I had a look on Rovers TV website last night. The latest videos are 2x brief highlights (goals) from the behind closed doors game against Tranmere and a piece on having the Ewood pitch ready for the new season. Other than a couple of interviews with Eustace, a thing about the pink shirt and Markanday there's nothing since the end of last season No goals, highlights or replays of friendlies against Stockport, Wigan, Morecambe, Nuremberg or Accy Stanley. No recent interviews with players or any coaching staff. No training footage, behind the scenes coverage, build up for the season. Nothing. Beyond abysmal in this day and age.

Agreed. I don't think anyone, Peter Jackson included, would be complaining if the club had secured a new sponsor that was going to make a noticeable difference. We all know under this regime that any increase will be absolutely negligible because they simply haven't got the interest or capability to secure lucrative sponsorship. But the timing of the announcement and tone of the statement clearly suggests this hasn't been handled well at all, and it appears a 35 year old partnership has ended on bad terms. I didn't think the club was in such a luxurious position but given its indifference to losing thousands of longstanding season ticket holders I doubt one sponsor will cause any concern.

70 is no age when you are paid £300k + bonuses a year and can please yourself with your bosses indifferent to performance.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Waggott tried to get the jetwashing done in return for free sponsorship etc. rather than payment. I suspect he is the type who would try every trick in the book to avoid actually paying up. With this embarrassing news and the jetwashing starting in earnest both just a few days before we host Derby, and apparently no news on Rovers TV subscriptions either, it would appear that the Club is only just getting its arse into gear ahead of the new season. What the hell they have been doing since May is anyone's guess.

If I sold my car for £10,000, used £1,000 of that to buy an inferior/older model and banked the remaining £9,000 to use on other things at a later date then I would not claim to have invested in a new vehicle. I would be making cutbacks. Entirely my prerogative of course but I ought not to be credited with investing the money when the vast majority of it will never see the light of day again.

Szmodics hasn't featured in any of the limited media released by the club, be that training footage, interviews or friendlies. It is obvious they are keeping him out of the way, both to avoid risking any injury, make it clear to the player he's not wanted, and to brace the fanbase for the departure. Previous players linked with moves away have been involved and played in games despite interest. Usually it's the old 'he's a Rovers player and until something happens he's involved' line. Kind of contradics the claim that Venkys are hard bargainers and won't be taken advantage of. In this case they've got no choice but to take whatever cash is put on the table.

He was pretty clear after Stockport that he wants plenty more and despite the delusional efforts of the club media bloke interviewing him made it clear that the new signings, especially Weimann,.Batth and McFadzean, are not being signed nor are they to be considered first XI players. They are here to step in from time to time and provide experience behind the scenes. Of course he'll be fed up, I doubt there's many that aren't down there. Doubt he'll walk away from 2 years of wages and an unsackability though

A rare occasion where the club is absolutely desperate to sell him to pocket the money so much so that he is being forced out of pre season and training I don't believe for a second that Szmodics, in view of his efforts of last season, is refusing to play or train. He's top of 'the list' the stooges are working hard on, desperate to offload to help their bosses have to tip the cash in instead. If you own a football club at this level and don't like losing money two solutions: 1) Get promoted to access PL riches 2) Clear off Not acceptable to stay and reduce the club to a size and cost that you are willing to cover.

'Better having someone than no-one' Most of those who departed at the end of last season weren't great (Unlikely to be with our budgets) but at least they were here as options to turn to. Now who do we turn to when the inevitable injuries and suspensions come?

How can we afford new signings if we've just paid someone to power wash the grime off the Blackburn End?

Not Waggott's fault....let's look at Rudy, Park and the other fall guy appointed this summer. That's the game here.

It's happened once - when we signed Kaminski. Other than that struggling to think of another occasion in the last 10 years where we have gone out and signed a proven quality goalkeeper.

Joining any club over Rovers is the more ambitious move.

Just occurred to them that there is a problem and it might be a bit embarrassing when the fans turn up on Friday together with the Sky cameras and see the state of it. So all hands to the pump to make the facade presentable.

Fundamentally clubs that have brought in a fraction of the cash we have in the last 12 months are still spending substantially more than us. That's before we talk about wages which we really should be right down at the bottom of the league on too. Sales like Adam Wharton and bonuses like Raya together with substantial reductions in numbers and wages SHOULD open the door to a comprehensive rebuild and refresh, investing that money in new assets that will retain or grow in value and then either launch a future promotion push or at least lead to future sales to reinvest again and on it goes. No evidence of that happening here. No plan other than a wise move by the manager to target some experience as he knows how precarious our position is. We haven't reinvested. We haven't even spent the Gallagher and Gent money let alone touch the Wharton and Raya dosh. Even if we manage to survive or finish mid-table (hooray what a cause for celebration) we are soon going to run out of saleable assets. Let us hope that when we do the owners have nowhere left to turn and this breaks them.

Another thing that irritates me about your comments is that you attempt to compare us to other clubs - in this case Hull and Boro. You are attempting to normalise what has gone on at this club over recent years by comparing it to other clubs. It isn't normal, it isn't acceptable, and it cannot be justified with reference to a set of rules the league brought in. For years you banged the drum that our 'plan' under Mowbray and Waggott was the right one. You parrotted their claim that we were doing things 'right' by building 'sustainably' and that in the medium to long term we would be laughing and all these other reckless clubs - Boro, Bristol, Stoke, Hull and others - would suffer the painful consequences through points deductions and embargoes. Never happened. Infact we've sold off far more talent and value than any of that lot in recent years yet remain in a far worse state in terms of squad, expectations, finances. The difference between us and those clubs is that they actually have tried to get somewhere. If they are having to make some cuts due to FFP those are temporary blips in their ultimate aim to get promoted. It is absolutely nothing like the fire sale and financial chaos we have witnessed here over the last 2-3 years. I am well aware of FFP but it seems you are only aware of half of it. Income and revenue is just as important as sales and cost cuts yet this receives very little focus other than a shrug of the shoulders 'it is what it is'. Having brought in upwards of £30 million since this time last year (Kaminski £2 million, Phillips £2 million, Wharton £20 million, Raya £5 million, Gallagher £1 million - all at a considerable undervalue I might add) it is utterly unacceptable to be in the position we are right now having spent such a small sum of money on 2 players and signed a few free agents. Like with Armstrong a few years ago such income should have funded a comprehensive rebuild of the squad. Now we are cobbling together a team for the season in the hope we've got enough to survive whilst Boro and Hull are among the favourites for the top 6. Why can they do that and we be in such a dismal situation? It teaches us that FFP is irrelevant here, I think it always has been, we have evidence before our very eyes that even when we bring in a vast sum of money very quickly there is no intention on the part of the hideous people in India to put that back in. It has been a sham from the word 'go'. Like with FFP, like with rogue secretaries and inept staff, like with all sorts of other lies about the situation fundamentally they will always find an excuse to not reinvest and you stand ready to accept these excuses and repeat them as fact each and every year.

Always an excuse for not spending what we bring in, isn't there? It used to be that we needed to sell before we spend. We did that. Then you used the old excuse of FFP rules preventing it and meaning we had to use the cash towards running costs. Then the last few windows have utterly destroyed using FFP as an excuse you have adopted the 'we only receive it in gradual instalments' line. Whether we do or not the same could apply to incoming signings so it is as broad as it is long. Also nothing stopping our great owners from stumping the cash up in advance to enable spending and them later recouping it from future instalments. I'm intrigued by your default determination to avoid just accepting the truth that they are now funding the club through asset sales. And no, the two cash signings made are likely well short of even the money received for Gallagher, Wahlstedt and Telalovic. The fee for the Japanese signing has been widely reported as very low.

Much of it comes down to location and timing rather than being a 'big club'. Also the willingness to perhaps pay or make the effort when it comes to certain teams. For example our fixtures to me - with the exception of Nuremberg in Austria - have been typical local, lower league sides. Easy to sort out. Teams grateful to be playing us as a higher level team and probably selling quite a few tickets off the back of it. We rarely dabble in the home friendly market because to make it financially advantageous you really need to play a big club who will attract large numbers. Preston did it with Everton, we did it a few years ago with Everton / Liverpool. A lot comes down to who is in the area at any given time. In Austria there are dozens of English, German, Italian clubs on training camps within a relatively small area, so it is relatively easy to arrange a match at the end of a week's training camp and find a venue to host it. Others require a lot of advance planning or well connected people (we have neither here), or some sort of financial obligation / risk that our lot aren't willing to take. I'm sure if we took this seriously there would be a large number of potential high profile sides willing to come to Ewood or a neutral venue to play us. Only a few years ago Stanley arranged a game with Marseille at the Salford rugby stadium.

Would prefer to see him move to a genuine European giant playing in the Champions League than moving to a club that we were recently in a league above and who have quickly overtaken us purely through being properly managed.

We're spending much, much less than we have brought in. I'm not going to congratulate the club or believe that our finances are stable just because we've spent a bit of the Gallagher / Raya cash on 3 foreign signings. I agree there are certain players on a list and this list is set way above Eustace. They've been working their way down this list for the last 3-4 transfer windows. We've effectively been on an outgoings before incomings model for some time so I suspect Eustace has been told that if he wants an established midfielder the only way that is going to be permitted is if one of the existing ones are offloaded prior to or as part of that.

That would depend on the finer details. I don't think the be all and end all here is weekly wages. For example if they can persuade Stoke to exchange + cash then I think Rovers would be delighted to grab the lump sum even if that meant putting Baker on the same or higher money. All about immediate cash flow. It is clear that there is a push on this front, as there was to get him out the door in January and as there was to get Buckley out last summer. I also think we are pushing to get Szmodics sold off, there's zero intention at Rovers end of him being here next season and Eustace appears to have been blocked from playing him pre-season to keep him out of harms way. All sorts of shenanigans going upstairs on much of which we will never hear about.

He said that after the club had sanctioned the eyebrow raising departure of club captain on loan. I'm struggling to think of what else he could have said without getting sacked. We saw what happened when he started to shine the spotlight upstairs, he was gone within a week. In early January he was still trying to keep going.

I'm looking for the truth rather than just blindly accepting what people say, especially when they have an interest in a certain narrative.

Is this your opinion or what you have been told by someone else? Either way, you don't know for certain that it is fact.

Indeed. I think Nicko gets his Intel from 'higher ups' behind the scenes (not Eustace or coaching staff)