If we go down he doesn't deserve to be here next season. But he will be because they won't pay 2 years up on his deal. To be fair as ambivalent as I am on Eustace I doubt this operation in League One would have any prospect of getting anyone better. None of it really matters though because the overall trajectory and destination of the club is a downward one and that is set by the owners. Eustace, JDT, Pep, Jose, John Coleman, they're all going to have the same issues and scumbags dragging us down.

Players in poor sides raise their game in the big no pressure no expectation situations. Kean managed to lead us to impressive performances and results at Anfield and Old Trafford when nobody gave us a chance. Berg took us to a win at Arsenal in the Cup where nobody expected us to. Coyle nearly knocked out Mourinho's United whilst we were bottom of this league. I'd read very little into the performance and result against Newcastle. It was enjoyable on the night but of little to no relevance to our league campaign. We're a soft weak side that crumbles under pressure and can't cope with expectation. Easy raising your game and giving it 100% when live on national TV against a Premier League side and you simply have to give it your best shot. Harder to travel to Championship outposts and grind out wins against seasoned battlers. That takes bottle.

'A must win game' So what happens if we don't win? Nothing, we just say that Plymouth is then a must win and on it goes. I know which side between Rovers and Millwall I'd put my money on in a relegation scrap.

We can but hope. I think sensible people would long ago have taken proactive steps to get rid of the club knowing the situation they were facing. The fact they have done nothing but force us to sell more assets tells us they really don't give a stuff about the best future for the club or doing anything to mitigate the damage to it, it's more important they keep hold for no purpose and drag the club into the gutter whilst doing so.

It's been slowly dying for years, left to rot and wither. What we have now is the later stages of the decay.

Mowbray, for all his faults, crucially agreed to jump on a plane to India within a few weeks of the season ended and had a meeting with Madame. The rest is history. Once he got that personal link to them and talked the talk they loved him and agreed to his requests. That is why he got relatively healthy financial backing during his time in charge where others didn't. It is also why he was unsackable and left alone to run his contract down. You never know, maybe Eustace will be invited over in May where JDT wasn't but I doubt it, so instead we just have the underlings cutting costs and ticking their target boxes.

2 wins in 17 and the cause of that set of results is what will doom us, not QPR winning at Leicester. If you don't get to 50 points you have no right to expect survival. If you get there and still go down, as we did last time, then you can claim an element of misfortune.

I'd be more worried about the situation if I had any ounce of belief in things changing and getting better once this season was out of the way. But it isn't, at best next season will be another relegation battle. And it will keep on being until we finally go down. At best the Indian restrictions get lifted and we go back to business as usual. Which still means budget cuts, excuses, incompetence and sales of best players. None of those things are created by the Indian funding restrctions, they were happening before. So I'm not worrying, relegation is inevitable, and dare I say totally deserved. It is only a question of when and what happens after that we need bother with.

Two types of manager in the world. Those who are willing to play the Venky game and those who aren't. JDT and Lambert weren't. Realised they'd been conned, just like the rest of us, and knew for the sake of their sanity they needed to get out of it quickly. The rest were just grateful to have a job here and put up with it.

Fleck will have been a deadline day panic after selling Adam and realising that offloading Travis was insane. So they'll have looked around for easy deals to do, in this case a bloke never playing at Sheffield Utd and out of contract soon, ticks a lot of boxes. Happy to come here until the summer to try and get game time and match fit, no obligations beyond that, effectively a loan which is the way they like it here. Everyone happy. Sheff Utd get rid of a wage and place in the squad allowing them to put money elsewhere. He gets an audition here and much better prospects of game time and we appear to plug a self inflicted hole in the squad until the summer. Suspect we aren't paying his full wage, probably he's done a deal with Sheffield to go early. Takes a lump sum pay off and we pay him the shortfall.

I use turnstiles L and arrived at 7:30pm just as they announced kick off had been delayed. It was chaos and no way would all the home fans have got through the turnstiles in time for 7:45pm. To make matters worse one of the three turnstiles was closed, but then bizarrely opened at about 7:50pm which of course allowed people to get in much more quickly.

I just think the ground looks awful looking at the BBE and having the upper tier shut. Visually it would look so much better if open, even with only 500-1000 up there at least it would appear better. Their incredibly limited efforts at putting people up there via the free tickets to a few schools in Blackburn appear to have ended and they now get put downstairs in the family stand. With cutback Steve and vile Venkys going nowhere I wonder how long it will be before that area is opened to general admission fans.

Neither were sellouts. Oxford only filled about half the DE upper so over 1500 empty up there and then the lower tier wasn't completely full, nor were the top corners of the BBE. For some reason we never fill the full capacity of the DE these days whereas back in the 90s I'm sure they got an extra 300-400 in there. Against Newcastle there were chunks of seats in the bottom corners empty.

I don't understand where 2000 empty seats were in the Jack Walker stand. From the seat planner and TV there were perhaps a couple of hundred in the bottom corner of the family stand and upper top corner, then the small block nearest the Darwen End. That is 14 rows of about 10-12 seats, maybe 150 total. So unless there were 1500 empty seats in the directors box I'd be surprised with that. BBE lower was virtually full. A sprinkling of single seats here and there, can't imagine any less than 4900 in there. The number announced was about 2000 short of what I'd expected. But yeah, sums up the operation when with a 2/3 full ground they can't cope and have to delay kick off.

I can think of a quick guaranteed way to save £6,000 a week and it involves getting rid of the CEO. Then however much the shadow man is on as well.

You know you are small time when you are doing one-off sleeve sponsors for televised cup games. Sort of thing Maidstone would do when they unexpectedly got through and put on TV in the next round.

We are two years away from a World Cup. UEFA has 16 qualification slots and Sweden have a full qualification campaign to prepare for starting in a year's time. Most managers would love a crack at qualifying for and going to manage at a World Cup. He'll get a fair crack of the whip and they'll be focused on getting there. Beats wasting his career away here.

Our descent into owner created oblivion will soon be complete, if not this season then next. That is a certainty unless they leave or change track. When we are slumming it in League One with 5000 turning up the days of JDT will seem like distant glory days. Brought to a rapid end purely by owners and underlings who have no ambition or desire to achieve anything. Such a shame and even more so that some idiots can't see it for what it really is.

Too good for Venkyscum Rovers and no coincidence he's walked into a decent international job. A good manager incompatible with what we have here.

https://www.thebaggies.news/news/seven-figure-debt-laid-bare-as-west-brom-warned-of-extreme-financial-problems/

Very well spotted. Hadn't worked that one out myself but makes sense. It would be no surprise at all if he was due a bonus or payment for reaching 200 Rovers appearances and knowing the way we like to operate with 'add ons' suspect it was a hefty payment. Waggott and the Indians will be all over such things and I've no doubt would instruct the manager and staff not to play a player due to this. Scum.

Their away form isn't impressive of late. Their only league away wins this season have been: 2-1 at Hull 2-1 at Bristol City 3-2 at Cardiff 4-0 at Huddersfield That's it. Their win at Hull was via an 88th minute winner and at Bristol via a 95th minute winner. At Cardiff they scored twice in the last 8 minutes to turn it around. Point being their away record isn't particularly good and even when they've won they've tended to be narrow and last gasp affairs. Draws at QPR, Ipswich, Coventry, Southampton Losses at Leeds, Millwall, West Brom, Watford, Sunderland, Swansea, Plymouth and Rotherham. We need a win and I'm not really taking the 'juggernaught rolling into town that poor little Rovers will struggle to compete with' mantra that no doubt many will be offering up.

I doubt Waggott or anyone else down there has even given it a seconds thought. It will be kicked down the road until the season is out of the way and they can get India to sign off on the pricing. Forget about early birds, promotions, price reductions or anything outside the box. It will be £400 a head again with at best a £20 discount if you buy quickly before the transfer window unfolds. It will be marketed as a 'new era' with Eustace's photo next to it. Yes they are that idiotic. Total decimation of numbers incoming and totally deserved.

Makes me laugh (or scream) when I see various Rovers supporters and even employees boasting about what a big positive selling Adam was and as though this is some sort of accomplishment for Rovers to develop a player that we quickly flog to Crystal Palace. Newsflash. Palace don't care that he came through Rovers' academy, nor do Sky Sports, The FA or anybody else. We aren't going to win any points or prizes by virtue of developing and selling great talents from our academy. Blackburn Rovers only benefits if: a) The player(s) go on to have successful careers in a ROVERS SHIRT and haul us to successful times b) If we do sell them we bring in such levels of cash that it improves ROVERS and ROVERS' squad allowing us to reinvest and improve. Neither of those things have or will happen, the money is of zero benefit to Blackburn Rovers, it just makes Venkys' life easier for the next 12 months and probably lands Waggott his annual bonus in one move. Neither of those things are good for us because it enables Venkys to stick around without relying on court hearings and it keeps the heat off Waggott from upstairs. It's just disgusting IMO, and most worrying of all is it is just accepted and brushed under the carpet as though it is all fine, normal, acceptable

Bloody hell, 4 wins in 12 is hardly crisis time, we'd have sacked Kean, Mowbray and JDT about 25 times between them if that was the case. It seems to me that Beale is quite an unlikeable character. He's had 3 jobs in just over 18 months and all have ended quite quickly with the fans at QPR, Rangers and Sunderland not keen at all. They're giving the job to Mike Dodds until the summer, be interesting if JDT does rock up there or elsewhere in the Championship after I was assured he was lined up for the Sweden job and maneouvured his way out of Ewood to get that job.