12 minutes ago, arbitro said:

I was told last night that on the last day of the window Pasha and Waggott arranged a loan deal for a player Tomasson rated behind his back. Tomasson got wind of this and asked the player who told him it was true but he was of the understanding that Tomasson had agreed to it. Tomasson went ballistic at those two and went to town on them, it was said to me that it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Being the cowards that are they were scared they would be called out in his press conference the day before the QPR game and stopped him doing it. This ties in with the 'ask Steve and Pasha' comment after the QPR game.

And Broughton knew nothing of this scurrilous deal.

I was told the name of the player but it would be unfair to name him.

 

These kind of slippery underhand maneouvurings are no surprise at all to me. I'm convinced that a number of Mowbray's signings were arranged without his input or involvement.

Why though, if Tomasson rated the player, would they be so sneaky about it?

1 hour ago, OldEwoodBlue said:

So our average gate is actually less than it was 10 years ago at this same level.

Meanwhile just about everyone else has enjoyed significant increases of several thousand.

A crisis for the long term health of the club and its fanbase. Created by negligent owners and their underlings. Assisted by those supporters who focus their energies on the 80s and comparing numbers to those days.

We charged Bristol fans £20 when they came to Ewood in December. So Rovers' away fans getting rinsed again. Just like we will at Leeds soon when they charge upwards of £40 for a televised game substantially more than we charged their fans at Ewood.

Eventually the penny might drop at Rovers that the way to deal with this is charge other clubs what they charge us, and offer proper discounts to Rovers fans who sign up to be members.

Rowett a strong option for a struggling side.

Birmingham owners a bit clueless with the Rooney thing but like most will take drastic action where required to try and save their Championship status.

You compare to what has happened here this season and in 2017 where relegation is practically invited by the owners.

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

Won't be this week as LT reporter Elliott Jackson is on holiday in the USA so I guess it will be next week

So communication with the fanbase now relies on the holiday arrangements of the Telegraph reporter?

Broughton could convene a press conference and invite local media. Telegraph's job to find someone else to send or miss out.

26 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

 

Everyone should keep a copy of this statement close to hand in case there is no change to the current situation. The Club and owners will have hung themselves by their own petard should that turn out to be the case.

Simple solution to that little problem....blame the boogeyman or in our case good old FFP.

Owners are doing all they can, desperate to invest etc. but it just isn't fair because our low crowds and FFP make it impossible

(Please ignore the £30 million from player sales and the crumbling infrastructure not constrained by FFP)

Next instalment is "the owners are committed....are you?" when Waggott puts up season ticket prices in May.

Sunderland and Bristol both mid table sides going nowhere and in dodgy form. Some would say better having them than relegation rivals battling for their lives.

But when you've won 2 in 20 you have serious issues and cannot be confident of a win anywhere.

We keep hearing this baseless claim that Venkys might sell if we got back to the PL because they'd get some of their money back and be more attractive to would-be buyers. 

I don't believe this for a second.

Why they would walk away from a position of strength, popularity, publicity and rehabilitated in the eyes of many I'm not sure.

They are probably deluded and arrogant enough to think we could survive in the PL with similar levels of 'investment' as they provide at the moment and want to give it a go.

No, the only way they are leaving here is by being forced out, not voluntarily. A few ways that can happen but I'd say the intervention of government agencies and Courts in their home state is probably our best chance. The alternative is they simply run out of money but that seems unlikely if they really are 'billionaires' and they'd probably just slash costs if they ran low on cash (oh yeah, they've been doing that already).

38 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Is the chant "I don't care about Venky's" simply that one line chanted over and over? Or is it part of a longer song with some additional context?

If not its a bit of an odd message to send out, to the uninitiated it sounds like those singing it aren't too bothered either way way whether Venky's stay or go.

That was actually my thought at the time.

Pleased that a large percentage of those going now recognise that Venkys are an issue and were quite relentless in singing that song, but it didn't strike me as a 'Venkys out' message rather a 'I don't care about Venkys my only interest is Rovers' message. 

Suspect a lot less people would have been singing it if it contained the words 'Venkys out' or similar, which is ultimately what we need.

51 minutes ago, 47er said:

I don't remember many saying that either. Its clear we were stagnating under them, they wouldn't finance Hughes" moderate plans when we were on the up.

So shortsighted when he had us finishing 6th. Supporting him properly would have seen us attracting more buyers and them getting more money.

But they wanted what they could get "now" and didn't care who from.

At the end of the day they were reluctant disinterested owners who didn't want to be here and hadn't for a number of years before they eventually sold. The fact they entertained Ali Syed and then sold to Venkys tells us all we need to know about the previous owners, their interest in this club and how desperate they were to cash in on it.

So in my book they had to go. There's no place in football for owners, managers, CEOs, players who don't want to be involved and be successful. 

Unfortunately for us they found terrible people to replace them and that decision may yet be the death of the club. 

Yet still a sizeable portion of the fanbase yearn for the Walker trust and fiercely defend Venkys. I despise them both for their ownership and decision making.

Reading in talks with an American group about a takeover. Still some delude themselves.

Pretty soon to have the worst owners in the EFL....

33 minutes ago, toogs said:

There are plenty of owners as bad as and worse than Venkys. 
 

I remember the days when “anyone is better than the Walker trust”. 
 

Not sure many were saying "anyone is better than the Walker trust" although they needed to go. They didn't want to be here and Rovers needs committed people not part timers looking for an exit.

How many of the current 92 would you class as worse than Venkys?

9 minutes ago, philipl said:

You don't need Jerome to find them a buyer.

I know of two potential buyers.

But you wouldn't want them at Rovers because the club would just be a feeder in an international stable of clubs.

There's currently a very, very short list of people I wouldn't want at Rovers rather than the current lot, and I doubt people running other clubs with a degree of professionalism would be on that list.

Almost anything better than the purgatory inflicted by the current regime.

4 minutes ago, Hasta said:

Good luck to Waggot and the marketing team trying to sell season tickets this summer.

The only calculations currently going through his rancid brain will be how much more he needs to put up prices to counter the inevitable substantial drop in numbers that is coming this summer. 

That's all he's interested in and has made that quite clear in his time here. It isn't about numbers through the turnstiles it is about hitting his own financial targets and I think track records suggest he'd be quite comfortable with a virtually empty Ewood so long as those turning up paid what was needed to hit the target. 

Less paying more not more paying less is his motto.

12 minutes ago, Devon Rover said:

I guess the best case scenario is they find a way to reroute sufficient cash to get through until the summer then sell Smod and Carter to keep the life support electricity running a bit longer?

I'd consider that to be the worst case scenario - we limp along for another 6 months with no aim or purpose other than to find enough cash to stay afloat, sell our few remaining assets and have another diabolical transfer window leading to at best another Championship relegation battle next season. No thanks.

Best case scenario is surely that the scum are informed that this arrangement stops in August and then they realise that they have no way of funding the club any further and have no other viable option other than to hand it over to someone else.

EDIT - sorry just seen the above

42 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

The future of the Club hangs in the balance and the LT are back in 3 wise monkeys mode I see.

It's like the whole thing just isn't happening.

It's too complex and sensitive for the local media mob to get their teeth into.

They don't know what they are talking about on the subject and will be discouraged from covering it by the people at Rovers.

So rather than go digging and get some expert analysis of the situation from people who are up to speed on these things and risk upsetting Waggott instead they'll cover easy and comfortable ground which means tuning into the weekly presser to discuss which injuries might be back for the weekend.

As you say, clubs existence in question due to these funding issues, yet hardly anything from the club or local media. 

They're a disgrace the lot of them.

Interesting

'Likely to take some time' suggests this isn't quite the tick-box procedure implied previously and that the Court will need to hear evidence and determine the application. Hopefully Venkys lose.

The listing of 'final hearing' also interesting. What happens for the next tranche after August?

Mowbray had a Championship budget for 4 years and with the exception of Armstrong in his final summer wasn't compelled to sell anyone.

In the 18 months since he left we've sold pretty much everyone of value or experience and replaced with much cheaper / academy players and adopted a League One level budget.

He knew what was coming alright.

These are other factors that will get ignored and overlooked when they put us back in League One and the Mowbray acolytes are out in force telling everyone how great it was under Tony and what a fab job he did. 

Or perhaps the worst outcome of the lot....that Mowbray returns to manage Birmingham just in enough time to pluck a couple of wins out and leapfrog us, consigning us to relegation whilst keeping them up.