Just the usual short termism, never ending cycle of staff at playing, coaching, management level. Inevitable under a regime overseen by a con man. It was always odd when he was brought back into the club despite having already left only 2 years previous having been part of the Mowbray regime. I remember suggestions at the time saying that Waggott had turned to him to come in at short notice to help with the chaos of the summer having got rid of Broughton and his gang and being in a mess after nearly getting us relegated last season. My expectation is that he was only ever here on a short term arrangement to 'help out', He did that in the summer and now as we gear up for January he is either seen as surplus to requirements or has decided that there's no point in him being here. Suspect if he's been told that there's no money and more sales are required he's probably realised it is all pointless. Isn't it telling that we are back to the good old days of chaos and high turnover on players and behind the scenes staff yet the chuckle brothers running it have had their feet well and truly under the table now for 7-10 years and not a murmur of either being moved out.

The trajectory that they have put us on in the last 3-4 years is one which sooner or later will drop the club into League One. Some suggest that these cuts are purely a result of their legal issues in India, which I think is totally wrong. If we look back the budget cuts were in full flow before that, going back to the start of Covid and there was talk at the time about them having issues due to the pandemic and the club needing to 'help' them through etc. Whether this was a genuine issue for them or whether it was just a convenient excuse to justify further cuts it matters not, the important thing to keep in mind here is that it has been going on for years and has not all been brought upon them by the Indian authorities. You cannot exist indefinitely in a highly competitive, ambitious league filled with ex-PL clubs, owners who want to improve and progress, invest in their clubs, with our short term, cost cutting model. One look over our shoulders at the likes of Birmingham, Wrexham, yes Stockport, in League One but with wealthy owners putting money in, investing in facilities, players, wages, growing gates - these are clubs that are working hard to get to the Championship and beyond whilst we stagnate on a road to nowhere - sooner or later they will replace us. There's no place in competitive sport for timewasters, which this club will always be under these owners. We've got away with it the last few years. To Mowbray's credit he left us with a number of valuable assets developed over several years going back to a time when they did invest some money, these assets kept us competitive on the pitch and allowed for a slither of reinvestment. Then the last couple of years we've had the emergence of talents like Wharton and Szmodics. What should of course happen is the £30+ million brought in from those sales should then go into new quality players on long term deals which themselves deliver in the Championship and lead to success or big sales down the line. No such plan here though which is a recipe for disaster - no owner investment and no reinvestment of sale proceeds = disaster.

The point at which a club is refusing entry to fans to watch games, considering it not worth the hassle or cost, and instead prefer to have no fans there, indicates a club that is not functioning how it should be. The fundamental purpose of a club is to provide entertainment for supporters. Here just an aggravation they would rather not have to bother about. Easier having it behind closed doors.

It is a con of an operation, orchestrated by the owners and their underlings. The aim of the operation is to achieve the owners' objectives whilst keeping the paying public in the dark as to what is actually going on. They do this via the constant, never ending reset and restart process. After they destroyed the club the first time around - removing Sam Allardyce and the board, employing Kean as manager, relegating us to the Championship, the first 'reset' was in bringing in people like Shebby Singh, Shaw, Agnew - the outcome of this was to convince people that changes were being made and things were getting better. This led to more fiasco with the 2012-13 season of 4 managers, and very nearly took us into League One. Then came the Bowyer period and simply by being steady away and more settled this convinced people that changes had been made and lessons learned. Then after a couple of years of this they had the Lambert project. On paper an exciting ambitious appointment and all the talk from manager down was about promotion and getting better. Incompatible with this ownership, clear that false promises had been made before giving him the job, and it last all of 6 months before he got out at the first opportunity. Another reset this time appointing an utter joke of a manager in Coyle and all his staff, successfully taking us to League One, inexplicably waiting until February to make a change, far too late for even a remotely competent Mowbray to keep us up. Now into League One and Mowbray given a long term deal, another reset. Keep the paying public on side thinking that this time it will be different, fresh start, new process. Just like with Bowyer it works for first few years, reasonable investment, keeping main players, upward momentum, but no real push or pressure to achieve anything beyond mid-table Championship and plod. Mowbray goes stale yet is left in place to drift for a couple of years. Almost by accident we find ourselves in the middle of a promotion push in his last season yet no effort made to get us over the line and him treated disgracefully at the end of his contract with radio silence. Another reset. This time we're going continental. Lets get a D of F and foreign coach instead of the old boys club of previous years. Sounds good. Makes sense. For once suggestive of a club with a plan, a vision, a long term strategy. It bears fruit immediately. Despite the chaos of Mowbray's departure and then bringing JDT in shortly before pre-season started it works to perfection, with us in the top 6 all season long and clear signs as the season progresses of improvement and a philosophy. No backing provided in January, merely a loan of Sorba Thomas from Huddersfield allowed, clearly no intention of us going one better than the previous year. We miss out by the skin of our teeth. Any normal, remotely ambitious club, would have seen an opportunity there and backed JDT to go one better the following year. Of course not here, instead active sabotage as even his original meagre budget is then slashed further mid-summer, conditions that any professional club would struggle to operate with. They eventually succeed in wrecking the JDT project as he knows it is impossible to get anywhere working for these people, and learns the problem isn't Broughton but is the ownership and Waggott (listen to his change in direction of his blame in interviews from his first season to his second). They then manage to get Broughton out of the door too after managing to get him to shoulder all the blame for the nonsense of the last 3 transfer windows and for signing a few duds with his non-existent transfer budget Another reset after nearly taking us to League One again. This time back to basics with a British management team and this time Gestede getting his feet under the table. Another project. Another road to nowhere. Anyone else bored by it now? It's just an endless cycle of one step forward two steps back whilst the debt mountain grows. They've no intention, or plan, to get this club anywhere and even when promotion opportunities have dropped into our lap by accident they've done nothing to grasp it, even when relegation has been firmly in the picture they've done nothing to avert it.

At what point do the Football League get involved with this disgrace? They've been putting the Reading owner under pressure and threatening sanctions in public in response to his running of them, including demanding that he deposit funds in a secure account to fund the running of the club. Why is the situation any different here?

So Waggott lied, again?

"Rudy Gestede stressed that open communication with supporters will be a key in his role as Blackburn Rovers' Head of Football Operations" "Gestede vowed to ensure supporters feel connected with Rovers by helping them understand the strategy moving forwards" "I think communication is key, they have to know what's going on to a certain extent obviously. If you want them to feel part of the club then you need to make them feel like they know what's happening in the club. "I'm pleased we're doing this already. Steve Waggott is doing his best to ensure the fans know what's happening in the club" "I think Steve is working to make sure we are improved on everything and we're all aligned in the same direction." Only earlier this year the club 'scooped' the EFL 'Fan Engagement Award' So owners back in Court in India facing legal issues that directly impact the future operation of the football club, potentially the very existence of the football club. Lets see how long it takes for Rudy and Steve to communicate what this means and what happens next. Or will they, like their bosses, only react once they have no choice and say the bare minimum?

In all likelihood the ONLY way Waggott feels he can earn credit with the Indians and thus keep himself in lucrative employment is by saving them money. The shortest route to doing this is to sell, sell, sell, cut, cut, cut and not make any non-essential requests for cash. He's the master of this. It's one thing he has done consistently since the day he darkened the Ewood door. He isn't going to ever try to persuade these people to push, to adopt his grand multi-year strategy for growth and advancement, push for better, more money, get on the phone to them and request it. He's in self-preservation mode. Keep the head down, take a bit of grief from the fans from time to time, regurgitate the party line about them being kind people constrained by those nasty rules, and reduce the burden on their wallets and the job is a good one.

Extra Sky TV money could have been used: a) To subsidise cheaper tickets or travel, or both, for fans (think Stoke are still running free away travel, paid for by the club) b) To improve facilities, infrastructure, pitch, stadium, concourses, PA system, lighting, seating, matchday entertainment, jumbo screen etc. Doesn't look to me as though any of it has gone into any of these things, instead simply to make life easier for Venkys and then into the back pockets of people like Waggott, agents and players. Of course when you are 70, counting down to lucrative retirement in Kent, absolutely no interest in the medium to long term health or standing of the club, and have the morals of an alley cat using that extra cash was never going to be on the agenda and has been forgotten about. Nobody can really question why numbers turning up are dropping quickly. It was always a likely outcome with the new Sky deal and Rovers have done zilch to mitigate that using the cash they got.

Pep Guardiola could offer to walk to Brockhall and work for free and this regime would either turn him away or make the job impossible. Doesn't matter who sits in the dugout or how good they are. A regime with no ambition or interest will demolish and suck the life out of whatever good he gets going.

Sounds like Coventry might have sacked Mark Robins. On the surface a strange one but they've been pretty awful this season (apart from brushing us aside with ease) and there have been rumours of trouble there since his assistants were replaced in the summer.

Agreed. But nobody in a position of power or authority gives a damn. One glance at the speed and energy with which they have embarked on their project to root out people misusing concession tickets - employing G4S at considerable expense, multiple strongly worded statements, erection of barriers - shows that they can make things happen and quickly when they want to - namely when Waggott is missing his targets and needs to clamp down in an effort to increase ticket revenue Of course getting more people into Ewood is immaterial. Him hitting his revenue targets is the only issue. I wonder where we might be if they had made a fraction of that effort in trying to fill Ewood up a bit more. Could have laid a few buses on each week to bring fans into the ground for the cost of employing G4S I am sure as one example.

Every club or competitor in professional sport has to have an aim, target, ambition. Something for people to look towards, rally behind. I'm afraid eking out survival in the second tier whilst trying to unearth a few players to sell to pay the owners' bills every year whilst the stadium crumbles just isn't good enough. Forget about promotion, building, improving, getting bigger or better. They've proven that isn't the aim and won't be allowed in any event. So knowing all this the aim and purpose has to shift and in this case it can only be reaching the day these people are gone for good. Until then we are at best drifting along.

It's the inevitable culmination of the course the owners and their friends at Ewood have set us on. The destination is clear, how quickly we get there is the only question up for discussion. Some of us saw it a couple of years ago or at least by January / February after what they did to the last two managers, others buried their heads in the sand and instead blamed ex-employees for our failings rather than the people still here. Its either deliberate or at best absolute indifference to it being the likely outcome. Either way unacceptable. My prediction is that Waggott will time his long awaited retirement to coincide with relegation. He will then saunter off into the sunset never to be seen or heard of again with his hefty pension and bonus payments leaving behind a ruin of a football club heading for a long stay in the lower divisions. He'll hang around whilst we remain in the Championship because he enjoys it but even he must know the time is coming when that party is over.

Looks like Bristol City didn't do their homework before tonight's game. If they had they would have discovered that Sheffield United were in the Premier League last season and are getting parachute payments. Instead they've just gone 1-0 up.

We've seen it many times before from board members and coaching staff that once the feet are under the table the job is yours for as long as you want it. There are only two conditions. Keep your head down / don't rock the boat and pay fealty to the Indians whenever you get questioned on the subject. Gestede strikes me as a Suhail / Waggott project. They've been looking for a patsy to oversee the football operation since St Tony departed with Venus. They got Broughton in and whatever your views on him that wasn't ever going to last the way this lot operate. So now onto plan B and it really doesn't matter to them or the owners whether the individual is any good or not, because improvement, development and excellence on the pitch has never and will never be on the agenda here. Waggott is still at the stage where he thinks that 'ex player' carries extra kudos with the fans and will result in less pressure/scrutiny. An age old trick that has been played here several times, roll out an ex player and the fans will lap it up/take the ex-player's word for it etc. I hope most have seen through it by now but sadly it seems to keep on working with some. I noticed a few posts over the weekend about how we are behind Sheffield United in the 'project', about how it is going to take a few windows / years for the 'new structure' to get us into shape and get us to a place where we are ready to compete for the top 6. These people must be from a different planet, because these owners will never ever allow us to develop to that point without first taking a wrecking ball to the squad to raise some cash or cut the costs and then the process starts all over again.

Gestede now on his second job under the Venky regime so he's got twice as many reasons to jump to their defence as your usual Rovers employee. Treating us like fools and insulting our intelligence but then again with the state of some Rovers supporters on Facebook and Twitter I can't really blame him. They probably think everyone is so stupid. Nobody else was giving him a job to learn how to 'direct' or whatever it is he does so of course he'll use his platform to defend the evil in India.

I stand to be corrected but I'm pretty sure debt levels are totally irrelevant when it comes to FFP calculations, especially when there is no immediate demand or plan for repayment of those debts and they are almost all to the owners anyway. What is important is incomings and outgoings. Thankfully we've brought in excess of £40 million through sales since summer 2023 which comfortably outstrips whatever advantage better run clubs get on us via bigger ticket sales. So about time we stop falling for the Venky/Waggott trap of blaming FFP and pointing at the fact other clubs get parachute cash and bigger crowds. We've outstripped that and then some in the last 12 months and yet have just cut back more and more.

Good job Millwall didn't receive the memo about not being allowed to beat sides near the top who are getting parachute money.

It will be something that costs nothing and requires minimal effort, coupled with the fact that there's nobody employed down there with any real knowledge or pride in the clubs history. One look at what Sheffield Wednesday did for their 150th the other year shows what we should be doing. I bet we will get some tatty t shirts in the shop, a few pieces with 'legends' in the phone book to put on twitter and that will be about that. That we are only a year away from it and still no mention of anything is already alarming. Nobody can be arsed.

It's no use at all bemoaning the parachute payment system when we've brought in more through selling prized assets over the last few windows. That money should have delivered a legacy and long term benefit to Blackburn Rovers in the form of capital investment in players and infrastructure. Better than getting parachute cash in some ways as it doesn't get used up on paying off Premier League era contracts and wages. Instead the owners have used it to pay their bills and help them get around their self-created mess in India. Their choice. Our problem. Could have been all so very different. They could have reinvested some of it. They decided not to.

The Riverside is usually less than half full. It is worth opening if the ticket sales aren't there or just keep opening it for a few hundred fans? They've already done it for the Darwen End, Blackburn End upper, town centre shop, matchday programme - all done away with in the name of 'progress' aka cost cutting. Tried it on with the training ground and academy too only you've to have a bit more about you to outmaneuver that situation given the obstacles to overcome there. Where does it end Chaddy? Put all the fans in the BBE lower and shut the rest of the ground? Only play during the day to save on putting the floodlights on? Not have a reserve or ladies team because it isn't making us money? Once again you and the club are looking it from the negative side - if something isn't working just get rid or shut it down to save on costs. Same with your favourite FFP rules - if in doubt just sell some players and cut the wage bill. There's another side to it all - GROWTH - try to get bigger, better, more fans in the ground, more footfall, enhance the commercial operation, get more people down to Ewood, get more tickets sold etc. etc. All of which requires a plan, effort, initial outlay and none of which are consistent with Waggott's way of doing things.

A totally bizarre and almost unbelievable situation we have where the club is actually now boasting about restocking its own shop with its own kit so its own fans can actually buy them. Ridiculous. This after doing everything possible to encourage people to stay away from the club shop including shutting it during the week.

Well I'm not aware of any other Championship club that erects barriers and employs external companies to 'vet' home fans entering the ground before reaching the turnstiles. I'm also not aware of any other Championship club that puts articles up on its website and uses such language towards its own limited and dwindling support base. Right back at the start of all this the Club is responsible. Like with 99% of all the other mishaps and fiascos we've seen down there under a wholly inadequate management team. They've sold the tickets in the first place. So if 'fraud' has been taking place I presume there will be a thorough review of how so many people have managed to get their hands on concession tickets and whether Rovers ought to have put measures in place to stop this at the source rather than half a dozen games into the season, in doing so annoying most people whether they have a valid ticket or not. We know the snake of a CEO and probably his little entourage in the boardroom are judged by those in India on financial performance. We know that season ticket sales are bucking the national trend and are shrinking whilst most other clubs enjoy good health on crowds. Sadly a sizeable portion of people are happy with that because "it were like that in 1981 you know" and because plenty feel better about themselves being 'one of the hardy few' Seems clear to me that the only metric by which Waggott is judged - the balance sheet - is looking unpleasant - and so he's now resorting to desperate tactics to try and recoup some extra cash by using these rather extreme steps and language. He's squirming because up until now his policies have worked in keeping the scum off his back, but it seems they are now asking a few questions about why numbers are so bad. The elephant in the room is that after their crimes and misdemeanours of the last 2-3 years (almost erased from the history books now thanks to Eustace having a decent start to the season, yet some of us won't be forgetting what they've done) causes far more damage to the club than a run of a few defeats and a narrow escape from relegation. People won't put up with it and will vote with their feet. Chickens come home to roost. Waggott can lash out at the small number trying it on with cheaper tickets but he can't do anything about the thousands who have found better things to do with their time than continue to fund this despicable regime.

My concern is that Eustace and a large portion of the support base appear to have decided that draws away from home are fine. Sooner or later there has to be some more ambition than that. This is something JDT had, aiming to win every game. Of course many times it ended in defeat and lots of goals conceded but we also won a fair few which is something that looks a way off at the moment. I agree draws away are good IF you are winning all/most of your home games. But when home form dips, which it will when we get around to playing the likes of Leeds, West Brom, Sheff Utd etc. and folk are then out in force telling us that a draw in those would be a great result, this shifts a lot of pressure over onto our away form and needing some wins from those. Win every home game and draw every away game and you are laughing. But we won't win every home game and we aren't drawing every away game. The product in the last 3 away games has been horrific, picking up 1 point from 9 against three very poor sides despite having a man advantage for most of one of them as well. This is worrying and I am concerned that Eustace's 'pragmatism' is becoming an issue. He was far too slow to act in the Preston game and that cost us 2 points and nearly 3. Coventry was the typical dismal midweek debacle against a side who had lost games either side of that in weary fashion. Plymouth could easily have been a horror show attracting far greater criticism, we were spared from it by poor finishing/good saves/late equaliser and the last gasp nature of their winner. On another day we could have been 2 or 3 down by half time and they'd have won at a canter. We all know that the owners and the board have zero ambition other than serving their own interests, but I think now that the 'unbeaten' tag has gone one or two need to get real and stop with the pats on the back routine.