JHRover

By the summer JDT and possibly Broughton too will be gone, then they'll wheel out the next lot to talk the talk and plan under false promises with certain fans hanging on their every word, but as you say the be all and end all is that the cash will disappear into running costs as it always does. Good news for Venkys and the money men, bad news for Rovers and our league status but since when has that been a matter of concern?

The difference is that Middlesbrough reinvest. We don't. I don't think any Rovers fan would complain if we used the money to improve the squad. But we won't. So we gain zero benefit other than keeping Venkys happy for another 12 months.

If offloading Wharton to Palace 2 days before the deadline with almost zero prospect of any serious reinvestment wasn't a nauseating enough concept, just add into the equation the cartwheels Waggott will be doing in his office as he awaits the cheque coming in from Palace and his next meeting with the cretins in India. It's hard enough to take and accept but knowing it makes life easier and better for Venkys and Waggott knocks me sick.

Not quite, to try to keep them you have to make them offers of new contracts and pay them the going rate. There's no evidence we did either, other than the claims of a proven liar.

Our last big sale was Adam Armstrong in August 2021. £15 million by many accounts. At the time we heard all the usual stuff about how this is the model we are operating in, how selling players for profit was our route to growth and development, the Brentford model, it would allow for much needed reinvestment into several key positions, that Armstrong was a sacrifice worth making to enable spending on other positions. What happened in the days, weeks and months following that sale? Well we spent nothing for the next 12 months and then the next claim was that it had funded our spend in summer 2022 when we signed Szmodics, Brittain and Hyam for a few million combined. Then the story was that the rest had gone to this new concept of a 'FFP cycle' and that we had no choice in this matter in order to avoid catastophe that never actually befalls anyone even when they don't sell players for such huge sums of money. 2.5 years on and we've spent at best 1/3 of the Armstrong dosh, sold Brockhall and are now going to sell Adam Wharton with all the same trademark talk about projects and models, but in the end it's all bullshit under this ownership.

I'm confused here. So you are saying that immediately upon Wharton's sale the sum of £11 million has to be siphoned off just to cover the "FFP deficit" without which we would be forced into further sales or a summer transfer embargo? How does that add up? Why is it that this club seems to be under such a constant immediate pressing need to reduce costs, wages and significant player sales to stave off this threat when so few other Championship clubs face it? Between 2017 and 2021 we had no major sales (other than the pitiful fee we got for David Raya) yet were never in breach of FFP, never placed under any restrictions. Fast forward a few years and despite still being a Championship club, despite having presumably a significantly lower wage bill (much smaller and younger squad) and despite a few sales and significant cost cuts last summer we now need £11 million to stave off the threat for the summer? It just doesn't add up and i don't believe it. Is the current 'model' really one that is FFP non-compliant and reliant on a sale of £10 million+ of players every couple of years to remain out of trouble? Likewise if Wharton was to suffer injury or a move break down and we don't get a massive transfer fee I doubt it would make one iota of difference - we would not be placed under an embargo in the summer either way. If the Wharton money is used 'towards' FFP then that surely means that the money the owners don't need to pump in to meet existing running costs can instead be pumped into recruitment and new signings?

Still waiting to see JDT's '3 experienced signings' he announced he wanted last week. Of course we who have been paying attention to events at Venky Rovers know how the routine goes by now. There will be at least one sale, possibly more than one, and millions on millions of pounds coming in as a result. We will be lucky to make any signings the other way, if we do they will probably be loans, or at best a couple of cheap permanent buys. 90%+ of the transfer cash is never seen again. We then get the stories about how we 'had' to sell Gallagher due to his contract, allegedly not wanting to be here or his wages (strange how no such issues for those clubs after him), and then it will be the usual 'FFP cycle' excuses for why we never see the Wharton cash. They'll play us like fiddles. Many will fall for it and insist to their mates that they know best. In the end it is just Waggott and Pasha getting a big well done and pat on the back (+bonus) for ensuring Venkys don't have to worry about injecting any cash next year and in one swoop earning themselves another few years on the never ending gravy train whilst they find the next few to develop and flog.

Pretty much every club that has endured turmoil under inappropriate / unfit owners in recent times has relatively quickly come through it and moved on. Bolton, Blackpool, Portsmouth, Derby etc. etc. We're into year 13 or 14 of this with no end in sight. A fanbase and club can cope with a short sharp battering, and when you come out the other side of it regroup and reunite. But when the battering is sustained over decades the long term damage done to the club and support is so much more severe, albeit probably less noticeable because it is gradual over the years where numbers dwindle and people move on. With everything in the world it comes back to cash. Because Venkys pick up the tab for it and we avoid admin many fans and the wider football world just assume all is fine. Nobody really stops to think about the actual impact their negligent ownership continues to have, and those that do just get the usual cop out of "ah but back in 1982 we only had x thousand on, it's better than those days"

We have a big catchment area, just a lot of competition in it. Makes it all the more important that we do our damned best to retain and grow that catchment area without PL football to offer, and all the more unforgivable the approach Rovers have taken in the last decade which is to do absolutely nothing to promote the club anywhere outside of Blackburn with Darwen. Sides like Ipswich and Norwich don't need to do very much to pull them in - a couple of decent seasons and promotion pushes will do it - the people out there have little else to do other than go back to them Here people have many other options ranging from Accy Stanley because it's easier and cheaper, to City because they can watch a quality product for less, to everything inbetween. The advantage we accumulated under Walker and 20 years of top flight football is being eroded and I think the club could and should do a lot more to stop or reverse that.

Tell you what they are making what should be a straight forward idea into something difficult to understand aren't they? Once upon a time it was just 'tickets on sale until kick off' especially when you've 10,000+ set to be empty. Nowadays we have ticket office shut, digital tickets ok until kick off, club shop and telephone sales good until 5pm, i.e. until most people clock off work, but then bizarrely we aren't selling any this way after this time, though I assume the shop will be open pre-match just not selling any tickets for the game. Apparently on police advice though still waiting for someone to explain why it is ok for someone to buy a digital ticket at 7pm but not ok for them to go into the shop or ring the club and buy that way instead.

Reasons this won't happen: a) We've got no money b) He would require either a transfer or signing on fee c) He's 30. We have a policy of not signing players of that age d) The attitude at Rovers is why bother bringing in a permanent transfer when the job can be done by either an academy lad or youngster on loan.

I've just bit on Facebook and responded to one moron who wanted to lecture me on FFP rules after I criticised the lack of communication from the club on this and the Brockhall scheme. Apparently we 'had' to try and put houses on Brockhall because of Covid. I agree though that the numbers of Venky sympathisers aren't as great as they once were. Suspect having to go to court every few months to head off winding up petitions might have brought one or two minds into focus.

Waggott is a good reader of the atmosphere. He knows when to keep his head down and when he needs to re-appear and do a well staged interview / statement. For example the usual radio silence whilst they plotted at length to demolish Brockhall for a housing estate, hoping that it would go through unnoticed, and then within hours of local media (finding out about it from here) he was on the club website. It happened again in the summer when there was complete silence for months and then he appeared to brag about his new bus and paying the milk man on time just as the rumours were taking off about the Indian issues. He even got plenty of credit from the numpties out there applauding his 'honesty' simply for sitting down and doing a routine interview with in house media. So it wouldn't surprise me if he's getting ready for another similar stunt now the latest Court documents are circulating together with news about the adjournment until March. It won't come from India but he will try to keep the masses quiet and those in India comfortable with some generic nonsense about their 'commitment' that we tend to get once a year. No sign of the local media in all this who are presumaby quite happy with a situation whereby the club's existence is under immediate threat due to funding issues, better off concentrating on transfer tittle tattle, although I did notice that North West tonight decided to focus on us the other night now that we are struggling and sliding down the table.

When you are loaning out popular senior players who have been with the club since they were kids so you can save on the weekly wage bill and replacing them with random kids on loan on a fraction of the cost you know you have serious problems, and it is inevitable that these sort of decisions are going to have repercussions behind the scenes and around the dressing room. I daresay that this is already happening and is a factor in our nosedive. The perils of making your recruitment decisions solely on the basis of cost and convenience rather than considering wider ramifications. Save a few quid a week, pats on the back at Venky HQ yet destroy team spirit and annoy the rest of the squad causing further issues. That's before you get on to the complete and total lack of ambition and professionalism to be found anywhere other than in the head coach's office. Owners a disgrace, CEO not fit for purpose and a Director of Football who, if I'm being kind hasn't been given any real opportunity to prove his worth. Of course Gallagher will be looking elsewhere. It is abundantly clear that he will be earmarked for release / sale to get his substantial wages off the books as we have with every decent earner for the last 4 years. They lied to us and claimed they tried to keep some of them and made them good improved offers, but I think as time goes by it becomes more and more clear that this was little more than a ruse to keep the fans on side and try to shift blame to the player(s) and not the owners. Gallagher won't have had much of an indication on his future because we don't even know if we can pay the wages from one month to the next (cheers Venkys), so we are hardly going to be in a position to negotiate terms with a top earner. We are the club that sat back and allowed Mowbray's deal to expire with no communication until weeks after the season ended, that did nothing to keep the likes of Rothwell and Diaz, totally unprofessional, where the manager has no idea what, if any, money he is going to be permitted to spend and so is it any surprise at all that Gallagher is getting fed up being treated like a mug?

Yeah there's no way HMRC would have allowed us to run up that sort of tab without serious action being taken before now including winding up petitions, which even with the non-existent local reporting would have found its way into the public domain. It seems the basis of Venky's applications to the Indian court are that if the court doesn't grant the request then the club/investment goes bust very quickly. With that in mind I suspect that as long as the circumstances haven't significantly changed and as long as they can justify the amount they are seeking to transfer from India to the UK then it is likely to be granted again. The problem is funding beyond essential obligations, which is a separate issue for determination as those cannot be justified by threat of the club going bust without. The cash used to buy the player today will have come from the club's own 'resources' in much the same way as all our previous recent purchases. The club doesn't have very much money without external input but will have enough to scrape together hundreds of thousands to buy the cheaper end development projects on League One or Two wages. This is precisely what they've been building towards for years and what they mean when they talk about reducing the demands on the owners. Unfortunately for us keeping Venkys as owners but not having much / any extra funding from them is the worst possible outcome. One of our only chances of being rid of them is that they either can't afford to fund us any more or they get the club taken off them. If they get to a stage where the club is effectively covering itself at minimum aggro or cost to them it is more likely they'll just leave us in a drawer for longer to stagnate.

Such incompetence only ever occurs when it is a player coming in and when it requires cash from the owners....funny that.

Think of the brownie points Waggott will get himself if this one comes off. He'll be popular in India when they realise that the next couple of years of the circus are effectively paid for up front. Bonus time as he nudges up season ticket prices yet again?

Or the best one of the lot: "We've got to be careful with FFP, we are in the middle of a 3 year cycle so we need to wait a year and then we'll be good to spend in the next cycle" Tomorrow never comes.

The Head Coach / D of F structure was just a way for the powers that be to further distance themselves from scrutiny or accountability, whilst retaining control from the shadows. They set the budgets and make the ultimate decisions, but Broughton and JDT are the public face of it and are the ones who get the hassle from the fans and media. Only have to sit near me at Ewood and the number of groans and moans about the manager's performance, lots of criticism about around Broughton's recruitment yet the real issue here is the people upstairs, the people who have employed them, the people who have set the budgets and undermined them with extreme restrictions on recruitment.

It usually helps in retaining good players or obtaining new good players if you can convince them that you are a club with a plan, a vision and a destination e.g. Premier League asap. They can see that even if you don't achieve your objective that you will try and that it is a club worth being at. One look at this disgrace of an organisation: > pitiful summer transfer budget slashed mid window > Court applications to release funds every few months to pay wages and head off winding up petitions > CEO who boasts and lies about buying a new bus and paying bills on time. Announces survival as the aim despite spending 2 years pushing for promotion. > Manager and CEO/D of F clearly not all singing from the same hymn sheet > cost cutting and reduction the only plan > loaning out senior players to rivals to save on their wages None of the above caused by FFP rules Why anyone would want to be involved at any level is beyond me. I certainly don't want to be and I'm not a player with a short career to maximise.

Fortunately for us our support comes from way beyond the confines of Blackburn. The population of Blackburn is quite immaterial really, despite Waggott's best efforts to convince us otherwise.

JRC, Gallagher and Pears like new signings though. Dolan and Hedges too. There's no doubt they'll play that old chestnut when deadline day comes with no business done. Unless Brighton or someone send us a kid for nothing for us to develop in our relegation scrap.

Why make it harder for away fans when you can just impose additional restrictions on home fans. Added bonus of saving a few quid on ticket office staff.

Always someone else to blame. Sky, EFL, police, other clubs, Indian government, Indian judiciary, the weather. We should 'advise' the police that we are a business entitled to try and make money and the few hours before kick off, especially for cup fixtures, are probably our best opportunity for a late take up in sales. But no, easier to shrug shoulders, blame others and sit in an empty stadium.

Until recently I believed that every decision they made was motivated solely by short term cost savings. But now I am of the view they are deliberately pulling stunts like these either to antagonise people or to keep attendances to a minimum 20,000 empty seats and you won't open the ticket office on matchday. Wow.