JHRover

Indeed. Actions, or in this case inactions, have consequences far beyond the immediate embarrassment and damage to the squad and season. Who in their right mind - rival club, player, chairman, agent - would even entertain dealing with Rovers in the final few days of a transfer window? Even when they are saying there's a deal and inviting the player in for photos and putting it on Twitter the plug could be pulled. They've got different faces on the ground - Gestede and the other bloke I can't remember the name of - but they are still working for the same mob behind the scenes.

So if there's a Leicester move for Kaminski in the pipeline the end of the transfer window could be looking very rosy indeed for Maggott and the shadow director. Not because they're planning on making any serious effort to support Eustace or improve Rovers' prospects this season, but there might be another 6-7 figure sum coming from Luton in a sell on fee. Happy days all round.

Yeah but what about things like the power washing of the BBE last week, the grass seed needed for the relaying of the Ewood pitch and repairing the broken lifts in the BBE? None of those things are free you know!

"Loans aren't free you know, they need paying" "We don't get £41 million all in one go, it's spread over a few years" "FFP" "Just back the manager and lads FFS" All set and ready to go come Saturday morning.

The most interesting part of the next week on the transfer front will be predicting what excuse they come up with for another poor end to the window. They can't use the funding issues one after their statement last week. They can't use FFP. They can't use secretary amnesia or staff member going rogue after the last couple of Januarys. It looks like they are going down the route of 'can't decide or agree' which targets to go for. Quite audacious but there's certainly been a push in that direction in the last week or so. Suspect Waggott is gearing up for another 3-4 months of silence and hope Eustace works a miracle to keep the heat off him through results.

4 days to go, at least 5 signings needed according to the manager. Looks like they're going to let Eustace down just like all the rest.

"Will not impact on the operational aspects of the club" is another favourite that he's trotted out 2-3 times now. Of course operationally it probably is business as usual. He's given his instructions by the shadow director and acts on those, beyond that he has his little fiefdom and turns up for the prawn sandwiches on matchday and pats himself on the back for making sure the grass seed invoice is paid on time and paying someone to hurriedly power wash the Blackburn End 2 days before the new season starts. All business as usual to him and everyone else employed down there. The fact this is being funded through selling off players rather than the owners matters not to him or to the operation of the club on a day to day basis. Of course it isn't business as usual if when the assets run out there's no other funding options.

It didn't go unnoticed that the story appeared in the 'Scottish Sun' - of course a certain agent linked 'journo' for the English Sun can't make it through a week without linking a Rovers Player away. I join the dots in these instances and it always tends to lead back to the same grubby agent infested circles

It's clear there is some blockage on bringing in new players. Unsurprisingly it looks like we are waiting for the loan market to land us a coupe of squad fillers. When you look at our summer business it appears on the surface totally bizarre on timings and frequency. Nothing all summer, then about 5 in the space of a few days, then nothing again in several weeks since then. Then when you start to think about it from the 'hand to mouth' existence the Indians have reduced us to, whereby we can only commit to new contracts and wages once we have brought in money and offloaded wages, it makes perfect sense. The capital brought in from Gallagher and his wages off the books, together with cash for Gent, enough to get those deals over the line but no more. Since then we've sold Szmodics but not spent. I suspect the main reason for that is we are still waiting to discover what, if any, portion of that money the rats will allow to be spent on replacement players, a process that should have been completed prior to any sale or certainly within hours of it, but here likely takes weeks to resolve. The other issue of course being that Szmodics' wage likely not to be that substantial in the scheme of things, certainly compared to Gallagher which probably covered Ohashi, Gueye, Batth and Weimann in one swoop. This is why IMO someone upstairs is maneuvering for more sales including Travis because if he's top earner on £15k a week or whatever they'll be thinking of getting 3 in for that and a few million more on the running costs. No brainer if you've no interest in winning football matches, progressing or anything other than saving the owners money. Personally think it will be a couple of loans and if we are lucky one more cheap cash buy.

Another way of looking at it is that they've pulled a masterstroke. I've long believed that there are people at ownership or board level plotting to get rid of certain people irrespective of the damage it might do to manager/team. Maybe the people on the coaching staff have got wind of this plot and decided to put player before the cameras, that interview thereby putting an end to suggestions that the manager doesn't want him or that the player doesn't want to be here. It is a tried and tested ploy of the higher ups at Rovers to attempt to turn the blame on player, agent, manager and away from Venkys. That interview makes it as clear as day that any move from here will be nothing to do with the manager or player pushing for it and therefore anyone with any sense will be able to see other forces at work undermining squad and management. Nothing new there but still some prefer to blame players/agents/managers. The shadowy figures would love nothing more than the fans to believe his girlfriend has long dreamed of a move to Glasgow or he's had a bust up with the manager. Anything but Venky cutbacks!

We could have taken Luton's place in 2022/23 and got past Coventry to get promotion. Or the year before we might have got past Huddersfield / Forest. On both occasions sat comfortably in the top 6 and even with a sniff of the top 2 until our owners and board sat back in January, did nothing and cost us.

I mean it is bad enough when they still haven't sorted out the car park area where the church used to be, why they can't properly surface it and have it as a proper car park instead of an uneven weed covered mess But the stadium, deary me. A fitting tribute however to the Venky and Waggott regime. Anyone who dares suggest they care or have any pride in the club need only produce this photo. A cheap, naff 'Welcome to Ewood Park' sign fading away, green stained panels on the stands and rusting metalwork. They must be ever so proud.

The 'lack of plan B' didn't seem to cause a problem in the first 18 months, it was only after 3 diabolical transfer windows and dismantling of his squad, including selling Adam Wharton and then pulling the plug on McGuire, that he lost the plot with them. He knew by that point it was game over and he was saying 'f*** you' to them. Of course at a normal club we'd never have reached that stage but he'd realised they weren't going to sack him or deal with the issues. He was the type of operator that could catapult a club like this into the big time despite financial limitations. Obviously the big time isn't and wasn't the aim here.

Results nosedived under JDT because he didn't want to be here any more and the club should have resolved the situation much earlier. It was abundantly obvious months before he went that he wasn't happy (who could blame him?) Despite that he still managed to have us in play-off contention heading into Xmas. It was only after the latest January fiasco that he threw in the towel as, I believe, they had lied to him again. I strongly suspect he was told in the summer to hang around because the funding issues from India were temporary, short term, technical issues (the same thing Waggott has been telling supporters for the last 6+ months, and probably the same thing he told Eustace when offering him the job). JDT tolerated a dismal summer 2023 on the basis that it would soon get resolved and he'd get backed in future windows. He did the hard part and somehow dragged that squad into top 6 contention, ripe for an assault in the second half of the season with some reasonable backing in January. And what did he get in January? Less than nothing. Lies and let downs, no way back from that. When you've a manager or player with their heart set on the exit door results will nosedive. Of course a club, board, owners with their finger on the pulse would have immediately acted to deal with this situation and arranged a mutual parting of the ways much earlier, but here they'd rather plod along with an unhappy camp if it means saving a few quid on a pay-off and this inertia wasted another few games and very nearly took us to League One. It was almost identical under Coyle, keeping him in place far too long and doing nothing to help him in January (difference of course on managerial quality). The re-writing of history continues apace though, almost at the point now where the problem was JDT and Broughton and not the reptiles above them.

Always on the 'never never' with this lot when it comes to spending money. When they are talking to the fans (rare I know) it's always excuses about FFP, geopolitical issues, poor old Rovers, poor Venkys, admin errors, unreasonable players / agents all making life ever so hard work but not to worry next time around it will be better (tomorrow, not today). It seems when they are going around trying to sign players they also do so on a similar basis, one of the favourites being the 'loan with option to buy' routine which has emerged in the last few years as a popular choice. 'Give us your player now and we might give you some money in the future'. Typical Waggott and Venkys. Unsurprisingly there aren't many selling clubs playing this game as they want money up front not on the 'never never'. I think Broughton realised he was never getting any real money out of these people and so turned to the 'loan with option' route in a desperate bid to be able to recruit reasonable quality, but again, easier said than done. When you're sat on receipts of over £40,000,000,00 and have spent a paltry million or so on Ohashi and Gueye it is hard to believe, but thanks to our billionaire owners we appear to be totally skint despite selling off the family silver.

It was a simple question and one which you have failed to answer. Can you find me a single example of an occasion where a club employee, be that manager, player, tea lady, has publicly criticised owners or 'higher ups'? This isn't just a Rovers thing. It isn't a 'conspiracy'. It's not a football thing. It is a fact of life. You don't bite the hand that feeds you. So no, I don't take any interview with anyone seriously because they are going to say what suits them and their employers. Again, not a phenomenon limited to Rovers or Travis, it's a fact of life, but doesn't mean every word has to be treated as gospel truth. Just like the legions of people who were out in force 12 months ago praising Waggott for his 'honesty' after he gave an interview to club media despite him being a proven liar and despite half the things he came out with not stacking up. Just because he said it didn't make it right.

Would you expect an employee of the club to say it was Venkys / Shadow Man / Waggott to blame?

Not a peep. Headlines on there today are part of Dolan's interview about 'stepping up', Peterborough chairman's response to us selling Szmodics, Paul Heckingbottom's thoughts on joining PNE, Markanday's thoughts on joining Chesterfield and Buckley's personal aims for the season. A total joke and they are complicit in the Venky operation and cover-up. I bet Waggott cannot believe his luck at having such a weak local media approach.

If outgoings are still £20 million after the latest round of cost cuts there need to be serious questions as to why. It should be more like half of that, which is the sort of figure most competitive Championship clubs lose.

Not ended up too well for Critchley or Ainsworth who were repeatedly promoted on here as people we should be turning to as future Rovers managers.

Exactly. Convenient this story appears the same day as the Indian court case and with only a few days of the window remaining. Operation deflect in full swing. Convince them that there's nothing wrong in India and it's all to do with issues at Brockhall. Seen that one many times before.

Waggott should be nowhere near the football club after the events of the last few years He certainly shouldn't be determining which transfers are acceptable and which aren't What on earth qualifies him to decide that?

It won't be anything to do with Eustace. This is just another deflection exercise like we had with the rogue secretary and AWOL CEO on deadline day. Transfers are being held up because of Venkys. Always have been always will be. The request for permission is probably sat at the bottom of a tray on a desk somewhere in India waiting for one of them to get around to thinking about whether to grant it or not.

I wonder if the reason for this is that they would not be able to justify 'non essential' transfers. It is clear that a big part of their case and justification for wanting to send money over last year was that without this money the club would face financial armageddon with winding up petitions mentioned and the collapse of the business. I suspect this was a factor as to why the court ultimately allowed the money to be paid over. But if they are turning around asking to send money over so that we can go out and have a (relative) splurge in the transfer window and spend non-essential sums on new players this may be harder to justify before a court.

Purgatory for me would have been that the case was dealt with, Venkys were released from restrictions and they were free to go about doing whatever it is they do without any need to go back to Court. The only hope we have of being rid of them is the government or Courts forcing them out. If the matter has gone off again it leaves some hope this could still happen (slim I agree).