Dreams of 1995

This the way teams are being trained to defend these days The smaller lads are blockers and the defenders who are good in the air mark zonally. Fantastic when it works, looks awful when it doesn’t. It works more than it doesn’t though hence pretty much every team does it these days. Started in Italy and brought to England with the likes of Rafa and Wenger It helps that the smaller lads can draw fouls easier.

Certainly has his uses. There’s odd times that his first touch is brilliant and then next time it’s like it has hit a brick wall. Eustace knew how to use him better but Eustace is miles ahead of Val in understanding the game Gueye’s time here has run its course. Won some important points for us under Eustace and for that he hasn’t been a waste. Sometimes it is just a step too far I think he could make a run of it in League 1. More than likely he will end up abroad. Hope he gets the Saudi option some have been floating - a license to print money for the lad

Agree with those sentiments Hospitals tend to be going cashless. Heartless if you ask me

I get that it is personal choice. The coalition are appealing to that personal choice Nobody is insinuating there’s going to be some miners strike style “scab” assaults if you do decide to buy a pint. It is an appeal It would make it less likely Sodexo continue with their pisspoor operations at Ewood if they don’t meet their margin It will probably work like that. Sodexo will make get cost back, and then make a fee on top and have a share deal with the club for the rest. It will be open book. If they don’t make their margin, I suspect Rovers will have to pay Sodexo up so it covers staff, food, transport costs etc and then fee Not buying in the ground will absolutely impact BRFC commercially

The one thing I would say about the timing argument is that the coalitions direction allows both the festive attendance - but on the priviso you don’t spend in the ground - and then the full boycott is in January when all of the usual festivities are over. I would urge people to follow the turn the taps off. Ultimately, this is what will damage the Venkys. You can still show your support and attend but not giving the club money hurts That said, even if it only disrupts revenue by 10-20% then it has done its job. I’m sure the coalition can point to that in next years accounts when revenue is down 😄

Buying a pint doesn’t give the players support.

They have already wrote off 54m.

The recent churn of staff suggests that the environment they are being asked to work in has become toxic. This is another avenue that could be explored via a social media campaign - although appreciate it may be hard to find ex employees who will or even can speak. It’s also easy to discredit ex employees as bearing a grudge Something has changed since Steve W has left. He wasn’t the greatest but Rudy and Suhail seem toxic and way out of their depth. They need to be removed and the owners need to understand that it is time to pass custody on to a party which holds an active interest That active interest may come in the form of actually coming to the UK and understanding the depth of the club, its fans and expectations In 15 years have we ever had that?

I have given some ideas to a member who messaged me here but I can't repeat enough that your last point is hugely important to any form of protest movement winning. There's a PR campaign to be had here. Open letters and calls to boycott are great but they will never really 'go viral'. Too often the retort to protesting fans are along the lines of Who will buy us? £20m per year investment £200m investment so far We are a small club, small town, small fan base...who will buy us? These sorts of narratives can and should be challenged on the battleground that is social media. Since the Venkys ownership, a cursory glance of the accounts show that, based on the accounts and position of Rovers on their purchase, to where we are now, there is around a 460m implied revenue gap. That is the cost of Venky's ownership and it does not even count in the new TV deals, which I am certain in concerted efforts on here we have the ability to produce and show that 'revenue gap' being much bigger had we maintained our PL Status This sort of simple graphic challenges the "£200m pound" lie easily, without drawn out debate and given its nature has the potential to go viral You can run all sorts of similar campaigns. A "Uncle Jack's Legacy" campaign could feature, with the well-known quote from Madame heading a series of "before and after" photographs, data or actions which could feature everything from the general state of Ewood, the attempt to sell off Brockhall, the drainage or the demise in fan base and interest In short I think there's a battle to win hearts and minds, to remind some supporters of what we can be as a football club instead of what folk think we should be and it needs to be social media friendly, quick, graphic and in large volume. From a single series such as the Uncle Jack's legacy you could create dozens of graphics and circulate periodically. And the wider football fanbase are insignificant - these graphics need to be targeted at Rovers fans and if they do reach others great, if not who cares And if you keep it factual then the Club can threaten all they want but they can't do a thing. Spelling out facts online is not a crime

The Coalition has nailed its colours to the mast but I do think it has wider spread than the previous action group or Trust did. Plenty of people will join in I think the Coalition could do a much better job at putting the message out about the history of Venkys. Plenty of people still quoting £200m investment / £20m a year investment / “who will buy us”? There is a very easy win that none of the £20m per year is actual investment - it’s dead operating losses - and this can be demonstrated very easily in graphs and charts. PowerBI is excellent at this sort of data analysis these days - how Venkys have decimated us financially to be a stagnant and useless operation. It’s not good management and people need to see that in a way they understand The next step is showing where else true investment has happened in the FL. We are not asking to be Man City (but it would be nice) however it’s very clear other clubs with less of a history to us have benefited from smart and interested owners who want to see a sporting success. As a protest movement, it is my opinion this is what is lacking. Just my two pennies worth mind. If I can lend a hand and people want that, feel free to message me

On a positive if Henrikson gets booked I win 1200

This is probably more like it but even that is unbalanced. The three CBs we have at the club which may get/stay fit this year are - Wharton, McLoughlin and Pratt. They are all left footed.

We used to have a chap who could do a job at RB when asked. We sold him to sit on the Charlton bench

Wow Read that as: “Madam, without a Steve they are shouting our name. We need a Steve. We need a Steve to blame. We need a Steve to make accountable. Without a Steve, they blame me. Without a Steve, they blame you. Madam, we need Steve” Waggott must be howling. That bloke took hundreds of thousands from these mugs and all he had to do was bat it all off. Whoever we get will either be a short lived disaster or a bloke on wind down looking for a last pay day. This lot are filth

We are away We will win

I could see this being a disappointing night. Everything pointed that way We have the basics of a competitive squad but it is too imbalanced. Not enough competition in the right places, combined with injuries, has meant that we lack options from the bench to change our style and the game. I think we did well to get back into it and get a point where in times gone by we may have collapsed. Ribeiro had a poor game but has not played much. Tended to move backwards instead of forwards. We miss Hedges down that left-hand side for sure. I'm guessing that Gardner-Hickman got injured but he was a big miss in the 2nd half. Tavares just hasn't got it has he? I quite like it when a player looks relaxed but as I said last night, it isn't relaxation with him it is being lackadaisical. He gives the ball away too often and there were times he played these short passes with absolutely no purpose other than to move the ball on. I don't think he has it cut out to be a player in the Championship We were unfortunate not to finish the Gardner Hickman chance. He couldn't do much more and the keeper made a fine save. It was a lovely knock down by Gudjohnson. The Yuki chance was another which should have gone in. Except this time it was poor finishing instead of good goalkeeping. I think if Gudjohnson was there, it becomes 1-1. I am not overly enamoured by our defensive options either. McLoughlin is a bit slow off the mark and a couple of occasions him being turned back to his goal nearly brought problems. There's still glimpses of hope. We aren't as bad of a squad as I thought going into the season. We need to defend our box better and we need to be better and more ambitious when in possession. For sure in January we need a centre half but we also need a central midfielder who is prepared to take this game by the scruff of the neck. Take Tronstad out of the team and we don't half look like a pushover in midfield

Tavares is just too lackadaisical. Sometimes it’s the sign of a good player to never looked rushed….but he never looks rushed and always loses it. Infuriating

Just performed a rain dance

There is an air of arrogance around Rovers under Rudy Gestede and Pasha. Waggott was a bit of a cock who lacked ambition but was a canny operator. He'd have been all over it today letting us know the game was safe and get down. It comes to something when you start to feel like you miss a Steve Waggott type..

That is the scale of incompetence at this club Tomphil They have put in over £200m; they have wrote off around £60m. The remainder sits as a debt owed to Venky's. It will not be outside of their commercial mind that, should the club ever go under (only possible if they pull their funding commitments), then the minimum they can expect to recover is 25% of 140m - around £35m. That is assuming I am understanding the 25p in the pound rule by the FA. And herein lies the issue with our 'model'. The more money the Venkys put in simply to offset losses, the more they saddle the club in debt (albeit, 'friendly debt'), and ultimately the more they get returned on sale. Very, very, very little of the £200m debt saddled to this club has been invested. It is just dead operating losses. Our (BRFC) accounts show a net asset of -£118m. We are insolvent. VLL show a +£27m of assets. Assume this is the club. We are still a positive on their overall Venky's group accounts. Player trading - profit. Revenue - down. Wages - down. Everything is in the favour of Venky's except still, after all of this time, requiring £15 - 20m per year "investment"...it makes no sense. Now, we can talk about Pasha's talk of "benevolence". In pure accounting terms, it is true. In all 15 years VLL has never took a single penny out of the club in fees, dividends, rent or interest. But is that a big deal? And what does he mean by that model now being over? Does he mean that Venky's are now intending to take a return; hence the increase rents for the community trust, or do BRFC now need to pay the holding company for the training ground? I don't know. But this is the only part of Venky's ownership which so far has been good and their man on the ground is telling us that is over. WTF. Just in general downbeat with the whole thing. This drainage is just another fiasco: fax machines, western unions, family threats, crumbling infrastructure. Venky's came here to increase their reputation. They have certainly done that but for all the wrong reasons.

Fair point Mark. Maybe change that part for negative press then.

The second to last thing this club want is this game not to go ahead The last thing they want is for the game to be abandoned halfway through I would not put it past the club to be eering on the side of postponement to save themselves the hassle of a pissed off fan base Agree with all other posters - turnout is going to be shocking. If you were Oxford, why bother? If you're Rovers, stay in the warmth and throw a few beers in the fridge This is what Venkys FC looks like chaps. A thoroughly unpleasant product with a careless board and a budget you couldn't run a doggy day care on properly. I'll say it again - £6m in infrastructure investment in 15 years. It is no surprise things are creaking. 400,000 a year on the Rovers estate is survival money only. It paints over the cracks, gets some filler in and throws some lovely foam into areas they want to patch up. It does not improve

Someone get into that headwall and block the bloody thing some more. If Oxford is abandoned, Val is going to hit the roof. Would be cracking to see him floor Rudy and Pasha. Can't believe I am saying it, but him walking would not be a bad thing either. The Club only feel shame when it is in the press - see the LT ban. Us talking on here or telling them they are crap from the stands doesn't matter. Val walking on the back of crap facilities along with the JDT / Eustace situation piles on more pressure Whilst writing that I realised there's absolutely nothing I would not do to get rid of the Rao family. Must be one of the worst things to ever happen to Blackburn as a town, let alone the Club

Yeah not so much a "pitch drainage expert" but my career is in construction, namely civil engineering Drainage is an easy concept though. If the river level on Saturday was not actually stopping the outflow then it is likely drains are blocked. It would be relatively easy and cheap to check this - a CCTV / Jetting crew is usually around 2 - 3thousand per day at most. You could have had them in on Sunday and by tomorrow dinner time you'd have found the blockage and jetted it out. It just seems so shoddy by the Club. I can't believe they haven't fixed the problem. We need to be realistic and understand that they won't invest in the long-term of this club, so the required improvement works will never happen. But to not even address the issue in a temporary state - pumping, jetting or whatever - is just pure negligence. They just don't give a crap. Whatever those rollers were on Saturday were useless. You could see on camera it was just dispersing water back on to the pitch. Think someone posted they cost 1k each and they had 4. For that 4,000 you could have hired a pump for the day and overpumped water out of the system and down the river and it would probably have been enough I suspect we also have a maintenance department that has been stripped of budget and experience.

Has anyone been near Ewood or seen any work ongoing? The drainage has been poor at Ewood for a number of years. I assume there is a non-return installed at the discharge points, although unsure how many discharge points there actually are. Does all pitch / stadium drainage go to a single outfall? Installing the outfall extension in the way we did suggests they thought there was an issue with the non-return valve on that particular headwall. That is clearly what they blamed Ipswich on. In isolation, it is not a bad fix but evidently there's better options for the long-term Unsure whether there's an attenuation system at Ewood. If not, that has to be the only viable solution here. They can be installed relatively quickly but the design / drainage amendments could be severe. Assuming at present all drainage runs down into the River Darwen, there would be quite a piece of remedial work required to change the flow of the drainage into a crate system, unless one can be installed between the back of R/Side and River Darwen. Probably best if they used a series of smaller attenuation crate systems to create that attenuation capacity. Evidently, the current capacity is not good enough to deal with a relatively minor deluge. Typically these systems now are crated with a 1:100 year event in mind. I very much doubt Ewood were held to those standards back when it was built It's a dereliction of duty by our 'stewards'. They should really be seen as that now. £6m in infrastructure investment in 15 years. Pittance. They are not owners, they are stewards, offsetting losses and plugging gaps but never investing to improve. Things will keep falling apart whilst they own us. The drainage, the stadium, just another of Jack's legacy's not being respected.