyambe, Rothwell due to contract expiry I think it was probably at least in part due to inept management and poor organisation, trying to force those players into accepting lesser terms and leaving things until the last minute. Then Broughton came in and to be fair to him he went about renewing those contracts that needed sorting and we also signed a few on reasonable term deals - Hyam, Szmodics, Brittain. Since the 2023 change however I think we are firmly into new territory. Not only are we unable to renew terms but I genuinely think there is an instruction from the owners down to not offer medium to long term deals and to drastically cut the wage bill. We can see indications of this in our recent transfer activity. With the exception of a few very low cost people like Kargbo (who will have been on relative peanuts in Italy) there are no proper contracts being handed out. So rather than this being down to typical Venky/Waggott delay/poor organisation I think they are now following a clear plan - let the contracts run down, get the wages off the books, don't have anyone tied down beyond a maximum of 1-2 years, no long term 3,4,5 year deals, no wage increases. It is deliberate and planned. So every summer we are going to at best be in the loan market and adding people on 12 month contracts. The 'core' of the squad that has excelled this season will be out of here.

I don't believe the club has any intention or even desire to retain people like Brittain, Hyam, Travis, Tronstad or Hedges. They would only do it if those players agreed to substantial pay cuts, which isn't going to happen as they will all be looking for their final 'big' contracts and certainly the first four could walk into most other Championship clubs and get a better deal. The clue is in the fact that all were signed / contracted before the 'change' in the summer of 2023 when they overnight slashed the budget and the legal issues came to light. Since then with one or two minor exceptions, such as new deals for Szmodics and Wharton so they could be swiftly sold off, and a few of the academy lads, renewals have totally dried up. There's an iceberg up ahead and the club won't or can't do anything to avoid it. The happy clappers who ignore all this and pretend everything is wonderful might think they are 'super fans' but they are going to be in for a rude awakening when we are stripped bare of all our remaining quality and assets within the next 16 months.

What % of our squad is out of contract / loan in the summer? Must be over 50 now.

I was actually referring to posts on Twitter a couple of which spring to mind, one explaining how Rudy has managed what Broughton couldn't do and another saying that Venkys had come up with the cash when needed. Laughable really so fits quite well with our transfer business.

Quite incredible to see some of the reactions to this, people talking about 'happy days' and even one or two applauding Venkys and Rudy. At best we've signed 2 more loans/short term deals who are going to be here for 3-4 months and 15 games. They've taken over a month since the January window opened to get this 'proven experienced quality' and here we are, 11:30pm on 3rd February, not even certain both have joined and people making out like we've just climbed the north face of the Eiger, not potentially got two short term deals over the line with 2 clubs desperate to be rid of them. Dismal stuff.

Maybe he will be astute but he's only going to be available for 15 league games then he's away again and we've to rebuild our left hand side in the summer.

I keep coming back to Eustace's comments after signing Sanderson and Forshaw. All about it being a means to an end as it reinforced the squad at basically next-to-no expense therefore allowing us to concentrate our resources on getting our main targets and 'proven, experienced' quality in the door in the more pressing positions. Since then we've had an unknown from the Italian lower divisions and, allegedly, are close to signing cover at LB on loan (I'll believe it when I see it). Eustace has made it quite clear that he had nothing to do with Kargbo and even if he had it clearly in no way shape or form suggests proven experienced quality. I'd be surprised if he had much at all to do with the LB loan. If that's about it then it's clear to me that they've played him for a fool just like they did JDT and the rest of us. People don't like being lied to or taken for fools. It breaks trust and can be impossible to recover from. As a coping mechanism some delude themselves into thinking that its all fine and normal or that things will change.