JHRover

I'm not concerned about our crowds at this point. They've risen over the last 2 years, slightly, and i would expect them to slowly rise further as the season progresses if we continue with positive momentum around the club. If the club makes more of an effort then they will rise further, but that would require them to put more effort in than they are at present. My only worry is that Mowbray and possibly Waggot have sold their project to Venkys on the basis that it is making the fans happy and that if the fans are happy we'll see much bigger gates. They both seem to be under the deluded impression that we'd be getting 5 or 10 thousand a week more on than we're getting. I wonder if they've gone to India with this pie in the sky expectation and the owners expect similar and will be disappointed if it doesn't happen? Then again they might not bat an eyelid.

Got to also say that this isn't something limited to Rovers. Wigan's crowds are similar or possibly lower than they were last season in League One. Bolton's and Preston's are similar or lower than they were in League One. Clubs need to look at the bigger picture - stop taking fans for granted and realise that those decisions made on the annual ride out to Portugal all expense paid trips might, just might, have an effect down the line e.g. Ifollow and selling out to Sky Sports - enabling fans to sit at home and watch without the need to travel - all for a lower price than it is to buy a match ticket.

Poor indeed. No mention of the elephant in the room - him arriving at the club and immediately deciding to impose a £50 price increase in all areas. He's quick to point out that Leeds are bringing 7,500 but then doesn't raise that the club's agreement or willingness to see kick off brought forward by 3 hours might have some sort of effect on the home crowd. I'm getting the distinct impression it isn't his remit to grow crowds. It's his remit to grow income and reduce losses and if that works with more bodies in the building great, but the priority is more cash and that means bumping prices up for those who do turn up and making it as easy as possible for large away followings. Shame but he made his position quite clear in the summer with the double whammy of a 17% increase in cost and closing a home stand on the back of promotion.

There were a few games at least after Allardyce's departure and following Kean's 'caretaker' appointment that he was being heralded as some bright up and coming coach who would improve our style of play whilst maintaining/improving results and a lot of Rovers fans embraced that as they were delighted to be rid of a so-called old fashioned 'boring' manager with a 'negative style' of play. Most people knew it was only going to end one-way and that Allardyce was the best man for the job at the time, but allowed dislike of the man or his football style to come before acceptance that he was our best bet. Similar sort of thing at Villa now. Dislike of Bruce or his style of play is coming before acceptance that his record in the Championship is exceptional, and likely to be the best bet of promotion any time soon. Mick McCarthy labelled old fashioned or boring because he deployed an effective and successful style at Ipswich. Meanwhile 'head coaches' who have nothing to their names in terms of success or track records but 'play nice football' are heralded as bright, progressive, ambitious etc. Fair enough Kean had no track record and his reasons for getting the job far more dubious and sinister than Smith's are at Villa, but similar sort of process where an effective, experienced and capable manager has been shown the door and replaced with someone whose main selling point seems to be that he'll improve the style of football on offer. The Villa press release for Smith immediately referenced him being 'known for his attractive and exciting brand of football' which suggests that was the reason he got the job. It will be interesting to see if they're happy to sit around in mid-table for a few years if he needs that time to adjust and build a side capable of doing it or if they'll fire him off after a few months if he doesn't work miracles and get them promoted playing swashbuckling football.

Rumour is that Villa are going to follow in the footsteps of 'Frank Lampard's Derby' and rename the club as 'John Terry's Aston Villa Football Club'

Will Villa fans be happy if he 'plays the way they want' yet they sit in mid-table for 3 years like Brentford have? It's lovely to talk about nice football etc. but Villa need promotion, everything else is secondary. They've just got shut of a manager who has 4 promotions and a play off final in his last 6 seasons in the Championship and replaced him with a 'coach' who has never done anything except play 'nice football' at small clubs. Substance over style in this league. You need a manager who will stick to the basics to grind out results every week. Some call it 'boring' or 'poor football' but more often than not it is those clubs and managers that get promoted. Might be wrong of course and this could be a genius move but if I were a Villa fan I'd be cautious. Always apprehensive when a new manager comes in and all the talk is about the football his teams play rather than his results and achievements as a manager e.g. promotions. We had it under Kean when some people welcomed his appointment as he played 'good football' compared to Allardyce.

Pretty happy with the Smith to Villa news. Put it this way, I expect Brentford will struggle to replace him easily and him going into Villa is unknown territory stuff, could be a masterstroke but could easily struggle under the weight of expectation and size of the club compared to plain sailing low pressure at Walsall and Brentford. Two weeks ago I wouldn't have fancied us to finish above either. Now I'm confident we can finish above both of them. If I were a club wanting promotion as quickly as possible I'd be going with Bruce all day long, Smith is a big gamble seemingly built on the premise of the style he's delivered at Brentford (a club with a very unique set of conditions). Be interesting to see who Brentford bring in. I suspect it won't be a big name, it will be someone to try and build on what Smith has done and a 'head coach'

As predicted Sky Sports are now promoting this game as being a live match on their channel. The game was never selected as such and yet because it falls outside the window of 2:45pm to 5:15pm they are allowed to stream it to Sky Sports subscribers. Something very wrong with all this.

The clue is in the name. 'Trust' suggests there was a bit more to the whole thing than just selling the club to the first/highest bidder without a care in the world. My understanding of a Trust, or at least the one that Jack Walker set up, is that there was a bit more thought behind it and a bit more due diligence as the people involved were under an obligation to ensure that the best decision and course of action for the football club was followed, not necessarily the one that saved them the most money as quickly as possible. Fairly sure Jack Walker said that the profits from his other businesses would be used towards funding the club into the future. Not necessarily a business decision that the accountants would have been keen on but those were his instructions. The Trust have blood on their hands, and the small consolation is one or two of them might go to bed at night wondering how much more they could have pocketed had they held on for a few more years and sold the club now for hundreds of millions like smaller clubs than ours are valued at these days. Not so clever after all.

Henry Winter, quite a well respected and usually accurate journalist (unlike our friend) says Faria isn't interested in the Villa job, as he's enjoying a break from football.

I think he's in the 'I told you so' mentality. He's desperate to predict something that later comes true so he can turn around to his legion of fans and show them he knew it all along. Thought Radio Lancashire were wide of the mark describing him as a 'football reporter'. As far as I can see his work goes as far as a couple of sentences in the transfer gossip columns in the tabloids and whipping people into a frenzy on twitter. Without the transfer window to keep him busy he'd be about as much of a 'reporter' as I am.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/16372541.mowbray-gives-update-on-rovers-contract-negotiations/ To be fair he does say he will look at it again 'later in the year' but that 'for varying reasons we're not in a position to do anything on those because of the situation and the current cost' and 'as we get towards Christmas we'll look at it again' Apologies, it was late July he made those comments, not late August, so a couple of months ago.

Some turnaround really. Only about 6 weeks ago at the back end of the summer window Mowbray was clear that extensions for Evans and Mulgrew were out of the question at that moment in time given their demands. I'm always cautious about Rovers saying they're planning on opening talks about a new deal because there's a substantial difference between thinking about starting talking about a new deal and actually getting those deals done and dusted to enable forward planning to take place safe in the knowledge they are going to be here. I can't imagine either player will be particularly enthused if Rovers try to knock their wages down given they are first team regulars and could probably have their pick of other Championship clubs. I think both have earned new deals and both have shown they can perform in the Championship, yet of course there are risks with both as there are with most players. Neither have particularly good injury records, Mulgrew is no spring chicken. Evans is still a good age at 28 and vastly experienced and those sort of players aren't easy to come across but his time here has been punctured with fitness issues. Maybe at last with competition for places and a proper manager to guide him he's back to his best. Certainly his efforts since March have been excellent. Must say I'm surprised that in just over 5 years at the club he's made 150+ appearances, so more than 30 a season on average. Would have expected it to be less than that.

Plenty of players playing well and scoring regularly in the Championship. Certain individuals seem to enjoy or benefit from throwing stories out into the press at every opportunity.

Sadly it is much easier to fill the away end out with Leeds fans at £25+ a piece than it is to increase home crowds, so the focus will be on doing that. For little/no effort or cost they can pile 8,000 people in there at full prices, to get a few thousand more home fans on it would require much more effort and thought.

I see the dark forces are busy at work already. Barely out of September and they're already 'linking' our best player with a move away to a rival. Usually they leave it until December at least. Nixon was on Radio Lancashire last night and they allowed him to spend most of the segment on Rovers talking about Dack's future and attempts to keep hold of him. Dark forces. Fairly sure I haven't seen any media frenzy linking Sheffield United players with moves away this week, or Norwich, or Forest, so why are we so popular in the press all of a sudden?

Think even he had reached the end of the line there with unrealistic expectations, moaning fans and working for Ashley, so jumped at the chance to move back to London to a more conventional club where he was popular from his playing days. Remember the rumours that he got the Newcastle job because he met Ashley in a casino or something like that.

He walked out of Newcastle, which tells us a thing or two about that club, so that he could join Palace. Presume they must have paid Newcastle some compo.

The top teams are on low points totals. Usually after 12 games and 36 points available you would expect at least one team to be pushing 30 points or more yet Sheffield United sit top on 25 which is just over 2 points a game. Decent but not exactly trailblazing. They've also lost more games than we have so far and have conceded more than a goal a game. Looking at the bottom clubs nobody is really adrift. With 1 win in 12 you would expect Ipswich to be marooned yet they are well in the mix in that bottom group.

Different for players and managers though. Players are assets that will be picked up by rivals if we don't keep them. Plenty of clubs collect players and generally speaking with your better players the longer the contract the better in terms of keeping them and getting a big fee if we sell them. Managers very different. Nowhere near as much demand elsewhere for managers, nowhere near as much pressure to have a manager tied down long term, much lower financial incentive to do so as compensation wise it won't be anywhere near what we get for a player.

For the first time we have a manager with all the necessary attributes to make this work under Venkys. We've had the incompetence and dodginess of Kean, the madhouse of Berg and Appleton under Singh, the inexperience of Bowyer, the high maintenance of Lambert, the incompetence of Coyle. Mowbray has a bit of everything required. He has the experience of this division which has always been essential in the power vacuum at Ewood. He has the bad experiences of Coventry to fall back on - knowing how bad it can get under poor ownership - he has the fact that he was damaged goods before coming here and so knows that he could easily have been on the managerial scrapheap had we not offered him a way back in. He's also a big more of a diplomat than Lambert was. I'll maintain my belief that Lambert is/was a good manager for this club from an experience and know-how point of view but he was too high maintenance for these owners and this club. Lambert's demands, whether unrealistic or based upon what he was promised before taking the job, were too great in terms of wanting to do it overnight and wanting a big budget to work with. Mowbray doesn't appear to have such demands and is more than happy to work within their unusual structure and be a bit more patient with them, probably more willing to travel to India and try to talk them round to his vision whereas Lambert wasn't prepared to. Different personalities altogether. Mowbray will never be the sort of bloke to throw a wobbler and walk out if he doesn't get what he wants.

I said in the summer that we should hold back on offering him a new deal as it still had 12-24 months to run and I wanted to wait until Xmas to see how we adjusted to the Championship before handing out new deals. I think we've performed well enough so far to be confident that he is the right man for now and has done well to build on last season with a good solid start to this. For me I'd give him a decent wage rise whilst extending it to 2020 with an option of another year. Like Bowyer and Kean he's worked out that the best or only way of getting anywhere with these owners is to establish a relationship with Mrs D and to frequently travel out to India to speak to her. As long as that link remains in place, combined with Mowbray's experience over Bowyer and his integrity and honesty over Kean, and we should be able to make it work. Lets just hope she doesn't lift the drawbridge again!

We've heard it all before from the club. Season tickets have always been late on sale for as long as I can remember, it was never going to suddenly change for the Oxford game because we had a bumper audience. Who knows why we like to be last minute but it goes right back to the John Williams era. The excuse for the early kick offs is that the police insist on it. That won't change now. Even if it is true the club should have nipped it in the bud at the start. Having allowed it to happen for the last 3-4 years they'll struggle to reverse it. Likewise if it isn't true the people or person responsible for making the decision to noon won't raise their head above the parapet as they know they'll get grief. The price hike has already been put down to trying to bring us more into line with other clubs, which I suppose is fair enough, but it is still a significant increase all at once which might well have persuaded some people not to bother. We've had the excuse for shutting the Darwen End which doesn't really make any sense. We all know that it is to try and save some money. The cash turnstile idea could be introduced but presumably they'll have some reason or another why they can't do it as they want everyone issuing with tickets.

Sky Sports and their friends have been in overdrive today linking various people with the Villa job. I suspect they're trying to stir up the betting market again after Henry looked to be nailed on yesterday, especially as they enter a 2 week break for the internationals. Can't begin to imagine why either of those would leave very cushy numbers with Celtic and Belgium to drop into the bottom half of the Championship. I don't rate either of those managers. Neither knows how to organise a defence which is Villa's biggest issue. I'll repeat yesterday's statement. Give me Mick McCarthy or Steve Bruce for a Championship promotion push over Henry, Rodgers or Martinez.

Fair enough, I happen to think it is a deterrent to people who make a late decision. As far as I'm concerned if the surcharge deters 1 fan from attending then it shouldn't exist. We need everyone we can get and aren't in a position to be putting people off or giving people reasons not to come. Yes there were queues at the Forest game and every other game because there will always be some people willing to pay extra on the day. I don't think I've ever suggested that the surcharge puts everyone off buying on the day, but I've said that those numbers could and probably would be greater if there was no surcharge. There are ways of allowing admission on matchday without needing to allocate seats. That was effectively the whole point of the Darwen End area - unreserved seating at a lower price than reserved seating - no reason an area of the ground couldn't be the same e.g. Bbe Upper tier. Season ticket prices are competitive but we're also in a very competitive region for football.