Anyone who seriously believes that we were willing or able to spend a multi-million fee to persuade Coventry to sell Asante and get their outlay back on him (at least) and then commit to giving him a contract at least as long and well paid as he is already on at Coventry needs to give their head a wobble. Anyone falling for it, and I include the coaching staff in this, are simply falling victim to the Venky/Waggott ruse again. They ain't spending that. They will pretend they can/will, they will string people along including fans, manager, other clubs and their players. They aren't parting with cash or committing to such things. Its January and February that we truly get to witness the fruits of Venky ownership and management as we inevitably slide away and waste another season. Such a shame but nobody can be surprised. Totally unacceptable to be almost 3 weeks into the January window and have not done anything to strengthen. It's cost us already and will continue to over the rest of the season.

What we really need is to make up that shortfall by trading players, bit like when Mowbray used to claim we were copying Brentford. Then we did half of it and the owners stopped us doing the second part which is invest some of the cash in the squad. Bigger gates count for little when compared to bringing in £40-50 million in sales and spending next to nothing. We could spend some of that, it isn't beyond our capabilities, it is simply a choice the ownership have made. I don't believe any of it is motivated by FFP or their legal issues in India. Plain and simply they don't want to spend on something they've zero interest in. The only time they have wanted to is when the manager has gone and put a case to them to do it and they've had odd punts on big outlays. Other than that they have never wanted to spend despite being able to. They didn't pre-FFP, pre-covid or pre-legal issues.

They just don't get it do they? I can forgive them being uninterested and clueless about football (still) but when it comes to the money side of things you would think by now they and their advisors would have worked out this sort of thing. They've raked in £40 million+ in the last couple of years over half of which came as a direct result of them making an initial outlay and cash purchase. Prior to that they had Armstrong which was the last big sale. They've also had others in Rothwell, Diaz, Dack that in different circumstances they could easily have had £10-20 million in for had they managed contracts better or were it not for Dack's injuries. So conceivably they could have had their grubby mitts on £60 million+ worth of player sales in the last 3 years or so. They've had about £50 million when you go back to summer 2021 and Adam Armstrong getting sold. You'd think they'd quite like more of that in the next few years. Repeat the trick. Get another 3-4 in who might go for the same again and keep the party going for longer without the need for them to use up their own cash. Yet they won't. They won't sell, they won't reinvest, they won't allow the club to even try to develop more serious assets by releasing a small share of the money back into recruitment. Just nuts. They might think they are being clever by not putting more than the bare minimum into the club but all this is going to mean is that in a few years' time we are going to be devoid of assets and at best a struggling Championship side still losing £10-15 million a year which they will have to pick up the tab for.

I think the two outsiders to watch out for are Sheffield Wednesday and QPR. I'm hoping that the mad owner at Sheffield causes them to derail as they've got a good manager. QPR have been upwardly mobile for the last couple of months. Obviously the two biggest threats both in terms of the table and on paper are WBA and Boro, we can afford for one of them to finish above us but not both. Hopefully WBA botch their new manager appointment and slip. I'm not too worried about Watford and Bristol as both seem to be very inconsistent. Watford generally good at home (though have lost their last two) but pretty weary away.

They're in a pickle financially because they've lost their parachute payments and therefore have to cut outgoings to meet FFP restrictions. However, they do have: A relatively new and ambitious owner who wants them to be successful A competitive Championship budget A professional structure None of which we have, so anyone going there would immediately have people behind him who want the club to get somewhere and some degree of determination to do it.

Mowbray strong favourite to go there now

Compare and contrast - Sunderland have an owner with deep pockets and a genuine desire to see them get promoted, and is working to try and achieve that within the constraints of FFP. This is how major business can be done without gambling the club's future or risking FFP trouble. Rovers have owners who claim to have a desire to go somewhere and hide behind FFP but yet have simply avoided doing any business off the back of it. One lot who clearly have no interest in spending and hide behind whatever excuse they can. Another lot who do whatever they can to invest within the restraints of FFP.

I wonder whether our disgraceful conduct in the last few January transfer windows is also making life harder work for us. I mean having no money is obviously the biggest issue but if we were to approach another club and attempt to engage them in negotiations over one of their players, they'd be pretty brave (or foolish) to get involved in a drawn out affair with Rovers knowing what has gone on here with O'Brien and McGuire (and others?) in recent years and the damage that has done. Despite the best efforts of some to make out as though this is all in the past and nothing at all to do with Rovers now that Broughton and Silvester have gone ultimately its the same owners, same CEO, same shady individuals in the shadows. Taking one hell of a risk getting involved with such people. Word will spread on the grapevine about what sort of a club this is to do business with.

A sizeable drop in ST sales wouldn't cause Venkys to lose any sleep. When we are talking the sort of money they are down on Rovers and the sort of money they've been raking in from player sales and allowing to walk out the door for nothing e.g. Diaz they clearly aren't arsed. I think Waggott's employment and remuneration is in theory based on how much he can squeeze out of things like ticket sales and hospitality, so think he would start to panic/sweat if numbers were seriously down, but then again, he's 71 soon, surely half way towards retirement at least, he's had 7 years on the Venky gravy train and we know from experience the Indians don't hire or fire based on ability or performance, they prefer obedience and being told what they like to hear. So I wouldn't be betting on anything other than voluntary retirement getting rid of him.

indeed. Yet they will know that we can't be self-sustaining. If they seriously believe that the transfer receipts of tens of millions we've had the last few years are going to be regular events then they are more nuts than I ever imagined, because that isn't happening. So in a year or so's time we are back to square one - a Championship club requiring £10-15 million best case scenario to stand still. They've had to do this now for 10+ years. They will know better than any other owner of the costs of this. So if they are now at a point where they don't want to, or can't, do any more than the bare minimum, it would surely make sense either to sell, or to make some effort to get to the one place of self-sufficiency, that being the PL?

I'm not sure I'd agree with this part. Is it a gamble to allow the club to invest a fraction of the tens of millions it has brought in from sales into new assets / trying to get to the Premier League? As you correctly say they've had to pump in tens of millions of their own cash to pick up the tab to float around the doldrums of the Championship for the last 12 years. They must know by now that unless they do something different that is only going to continue. There are only three ways of breaking that cycle: 1) Get to the Premier League 2) Sell the club 3) Get much better at player trading to the point where we somehow find an Adam Wharton or Szmodics EVERY YEAR to basically cover the running costs. Option 2 they clearly have no interest in (god knows why not) and option 3 is nigh on impossible, because those sort of players are few and far between, and even more rare when you refuse to reinvest. It should be noted by them that their biggest transfer success stories in recent years, other than Adam Wharton, have all cost money to start with - Szmodics, Armstrong, Diaz - all multi-million purchases before we 'developed' them. So if they want to be good at player trading why do they not follow the template that has worked pretty well for them the last few years? Invest in up and coming assets, spend a few million and then sell? Instead they've turned away from that by turning off the taps even more. I wouldn't describe it as a 'gamble' to trust in the recruitment staff / manager to wisely reinvest a % of money they have brought in from sales. A gamble would suggest that there are serious consequences if we get it wrong, but I fail to see what those consequences would be. I am not advocating them handing over a blank chequebook and allowing people to go crazy on wages and transfer fees. Just maybe authorise 25% of transfer receipts to be reinvested by the club over the following 12 months etc. Of course we might stay in the Championship. You then sell a player or two in a year or two and make money back. I try and look at this from another angle. If we hadn't got lucky with Adam Wharton emerging from the academy and JDT successfully integrating him into the first team, if Szmodics hadn't surpassed ALL expectations and become the Championship top goalscorer, if David Raya hadn't earned a move to Arsenal, or if any of those had unfortunately suffered major career threatening injuries shortly before those moves, then we wouldn't have had anywhere near the circa £35 million we have had or will get from them. Had we had not had that money, assuming the owners wouldn't have sold us, then they would have to have found probably most of that from their own resources to keep the lights on at Ewood for the last 2 years. As it goes it seems likely that they will have avoided having to use their own resources by directing the club to survive on these transfer fees. But fundamentally someone somewhere in India must have expected or budgeted for the owners having to supply another £20 million+ to the club the last couple of years which they have saved by virtue of those transfer. What I and others think the owners should do is look at the position we are in and the opportunity we have, and use say 10-20% of that money saved , which on another day they would have paid out already, to give the manager and club a chance. That clearly isn't featuring in their warped minds. I also genuinely believe that there is zero attempt or effort by anyone in a employed capacity at Ewood to contact the owners and encourage/advise them to make this effort. This isn't an attempt to divert responsibility, which fundamentally lies in India, but the charlatans on the ground have a duty to advise and guide the owners yet I don't think there is any such push, because the status quo of playing god with Rovers in the Championship on very lucrative money and no doubt bonuses for saving the Indians cash is too damn lucrative.

We've been down the road of managers accepting things in the hope that it will lead to jam tomorrow from these owners. Couple of examples: Lambert agreeing to shift Jordan Rhodes out for big money on the understanding that he was getting the proceeds to rebuild us. He got nothing bar a few loans and the cash disappeared. Mowbray apparently wanted Rothwell off to Bournemouth in return for the cash to spend on new players. They didn't allow that and no money materialised. JDT seemingly tolerated the Adam Wharton sale until it became clear the cash was disappearing and it was then he called it a day. I'm sure there are many more examples out there. So when Eustace accepts Sanderson and Forshaw as cheap squad fillers on the hope/expectation/agreement that he is going to get some cash for the other more important positions it's probably a wise approach and sounds lovely. Only we've seen what happens here. Goalposts move, budgets change, people go awol, authorisation doesn't come through, excuses are made. Lets see.

They'll be getting another Adam Wharton instalment this month I would bet so that should be a few million coming in to pay Venkys' bills for another few months.

Not the old 'do you have any evidence' routine again. Nobody has 'evidence' to support their arguments one way or the other. I'm afraid parroting the words of people like Waggott or Gestede is not reliable evidence as there are simply too many agendas and interests to take those words at face value and Waggott has proven over the years that his words are not to be trusted or taken seriously. If you're still at the stage where you are attaching such weight to the comments of such people then I'm afraid you are beyond help. The events of the last 2-3 years ALONE prove that little trust can be placed in these people. Just because an employee of the club says something or it gets printed in the Lancashire Venkygraph does not make it evidence. They haven't earned any right to be trusted, infact in the case of Venkys and Waggott they've earned the exact opposite, and deserve to be treated with cynicism and distrust. So I and some others are at the stage where whatever people at the Club say should at best be treated with a high degree of caution. I think that's fair enough. You seem to be happy to ignore their track record of lies and nonsense and instead take their words all at face value and consider that 'evidence' of this being the truth. Good on you, I admire that, but please don't make out like others are wrong or unreasonable for having a different opinion but supported by equally reliable evidence i.e. none.

I think you are a generous person if you assume that the Indians know anything about what is happening in the Championship this season, or last, or the one before that. My view is they simply don't know what is happening, much less that they care or think it is their job to do something in response. Personally I don't think they know from one month to the next what is happening. I bet they haven't watched a game yet this season. First, seventh, seventeenth or twenty fourth it matters not one iota to them. Waggott and Pasha would of course have a sweat on if it was the latter, not because of any sporting performance/targets but because relegation would jeopardise their cushy numbers at the annual review. They're at the stage of underwriting the losses if/when they have to but forcing the likes of Waggott to try to minimise that by selling players and cutting costs. This would be a sensible and expected course of action if it was paving the way for selling the club. Get costs and input to a bare minimum until you find someone to take it off your hands. But we know it isn't. This lot won't even entertain the potential for a sale. If a sale isn't on the agenda and yet you find yourself in the promotion shake up it is unbelievable that they make no effort to improve or break into the top 6. Yet that's the reality of where we are. Each year that goes by the Venky myth gets further pulled to pieces. People used to say they would invest if we got to January in with a shot of promotion, which was proven to not be the case. People used to say they are waiting for us to get back to the PL before they sell or try and claw their money back, but they clearly have no interest in getting there. It is so crazy that it inevitably leads to another theory which is that they, or their underlings, have the club exactly where they want it and are going to do nothing to to try and change it. The failings and inertia of 2022, 2023 and 2024 have been blamed on all sorts. Not having enough money, FFP, Mowbray deciding not to spend, secretary having amnesia, Broughton going for dinner in Manchester, not pressing send, Waggott bizarrely going to watch us at Birmingham rather than being at Brockhall sorting it out, yet the longer it goes on the more clear it becomes that all these things are just made up excuses to achieve one thing and one thing only - to keep the focus away from the Indians. That's all it does yet they are the one constant above all this.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did Eustace go running to the recruitment team and ask for Sanderson as his first choice CB signing having worked with him previously? Or did the club tell Eustace we've got no money to play with and he's limited to low cost loans so he's making the best of a bad do by picking one he knows? I think there is quite a big difference between the two.

We've managed over the last few months with only Hyam, Batth and McFadzean as CB options so I'm not sure it is that important that we sign another CB just to cover the next few weeks until Carter should be back, unless as I say his return isn't likely any time soon. I trust Eustace's judgment. But fundamentally we are now going to reach the end of this season with Batth and McFadzean out of contract, Sanderson returning to Birmingham and Scott Wharton making a comeback after over a year with a serious injury. It's going to need another rebuild. That's before they try and flog Carter as one of our few assets with any remaining value.

I don't really understand it unless we are offloading a CB or Carter's injury is worse than first announced. Suppose it is low risk and it is clearly a Eustace led/approved signing so have to support his judgment. Birmingham fans seem to think his best spell was when Eustace was their manager. It really doesn't suggest there is much either by way of plan or resources though. It instead points to an ever increasingly desperate financial situation. All that talk about structures, plans, systems, scouting. All that money brought in. And in the end it's loaning someone who the manager knows from his last club who are now in the league below yet seemingly in a far better state than we are.

I will try and think of a few more and then can get a game up and running, entries before 31st January

We tried our best January is never a good time to do business We will learn lessons and take them into the summer window It's not ideal when John Park leaves unexpectedly Admin errors/run out of time Other clubs/players/agents are changing their demands We don't want to block pathways for our younger players We don't want to replace those who've done so well for us already this season We don't get all that incoming money in one go you know Nobody else has done much We aren't going to put the club at risk by spending heavily Take your pick from any of the above and maybe more. Reality is we are just waiting on Brighton, Villa, Liverpool, Everton deciding who, if anyone, they are prepared to send here for peanuts until the summer in return for games.

It's not hysterical it's just a question of whether it is deliberate or just negligent. Third time in four years under three different managers where they've managed against the odds to drag us into the promotion conversation by the mid-way stage and unless something very unexpected happens in the next 3 weeks it seems they've ignored all their past failings and continued with the same plan.

Correct. At least when Mowbray and Broughton were running things they could maintain a facade of long term planning and vision, even though we knew deep down the owners wouldn't actually ever allow that to come to any sort of fruition at least it was reassuring for a while thinking that the powers that be had some sort of plan and aim. Now it seems they've dropped all pretences. Totally failed / given up on any sort of contract extensions for senior players. Zero reinvestment of funds even when massive sales take place. Where does it end? They want the club to fund itself yet refuse to allow it to obtain new assets to grow in value by spending in the transfer market. They can't even ensure that the assets we do have are tied down long term to protect value in them. Basically a modern day version of Oyston's Blackpool.

Interesting to compare to Preston's Osmajic after he bit Owen Beck. Despite both admitting their guilt Osmajic got an 8 game ban and was fined £15,000 whereas Sainz only has a 6 game ban and fined £12,000. I also find it quite ridiculous that in similar fashion to Osmajic he has been allowed to play in 4 games since the incident in which Norwich have won 3 and gone unbeaten.

Don't know if already mentioned but Blubberhouses shut for anyone planning on driving over tomorrow morning, so its either M62 past Leeds or diversion round Otley or Pateley Bridge (brave in these conditions). Don't see any reason why the game would be in doubt though. No snow or rain forecast.

Which is the same reason why Rovers only took the upper tier of the away end at Leeds last week - could have had an extra thousand or so in the bottom tier but would have had to pay for those at £30 a time if they weren't sold, whereas Leeds sell them no problem.