JHRover

I'll throw another conspiracy theory into the mix. Mowbray has heard via Pasha that his budget for the summer is likely to be small. Numerous reasons why this might be the case - Venkys have lost interest after the success of last season - Venkys feel as though their fingers were burned last summer - Venkys have changed course again - we saw it with Bowyer and Lambert that they can quickly pull up the drawbridge on funding and leave the manager in situ struggling. As things stand the only way he'll win them over or get decent funds to strengthen is by selling to raise cash - see Lambert with Rhodes Anyone can see the only realistic prospect we have at this moment in time to do that is by selling Dack - perhaps not at the values suggested in January but probably still £8-10 million given his record. So begins a process of phasing Dack out and unsettling him to prepare for the sale - hence we've got the shenanigans seen yesterday. It won't be long before people on here and Twitter are encouraging the club to sell Dack as we don't need that sort of behaviour here and we can't tolerate it etc. But rather than it being a Dack issue perhaps it is a Rovers issue - that they're trying to sell him and force him out as it is the only way cash will be raised. Just a thought. It wouldn't surprise me. Remember the 'contract talks' that were supposedly taking place with him in January that have never come to anything? We've seen stuff like this before - ultimately the aim is to sell the player for big money whilst shielding Venkys and Rovers from criticism by turning the spotlight onto the player.

As the summer approaches I think Mowbray is picking his side with a non-football agenda in mind. The exclusion of Harrison Reed, who is arguably our best midfield player and as versatile and better than Bennett isn't to do with his performances or ability, it is to do with the strong likelihood he won't be here next season or has grown fed up with Mowbray's tinkering at his expense. His impending departure doesn't fit with Mowbray's 'commitment' mantra which he seems to attach great weight to which is why he starts Bennett and Smallwood. The curious case of Jack Rodwell - signed in the summer to play CB yet when Mulgrew gets injured he brings on Derrick Williams - again I suspect is probably motivated in part by non-footballing factors - does he trigger a new contract if he plays more games? The continual movement of Bennett around the team and his staunch refusal to ever drop him is becoming a parody now. I like Bennett - he can play in a few positions and his effort can't be questioned and I'm sure he's a 'leader' in the dressing room - but he's now played in something like 6 different positions at various times in the last couple of months - off Graham, CM, LM, RM, RB and LWB. Is Mowbray trying to show everyone just how versatile Bennett is by moving him here there and everywhere? Is he so determined to have him in the XI that he'll play him ANYWHERE? It's beyond strange but I don't believe it is actually doing Bennett or us any good. Like a few others he would benefit from having to earn a place in the team, be dropped if he doesn't play well or be given a run in his best position and play there for a while - you can say the same for Travis, Reed and Armstrong.

Not going to happen in the Championship. In League One it might. We're going to lose millions a year until we get promoted or unless we sell a £15 million of talent each year. The academy helps but it's only part of it.

So we can't afford to get it wrong and yet you'd go with Johnson who has never managed before? We would either need to go down the route of experience of this level with recent success in it (not one season 10 years ago) or alternatively have the conviction to unearth a foreign gem like Norwich, Huddersfield and Middlesbrough did. The first of those requires a big chequebook as those managers are sought after and can name a higher prices, the second group require a plan and brains at the top of the club to know what to look for and cast the net wide enough to find it. Neither will happen.

It's the lack of evidence of any change that worries me the most. I accept bad runs are a part of football, I accept we don't have a particularly good squad for this level (although the manager is responsible for that). What concerns me however is that this has now been happening for more than 2 months and there's no sign of anything changing or getting better. We still can't keep a clean sheet - in contrast Stoke have arrested their defensive woes under a new manager and kept 5 in a row. If we started things off by being hard to beat I'd see progress. We aren't creating much or scoring many goals. We aren't offering anything. The whole thing is just so predictable, boring. Someone said earlier that we'd scored 6 home first half goals in 19 games this season. Make that 20. An awful stat. Once again though we had a positive first 10 minutes, 'nearly' scored and then regress and the opposition score with their first chance of the game. Almost an exact repeat of Preston, very similar to Middlesbrough and Bristol City. I'd love to see something, anything, to give me reason to be optimistic but the whole thing i find boring, predictable, frustrating and our slide towards the bottom 3 is alarming. The call for patience is only valid if there's confidence this is only a blip that will soon be overcome. Where is the basis for that confidence? If it clearly isn't working then 'patience' becomes negligence as we slide down the table to oblivion. Things need to change, and sharpish, if this manager can't or won't do it then someone else needs to. The worry is he's done this before at Boro and Coventry and arguably WBA where after a positive 12-18 months things have rapidly unravelled and he's had no solution to it. The cost of allowing him another summer to squander substantial funds is far greater than firing him and employing a better manager, or going back to League One, so the cost argument is a non-starter.

A healthy crowd on today. 17,500 with nearly 2000 from Stoke and 2500 given away still leaves 13000 home paying fans which is more than usual. Unfortunately it was another turgid afternoon of mind numbing inane football and no goals so doubt many will be counting down the hours to the next one.

Reed is out of favour because he's going at the end of the season. Either that or he's unhappy at being shunted out wide every week whilst Smallwood starts in his position. Either way he's now being 'punished' by gradually being phased out of the equation. He's gone from being a regular starter to a regular sub and now not even getting off the bench. Ultimate outcome is we're seeing arguably our best midfielder pushed out of the team whilst the usual plodders carry on every week. Sickening really. Mowbray has never really liked Travis and only ever put him in the team through necessity over Xmas and that he became undroppable through his performances. He's seized the first chance he could get to drop him out again. Both Reed and Travis would have been better options in that team than Smallwood, Evans or Bennett. He's burnt his bridges big style today with that selection.

Today might be a good day to announce season ticket prices for next season. The club is running this idea in the BBE upper and will have an extra 2500 fans at Ewood for what might be the only time this season. If they want those people to commit to coming back my first approach would be to give them all a leaflet with details for buying and an incentive to do it before the end of April.

I don't doubt for one minute that Mowbray would like those positions to be improved and would like to get those players in quickly in the summer. If he didn't after what we've witnessed this season I'd be extremely concerned about his judgment. But then we come back to the owners and the structure here. What Mowbray would like and what he is going to be allowed/able to get could be two very different things. Does he know what budget he has yet? I doubt it. Does he know what the owners will agree to? Doubt it. Did he know in April or May last year that the Ben Brereton money was coming? Doubt it.

Heading north to Scotland, Carlisle, Newcastle etc. tend to be better prices than going south. It' slightly cheaper when I'm booking trains to London to go from Manchester than Preston. Bizarrely it also used to be cheaper to get the train from Lancaster to London than from Preston to London, and also cheaper to get a ticket from Preston to Wigan and Wigan to London on the same train than one ticket straight through.

Aye, sort of places I like will be shut by midnight. Will be pushing 10 by the time we get served after the game.

I fancied this as a weekend away, good pubs, last away game etc. Don't think I'll bother now. The night will be nearly over by the time the game is finished and they'll be in promotion party mode so pubs will be full of crowing canaries.

I very much doubt that is true. Too much of a coincidence with what else has been going on there.

Was always going to move and I'd prefer it to be at this time than on a Friday or Sunday. I'm pleased Rovers are making some effort to reward travelling fans of what I expect will be a poorly attended game (dead rubber, £35 tickets, mammoth trip and live on TV). Nonetheless as someone who goes to all away games via car or train once again I'm disappointed that the goodwill only extends as far as those who opt to travel by coach. A coach ticket to Norwich would normally be £35+ per person, so if Rovers fund a 50 seater coach for free travel that is a hefty sum of money they are parting with. I think it would be better if they subsidised the tickets instead. If they knocked £20 a ticket off for adults you'd be treating everyone the same. Disappointing that having spent fortunes going to all away games this season that me and my group will still have to pay £35 each plus the same in travel expenses to go to this game, shortly after spending heavily going to QPR, Sheff Weds and Villa, whilst someone who hasn't been to a single away game all season can turn up and go to Norwich for free because he's happy to go by coach and I'm not.

For once I have a little bit of sympathy for the League on this. If Bassini is the only show in town, the only one with proof of funds or in a position to complete a deal quickly then the League can either allow him in despite clear issues or turn him down and run the risk of a club going to the wall. They'd then get slaughtered by the fans and press for turning down the offer of cash to save them. This shows just how silly the rules are - a club in Bolton's predicament are in the most urgent need of cash and at the same time that position leaves them more vulnerable to all sorts of dodgy characters getting involved with perhaps ulterior motives. In this sense the option is to turn a blind eye to the concerns and dodgy background and let the bloke take over or reject him and run the risk of them folding. Apparently being banned from football for 3 years once served is irrelevant as far as the Fit and Proper Persons test is concerned, which seems daft to me.

Hindsight is great. Which perhaps suggests there should be less vehement condemnation of people voicing legitimate concerns at this time knowing that those people could be proven right in the coming weeks/months. Any man and his dog could see in January that we were taking a risk by allowing players to leave and not signing new ones. Unfortunately a lot fell for the old story of 'we'll wait until the summer to do our business, January is a difficult/expensive time' etc. etc. Interesting that Simon Smith mentions the £7 million 'investment' in Ben Brereton and then in his very next sentence claims that given our resources we were punching above our weight. How many other clubs have been able to spend £7 million on a player not ready to play? Making out as though our good results in January were reason to think we could get from February to May without sustaining injuries/suspensions - wrong - the results in January were immaterial - we either needed to keep cover in Downing/Wharton or sign cover to replace them. Whether we'd won 10 on the bounce or lost 10 on the bounce, the logic of going into 3 months of matches with no cover for injuries was madness. As it happens I don't believe Mowbray was entirely responsible. Given he has signed Rodwell as his back-up CB and attempted to convert Derrick Williams and Ryan Nyambe into CBs he clearly has to shoulder some of the blame. I think he over estimates his own tactical acumen and coaching ability and makes things more complicated than they need to be at times. Nonetheless I suspect one of the reasons for allowing those players out on loan was financial - to get a few bodies out the building and raise a few quid over a few months until the summer - and that in an ideal world with carte blanche Mowbray would have held one or two back but was under pressure from upstairs to let a few off the wage bill.

I can't for the life of me understand why either John Williams or Dave Richards would agree to become involved at Bolton with Bassini. It seems more likely Bassini has 'used' their names to try and add respectability to his 'bid' to buy Bolton as they are highly respected football administrators. Given both must be well into their 70s and have many years of experience running Premier League clubs or governing bodies I just cannot fathom why either would eat into their retirements to return to club involvement at what will almost certainly be a League One club next season together with a man like Bassini who has at best a patchy background. It seems nonsense, yet audacious from Bassini to claim they had agreed to join him. If there is truth to it then you would expect whoever is buying Bolton to have some serious cash behind them, but then Bassini has been bankrupt twice recently, so the money must be coming from elsewhere and why would a rich buyer kick off by having Bassini as the front man? Surely better having someone with a better reputation fronting the takeover. All very strange. In the meantime I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see Bolton clamber out of this. 5 points from safety at this point is not insurmountable. They are due to play Ipswich and free falling Middlesbrough in the next 2 games, and then come to Ewood, and lets be honest who would back us against a side fighting for their lives after what we saw at Reading and Rotherham. In some ways their difficulties off the pitch have taken the spotlight away from the players and manager which might lift some pressure and help them. If anyone should be deducted points this season it should be Bolton. If I were a Rotherham or Millwall fan I'd be fuming that they're still able to survive after what has happened this season. Simply unacceptable that a club can sign players under false pretences, be sued by another club, not pay wages and even risk matches not being played yet are able to compete for safety along with clubs that pay their bills.

As dull as that run of results is it points in many ways to progress - Stoke were a shambles earlier this season and have now become defensively very solid and are becoming hard to beat. I'd be very, very happy if we had 4 x 0-0 draws from our next 4 games. That might not appeal to many but to me it would represent a sign of progress and getting things right at the back and learning how to be hard to beat. You get that aspect right and you won't go far wrong.

Sadly, for all his talk about making changes, I suspect nothing but putting a list of targets together can or will happen until Mowbray has gone off to India in late May for his audience with Madame and persuaded her to release funds for strengthening. By no means a foregone conclusion given their past behaviour infact just having an audience with her is an achievement in itself. Over the coming 6-8 weeks most clubs will be sorting budgets out and doing the groundwork on free agents and significant signings. We'll be playing catch up then bemoaning the cost of new players when the decent frees have been snapped up.

As of the end of the month I'm stopping paying my tax because I need the money for other things. Wonder how far I'll get with that. Not that I particularly want to see them shut down but it just shows that there is no consistency. One rule for some another for everyone else. Chance after chance after chance with no repercussions for serial offenders. We now live in an age where spending a few quid (Birmingham) attracts a points deduction whilst winding up petitions, not paying wages and not being able to host games and Bolton are able to carry on without any sanctions. Meanwhile Derby are selling their stadium to a separate company to raise cash to avoid FFP trouble. So much for protecting clubs from risk!

Can't see Pulis lasting there beyond the next few weeks. Big downward spiral and fans unhappy. Another lot who should be in a mess if they don't go up given their spending.

Sounds like there's Bassini and another still in the running to take over, but clearly dealing with Anderson and their debts isn't straightforward. It will be interesting to see what unfolds tomorrow as 2 weeks ago the Judge granted an adjournment on the basis a buyer was in place and had promised to take over and clear their debts and the 2 weeks was to allow that to happen. It won't look good if they turn up at Court saying the same as they did 2 weeks ago. At the same time a Judge will treat them differently to most companies given the history and community importance at stake. But it can't carry on forever, when all is said and done the tax man is owed more than a million quid here. I couldn't get away with not paying tax, so why should a football club with multi-million revenues and a millionaire owner?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47789258 More FFP fun, this time at Derby who sold their stadium to their owner for £80 million to deliver a significant profit for the year. For every £100 of income they spend £137. Someone there with a brain and imagination as to how to get around FFP rules. Nothing stopping Venkys selling Ewood or Brockhall to themselves and 'leasing' it back at a nominal rate and raising tens of millions in the process. But they won't.

Some figures on Brentford's finances analysed by Price of Football Lost £350,000 a week (£18.5 million year) but player sales reduced that to £4.4 million. Paid out £135 in wages for every £100 of income. £12.3 million loaned by owner last year. Total owner loans of £76 million and shares issued of £38 million. So not too dissimilar to our finances, propped up by an owner and player sales. Interesting how there's no hysteric news stories about them being £80 million in debt etc. No chance of their owner getting his £80 million back unless they get promoted - he'll have to walk away from most of that if he decides to leave - just like Venkys would have to do here.

McClaren would be a high profile positive appointment in comparison to the alternatives this lot could dredge up. These are the people who ignored McCarthy and appointed Henning Berg and ignored Warnock and appointed Coyle. Talk of Jokanovic or Wagner is laughable, not because of who we are or where we are but because of who owns us and runs us. Hughes, Allardyce etc. far too autonomous and don't need the aggro. It would either be Johnson or someone off the scrapheap like Paul Jewell or Brian McDermott. For that reason I'd sooner take it as far as it can reasonably go with Mowbray and only axe him if things get untenable. 1 win in 17 represents that. Venkys look for managers who: a) Won't cost much money b) Won't make big demands c) Will be grateful for the opportunity d) Will get on a plane to India to sort things out rather than rely on a proper structure