JHRover

Sheff Utd, Sheff Wed, Leeds, Norwich, Middlesbrough, Villa, Forest, Derby, QPR, Brentford, Millwall, Bristol City, Swansea and Stoke have all at the very least released pricing details, most of them have had tickets on sale for some considerable time now. So we're one of the minority to not, and I'd bet my money there'll be plenty of the others do it before we get round to it. I suppose Bolton have a valid excuse with other things to worry about but also note that many of those above are still in with a chance of promotion and relegation so the old excuse that it hinges upon what division we are in is also nonsense. For some reason there's a tradition of leaving it until as late as possible at Rovers to prepare for next season - you can apply that to ticketing, merchandise, sponsorship, pre-season games - we're always one of the last to announce anything. Of course it's up to those making the decisions as to when they do it but I don't accept the excuses when they start complaining about poor sales or a lack of income. Do something about it then.

Mahoney now given a penalty away

Watching West Brom defending is like watching us. Reading that article about Bassini at Bolton a few things seem very strange and have a whiff of suspicion about them. First off he claims to have got League approval. I'm sure they'll have some explaining to do if they quickly approve someone with his background. He then claims to have the funds to bankroll Bolton yet won't say how much he has and his companies are property developers and have very little information about them. He then says Dave Richards has agreed to become chairman and that he's going to get John Williams on board. Both big hitters in the football world, although both now in their 70s so i wonder what either would want with getting involved at a club that will be in League One next year? Very strange.

So they'll be better off than us before they've even started

If season tickets were on sale for 1 week only we'd sell less than if they were on sale for 1 month only. It might not sell many more, if any, but it almost certainly wouldn't reduce sales to have them on sale now rather than leaving it. By 'noticeable rise' as far as I'm concerned if 10 people buy one now that can't or won't between May and August then it's worth doing. If anything the pressure here is greater than elsewhere. A club like Norwich, for example,. would have healthy sales irrespective of league or sales periods, and yet nonetheless they get them on sale early rather than sitting back and doing nothing. At Rovers there is so much more competition and a lower base to start from it seems ludicrous that we allow those clubs such a head start. All in all it comes back to the dysfunctional nature of the club and despite some people's claims or optimism it shows we're still lagging way behind most clubs and I'd argue that is as much a reason why our finances are such a shambles. We should be going to great lengths to try and get Ewood filled up for next season by reaching out now and providing a proper early bird period to reward loyalty and early buyers. Waiting until the season has finished and people are saving up for their holidays is idiocy.

A good idea and good to see the club trying something. If nothing else it will make the sparsely populated Blackburn End look a lot better. I heard about it a few weeks ago but thought they were introducing it as a permanent thing. Not sure why it's capped at 2,500 when there's 3,000 seats up there. Also only just over 50% of those with tickets are schoolchildren, so a fair amount of adults in there. My only concern would be the risk of upsetting a few people - in particular those who formerly sat up there for many years who paid good money who were forced out and now those seats are being given away for free. Likewise those in the family stand at the moment who have paid for their seats might not be too impressed. Ultimately though it is the only way we're going to be able to attract good numbers of new fans. i hope it is done regularly and spread around the whole of Lancashire. About time we tapped into our wider region.

Given the uproar on here at Dack being photographed in a bar somewhere the other day, I recommend nobody on here buys OK Magazine as him and his bird have a 'piece' on them. (And no, if anyone was wondering I don't buy OK Magazine, I've seen a photo of it)

We're unusual with our badge and I quite like that. Nobody else has the shape ours has, whereas many have the generic shield or circle. Bristol City another one to this week ditch their coat of arms and adopt a minimalist circle, very similar to Brentford's. We're also unusual because we were late to the party with wearing a badge on our strip and then since we started we've only had 2 different variants in 40 odd years. I prefer that to the constant alterations that some clubs seem to have. As a club we've always been recognisable by our unique kit and that has come before the badge on it. Having said that I do think ours looks dated now and would benefit from a slight modernisation or tidy up to bring it into the 21st century. I think we should keep the general format of what we have at the moment but simplify it, get rid of some of the lines and colours and bring in a darker blue. I think the original version(s) of the one we have now were better - smaller writing, more blue, less lines and detail. I'm not a fan of the yellow/black lines and red on our crest which is quite needless. Dark blue, white writing, bright red rose, dark green stem.

I do the same. It might be sad but the bigger concern for me is that I genuinely think I put more time and effort into worrying about these sort of things than anyone involved at Rovers does. You're probably correct, it won't change, but if I find enough time I'm going to put together some data for Waggott's attention the moment he complains about how many season tickets we sell and how we can't compete.

Jalil Saadi has been on the fringes of the U23s recently. Come off the bench for short spells a few times.

Also need to bear in mind the number of occasions he has switched between positions during games. Other than demonstrating his 'versatility' and Mowbray's 'tactical' adaptability I don't think it has done him or us any favours to constantly be shunted around between 3-4 different positions. Is it too much to ask for everyone to play in their favoured position and moving forward to sign people with a view to them playing somewhere they are used to playing well?

Has he played at RB the MAJORITY of the season? He seems to have played every game, no injuries. I genuinely don't know the stats but my impression was he'd been in midfield the majority of games, and at RB in the minority. Either way, 1 goal and 5 assists in nearly 40 games isn't impressive. As I've said before, I reckon you could drag a 6 foot bloke off the street and put him in the team 46 times a season and by law of averages he'd notch more than a goal just by being in the right place or getting lucky.

Season ticket check. Bristol City have announced they've sold 13,000 for next season. Only another 6 weeks to wait for ours to go on sale. Then come August the men upstairs can moan about below target sales and dwindling revenues!

Absolutely right. Those who try to compare us to Sheff Utd I don't think have spent much time looking at Sheff Utd. The only similarity with us is that they have recently got out of League One. Their recruitment, energy, system, style of play, organisation - absolutely miles ahead of us. They've signed players to actually play in particular positions within a system. We just seem to sign players to play in numerous positions and not really excel in one.

This season would be Sheffield United without a doubt. Leeds, WBA, Boro not impressive and Norwich the biggest set of cheats going.

The only real difference between ourselves and other owners at other clubs is the way Venkys have decided to 'fund' the club. Comparing for example to Cardiff, or Hull, or Fulham, who have been dependent on rich owners but those owners have done things differently. If Venkys had written their debts off, which most owners would have done, then I think people would feel a whole lot better about our situation, even though our losses are still significant. The reason for most of the horror stories in the press is this £100 and odd million 'debt' figure that never goes down, only up, and Venkys appear to have no intention of writing off or reducing. They aren't getting that money back until we survive in the Premier League for many years and they siphon off some of that income each year. That money has gone and has been paid to cover their errors and negligence over 8 years. Once you incur the cost you have to shoulder that cost. No different really to buying a new car or house on borrowed money. Clearly for one reason or another the way they want or are being advised to do it is by heaping millions a year onto the debt mountain with no repayments ever being made. I think it was Fulham who owed Al Fayed hundreds of millions for his investment over the years, so he may well have operated along similar lines. Clearly he was never going to get all that back either so walked away from most of it.

We've had it all before and really the only time we've recruited very well was the 2013-14 season when we brought in Cairney, Marshall, Gestede, Evans and Conway in a couple of transfer windows. Bauer will likely happen which will be seen to box off the CB issue. He'll replace Downing but probably on bigger wages which they will agree to in the absence of a transfer fee. Reed will be away so along with Palmer there'll be some leeway on wages to bring in a free/Premier League loan or two. The question is will they make £7-8 million available for 2-3 quality signings actually in areas we need. I won't hold my breath.

Every manager and board member they've appointed have shielded the owners by saying money was available and that the owners will back the club. Unfortunately for a catalogue of reasons we haven't seen much evidence of that and when we do see money appear it is usually either wasted or invested in unexpected ways at unexpected times. We go on about a plan and doing things sensibly and methodically and yet as an example the purchase of Brereton was arguably the most bizarre and to date biggest waste of money in the entire division last summer. Lessons learned? They're either still running the club as a cowboy operation or the structure they've put in place to handle their investment isn't working if that is the best they can do. What went on in League One was basically us going down with a Championship squad on Championship money and Venkys agreeing to fund that on League One income to try and get straight back up. More often than not that works in League One where most clubs haven't got any money. We've only to look at Bolton, Wigan, Barnsley, Sunderland as clubs that have gone down, kept most of their squad intact and bounced back or look like bouncing back immediately. Given Mowbray's transfer dealings to date I'm not sure there's any need for a scounting network. Virtually everyone he's signed he's either worked with before or experienced them first hand in games against his teams.

But Venkys idea of backing might not be on a level required to make a significant difference. Remember that they thought 5 million net a year was enough to bankroll a Premier League club. Mowbray and other club staff are never going to say that there was no money available as that would turn the spotlight on the owners, whereas the party line is that they are great and support the club financially each year. I don't know but I find it astonishing if there was a decent pot available that the manager couldn't or wouldn't use that to improve the team.

I keep hearing this suggestion that if we end up in a decent position to make a push for promotion then Venkys will back the club/manager heavily to try and get us over the line. I don't see much evidence of that. In our time outside the Premier League i think we have reached January in with a 'chance' of promotion to the Premier League maybe twice - in Bowyer's first season and this season. Arguably this season we were closer than we have ever been - at the end of January we were on cloud 9 with 4 straight wins, 3 clean sheets, victories over form sides WBA and Hull. Well placed with a decent run of games coming up. What happens in response to that wonderful position? Not a penny spent, and by most measures we end the month weaker on paper than when we started it. Now either that is Mowbray's fault, or Venkys. If it is the case Venkys were ready to invest to push us on and Mowbray refused to spend then i would hope they are as concerned as I am that we have a manager who refuses the opportunity to strengthen. The alternative of course is that they won't 'back us to the hilt' and probably had no idea about our impressive January results or position just outside the play-offs. My suspicion is they haven't a clue. Madame sets a budget in May for the year and sends Mowbray on his way to do his best with it. The only change is when Mowbray goes to her with his begging bowl for more cash or someone else (Balaji) suddenly dumps a pile of cash on Mowbray's desk expecting him to unearth a diamond for a massive profit down the line.

I'm trying to think of the recent occasions we have gone out into the market and signed ready made, proven Championship players who are able to go straight into the team. I suppose we had Danny Graham, although we rescued him from the scrapheap and had him on loan for 6 months to get him up to speed and settled in before we committed to a deal. Going back before then we had Evans, Cairney and Marshall but with apart from Evans none of them had really been playing regularly at their clubs and had become surplus to requirements, but after coming here and getting games went on to prove their worth. Duffy was another in this group. Not really many to be honest. Williams was struggling for games at Bristol City. Plenty of punts on inexperience or players from lower down the leagues. We're likely to need to change that approach if we're going to be sure of getting the quality needed this summer. Of course it can be done without experience but the likelihood diminishes.

The losses we posted were in effect £7 million greater than they would have been purely because we were in League One and didn't receive Championship level tv income. So knock that off and the losses would have been more like £10-11 million, albeit our wage bill would probably have been higher which might bump it back up a bit, but our commercial and ticketing revenues would also have been higher in the Championship. If nothing else we'd have been able to hand over the DE to Villa, Leeds, PNE etc. whereas last season our biggest away following was only a couple of thousand. All in all had we been in the Championship last season our losses would have been considerably less than those we had. When we look at losses of £11-12 million those are within FFP regulations and actually better than many other clubs. Well run PNE reached in excess of £7 million. I suppose what I'm getting at is Dack doesn't have to be sold to facilitate investment in the team. There are plenty of clubs who have spent more than us, not sold players and have not been sanctioned. I agree however that the club will be looking at selling him and no doubt pocketing the majority of the balance. Mowbray has already begun to pave the way for that and I suspect he'll be under pressure to deliver a big profit for the owners to keep them on side after no recent major sales and the Brereton fiasco. I believe that given the position we are in the only thing that we should be focusing on is radically improving our squad, and the last thing we should be doing is getting rid of Dack or Graham who have shown their value this season. The Telegraph are already working away doing their bit priming readers for a big sale.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47664643?ns_linkname=sport&ns_source=facebook&ns_campaign=bbc_match_of_the_day&ns_mchannel=social# Doesn't look pretty at Swansea. Seeking redundancies from across the board except players and the manager. Also recently appointed Trevor Birch as chairman. Birch has a reputation for being a financial firefighter and he was involved at Bolton and Portsmouth during their troubles.

Mowbray was appointed as Head Coach because Paul Senior was in place at the time as Director of Football. In the aftermath of relegation Paul Senior walked out leaving a void and from then on Mowbray was referred to as Manager rather than Head Coach. It seems when he went to India in the summer of 2017 it was agreed he would assume responsibilities for recruitment as he had at his previous clubs and the Director of Football position would remain vacant. Some of the traditionalists prefer that arrangement with a nice man like Mowbray apparently in control of transfer strategy at the club. As I've raised many times in the past I think with our ownership structure a Director of Football and Head Coach system is more likely to reap rewards for us in the longer term. I think there is too much power in the manager's hands and if/when the time comes to make a change there is a big void to fill. This would be reduced if we had a D of F who liaised with the owners and had oversight of the operation and could change head coach when needed. Some outlets, mainly Radio Lancashire, still refer to Mowbray as Head Coach which I think is them being behind the times.

One constant of Venkys reign at this club has been that employees are quick to heap praise on them for their caring nature and their supposed eagerness to invest into the club and support it in whatever way possible. Time and time again we hear about how much money they have and how they want to invest into making the club better, yet also time after time that is followed by a big 'BUT'. In years gone by it was all about them being keen to invest BUT unfortunately FFP rules stopped them doing it. These days its about them being keen to invest BUT Mowbray wanting to slow things down, BUT there not being good value in the market etc. I don't question they are extremely wealthy people who are probably quite generous with that wealth. But it is also easy and cheap to talk about spending, not so much actually spending it. Anyone can sit back after the transfer window has closed and talk about how much you could have spent. Likewise it's easy to talk whilst we see next to nothing invested into the Ewood stadium and pitch each year. A lot of ifs, buts, maybes and excuses in my view. Those owners determined enough to do it just go ahead and do it. If you have a manager who wants to put the brakes on and slow you down then you decide and make a change if necessary. I don't remember Wolves owners last season moaning about FFP rules or talking about what they could have done.