There's no such thing as an easy automatic promotion, but we should have finished in the top 2 last season. We achieved our target. Of course we could easily have missed that target and not got promoted, as maybe Sunderland might do if they fail to go up. We had one of the most expensive squads that league has ever seen, had stability in personnel following relegation and didn't have any players snatched away from us. So in terms of preparation it was just about as ideal as you could ask for. For comparison's sake Sunderland have had a new manager, coaching staff, ownership and are still adjusting their squad from the one that was relegated from the Premier League. I also think it is a much more formidable League One than last year. The emergence of Luton on the brink of back to back promotions, the improvement at Portsmouth as Jackett has built them into a promotion capable side and Charlton who have improved, along with Barnsley and Sunderland who are looking to bounce straight back. Tough. Last season the play-offs contained Charlton, Shrewsbury, Rotherham and Scunthorpe. This time round potentially Sunderland, Portsmouth, Charlton and Peterborough/Doncaster.

I suspect the club just take whatever they are given by Umbro. Whatever input Rovers have into the design/colour of the kits is, I suspect, absolutely minimal. When something as straightforward as a matchday programme is treated with such reluctance and lack of attention I can't believe anyone down at Ewood takes any serious interest in what shade of blue our home kit has or what colour our away shirt is. Lets remember that we've turned out in white and dark blue away shirts over the last few years which has resulted in the need for a 3rd kit. Why it is so difficult to have an away shirt that doesn't contain any blue or white I'm not sure. In terms of the red and black I accept that it is the ideal away shirt for Rovers, but given they used the red and black stripes last season I'd be surprised to see us go back to it so soon. The priority will be to sell as many as possible (or at least should be) so coming up with a very similar colour to 2 seasons ago might not sell.

Having a special season of the coat of arms crest would be a good way to mark the 150th anniversary season. Probably far too imaginative for the regime here though. We'll do well to get a mention in the programme. Don't think there was anything whatsoever to mark our 140th anniversary whilst Birmingham had a special crest/kit/season long celebrations.

Doncaster are formidable at home. Stanley in for a tough night. A point would be excellent for them. Stanley also travel to Portsmouth on the final day, who will need a win to get promoted or have a chance of doing. Can't see much for Stanley there. So much rides on their home match v Plymouth. Win that and they'll be fine. A draw and they might be ok. A defeat and they'll be depending on Southend/Scunthorpe staying below them. Plymouth play Scunthorpe final day in a 6 pointer. Southend are at Rochdale at the weekend.

The only solution to that is to make ourselves into one of those and convince him he's as well being here as elsewhere. Starting point for that is to sign some decent players and show everyone we mean business this summer. Once again this comes back to club management. Sitting around until July waiting for something to happen, moaning about money and costs and how difficult it is and aiming for mid-table will ensure decent players look elsewhere in their quest to reach the Premier League.

Arguably their scouting has had to be successful, as on their budget they are unable to do it any other way. If they weren't good at unearthing gems they'd likely be back in League One. They certainly don't have the facilities, academy or finances available that we have. We could try to emulate their approach but it seems, given our business in recent years, that we don't want to do that. Given where we were last season and the season before I'm happy to be rubbing shoulders with them in mid-table, though my aim for the remaining 2 games would be to get above them and get into the top half and hope the manager does too. Moving forward now we have survived we need to be getting above them. Given our annual losses at the last count were £10 million a year more than theirs and we've spent heavily on Brereton and Armstrong, I don't think it is arrogant or wrong to expect us to climb above them. I'll be disappointed if we don't given the above. If we want to compete with them then we should get our losses down to less than £10 million a year like theirs are, give up the academy and get our wage bill and transfer budget down to their level. Then we'd have to follow their route and unearth gems but we might struggle to do it as successfully as they have.

Hmmm. I think Bowyer did a brilliant job with us. I have more respect for him than anyone at the club since Venkys took over for his work in keeping us up and turning us around given the issues we had. Could we have finished higher in those two full seasons? Possibly, but then again we could have finished higher this season or last season so really you can carry that on indefinitely. Things began to turn sour in his final season but I'm not sure how much of that can be pinned on Bowyer. Lets remember that by then he'd had Gestede and Cairney sold from underneath him, had been operating under a transfer embargo for several windows, was getting no funding from the owners and didn't even get to meet them in the summer of 2015. I also suspect the increasing involvement of Pasha from that point onwards played a part as he began to take more of an active role and its no coincidence that also around that time or shortly afterwards Bowyer allies in Shaw and Myers handed in their notice. I think Bowyer probably knew he was on borrowed time as Pasha wanted to assert his authority and bring in his own man (remember the rumours after the Brighton away game that he had been sacked?). Something was amiss from the summer of 2015 onwards. Mowbray is still in the phase Bowyer was in during his first 2 years - all good - owners who keep out of the way, send him money for transfers from time to time and don't interfere. If we make it through another couple of years like that then I might start to believe they've turned a corner but it wouldn't surprise me to see things unravel again the moment Madame begins to lose faith or starts taking her advice from different people. We're now hearing worrying comments from the manager about having to go to India again this summer to speak to them and 'find out' what their ambitions are. This after apparently agreeing on a long term vision at previous meetings and having a multi-window strategy, now he has to meet with them again to discover what they want to do and presumably seek approval for a transfer budget. After all, she lost faith in Bowyer or at least allowed someone else to sack him after everyone thought he would be secure after making them fortunes in sales. Why won't she do the same with Mowbray if we don't keep progressing or if she gets up on the wrong side of bed one day? I agree that Mowbray has that potentially crucial experience that a club like ours needs given the lack of know-how at ownership and boardroom level. A club of this size and stature with a vacuum of footballing know-how at most levels needs a proven pair of hands. If we want to go down the up and coming coach route then fine but we need to install the correct backroom and boardroom to enable that to happen. I think Bowyer did extremely well for us and for Blackpool and given time will do a good job for Bradford. I suppose he and Mowbray have had different opportunities in football management. Mowbray had a reputation as a decent level player, Bowyer didn't. Mowbray went up to Scotland to get his management career going which Bowyer didn't. Bowyer took over a mess of a club here, Mowbray had a smoother ride with Hibs. Mowbray got a good move to WBA in an era when British managers working in Scotland got moves to the top Championship clubs, which doesn't happen these days.

The colour of the away shirt becomes more important given the number of occasions it is worn, sometimes unnecessarily. Forest away being the latest example. I'm sorry but there should be no circumstances at all in which we don't wear our famous blue and white halves whilst playing a side in red. I'd rather the away shirt was restricted to only those against blue or white shirted opposition. Fortunately at least we'll be in proper Rovers attire at Norwich.

Absolutely. It's really not that hard to work out. We've got a backward structure in place where the manager of the first team is also effectively manager of the club. We hoped that had changed with the arrival of Waggott as Chief Executive but it appears not. I'm afraid the only logical conclusion to come to with Waggott is that the owners were persuaded to appoint him as Chief Executive by Mowbray/Cheston/Pasha to handle the no doubt hefty workload of running the operation on a day to day basis (far too much for one person to handle as they attempted with Cheston) and Mowbray put a good word in for Waggott having got to know him during their time at Coventry City. It certainly doesn't appear to be the case that Waggott has the ability to act as the link between India and Brockhall, nor does he have the ability to handle budgets other than to propose them to India for approval, nor does it seem he even has authority to determine season ticket prices without needing prior approval from India which won't come until the summer. This ludicrous structure they have put in place is, of course, entirely their decision as majority shareholders and funders of the club. I don't think it will ever ensure any sustained improvement at the club because it is so inherently flawed and backward in an industry where the proactive and bold are successful. It might be the way they like to do things, good for them, but it will pretty much guarantee that mid-table Championship is as good as it gets unless a fluke happens. And it will cost them £10-15 million a year every year as a result. When you look at the size of clubs and professionalism of some of the operations at the top end of the Championship we're a million miles off and it looks like the owners like it that way. No point tasking Waggott with increasing revenues but not allowing him to release season ticket prices. We're hearing similar stuff now from Mowbray - having to go to India to 'find out' what the owners ambitions are. Hang on a minute - I thought they agreed on a plan and a strategy last summer and Mowbray persuaded them to go down the slow build approach of him building a promotion capable squad over 4 transfer windows? It seems Mowbray doesn't have a clue what is in store and it all hinges, as ever, on what Madame decides in a meeting in May.

Interesting that Accy have introduced a new 'teen ticket' for 12-17 year olds at £79 for the season. Adults frozen at £219.

But Accy will only sell X amount so why not copy Rovers and leave it a few more weeks? Unless they think they could sell more by being proactive?

I was going to post something similar when i saw his comments. Back to where we always are, the manager needing to wait until they find time to see him before he even knows what their ambitions are, never mind what his budget is going to be. Any hopes of being able to move quickly to resolve issues and hit the ground running next season gone, all because of our insane way of operating under these owners. Whilst Mowbray is sat in Pune waiting for his audience everyone else will be busy at work recruiting. No excuse for it, and another example, along with the season ticket fiasco, of the club bringing difficulties upon itself.

Norwich manage yet another last minute winner/equaliser after loads of injury time gets added on. Another 7 minutes yesterday. Convenient.

Aye but tough to compete with those sort of clubs. Blah blah blah.

Diving, surrounding the referee, trying to get opponents booked/sent off. Manager bombarding the 4th official. No coincidence IMO that they seem to have 5 minutes+ injury time every week at home and have ended up winning loads of games during that time. Can't argue with their results this season and i have some envy of the way they've recruited but I don't like him and their approach. Suspect we'll see more of it in a few weeks especially if the game isn't going how they want.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/04/18/special-report-secrets-behind-norwich-success-story/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw Interesting read into Norwich's successful season and how they've managed to get promoted whilst selling off players. Don't like the way Farke has them behaving but hard not to be impressed at the recruitment operation they have in place. Compare and contrast.

It seems that once we get January out of the way and attention turns towards the summer the manager seems to get indications through from India, presumably via Pasha, as to what he's going to have to work with. Nothing official and probably not directly from the horses mouth but little bits of info that point towards a certain level of budget and this impacts upon the manager's communications to the press. It happened with Lambert when he was trying to lure them into providing him with a major kitty and then he got word through this wasn't going to be happening. Suppose it boils down to how persuasive Mowbray can be when he gets to meet with the head honcho. All year round she'll have accountants and advisors telling her what to do, probably at odds with what we want and need, and Mowbray gets a few hours a year to sell his vision to her and persuade her to stump up extra funds.

I wonder which tale Venkys would prefer to hear from Mowbray and Waggott when they turn up in Pune this summer. 1) We need to significantly improve the team if we're going to do anything but struggle next season. We need 6 players who are going to displace those here already. A few will need to be sold to make way. This isn't going to be cheap and is going to need serious money spending plus commitment to wages and contracts reflecting the quality of these new players. We went on a terrible run after January because we failed to strengthen and didn't have enough quality in the squad. We need to rectify that as a matter of urgency. Get your chequebook out now because we're going to need at least the same as last summer cash wise and be able to spread that around 5-6 decent players. 2) Everything is wonderful. We've done really well and just been unlucky due to an injury crisis. In terms of new signings we'll be fine with a few back-up players who can step in when injuries bite. It won't cost much as we've already got a good squad tied down after last years contract bonanza. We'll get a few loans and frees to fill the void left by those out of contract. I suspect Madame and her husband would prefer to hear the second story.

'Hoping' to release 'details' later in April was the last update. Anyone would think given the time it takes that there's some grand unveiling or complex/pioneering pricing scheme coming here. It'll be the same as this season or perhaps another 'small' increase across the board.

Think the Springbok has now changed its name. Used to be one of the more difficult pubs to get into as its so close to the ground.

'We were down on numbers for a spell, we had a defensive crisis really and lost some tight games' 'People throw statistics at you, and that's fine because they are factual, but from perspective the team had done so well for so long but we've got players back fit and won back-to-back games' 'We just have to make sure we can improve our strength in depth so when key players get injured they are being replaced' Alarming comments again today from Mowbray. Seems to be approaching things on the basis that the first XI is absolutely fine and our only work needs to be on brining in more depth, rather than radically improving our team. He also seems to be under the impression our horrible run of results was down to injuries and the improvement is down to the return of certain 'players'. With the exception of Darragh Lenihan I'm not sure who he is referring to here.

I've been going on about this for a while, but when was the last time Ewood saw any INVESTMENT? I'm not talking about cleaners, the groundsman or someone going round with a brush sweeping up litter (though that gets missed by the looks of things). I'm talking about above and beyond bare minimum essential maintenance. Trying to make the place better than it is. The pitch in pre-Venky days was one of the best in the Premier League. From what I hear we've now got one of the smallest budgets around for the pitch and to be honest it shows. Other Championship clubs have spent big installing Desso pitches etc. Accrington Stanley have just announced they'll be spending £300,000 this summer on their pitch to replace it. I bet Rovers won't spend that on Ewood PLUS Brockhall. Ultimately you need people on the ground on a daily basis who have the pride and determination to make the place better, as well as the authority to get it done. Seems any non-essential expenditure ends up falling by the wayside in India and nothing gets done. The place looks tatty and a mess

Perhaps there'll be a massive late surge in sales as Bolton fans celebrate the end of the Anderson era and welcome in their saviour Bassini?

Other way round then, which of the 71 other owners in the Football League would you describe as worse?

On what basis are Venkys any better than most Championship owners? With the exception of Ken Anderson which other owners have failed to honour contracts and pay bills? Gibson at Middlesbrough, Morris at Derby, Marinakis at Forest, Chansiri at Wednesday, Lansdown at Bristol City - just a few examples of owners who pour similar if not greater amounts of cash into their clubs each year and have made their clubs better than when they took over. Those people also take some pride in their clubs and invest their time and money into things like improving their club's image, facilities, profile - none of which Venkys have ever invested in - you only have to look at the state of Ewood these days to see how little pride there is.