JHRover

Everything wrong with football. Nothing to do with Salford or their fans, everything to do with 'celebrity' retired footballers short of something to do and desperate to remain in the limelight. Neville's done the full set. Pundit, manager, owner. Got the Valencia job due to his mate Peter Lim and then got him on board at Salford. Used his connections with Sky to land Salford favourable sponsorship and media coverage. If he wants to spend his time and money on a vanity project to keep himself relevant thats up to him and his mates but the coverage of it and bias from Sky is disgusting. There should be an enquiry into this from the FA. How can Neville earn a wage from Sky yet subsidise a member club of the League Sky effectively control? It stinks.

Rovers used to lease the car parks outside the Empire theatre from the council and could accommodate hundreds of cars. Over the last few years those expanses of land have been given up, built through with a gypsy camp, left to go to rack and ruin and wasted. Shame because most clubs with a 30,000 stadium would embrace such parking on the doorstep. We've got away with it in the Championship but are unprepared for the Premier League. Rovers is the best thing about Blackburn and it is about time the inept council realised that and started to help the club. Instead they pay their parking wardens overtime to pursue Rovers fans parking on matchdays. Most clubs with a regional fanbase deploy coaches to areas outside the town/city to collect fans and bring them in. It is ludicrous that we don't when the demographics of our fanbase are as they are. Still waiting for someone to explain why Preston run buses into Leyland but we don't.

Yes, but those numbers should be counted in the overall figure. What I'm saying is that the figure announced today and the seats taken on the website will be considerably different.

I've just had a look on the ticketing website and I think someone has been on the fiddle. If you look at the JW stand I reckon there's at most 2,500 available seats. Logically in a stand of 11,000 capacity that would mean at least 8000-8500 sold or allocated. Add to that at least 3,500 in the BBE and another 2,500 in the Riverside and we should be well on the way to a gate of around 15,000 home fans before adding in Charlton and walk ons. I suspect when the figure is announced it will be 2000 or so short of that figure. It seems they are making substantial numbers of seats 'taken' in the JW upper when I don't think they will be.

I've got one thanks

Reading Waggott's comments in the Telegraph today I think he's in cloud cuckoo land. Rovers 'couldn't have done more' to increase attendances. If that's his real view of the situation its probably time.for him to pack his bags and get someone in with more idea. I've seen very little change in the approach to season tickets than we had 5-6 years ago except prices have gone up and stands have been closed. The club have upset large numbers of people by moving the family stand, kicking season ticket holders out of their seats and putting prices up. I'm not aware of other clubs doing such things. We're doing nothing that isnt the norm at every other club. A quick look at Stanley's pricing and engagement with fans shows us up. The usual pro-owners stuff. They're apparently doing everything they can and it's the fans who don't buy tickets that are the issue. Perhaps if they'd have cared for the fans back when they arrived we wouldn't be in this mess. Waggott keeps having to ask the owners for money. Shame for them. We kept asking for Kean to be sacked and for the club to be run properly, it still isn't. Actions have consequences. Get us promoted and we won't need as many hand outs.

Bolton seem to think they should avoid further points deductions for what happened last season as it 'isnt fair' on their fans or potential new owners. What about whats fair for the other 23 clubs in their league though? Why should Bury, Rochdale, Stanley have a tougher job to survive just to make life easier for Bolton?. Another 6 points off Bolton's tally might be unpleasant for them but will make it more likely a club that pays its bills will survive in the league.

None of their signings last summer were well known but they wiped the floor with us when we went there. I'm not saying I'm particularly envious of their business but I do think there is more clarity and decisiveness at some of these clubs and it helps them. Preston another lot. Not got as much cash as here but they address problem areas more decisively than we do and don't use limited funds up on project signings to try and make the owners money and don't keep persisting with experiments like we seem to enjoy doing. Proof will be in the pudding but I don't think Wigan will be down there. A formidable home record to fall back on.

I expect Wigan will finish above us this season, or will be in a similar area of the table. Call me negative but I see them as signing players for specific roles within their team, whereas we seem to like collecting players the manager 'trusts' or for their professionalism and versatility rather than With a particular job in mind and an immediate place in the team. I see Mowbray as a manager who ties himself into knots with his recruitment and tactics, trying to balance his desired way of playing with the realities of the squad and an inability/refusal to do anything about it hence starting the season with the same old defence. Only time will tell but I'm at this point unimpressed and quite astonished by our approach to the transfer window this summer. We're a 2nd division side who finished in the bottom half of the table likely to be starting the season with a defence made up of midfielders and £12 million on the bench.

Heard all this last summer. When January arrived, despite supposedly having money, nobody arrived. This summer, despite supposedly having money, we've signed 2 youngsters on loan to 'address' Gk and defence and used up the Raya money on Gallagher. Remains to be seen if we do any more but.if the rumours of chucking low bids around Germany are correct we aren't aiming for upgrades just number up squad fillers.

My predictions: 1) West Brom 2) Stoke City 3) Fulham 4) Cardiff City 5) Bristol City 6) Derby 7) Preston 8) Leeds 9) Nottingham Forest 10) QPR 11) Wigan 12) Reading 13) Huddersfield 14) Brentford 15) Rovers 16) Luton 17) Middlesbrough 18) Barnsley 19) Wednesday 20) Millwall 21) Swansea 22) Birmingham 23) Charlton 24) Hull Man City, West Brom, Sunderland and Scunthorpe to win the 4 divisions.

But Stoke, Middlesbrough, massive clubs for us to try and compete with

People at Sky and other media outlets generally have very little idea. They look on from afar, see a team that doesn't get much attention, see that it was midtable most of last season, see that it hasn't lost anyone significant and has added a couple of quite well known players and suddenly we are dark horses. Those who watch us regularly.see the finer details of a team leaking goals which has done very little to address that and is likely to be kicking off on Saturday with the same defence as struggled last season. You don't get out of this league without a solid defence that doesn't give goals away. The nearest team to doing so was Fulham but they had an outstanding collection of attacking talent to cover it.

I think we actually agree here so not sure what the issue is. No player no matter who should be 'guaranteed' a certain number of games. It should depend entirely on how they play and perform on matchday and in training. So the talk about us not being able to promise Bauer or the City lad a set number of games I think Is probably nonsense and just an excuse for us failing to get them. As if Preston have promised Bauer a certain number of appearances. But if we are looking at players to sit behind Mulgrew and Williams and fill in when needed with no serious intention of playing them regularly then it is no surprise we are missing out on targets. Anyone we try to get should be with a view to them being better than those here.

Yet none in the problem area.

Twas ever the case. For some reason we go after people then tell them they won't be playing. No wonder we can't sign anyone!

So are we going to be seeing Premier League level of recruitment as a result of this 'multi million' spend? Looking forward to it.

I still don't get this frequently floated about concept of promising people game time and us backing out of deals on that basis. Any defender we bring in should be expecting or expected to establish themselves as regulars in the team. Why are we going after people we don't think are going to be playing? The inference then is that Mulgrew or William's will be playing regularly, which suggests we aren't serious about progressing. Same thing happened with Bauer. Apparently Preston 'promised' him more game time than we would. Eh?

I do wonder about some of these figures and whether they are being inflated portray the owners in a positive light. 1) the £3 million going into the academy I understand isnt a voluntary donation. It is a requirement of Category A academies. If it isnt spent the academy is downgraded. 2) I find it hard to believe that analysis booths and software for scouts has cost millions of pounds. We could build a new training ground for that sort of money.

Looks like the sarcasm was lost in translation. Quite clearly conversations take place at the start of the process. My response was to someone suggesting we suddenly discovered that City wanted a set number of games, which isnt the way it works. Those sort of requirements become clear at the start, not 2 weeks in.

No, it was relaid as per every summer, but don't think it went much further than that. Waggott's comments about £300,000 investment in the pitch were made out to be some substantial upgrade but when divided up across 3 sites isnt that much and reflects annual maintenance costs.

I wonder what the terms of these PFA loans to Bolton are.... I'm still struggling to see how Bolton are realistically going to be able to start the season in any sort of shape. At the last count they had 7 contracted players and several of those had handed in their notice. Whilst they might be able to bring in trialists presumably those have to be registered as Bolton players by this time Friday or they won't be eligible for Saturday. Certainly appears there is more determination to ensure Bolton keep going than Bury.

The lack of games in Europe also comes from this, IMO. Clearly organising matches against decent European opponents and allowing fans on to watch requires a pitch, facilities, stewards, all of which cost money. Much easier and cheaper to jump on the bus to Bury or Rochdale. The problem with this is clear - we can't test ourselves against decent teams nor increase the clubs profile abroad or build links with European sides. The Liverpool and Everton friendlies last season were an attempt by Waggott to fill Ewood and make money, yet they weren't as popular as expected and personally I didn't enjoy them being surrounded by locals only there to take photos of Liverpool players.

Remained unbeaten. Having locked horns with non league Barrow, 4th division Mansfield, bankrupt Bury and Rochdale on our training ground. Mowbray won't be playing the youth. He wants them out on loan.

How many other clubs have started pre season games with a defence made up entirely of midfielders and in February had no fit CBs?