JHRover

These sort of 'deals' achieve nothing. They know this down there, or if they don't they've had their heads in the sand for years. Yet like with the Swansea/Cardiff bundle they keep on doing the same old routine seemingly expecting a different result. All they do is dilute even further the benefits and purpose behind committing to a season ticket in the summer.

Why would people waste their time and money bidding for something that isn't for sale? Not only that but the people who matter are uncontactable sat in their bunker in India. Manure have advertised publicly that the Glazers are exploring their options and are considering selling or at least a minority shareholding. Prior to that there was no serious rumour of interest in a takeover, since then it has been in the newspapers every day with Radcliffe and the Qataris interested. 'Pretty bloody sure' suggests that normal considerations apply where Venkys are concerned. They don't. If they were normal and reasonable people they'd have cleared off long ago, for one reason or another they won't speak, even to their own manager / fans, let alone entertain bids for the club. People know from past conduct that it is a waste of time trying to deal with them. That isn't the same as 'no interest' just that there's no point in acting on it until they move.

How many houses have you put offers in for that aren't being advertised as for sale? I suspect none. It's the same principle here. Nobody is going to waste their time trying to talk to people who don't want to talk, and nobody is going to go public with interest until they know there is a deal to be done. So until or unless the scum in India decide they are leaving then nobody will make noises about taking over. It doesn't mean there isn't anyone.

In this day and age having a functioning, easy to use and navigate and up-to-date website is the absolute bare minimum basics of a business. Ours is out of date, not just with what you point out but frequently I find that Ts & Cs are out of date along with other important information. Then we had the shambles of the Cardiff game where we went about 48 hours with zero website. One thing I'd like to see done on the website which I've noticed other clubs having is a profile of prominent people from the Club's history on there. One thing some clubs do is have a list of all the club's managers and a profile about them.

A non-exhaustive list of clubs that have been taken over since Venkys arrived here: Newcastle, Sunderland, Leeds (twice), Hull, Huddersfield (twice), Barnsley, Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United, Derby (twice), Nottingham Forest (twice), Birmingham, Wolves, Aston Villa (twice), West Brom, Coventry, Ipswich, Southend, Watford, Reading (twice), Swansea, Bournemouth (twice), Southampton (twice), Portsmouth, QPR, Fulham, Charlton (twice), Crystal Palace, Blackpool, Burnley, Everton, Wycombe, Oxford, Peterborough, Bolton (twice), Wigan (twice), Salford, Stockport, Swindon. An exhaustive list of clubs that have gone bust due to financial troubles during that time: Bury (still exist albeit after a few years' hiatus and much lower down the pyramid).

I suspect things are going to get worse before they get better. I look at the teams we are now mixing it with in the bottom third and I suspect upward improvement is more likely at many of those than at Rovers. Middlesbrough have a solid team and have turned a corner after a poor start. Stoke are better than their position suggests and I suspect will fire Neil if they continue to struggle. Their owners won't entertain a relegation battle. Same can be said for Watford. Better than their position suggests and their owners won't hang about if it looks like they aren't going to turn it around. Both of these clubs will spend to strengthen in January if they need to. They won't make excuses they will do what is needed. Then there's the bottom 3. Wednesday have made a change and if they get a proven operator like Warnock they'll probably stay up even from their current position. On the flip side they could easily make another poor decision and stay stuck down there. I don't think QPR will sit back and do nothing. Suspect Ainsworth is on borrowed time and they'll try something different soon if they don't pick up. I'm not at all advocating getting rid of JDT. I think he is one of the few assets we have here and his departure might be the straw that breaks the camel's back, just pointing out that other clubs will take action to save themselves. We won't. The only chance we are going to have is to hope JDT can sort it out. Forget about January being used to our advantage, I wouldn't waste any time discussing potential signings as we've made our intentions on such fronts perfectly clear in recent years.

He seems to have an air of Venky arrogance about him too. It seems Moore expected a new contract and a healthy pay rise. Not exactly unreasonable given he had a good record over 2 years and won them promotion back to the Championship. But it seems having the audacity to ask for this saw the back of him, but as you say over the medium to long term all it does is end up costing more, both by paying off all the Spaniards, presumably having to pay more than the going rate for a firefighter to come in (with a healthy survival bonus) and if they go down they'll be millions out of pocket. It's got familiar rings to it to what we've had. Could have given Lambert some resources to play with, but because he had the audacity to expect backing and reinvestment they hung him out to dry. Could have got Warnock in when it was a no-brainer but the clowns thought they'd be clever and save a few quid. In the end it cost them £10 million+ as we plunged into League One under Coyle. Could have backed JDT with a couple of million but that isn't the 'project' so end result is we slide down the league and he leaves. Idiots who think they are more intelligent than they really are. What dictators don't like is subordinates making demands of them. They also don't like powerful people beneath them who are respected and admired by the masses. Hence we get yes men and sycophants plodding along doing the dirty work and not rocking the boat whilst telling them how great they are, even if it ends up costing much much more than it would just keeping what works.

Be interesting to see whether Warnock rocks up at Hillsborough or not. Seems that many Sheff Wed fans would have him now knowing he's their best chance of surviving. I'm sure he'd love it and all the fanfare it would bring, winding people up on both sides of Sheffield. Would be a no-brainer in their position but their owner is only one step up from Venkys in the clueless stakes so could do anything.

What is it now, 10 league games since that Millwall away win when we were GD off finishing in the play-offs? The fact that such a short period later we are discussing relegation potential and some people are stating they are confident 'we will be fine' this season speaks volumes. This was of course an opportunity to improve and better last season, and instead due to criminal mismanagement expectations have dropped through the floor. The lowlife owning and running the club are determined to drag it back to League One, i can only presume because life will be easier and cheaper for them there. I'm trying to think of another professional organisation where the budgets would be slashed overnight. It doesn't happen at my amateur cricket club - once a budget is agreed and set it stays.

Some people would insist that it is Venkys or bust for Rovers. The same people cast envious glances at sides like Ipswich, Brentford, Luton, Sunderland, Forest, Hull, Wolves etc. etc. They don't seem to realise that the main reason all the above have shot up the leagues is because they got rid of crap previous owners and got better people in running them.

I suspect Cheston's days are numbered one way or another based on the new bloke they've installed from the Venky end.

Probably not, it seems their response has been a simple copy and paste job so far so I'd be surprised if anyone has the aptitude to respond to specific questions.

The ingredients don't bode well. Midweek away trips seem to rarely end too well for us, we're in poor form and conceding too many goals. Coventry are very hard to beat. They've only lost twice in narrow away defeats to Leicester and Cardiff, but having said that have only won twice against lowly Middlesbrough and QPR on Saturday. I expect us to lose this one and sadly we are also due a 'poor' display after positive(ish) efforts against Plymouth, Ipswich and Leicester left us empty handed. If we can grab 3 points or more from these two away games I'll be satisfied. We need to stop the rot before it advances and that requires a couple of solid if unspectacular away days.

They just don't give a stuff as to the impact their policies have on people or the club's reputation. As you say, what happened in January was not only an embarrassment for the club, but also probably dragged our reputation into the gutter. Other clubs, if they weren't already, will treat us with extreme caution, knowing that even if we say we want a player, even if we get all the work done on it, we are capable of letting it collapse at the 11th hour due to various ridiculous reasons. Such nonsense can cause havoc to other clubs and their players. If what I've heard about Moran is correct then that's another example of us treating other clubs and their players like rubbish. My suspicion is that the club has also mucked around numerous players over recent years at least when it comes to contract extensions and departures. I believe that many of those that have left in recent years have done so after Rovers have failed to make them appropriate offers in appropriate timescales and so they have felt little other option but to look elsewhere. I'm sure such stories spread in players circles which only contributes further to our struggles to attract proven quality (if it wasn't already hard enough with next to no budget). The way we've treated Broughton and JDT again a further example of taking people for fools. It seems they were both undermined mid-transfer window having previously agreed to already stringent restrictions and planned accordingly. The arrogance of the people owning the club is such they clearly think they can do whatever they please and care little for the consequences. Fans have been treated like dirt for years now. Taken for granted, taken for a ride on tickets and pricing, dropping shareholder and consultation meetings from the calendar, then they have the audacity to claim that fans' views are important and taken on board. Are they b0llocks. Ultimately an unprofessional and classless football club. You only have to glance at the state of the owners and CEO to see they are well short of what is needed. They clearly take no pride at all in the club, its appearance or reputation, Ewood Park is a disgrace and as we've said many a time could be tidied up and maintained for an insignificant amount of money, but when the owners treat the club as 'out of sight, out of mind' and employ charlatans to run it in their absence, people who boast about getting the pitch ready on time for the new season and hiring a new coach, it is clear to see what standards he is measuring himself against.

I think the simple and logical interpretation of that sordid affair was that Broughton was led to believe he had the capacity to bring in player(s) of that ilk and cost and then certain individuals along the chain intervened to stop it happening at the 11th hour. Broughton clearly put a lot of work into it and was confident it was getting done. I don't believe it fell away due to incompetence or the secretary forgetting to fill the paperwork in correctly or the EFL coming up with daft unexpected requirements. We know the slimeball upstairs has a remit and is probably paid according to our performance on that. As you say paying O'Brien £30k a week for 5-6 months would have blown a hole in the outgoings. Conveniently it was stopped and then no similar deals lined up this summer using the money left over.

I've said it a few times but it isn't VAR that is the issue, it is the people using it. The fiasco in the Spurs v Liverpool game was nothing to do with a technical failure or VAR being ineffective. Taken together with other incidents including the Wolves non-penalty at Old Trafford a few weeks ago the question that should be on everyone's lips is whether these 'failings' are genuine errors / mistakes or in the alternative whether something more sinister is going on. Again, I don't think anyone can realistically argue that technology was the issue. You might accept the Spurs / Liverpool offside decision if it was one man sat on his own and he'd genuinely missed something or not heard something and got the complete wrong end of the stick. When they are sat with a group of other officials that possibility disappears. My conclusion is that this is deliberate.

Why should they get their money back? Can I have my money back for things I've bought in the past? Can I get my car insurance, service, MOT costs paid back for the last 10 years? Same principle. Their spending is running costs much of which they have created. I take exception to your use of the term 'investment'. That word implies they are doing more than the bare minimum and are doing it to try and improve or grow the club. What they are actually doing is meeting liabilities and running costs each year, which whilst technically an investment is really just their tab. Same principle. They assumed responsibility for outgoings and losses the moment they darkened our door. Don't like it they can stop.

Good grief. The town is eminently capable of sustaining a 2nd division or 1st division team, which we have been for all but a handful of the last 135 years. What the club can't sustain is negligent ownership and management dragging it down and backwards every year.

The owners, or should I say the bloke they delegate running of the club to, decide to only sign young players, to adopt a 'project' of creating value in young players. This 'project' requires that players are prioritised depending on their likely re-sale value, that 'older' players are phased out and removed, and I firmly believe there is a desire for us to play this suicide football because it will aid the 'project' of getting more value into people. It's easier to attract bids for people like Szmodics and Leonard when we're creating loads of chances under this system than it would be playing the way we were early last year. When JDT arrived he was pragmatic and conservative in his approach. 12 months on he's suicidal. I believe that's either because he's been told to play that way by people above him or more likely feels he has no other option but to do so due to the suicidal transfer policy they have installed.

This time last year we alternated between wins and losses, picking up more points than we are at present, but generally the football was dull to watch for long spells. JDT was criticised by many for the style of play. 12 months on we are doing what people wanted. We are playing the wide open passing football so many crave. We have offloaded the 'old' players and are throwing our fate into the hands of the academy lads. Those of you who moaned about the football last year, enjoy it. The chickens are coming home to roost. Unfortunately the scumbags overseeing it are either on the other side of the world or hiding away in the directors box whilst the manager, players and fans are the ones who suffer.

So basically what Venkys have been doing here just with a big public statement / more childish approach

The Club lost the right to use FFP as an excuse for anything when it allowed Diaz, Rothwell and Lenihan to walk out the door for nothing.

United v Newcastle is nailed on. Then I think Arsenal v West Ham and probably Bournemouth v Liverpool are more likely to be on than our game.

It's 45% each way and then 10% to the league I think. So yes he'll be rubbing his hands for this one.

They should have had season tickets on sale at the Oxford game and offered some sort of discount or reward to those attending the Oxford game if they committed to a season ticket. But instead they left it for weeks after the season ended before finally releasing them for sale and when they did they slapped another price increase on top. A captive audience of 25000+ Rovers fans in the ground for the last game of the season and not a single mention of season tickets for the following campaign. If it isn't deliberate you'd struggle to think up a more suicidal approach.