Either way, our only hope is a Luton relegation to keep us off bottom place in the league for home attendances next season. Doesn't that tell a story.

The senior management structure of the club, according to the website, consists of six people: Steve Waggott, Gandhi Babu, Sreenivasa Rao, Robert Coar, Suhail Sheikh and Matt Wright. Senior management, by its very definition, takes ultimate responsibility for the performance of the club. If you are the head of an organisation and people beneath you fail to the extent that it costs the organisation money, opportunity, potential promotion, not to mention immense reputational damage, then the head takes responsibility. So I would expect to see greater consequences than this yes. As I said, if our 'senior management' all walked together into the Blues Bar or Fox and Hounds on matchday with the exception of Waggott and perhaps some older end recognising Coar I don't think any Rovers fan would recognise or have the slightest clue who the other 4 are, wouldn't know their names or know what job they do at the club. I don't think a single photograph can be found online of these people, Sheikh has been photographed a few times usually by accident sitting next to Waggott. I'm not comfortable with that. I'd like to know who does what at the top of the organisation that clearly has had major operational shortcomings over the last few years. Yes I knew who Martin Goodman was and would probably recognise him today. He was based at Ewood Park, attended Club events, transparent, communicated, attended matches and had a clearly defined role as our Financial Director. Same with John Williams and Tom Finn. This lot are a different matter altogether.

I want the real culprits holding to account. Owners and senior management. Those that remain in place for years on end running things from the shadows and are the ultimate cause of our situation. I don't believe our transfer problems are of Silvester's making and they don't deserve the benefit of doubt on that. Unfortunately little stunts like this and changing manager convince some people the problem is sorted and that we can move on to the future. Firing off Silvester sure as hell will be a lot cheaper than signing McGuire and paying his wages for 6 months.

If it happened 3x in a year due to real 'mistakes' costing us playoffs, promotion and our manager I'd expect a bit more by way of consequence than the secretary leaving many months later and being replaced with an administrator, which is why I referenced senior management. When do any of them take responsibility? Ever? Or just pin it on someone lower down the chain and move on? I reckon all but Waggott and maybe Coar of our 'senior management' could walk into Blues Bar at 2:30pm matchday and not one person in there would know who they were. Nobody knows who they are, what they do, what they look like. Do you think that is acceptable?

More pointless shuffling. Next will be Broughton out. Then they can all take the blame for what has happened. Meanwhile Venkys remain. Steve Waggott, Gandhi Babu, Sreenivasa Rao, Robert Coar, Suhail Sheik and Matt Wright all named on the club website as 'Senior management'. Only one is ever visible or provides any degree of communication, and that is grossly inadequate. Who are these people, what are they doing and when do they take any responsibility for the state of this club?

I keep hearing about the need to consult with fans. I don't think this is necessary and would only serve to muddy the waters. Price cuts across the board is the ONLY way of halting or reversing decline in sales. It isn't complicated, and doesn't need some lengthy discussion. It needs price cuts and the only question should be how much. I don't think the new Sky deal will immediately put loads of people off buying, they are more likely to balance price with product (largely dross) served up this season and ask if they can be arsed with it all over again. But medium to long term this Sky deal and fixture changes WILL shave even more off attendances. Once people realise the realities on a week-by-week basis and experience first hand the number of inconvenient kick off times, one by one they will come to the conclusion it isn't worth it when they can watch from home instead. Lets face it. We don't have any issues with supply, so people know if they change their mind later they WILL get a ticket, maybe not in their favourite seats but somewhere decent in the ground. Some clubs can at least continue to use that as an incentive and the risk that tickets won't be available at a later date. Fully agree that for all the incompetence and ineptitude around Waggott certainly has his eye on the ball when it comes to making sure his targets are hit. He will know how fed up people are and will know this season has been a disgrace from the owners down. He will know there will be a sizeable drop off coming regardless of price with so many people just totally at the end of their tether with it. So he will probably add some more on to prices to offset that loss. Name of the game here isn't to grow, increase, improve. It is to screw those going for as much as possible to hit his targets and to hell with the consequences.

Indeed. If the owners were interested or determined to get us promoted they would have been touching down (metaphorically or literally) at Ewood in December / January in the last 2 years and providing resources needed to try and get us over the line. No guarantees of success of course but you'd be desperate to do whatever you possibly could to keep it going and get to the holy land. Top 2 was there for hitting, top 6 as a minimum. What we saw wasn't that, but rather a heavily restricted and maxed-out budget operation at Ewood bringing in a few loans of largely inadequate quality but pretty much all they could do with the resources available. You certainly don't sit around wailing about FFP or potential future problems. You act, hope it works, and if it doesn't you deal with it later by selling someone and juggling things around. They just haven't the interest. I very much doubt they even know we were in a promotion push, it makes no difference to them, I doubt they will yet know we have nearly been relegated (again) or care. I think Waggott and Pasha are instructed to not bother them more than once per year or if not instructed to do so then they certainly aren't going to go out of their way to do it. The 'owners statements' we've had recently little more than Waggott and Pasha putting a few bits down which they are permitted to do. Mowbray, JDT, the players and fans deserved better. The owners have, through their negligence and disinterest, sunk promotion hopes.

Undoubtedly things have shifted with regards to their intentions from what they were in 2010 to what they are today. I too don't subscribe to the active sabotage theory, but the fact that they have had not one but two promotion opportunities unexpectedly drop into their lap in the last couple of years and done absolutely nothing to try to take advantage of that, tells me that we are well and truly at the back of their minds. People may want to continue to delude themselves that these people have any degree of interest, pride, care, ambition for this club but I think basically we are a loss making entity that they have zero interest in, and essentially their involvement goes as far as sanctioning an annual budget in the summer and leaving the jokers in the boardroom to do what they want/can with that amount. Deliberate or not it will only lead to one thing. There's no place in any industry, professional sport especially, for people who aren't interested or committed. Signing off another round of share issue every few months to cover the debt isn't commitment for the purposes of driving an organisation forward, it's just doing the necessary to keep the lights on and bailiffs away. It isn't good enough.

Sounds like win, win, win, win for Waggott this summer Get shut of Broughton Fans 'blame' him for the January debacles and struggles this season. Waggott seen to be taking action to correct things. Broughton's wage off the books. Back to the old routine of signing players linked to certain agencies and individuals. Waggott gets the credit in India for £30 odd million coming in from AW and Szmodics, both a large part due to the work of JDT and nothing to do with Waggott or the shadow man. Another few years on the gravy train whilst people delude themselves lessons learned or reinvestment coming. Wake up folks, this is typical Venky manoeuvring to make it appear things are happening, they won't and the same old faces remain behind it all. Only at Rovers would we employ a DOF structure, spend 2 years at it, rake in £40 million through sales then get rid and start again to save on costs.

'We've done all we can' Cardiff just through the 10,000 sold barrier Starting at £309 adults so just the £90 less than here for a better product. Wonder if we will hear news this side of the Euros. No rush, what's the urgency, not as if we need money.

Why can't we then?

Apparently. Or they'll get promoted and avoid issues. Or sell someone to achieve compliance. But until then they'll spend and build towards promotion, which I'm told we cannot do.

Better to try and fail than not try at all. For every Birmingham there's a Brentford, Fulham, Brighton, Forest, Villa where tough yet thought out decisions landed the jackpot. We'll never find out one way or the other here, just gradually decay away in a state of confusion and excuse making

Rosenior had far better conditions and backing than JDT had in his first season and has delivered the same league position. Done reasonably well and realistically looking at the 6 above them in the table couldn't have expected much higher. Why it was even more important to get top 6 last season when competing with the likes of Luton, Coventry and Sunderland rather than Southampton, Leeds, West Brom. But had huge backing by Championship standards and missed out. For an ambitious owner rather than one on autopilot that isn't enough. All about getting to the PL asap, unless you are Venkys of course

Not much talk about FFP excuses at Hull. Just an ambitious new owner wanting them to get better and prepared to make ruthless decisions to get there and willing to bankroll it. See, it can happen. Only in the brains of a hopefully dwindling number of Rovers fans can it not.

I asked this in the fans forum thread and am non the wiser, but what is Rudy Gestede's role? He isn't named in any official capacity yet is clearly involved to some degree behind the scenes. I wonder if there's any logic or plan to it or just that he's keen to be involved and working for cheap /low cost so Rovers are all over it.

So who appointed Gregg and who is accountable for the D of F 'failure' if Broughton does indeed depart after less than 2 years in the job? I'm coming back to my original suspicion which is that Waggott and the other snake in the shadows knew full well the choppy waters ahead when Mowbray left and Venkys had terminated their funding. The Broughton/D of F stunt was done to window dress and for him to take the blame when it inevitably went tits up, which was always going to happen under these owners and their slashed budgets. All the while those two keep their well paid cushy numbers for another few years.

Did Waggott think it appropriate / reasonable that he was doing such deals without the input of the Director of Football? Why is he taking any involvement in transfers?

Our financial position should be no worse than that at most other sides in this league. I'm not saying losing £10-20 million a year is good, but it is the going rate. If the owners don't like that or can't afford it then there is a simple solution that would make sense for everyone - leave and let us move on. Millwall, Watford, PNE, Huddersfield, Birmingham, Coventry, Cardiff, Swansea, Bristol City - we really shouldn't be much different at all to any of those clubs. Some will naturally get bigger crowds, some shouldn't. Some will make more on merchandise, some won't. We've got a Cat A academy costing us a little bit more than those clubs (Swansea excepted). If we are struggling to compete financially with those sides then there is a problem. And the solution to that problem isn't to shrug shoulders and convince ourselves there's nothing to be done. The solution is to quickly make changes to reverse that. Right here right now, heading into the summer and a transfer window, we SHOULD be in a far better financial state than all those clubs. Why? Because within the last 12 months we have banked over £25 million in transfer fees. We've spent what, a few hundred grand, maybe a million max on Wahlstedt, Telalovic and O'Riordan? None of those other clubs have brought in that sort of cash and not many of them will in the coming months. We are also lucky because we know we will soon be getting even more for Raya, and we are in a position of probably wanting or needing to cash in on Szmodics. Transfer income of over £35 million in 12 months is ridiculous for a side in our position, and a net profit of well over £30 million on trading. That is the sort of income that doesn't come around very often and when it does it should be used to fund a massive comprehensive rebuild of the squad and club, funding new assets to be sold down the line. I've barely touched on wages suffice to say that aside from Gallagher there should be nobody left on competitive Championship wages and with another round of departures coming that wage bill will surely be as low as it can realistically get. It's the 'model' they've sold to us for the last few years, only they seem to have forgotten about the reinvest part. It's the model that other clubs have followed and I've been told is the only way we can compete, by reinvesting profits into trading rather than relying on the owners pumping it in. Well we've now got the cash. PNE don't. Millwall don't. Cardiff don't. The money the owners will have budgeted to come over to Rovers - the '£20 million' a year or whatever it is - will still be in their budgets. So why isn't the bonus money from these sales being used on top of the owners' money, or at least partly on top of?

What 'major financial trouble' is the club in? Over the last 3-4 years it has barely spent anything be that on transfers, facilities etc. Our wage bill has been drastically cut. We make substantial annual losses but we are no different to any other non-parachute laden Championship side in that respect. If you are referring to the 'issues' preventing the owners from sending money over that's a different matter altogether. That is their issue and their problem to sort. It isn't the club's fault or a result of the club's financial structure. With or without Szmodics being sold we should be in a very strong financial position going into the summer. As you rightly state we have already brought in over £25 million from sales since last summer and are likely to go past the £30 million mark with Raya joining Arsenal. None of that has been reinvested yet. Most other professional clubs would be ready to push 'go' on multiple quality signings using a large chunk of that cash to ensure we hit the ground running this summer and next season. We all know this won't happen and it sums up the miserable existence of BRFC in 2024 that rather than relish a rebuild and reinvestment and a brighter future pretty much all the transfer talk is about weakening ourselves further by offloading the one positive from this season. Unfortunately many will be suckered in by false promises of reinvestment which won't materialise and then they'll come with more ridiculous excuses about admin issues as to why not.

Just waiting for the inevitable 'we can't compete with Bolton' with reference to them getting double our gates next season. Mark my words it will be the very same people who used Bolton as an example of where we'd be without Venky's involvement.

They'd also played an extra game than the other teams when they were 6th having played on a Friday night against West Brom.

It really is the most extreme form of desperation that we are already at the stage of artificially adding wins to Eustace's record in games that he had no input into, just to make his record appear less awful, and that even if we do give him that win, which he shouldn't get, it is STILL ONLY 3 wins in 17 We are arguing about whether it is a 17% win record or an 11% win record. Most of us agree it is 11%. Irrational people desperate to try and fluff his record up a bit claim it is 17%. Still rubbish, just a bit less rubbish.

You don't keep a manager who has a woeful record in place through a critical summer and transfer window just because you can't immediately off the top of your head come up with a better name. That's doing things backwards. Nor do you keep him because it is the easiest, cheapest, simplest, nicest thing to do. You review performances and results, league position. You think long and hard about where you want to go and how you want to get there. Then you make a decision based on that. If the verdict is something different is needed then you axe him and get someone else. If not you back him and own the decision. This is basic management. Here however he will be hailed as a genius for us limping to 50 points playing unconvincing football and with 2 wins in 18 games and his future won't even be considered. He's under contract and that's really all that matters. They have zero interest in results, style, plans, league position. He's employed and will remain so until he walks, his contract ends or he says something that brings Venkys and shadow man into the spotlight.

It's also Bolton going bust, dropping to the 4th division, administration, new owners, and coming back up 2 divisions to the same level as Venky Rovers and being in better financial and fanbase health. Similar with Derby. I feel jealous.