Earlier home times for those who have the power to influence decisions. 3pm kick off means staff at Ewood not getting home until 7pm on a Saturday. Noon kick off = home in time for tea to enjoy the rest of the weekend. In the power vacuum of the last few years it honestly wouldn't surprise me if it boiled down to something as silly as that. Hopefully now we have a CEO such things won't be allowed to happen without very good reason.

Sheffield Wednesday - Chansiri shirt sponsor and stand sponsor QPR - Air Asia shirt sponsors Fulham - Visit Florida shirt sponsors (just so happens their owner is based in Florida) Cardiff - Visit Malaysia shirt sponsors (their owner is based in Malaysia) Ipswich - Marcus Evans shirt sponsor Nothing stopping Venkys themselves or one of their friends in India signing up to a highly lucrative shirt, stand or stadium sponsorship package worth millions of pounds. Always a mystery why such wealthy and well connected businessmen have never delivered any tie ins with India apart from the odd few Venkys boards around Ewood.

The fun and games starting in earnest for the busy summer ahead. My bet for next weekends gossip is a Championship club is preparing a bid for Dack. This stuff will go on all summer long and it is usually the same culprits in the press responsible for it. Doesn't help when those people have a small army of followers hanging on every word giving them a bigger audience than they should have.

I know that, yet repeatedly the club has decided to shut off areas in the home ends instead of or as well as areas in the away end. I'll never forget them kicking season ticket holders out of their seats to put netting over areas for when Burnley came to town. Disgraceful. I'm a JW Lower season ticket holder. I don't want to spend home games stood up, moving seats, having 'banter' with away fans. I want to sit in my seat and watch the game and having had that seat for several years and now being handed a £50 price hike I expect to be able to A few years ago I was nearer to the Darwen End, when we played Leeds/Preston etc. the Darwen End people were moved into the area where my season ticket was. I arrived ten minutes before kick off and my seat was occupied and the area was stood up throughout the game. There is sufficient room to allocate the end 2 blocks nearest the Darwen End as a singing section and keep the middle 2 for established season ticket holders. Sadly I can't see that happening as the club will shut the end 2 blocks for most games. Whatever way it is done it needs to be managed. There needs to be some sort of divide by way of a barrier between blocks to make it clear that the standing/singing area is at one side and non-standing at the other. Of course one sensible alternative would be to put away fans in the corner of the DE and Riverside, and then whatever segregation is needed can be put in place in the DE at the JW stand corner.

Certainly sets the bar low with regards to expected financial outlay this summer just as people might be getting carried away....

Our income this season was vast compared to other League One teams.

There's some vindictive individuals around, who cannot stomach any sort of success for Blackburn Rovers and have to try to dampen the atmosphere by winding people up about transfer embargos. Last week Mowbray said our wage bill is around £8.5 million. Even with promotion rises it won't go up massively from that. If we are falling foul of FFP then heads need to roll as it would represent colossal ineptitude for a promoted League One side with our personnel to be breaching those limits.

As I say, Venkys have never had a problem loading staff and players, often on big wages, onto the wage bill and then absorbing those costs along with the other losses. Worth bearing in mind that whilst Bowyer did indeed recruit a lot of players he also disposed of a lot, and those leaving were on much bigger wages than those coming in, so whilst it can be seen as Bowyer being backed it was actually doing Venkys and the club a favour by shedding the overpaid dross bleeding the club dry and replacing them with cheaper alternatives who would go on to make them millions in sales. My point about their spending last summer was that a million quid goes a long, long way in League One. Being able to sign a couple of top League One players on top of what we already had made a big difference. However, if Mowbray had kept us up at Brentford, gone to India and asked for £10 million to rebuild I don't believe he'd have got it. £1 million ahead of a Championship season would unlikely be the 'difference maker' unless we really struck gold. So in some ways this investment that they supplied last summer was much less than it needed to be had we survived. I think there would have been merit in spending more, the reason being that we're going into the summer with big decisions to make and work to do - Payne, Chapman, Armstrong, Antonsson out of loan, Evans, Conway, Ward, Graham out of contract, so they're going to have to cough up or work quickly just to replace them. I don't think it will necessarily take £25-30 million to go for promotion, but it depends on which way they want to play it. If they are serious about getting back to the Premier League then it might take £30 million over 3 years with a gradual building job, but acceptance that it might end in failure e.g. like Derby and Wednesday have had every year so far. What we can't have then is another demolition job as they lose faith in the manager and take a wrecking ball to the squad to recoup some money. I hope we're pleasantly surprised and I hope that the feelgood factor and Mowbray delivering on his remit will persuade them to have a go at it but I just don't see much past record of them coughing up proper cash for new players. They usually allow a few hundred grand through and might allow us to keep our existing players rather than look to sell, but since the Premier League dosh dried up that's been about it.

Venkys' view on 'investment' in the club appears to be: 1) Continue to service debts & the overdraft 2) Pay wages and bills on time 3) Ensure the club remains solvent through honoring liabilities and meeting overheads The fourth form of investment comes as cold, hard, cash, millions of pounds of it, which goes above and beyond the bare minimum essential required to keep the doors open. This investment is the money needed to seriously strengthen the team, improve facilities and develop the club longer term. This cash seems much harder to obtain and my understanding is it only materialises when Madame can be persuaded to write a cheque via a face to face meeting or after other players have been sold and a small amount is then allowed to be reinvested. This has always been the case. In the Premier League they had the Jones windfall to use, then the parachute money. Rhodes' huge fee was a one off splurge that subsequently saw Rhodes have special status as a result. Since the parachute cash dried up we've been extremely limited cash wise - Bowyer nothing, Lambert nothing, Coyle a few hundred grand and then Mowbray nearly a million (big money for League One but not for the Championship)> So on the one hand Venkys have invested by way of maintaining a big wage bill and ensuring the club remains as a going concern. They don't seem to have a problem with adding some names onto the books in wages or absorbing big losses at the end of each month, but when there's a need for some real money to be chucked in for 3 or 4 big signings it is more difficult to get done.

This is the 2nd time in 3 years that a home section of the stadium is to close. Last time, when they decided to boot long standing season ticket holders out of their seats in the BBE Upper and JW Lower to create a new family zone, there was an 'obvious' place for those affected to relocate to. This time there isn't. There is ample space in the JW lower for the 500ish Darwen End folk who want to stand, sing and wave flags whilst the existing season ticket holders (myself included) could remain unaffected in their existing seats. Unfortunately that isn't how it will work out. The club enjoys netting off large numbers of seats in the lower tier towards the Darwen End which will be expanded when larger more volatile away followings come. The obvious result especially with larger home crowds vs Preston and Bolton will be that the Darwen Enders end up being pushed into the more central sections (as has happened numerous times in previous seasons when they have been moved out of the Darwen End). The end result could well be upsetting established season ticket holders in that stand who don't want to stand up etc. during games.

To be honest Vincent Tan at Cardiff has basically done what Venkys have this season - appoint the right man for the job, let him get on with it, kept him happy with some limited cash, now promotion is secured there is a softening of the anger towards them. All of a sudden he's being carried around the pitch, but prior to hitting the jackpot with Warnock they were a shambles with Slade and Trollope as manager and massive budget cuts. Goes to show just how ludicrous it was that we overlooked Warnock and appointed that toerag instead.

The majority of people on here seem to think Lambert is a bad manager. If that's true then we should be celebrating Stoke announcing they are keeping him as we should have no problem finishing above them next season. West Brom are managerless and are going to have an overhaul in personnel. If Johnson, Appleton and Smith are the frontrunners then it seems they are going down the young British but only proven at lower level managers. Only Appleton with 4th division Oxford has won promotion from that group. The Championship is full of basket cases of which we were one, hopefully those days are over and we can have another successful summer window with reasonable investment. We can keep on bleating about parachute money for some clubs up there but there's plenty who don't have parachute money who have owners pumping money in - Forest, Wednesday, Derby etc. So there's nothing stopping Venkys from doing similar rather than hiding behind parachute money and FFP. There's also plenty of skint clubs who survive - Bolton, Brentford, Ipswich - who between them have spent a pittance who we should be outspending if Venkys truly are giving Mowbray their 'full support'

You can bet now that out of 23 league games next season at least 5 will be midweek games from the off. Another two or three might be moved for TV or the ludicrous 'police advice' to either a Friday night, Saturday lunchtime, Saturday evening or Sunday lunchtime. It isn't something that determines whether I can go as I would be there for a 6am Wednesday kick off if necessary, but I recognise for those who don't live 15 minutes from the ground or who have work or family commitments that it simply may not be possible to attend games moved to evenings or midweeks. When you start getting down to less than 15 home games actually occurring at 3pm on a Saturday with others at more inconvenient times many may weigh up that it isn't worth £400+ for a season ticket.

Yep, the reason I bought it was purely to be eligible for 1st dibs on away tickets. Given nowhere (except maybe Burton/Shrewsbury at a push) will get snapped up by members only I might not bother. The club cash thing was a waste of time for me, if I could have put it towards this season ticket I'd have been quite happy with a £50 rise if £25 was covered by the club cash.

I actually think the 'plan' remains the same - to fill the 3 new sides of the ground. They will expect Darwen end home fans to either fill up the BBE or lower JW and then they can use the whole of the DE lower for away fans - 5000 allocation behind the goals - plenty of clubs will fill that or get close to it whilst the upper need only be opened for Leeds and possibly Preston.

I don't see what difference it will make to Rovers in shutting the Darwen End to home fans in terms of what we offer away fans. Realistically only Leeds, Villa, Middlesbrough and Preston would fill the Darwen End in the Championship. One of those is likely to go up this season and I doubt Preston will bring a full allocation in future years as the novelty wears off of coming to Ewood. The decision will be some sort of attempt to improve 'atmosphere' by concentrating home fans together or to save costs by not having stewards and caterers in the Darwen End for the sake of 500 at most people. The drawback is that I can't see the Darwen Enders moving into the Blackburn End unless they are allocated a block to themselves so the more likely outcome is they end up mixed in with more sedate supporters in the Riverside or JW Lower. My season ticket is going up by £50 which i think is a substantial rise. I'll pay it because I'd happily lose £50 to watch us in the Championship rather than League One but it is dangerously high to upset people amidst a positive period for the club. Lets have a Price of Football check. Our cheapest ST next year will be £319. This season Barnsley (270), Birmingham (230), Bolton (316), Burton (255), Cardiff (299), Derby (319), Fulham (254), Hull (252), Reading (305), Sheffield Utd (288) and Wolves (299) all offered cheaper season tickets than that. Yes some will increase as ours have but it gives you an idea as to where we are at. Also Forest (330), Millwall (333), Bristol City (345) and Villa (322) sit ever so slightly higher but not much. PNE are at 380 according to the survey. Whilst Norwich, QPR and Wednesday are at 400+. I'm not going to complain because I don't think our prices are unreasonable but I also don't think they are cheap in comparison to most either.

There's no excuse to not have them on sale, or at the very least have announced prices and sales periods, by the game tomorrow. The old excuse that it needs to wait until we know which league we are in cannot be applied now as it is 10 days since we found out the answer to that and before then they should have had them drafted and ready to unveil. In any event I very much doubt there would be a serious difference between Championship and League One prices, and plenty of other clubs have had tickets on sale for months despite not knowing which league they are going to be in. Shrewsbury for one.

To be honest I'd be pleasantly surprised if we found anything out tomorrow. Of course if there is any sense around they would have a flyer attached to every seat in the ground for the 25,000 to take home with them and think about buying one for next season and get them on sale in the club shop tomorrow. I suspect that Venkys have to authorise season ticket prices and they won't be able to get that authorisation until they travel out to India for the summit meeting. Lets see if Waggott's presence has changed that and things like ticket prices are his remit.

I think some are forgetting just how much experience this squad has in the Championship. The defence, with the exception of RB, all played regularly last season in the Championship. Raya is clearly a better keeper than Steele or Kean/Eastwood before him. Evans, Conway, Whittingham, Bennett, Graham - all vastly experienced Championship players. Maybe questions as to their fitness moving forward but ability wise they've proven themselves up to it over the years. Dack I think most would bank on him making the step up, maybe he won't set the league alight but he'll create problems in that League. Under a competent manager (Mowbray) the bulk of this squad along with some poorer players who we have since got rid of demonstrated a little over 12 months ago they were good enough, securing 51 points on the way to relegation. Yes it was relegation but it was, under Mowbray, mid-table level results. We've since dumped Lowe, Akpan, Guthrie, Henley and added one or two. I'm confident with retention of the bulk of what we've got and 4-5 decent additions we'll compete. You'd think reading some stuff that we've a team of inexperienced League One nobodies jumping into the unknown and that the Championship is something to be fearful of.

Struck me that Coyle was handed a very restricted budget (or only asked for one so to get the job ahead of better candidates) and so once he was in place he basically filled the squad up with whoever he could get for next to no money. Some additional cash seemed to trickle through later on in the window to enable the signings of Williams, Mulgrew and Emnes but by then we were playing catch up, and that money only materialised once Hanley and Duffy were out of the building. This summer needs to be much better organised and better financed. Mowbray needs a proper budget secured later this month so he can get the bodies in early doors ready for pre-season. No off the hoof desperation signings to do favours for friends or a parent club will give them to us for next to nowt. If there is one lesson to learn from our last Championship campaign it was that the summer and start of the season we were on the back foot, so our impressive run between February and May ultimately counted for nothing because we started off so far behind. Mowbray's visit to India should be the start of that and face to face talks with Mrs D usually result in better outcomes than no talks.

Just hope they aren't the freebie cheap kids like we had last time with Samuelson, Byrne and Hendrie. Never going to cut it at Championship level.

If those figures are correct and our wage bill is now only £8.5 million and Burton Albion's is a 'modest' £8 million then we're at base level - we cannot cut wages any more than that if we want to survive or thrive in the Championship. Quite how losses can be so high on such a wage bill I'm not sure as there's no way Burton are losing similar amounts as us. I don't think shelling out tens of millions on new players is likely or the right thing to do, but if our wage bill is similar to Burton's we are going to need to bump that up significantly. Strangely one thing Venkys have always seemed happy to do is pile big earners onto the books, but have usually avoided getting the chequebook out for big transfer fees unless in exceptional circumstances.

There's a story in the Guardian today about Burton Albion and their potential survival in the Championship against all the odds. That story reports that their annual wage bill is around £8 million and their average crowds are around 4,700. Earlier this week Mowbray mentioned in one interview that our wage bill is around £8.5 million with some clubs upwards of £40 million. If those figures are accurate then it is both pleasing and worrying. Pleasing because it tells me that the big earners are gone and we're at a low base level now, but it is also worrying because we've reached a stage where we're in the same ball park as Burton Albion in terms of the money we're paying out on players despite their crowds being less than half of ours and we will have to increase it back up substantially if we're going to compete. I don't really understand how with an annual wage bill of just a bit more than Burton's that our losses can be so much greater, particularly as our club revenues ought to be drastically higher (maybe not this season but certainly when at the same level).

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Rovers are one of those clubs looking to do away with the matchday programme. What was a poor product has gradually got worse and having purchased every programme this season I can confidently say Rovers' is one of the worst going in the league in quality, content and volume. There's no excuse for it and it is purely about how much effort a club wants to make. Rovers will trot out the old excuse that there's no money to be made on programmes which might well be right but that doesn't explain how so many other clubs in the 3rd and 4th divisions manage to produce a vastly superior product and charge the same price for it. Rochdale and Bristol Rovers had excellent programmes full of interesting material. Next week with a bumper crowd on you might expect Rovers to produce a special promotion programme crammed full of interviews, photos, coverage of the season, make it a promotion celebration souvenir edition, include stuff about the Under 23s magnificent efforts this season, I'm not optimistic about it, I expect another pitiful effort. People might call it complaining for the sake of it but I see it as something the club should take pride in and use as a selling point for the club.

With Burton, Barnsley, Reading and Birmingham all up against promotion chasing sides there are some huge fixtures there. I'd love to see Birmingham sink but realistically even if they lose they would still need 2 of Bolton, Barnsley and Burton to win to drop into it. I can see Bolton winning but not the other two.