JHRover

My theory is that we are having to wait for the outcome of the Newport v Eastleigh replay on Tuesday night. The winner plays Man Utd in the next round which if course is nailed on for TV broadcast. Seems likely broadcasters will want to know that outcome before fixing their slots and won't want to put us and Wrexham on when it might clash. Whatever the reasons I suspect it will be Wednesday before we know the precise day and time of the game and Thursday before tickets are on sale, leaving a week of sales. I knew they'd find a way to shorten or limit sales potential though in this case not all the club's fault. Not having a functioning ticket office doesn't help matters though.

So not reciprocal pricing as claimed. Not like Rovers to lie about things is it?

If it was really even JDTs call. He spent all his first two windows telling us that ins and outs weren't his remit and those were handled above him. He just coaches the players he is given. Unless that's changed.

He's on the best number he's ever had and will ever get. He'll keep on this ride until he's told to get off. Imagine spending years doing 'consultancy' work for crisis ridden lower league clubs like Gillingham and Southend, and running Charlton's Community Trust, then all of a sudden you are CEO of Blackburn Rovers in the Championship on fantastic money. To make matters even better you have absentee owners who have proven they don't care about performance so long as you do as you are told and don't complain you have a job as long as you want it. You have a fanbase beaten into submission who range from thinking you are good/honest/decent to those who simply don't care about anything beyond 3pm to 5pm every other Saturday. You've now even managed to layer the operation so that any football related problems can be batted off to Broughton and JDT and no longer any of his business. As ever responsibility lies with the owners to move him on as he is well past his sell by date but they're happy just to keep plodding on. What they don't want is the trouble of finding someone else who might actually want to haul the club forward or have expectations of them.

Do you remember the myth that was trotted out with some regularity about Venkys from 2012 to 2021 each transfer window that if we were in the promotion shake up they would undoubtedly 'go for it' and bankroll what we needed to 'get over the line' and the only reason they hadn't up to that point was because we had never been in a really good position in the table to strike? Their antics (or lack of) in the last two January windows have proven that to be false, another Venky myth that is free and easy to spread with vague future promises of doing things but with absolutely no intention of it actually coming to pass. I'm glad that particular one has been torpedoed. They were never going to bankroll it and they never will. Of course their stooges on the ground, desperate as they are to shield the owners from blame, responsibility or criticism for the organisation they own, control, finance, continue to do their best to concoct various reasons and excuses in a desperate bid to lay the blame for this elsewhere, but I think even the most patient and trusting of people have seen through it by now. If you aren't going to back your manager with the team in the position it was in 2022 and 2023 then you never will. And that inertia has cost us at very least a play-off position in the last two seasons. The managers did their bit, the players did theirs, they were let down by owners who take no interest and have no intention of providing the additional backing needed at the right time to haul us over the line. We've had FFP rules, we've had 'not the right time to do business', we've had 'players moving goalposts on demands', we've had 'club secretary forgetting how to do his job', we've had 'Football League asking unnecessary and unexpected questions', we've had 'Indian government bullying poor Venkys', we've had 'CEO and owners rep decide to travel to Birmingham for a cup replay rather than ensuring more important business got done at Brockhall' and I'm sure there are other examples of the nonsense they come up with to try to explain why money doesn't go out and good signings don't come in. It just doesn't wash anymore. I'd have a lot more respect for the people working there if they just admitted the truth which is the owners don't care and the budget is set in the summer and spent with no chance of an increase.

Morton clearly has something about him. He got a new long term Liverpool deal at the end of last season despite being injured so that shows that they see something there. To be fair to him he came here and at 19 played virtually every game in a side that was sat in the top 6 all season and should have got into the play-offs and the FA Cup semi so I don't think that is too bad. Since then has played every week and getting good reviews at a side outperforming us. I do think there is too high an expectation on players particularly in the middle of the pitch in terms of what they contribute. The same seems to have applied to Travis and before that many others who people expect to be able to do 'everything' well. Anyhow, almost at the mid-way point of the window and looks set to be another fiasco. Quickly managed to get the captain and one of the few experienced battlers in the side out the door to a promotion chasing team, tried to cover that up with the pointless signings of two more kids probably costing us nothing and since then another experienced player gone back to Bournemouth (admittedly might not be our fault but that's the risk you take when signing loans). As it stands, disastrous, again.

Which ultimately benefits nobody but Venkys and Waggott. JDT worked wonders in the cups last season delivering a huge financial boost to the club and what did he get back as thanks for it?

I'd say it is about right based on what I see and hear. Certainly the people I go to games with, go to the pub with beforehand and am sat / stood around during games have little to no interest in the owners. Quite happy to speculate and discuss new signings and team selections and moan at Tomasson, but absolutely no interest in what is going on in India or the boardroom. Never been a murmur of discontent about Waggott or the shadow man.

Don't forget Gillingham under Scally as well.

75% + of regular Ewood attendees don't give a stuff about the owners or board of Rovers so it would be a bit odd if they suddenly took an interest in a publicity stunt in North Wales and that influenced their attendance at this tie

So reinvestment is possible under FFP, just not here?

We sold one player for £15 million and all transfers since then have cost less than that, we also sold our training ground and other players including our goalkeeper and Ash Phillips and still whinge about FFP rules causing a problem.

Sshh. Apparently nobody will buy a loss making 2nd division club and you just have to hope the current owners never leave or the club will disappear. Also notice that their owner has managed to invest without hiding behind FFP rules as an excuse.

First thing to worry about is getting enough fans on to ensure we aren't outnumbered by that circus. They'll bring a lot and probably fill their allocation (probably would go close even without the media nonsense). Once again the ball is in Waggott and Rovers' court to ensure we at least try to get a healthy gate on (far more needed than the numbers against Cambridge) yet I suspect he'll instead spend his time concocting some new scheme to deter or frustrate potential buyers.

He can do what he would have been doing here - playing mid-table to bottom half Championship games - but getting paid far, far more off Spurs than he would have got here. In addition if he doesn't like it there or he struggles to hold down a place in their team then it matters not because come the summer he can go elsewhere.

Birmingham should consider themselves honoured that he's prepared to put himself to such trouble as travelling down from Teesside to do the job. He'll keep them up, they'll be mid-table inconsistent for a year or so and then they'll sack him when they get more delusions of grandeur or realise that the horror runs under him are inevitable. Just hope there's no staff or players at Sunderland that he advised to move on before he got sacked.

I really don't think Venkys know or care about that and even less than that do they hold him responsible for it. He can send his spreadsheets over there each year and show them how he's increased revenues from squeezing the 8000 a bit harder or by putting an 1875 membership scheme out or saved some money by shutting a stand or whatever else he comes up with. I really don't think the tying down assets thing is something they'll lay at his door, I suspect that one falls on Mowbray/Venus and the shadow man/Venkys for not sorting. They clearly don't care about things like lost ticket sales or plummeting attendances so doubt they'll even think about his policies and their impact on those.

He's doing well for his bosses, hollowing out the club, saving them relatively small amounts in the scheme of tens of millions a year, saving them any hassle or need to do anything other than sanction the annual budget. Unfortunately what is good for Venkys isn't what is good for Rovers, so as a Rovers CEO he has been an outright failure in improving, developing, enhancing, progressing the football club.

As with politics and showbusiness/media those in powerful positions/making loads of money don't give it up unless they have to. In most professions you'd be desperate to enjoy retirement or too worn down by decades of hard work to keep going yet these professions you get folk keep going into their 70s and 80s. Usually either because they love it too much or because it is too good a number to let go.

We did it once, and showed that even when we do sell them high (still less than we should have got) that we won't spend it.

And yet for Watkins see Armstrong, Rothwell and Diaz who between them we could have had pushing £30 million. Yet due to poor management only got circa £15 million, none of which was immediately reinvested due to various excuses, then about a third was allowed back in over a year later to try to rebuild the spine of the team and spread around 4-5 signings, then we have people saying despite the £10 million profit and dismantling of the wage bill we still had to sell Brockhall and are still in the pitiful state we are at present, focusing on getting people out and off the wage bill before potential incomings arrive. In short we've had a chance to emulate Brentford and have already proven we cannot or will not and have a book of excuses as to why.

Brentford had a plan, led by their owner who has a brain and is invested in the club. He has used his skills to overcome their financial weakness and small fanbase to get them to the PL. This included investment - they paid up to £10 million for Ivan Toney as a Championship club - yet we are told we cannot do this ourselves. So we are nowhere near and never will be near Brentford. Even if we got new owners we would struggle as they were so good at it but with Venkys making things up on a whim....never.

Do you believe every word you read and hear in the news? do you ever weigh up two sides to a story and apply logic or critical thought to a situation? Tomasson is paid by Rovers. He has a responsibility to himself and his employers to project a certain narrative. He would be the first manager in history if he came along and said "the player didn't want to go, he was keen to stay and fight for his place, but people at the Club decided we were getting rid and freeing up the wages as there's no other money" If he said that he'd be turning the focus on the Club, owners, board, Broughton and himself rather than on a player who's out of the way for 6 months and he probably won't work with again after he resigns in the summer. It's a bit like when you insist JDT is happy at Rovers because he's said something along those lines in his press conferences. You take that at face value and insist it is true. A blind man can see it probably isn't given the way these owners have conducted business since he arrived.

No it doesn't make sense You're trying to rationalise the irrational. Loaning your captain and one of a few experienced Championship players you have out to a side 25 points higher and in the top 2 is not sensible. If it was a sale for good levels of cash I could consider the argument. You know your stuff. Find me a comparable loan to the Travis one. I think you'll struggle because these sort of deals are very strange.

Always good to see all is well with the world of Rovers in Chaddyland The events of the last few days, weeks and months in all departments of the Club met with almost universal derision and condemnation, but can always rely on Chaddy to fish a positive or two out of the Ewood Park swamp.