JHRover

The great irony that comes with our owners' insatiable appetite for selling off assets and using the proceeds to pay their bills is that they have the opportunity to repeat the trick on a regular basis moving forwards yet don't. If they were so keen to rake in cash, for the club to 'fund itself', for more of the Armstrongs, Whartons and Szmodics to pay their bills for them, then you'd think after a decade of this that the penny might have dropped that you have to put some cash back in to get some more assets onto the books and repeat the process in a year or two's time. Yet with this mob they aren't even good at selling, because the well is very soon going to run dry and so they will be soon back to having to find £10 million+ (not £20 million a year as they've managed to hoodwink many into believing is necessary) from their own resources. Venkys.....not very good at much are they?

The window going swimmingly well so far for slippery and shadow. Another wage/contribution off the books today, over a quarter of the way through the window and no money spent, still counting the money from last weekend's derby day cash bonanza. It's only the players, manager and fans that want us to spend, strengthen, get better, improve, maintain our top 6 push. This is not of any concern whatsoever to the owners or 'board'.

January 2017, faced with catastrophic (albeit self inflicted) relegation to the third division, sign only Lucas Joao on loan from fellow Championship side Sheffield Wednesday. Outcome? Relegation. 29th January 2022, sat 2nd in the Championship & 5 points off top, 8 points clear of 7th. Sign fullback cover on loan in Giles and Zeefuik, a project signing in Markanday and Hedges who never plays. Outcome? Slide out of the top 6. Mid-January 2023, sat 5th in the table, second most wins in the league. Sign Sorba Thomas on loan from bottom 3 side Huddersfield. Outcome? Slide out of the top 6. Early December 2023, sat 7th in the table, a couple of points outside the top 6, sign short term McFadzean and Fleck, and Ayari and Chrisene on loan. Outcome? Slide into a relegation battle and survive on the final day. So January 2025, sat just outside the top 6, what do people expect to happen? Dotted among these failed transfer windows are a series of 'project' signings. James Brown, Dilan Markanday, Connor O'Riordan. Occasions where it seems we have been willing and able to part with some cash for permanent deals but have come to very little. Other than that Hedges is the only other one who interestingly came from Mowbray's brother's club and then didn't kick a ball for 6 months until after Mowbray had left. Very strange.

I think the answer to that one is quite simple. There's no money, not to make serious signings, I don't think there ever has been which is why we have at no stage in the last decade made a serious season changing/defining signing in January. The only one you could point towards was Adam Armstrong, but that was in different circumstances with us being a league below and the 'big boys' financially at the time, and he was only on loan. The 'loan with a view to buy' plan is instead a brainchild of people like Broughton, who know full well there is no money to do immediate business so attempt to overcome that problem by offering other clubs jam tomorrow to tempt them to agree to let quality players come here. The O'Brien one of course the biggest and most famous example due to the disgraceful way the club went about business and the no doubt huge damage done to our reputation and credibility, but I suspect there are many, many more. It sounds like after the owners refused to fund the McGuire deal it was again restructured on a 'borrow now might pay later' basis but even then they managed to scupper it. 'Jam tomorrow' is the perfect motto for Venky Rovers - there's never any money NOW - when we desperately need it to make a serious difference to our season - but they keep on stringing people along that there will or might be money in a few weeks/months/years. So people like Broughton just try to be imaginative with the extreme restrictions. They are just utter lowlife and will never change their ways, we need them gone and I've got zero expectations of anything positive coming from this window. If we get to the end of it without selling any assets and Eustace not resigning I'll be positively surprised given their track record.

I said the other week that if we were to take their word for it and believe that there is already money available to strengthen (there bloody well should be even if you ignore huge sales - see increased media deals, bumper gates, no FFP restrictions) then we should not be relying or waiting on a departure such as Sigurdsson before making a move. Sigurdsson's wage should be divided by 3 or 4 and added to the wages of Travis, Tronstadt, Carter and maybe another to ensure they commit to long term contract extensions. It should not be funding 2-3 short term loans or temporary squad fixes.

They will still be telling or suggesting to Eustace that things are in hand and that we've a reasonable budget to play with. They're good at that - it costs nothing to tell people things, and they won't admit, least of all to an employee that they need, that the cupboard is bare. As above Eustace is new to this game, we aren't. Of course what actually matters in the end is what is actually delivered, not what is attempted and failed or talked about. Might as well send the recruitment team on holiday for 4 weeks as try but fail because the end result will be the same. Plenty of the more gullible elements of our support base have lapped up the excuses for failings over the years. Some of our managers have tolerated it to keep their jobs, others have refused to tolerate it and left. Eustace will need to decide which camp he wants to be part of.

According to the official website he is now an employee of the club oddly titled 'chief operating officer' which is a slightly higher and more prestigious position than 'owners rep' or whatever he was before (he's had about 6 different job titles since Cheston made a fool of himself not knowing what to call him). I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between a Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer but the clear suggestion is that he sits below Waggott in the order of command, which we all know is not the case in practice. Some have said that he spends half his time flying back and forth between here and India, which if true would lead me to question how he can perform the role of 'Chief operating officer' of Blackburn Rovers. There are also two other directors, named on the club website, both apparently executive directors and thus employed by the club, in Mr Rao and Mr Babu. I've never seen or heard of either of them. I wonder if either attend Ewood or matches or have any meaningful contribution to the Club in return for their wage.

We'd be better coming back here 3 weeks today as I reckon that's the absolute earliest we will have a confirmed senior signing.

Similar games being played or have been played with Nyambe, Rothwell, Dolan, Brereton, and many many more over the last few years. There's a limit to how much time and goodwill you can waste dealing with such people before you come to the conclusion a move elsewhere is necessary, not just financially but also because they treat people disgracefully, which counts for a lot especially when other actual professional clubs make an effort to make people feel wanted.

I'm hoping that this is a case of Hanley's agent, mates with Nixon, is trying to engineer him a move from Norwich knowing that he is falling out of favour there and he fancies a move back North and reckons he can get a year or two from the Venky regime. I can't see any other explanation for it, unless we are selling Hyam/Carter though surely the latter unlikely given he hasn't played for months.

I think Eustace would be an ideal fit for WBA and I think he'd be very interested if they approached him. Knows the Championship inside out, done well on limited resources in two jobs, still based in the Midlands. He'd get a move to a proper club, a pay rise, a better budget, be much nearer to home and work for professionals rather than amateurs. They'd also get the added bonus of taking us, currently a direct rival for a top 6 position, out of the equation overnight. It seems however that they fancy the overseas head coach route which I think is a big gamble but can see why they want it with Corberan doing so well for them and their new American ownership structure.

Aha so the McGuire transfer breakdown might not have been an 'admin error' as claimed at the time but it seems now there is a story emerging that it was actually because the 'powers' had started or already lost faith in JDT / Broughton and refused to sanction it. Who would have thought it? I remember suggesting it was a deliberate refusal to sanction it and yet the Venkygraph and many supporters were out insisting that it was all because somebody forgot to press send, Ian Silvester was to blame and the evidence of that was his departure from the club. All not as it seems perhaps.

Mowbray, Eustace or anyone else would be bonkers to believe that the sale of a Rothwell or Dolan or anyone else would lead to cash being available to strengthen the rest of the squad. Has that ever happened before under the poison? Of course they and we would be led to believe it would happen. Then come the excuses that we've heard a million times before: FFP, cycles, difficult time to do business, admin errors, jam tomorrow, summer will be different, new structure coming, loans aren't free you know etc. etc. I'm talking full reinvestment of millions of pounds, not a couple of loans/cheap deals and a few million squirrelled away never to be seen again.

Rivals will lose key players because that's the nature of the beast in being a Championship club. No issues with that. But other clubs reluctantly lose those players, then go about dealing with their departures by investing the proceeds to strengthen or replace those departing. A bloke like Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough will ensure that he supports his manager as far as possible and that there's a plan for reinvestment. Here?

But why would we opt to do that and use those cash instalments to cover running costs? If there are no impediments on the owners putting in money, as claimed several times by those in senior positions at the club, then why don't they meet running costs from their own resources and then allow the Wharton money to go into the transfer pot? Why do you believe the money received since then - Szmodics & Raya - is going to be treated any differently?

You keep repeating this and I don't understand what you are saying. We keep getting told by the club that we can't use that money because it isn't all paid to us in one lump sum, rather it is spread out across several years. So how can it be gone? If it was all paid in one lump sum, and the club have lied (again) then where has it gone in less than 12 months? Are you suggesting that it has all been used to cover losses? If so why? That would mean that losses in the last 11 months exceeded £20 million, which is surely impossible, but even if correct we've still had the Raya and Szmodics money since then - so where is that? I think you are saying it is 'gone' because that is what Nixon is saying. What we actually are getting to here is not that it has 'gone' but rather that the owners are not allowing any of it back into reinvestment or improvement to the club. Instead they are using it to pay their bills moving forwards. Nothing untoward there, that's their choice. Nothing to do with FFP, cycles, weather, Covid, just a simple choice on their part that they want to save money by forcing the club to live off the sale of a once-in-a-generation talent rather than allow a portion to come back to support JDT or Eustace. Agreed?

One or two have managed to convince themselves that the failings of January 2023, Summer 2023 and January 2024 and subsequent relegation battle last season were all the fault or one or a combination of Tomasson, Broughton, Silvester. Basically they've fallen for the lie. I understand their eagerness to do so. So much easier and more comfortable to believe that it is all the fault of now departed staff members than face up to the reality that it lies with the unmovable owners and remaining goons in the shadows (even if it was all the fault of Tomasson, Broughton and Silvester, ultimately the buck stops with the upper management for employing them). So when we get similar calamitous inertia this January the hope is that reality dawns on these people that the real problem remains and the above were either victims or symptoms of the Venky disease and not the cause of our ills. Unfortunately it seems some others are already convincing themselves that the club remains totally hamstrung by a combination of FFP cycles, receipts in instalments etc. which the last 2 years has proven not to be an issue.

The club COULD spend millions if the owners wanted. There is no impediment to that, FFP or otherwise. Whether it SHOULD do during January or not is another question. It doesn't want to. That much is clear. Their choice, they see it as their money and their name above the door. Nothing we can do about that but lets not make excuses for them by pretending the club is constrained by other non-Venky factors.

Before we give them extra tickets why not give Rovers fans extra tickets?

I reckon that in the time they have owned the club there have been three managers - Kean, Bowyer and Mowbray - who have had any sort of direct working relationship with the poison, and it is no coincidence that they all had to jump on flights out to India several times a year. They weren't daft or doing it for a free holiday - they knew it was the only way of getting straight to the people that make things happen. The rest of them - Allardyce, Berg, Appleton, Lambert, Coyle, JDT and Eustace - have had zero direct involvement with the poison and have instead had to deal with them through an array of dodgy individuals acting as middlemen. Unsurprisingly they've had little to no financial backing and have lasted months in the job rather than years. There is zero prospect of the people that matter in India dealing directly with Eustace. His only hope on that front would to somehow request and be granted an audience with the odious ones. There's nowhere near enough time to be doing that now and it would have to be the summer. I'm not sure why he would do that when he could instead just put himself forward for a proper job where all this is avoided.

Over the years or January transfer plan tends to be to go to Everton, Liverpool, Villa, Brighton and ask them who they have available that they want to see playing every week in the Championship who they will cover the vast majority of wages on. Some have worked, some have been shite. It has never been enough to get us over the line and into the top 6 because you need more and you need better and you ain't getting that if you are unwilling to pay a fee or more than a small % of their wages.

There's no way Eustace gets a new deal here. It would need Waggott or shadow man to get hold of the Pune poison, which itself is probably close to impossible, and then somehow explain to them why they should be committing to an increased salary and longer contract for a bloke who is already under contract until May 2026, who they've never met. We know how these cretins work and it's just not going to happen. We all know why it makes sense to extend it now but the lowlife would simply expect him to honour his original deal and await a decision in May 2026 as to whether they are offering him another one (see Mowbray). Then of course there's the question of whether Waggott and Shadow Man are going to do a single damn thing that involves asking the owners for anything, or instead will just keep plodding on as they are. Cushy numbers are hard to give up and going to India requesting things might threaten that.

Looking forward to 'advice' forcing capacities of Old Trafford, Emirates, Tottenham, Anfield to be reduced by almost 20%. Just not geared up to it are they? Imagine for one minute if Eustace got us up through the play-offs. Do any of the people down there appear remotely competent, capable or interested in dealing with 25,000+ every week?

A horrible day for several reasons. Unlike some I dread these occasions due to the pressure and hassle involved. A familiar story, doing most things right for most of the game but not having enough quality or depth in the last 30 minutes. We've seen it unfold 4-5 times already this season in similar circumstances. They didn't deserve to win but the second they went 1-0 up I couldn't see any way back and think it was too easy for them to get through the rest of the game with minimal trouble. I'm not going to blame the players or manager. I think they did the best they could and fine margins etc. Our collapse over the last 15 years to a position now where a win over them seems as distant as ever I feel is the perfect manifestation of the Venky regime. Our last win against them coming just before they darkened our door and ever since they've had the better of us. Their poisonous presence has made this a losing club. It is a pretty woeful tale in all derby games - Preston, Wigan, Bolton too but especially bad in this one. We also never seem to be able to get home with the win in home or away games with a big Rovers support on. 25,900 'sellout' though. Has anyone heard anything as daft as that in their lives? Red carpet treatment for that lot. Hospitality, flags laid out across the Darwen End, thanks for coming. Stark contrast to the vile treatment our fans get there. Too much nicey nicey down at Ewood. Also a final mention for the officiating in the two derby games this season. With an element of competence and honesty from the officials we might have had more than 1 point from 6. A legitimate goal disallowed at their place, a red card following a refereeing failure forcing us to play for 40 minutes with 10 men, and then today allowing a joke of 4 minutes injury time. It is absolutely irrelevant whether people think we would have scored if the time was longer. Another few minutes, the least we should have had, allows for another 5-6 launches into their box. We go to Millwall, Leeds, Sheff Wed and they add on 8-9 minutes when we want the game over with. We play dingles and Hull at home and need a goal we get the minimum 4 minutes. Maybe Sky wanted to get their adverts on quick. A total disgrace. As we witnessed at Preston a year or two ago all it takes is one of those balls into the box to bounce off someone and its an equaliser. Anyhow, that's enough worrying about external factors - other teams, referees etc. In any organisation / body you have to get things right internally before you worry about external threats. Until we've removed the poison within and recovered from its effects we are wasting our time worrying about outside issues.

Met Office issued an 'amber' warning for snow covering NW England from tomorrow....