3 hours ago, joey_big_nose said:

Ben and his advisors are not daft.... what does he get out of that? He will get a better signing on fee and wage if he is a free agent. Why sign on for us to only then be sold? The only reason would be some sort of loyalty to the club that developed him, but if that was a motivating factor surely he would already be tied up to something.

100% agree, but what if Ben and his advisors currently have no decent offers on the table for him? Maybe at £30k we’re 25% above anything he’s got on the table? He’s not loyal to the club, he’s shown that by refusing to sign a contract for nearly two years….but he does have a new baby at home, so maybe a million quid and another year in the Ribble Valley playing every minute of every game is appealing now, in context…🤷🏽‍♂️

2 hours ago, rigger said:

But, if he  signed the contract, he doesn't have to leave if he doesn't want to.

He’s been after a move for a long time mate. We just haven’t accepted those lower bids so far. He’d get a lot more than £30kpwk in Spain or France….my guess, assuming we don’t go up (when no doubt he’d want another raise) he’d be off like a shot in the summer we’re we to extend his contract and then accept a bid…

4 hours ago, Wheelton Blue said:

I'll rephrase.

A club could get Brereton for nothing at the end of the season. If they don't want him for nothing, they're hardly then going to bid millions for him a short while later are they?

I think you’ve missed my point. We were discussing this new contract they’ve supposedly offered him. Which IF he were to sign then any team wanting him would have to pay a fee for him this summer. Which is a dream scenario for Rovers. 

57 minutes ago, 47er said:

I agree and the attempt to keep him has been made. The problem is that we need a central striker and he simply isn't one. He's a forward and that's as specific as it gets. But before we can sign anyone decent we have to sell him!

No-one else would bring enough. So it would be a difficult season next season even with him, unless we pull a rabbit out of a hat.

If we sold him in the summer, even for £5m, after agreeing an extension this month then we’d have a bit of cash to go and get a couple of players, surely.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to offload Gally either. Doesn’t look like JDT rates him.

45 minutes ago, Wheelton Blue said:

 If no one has 'stumped up the cash for him' thus far, why on earth would they spend £3/5/8m on him in summer, when they can get him for free?

We turned down £8m didn’t we, last year? It wasn’t enough then….what I’m saying is, I’d let him sign the new contract and then invite bids. Sell him to the highest bidder, whatever the amount and we’ve had a dream vs currently losing him for free.

On 19/02/2023 at 00:05, 47er said:

Jesus mate, you're getting worse!

It’s true, 100% 

8 hours ago, Uddersfelt Blue said:

Brereton is not going to stay at Rovers. 
 

He knows that he can play at a higher level and alongside better players he will score goals.

Fact is, if he was going to stay he would have signed a new contract sooner. 

I think Ben might have worked out that in spite of his ‘global rise’ and the three subsequent transfer windows since he became Diaz, no one has stumped up the cash for him in spite of record spending levels in the top leagues.

It would seem, if the rumours are true of us offering him another contract, that he has nothing sorted im Spain either. Honestly, speaking objectively, if I were Ben, I’d ask Rovers to extend that year to 2yrs and do the deal.

If I were Rovers, I’d agree the £30k, 1yr deal now and sell him to the highest bidder in the summer. £3m, £5m, £8m…is all better than nowt!!! 

                  Pears.  
Brittan  Carter  Hyam  Pickering

              Travis.  Buckley

Thomas.     Dack.   Brereton-Diaz

                    Dolan

Hilton, JRC, Ayala, Morton, Szmodics, Hedges, Gallagher

*ive only put JRC on the bench because he’s touch and go. Think he’ll give a rest and a bit more time to heal.

Rovers 2 - 0 Swansea - Goals from BBD and Dolan
 

9 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Why would people who spend so much time and presumably money supporting Rovers take pleasure in us struggling? Never made any sense.

They don’t want to see us struggle. They just want to be ‘right’ 

I know the manager is getting flak here and I understand it…but honestly the players he was left with in the summer are absolutely dross. Mowbray never had a squad as bad as this, including the year we went down.

It’s an absolute miracle that we’re safe from relegation. 

7 hours ago, joey_big_nose said:

Just my view, but a lot of people saying that we played terribly today. I don't think we did really, controlled the game largely, created a lot of opportunities. I thought it was a pretty watchable game for the first sixty minutes or so. A lot more direct than we have been playing. Quite a few players had good games - Travis, Thomas, JRC, Dack, Carter. It seemed a better all round performance than what we were managing in December anyway - albeit against the team rock bottom.

But... looking across the next half of the season I just can't see where the goals are coming from. If BBD is going to coast in we are truly fooked. We have to find a decent out of contract striker from somewhere. If we don't we maybe have 20 goals in this team for the rest of the season. We'll be reduced to giving Leonard a go just to try something.

Finally someone who has removed their emotion.

If BBD or Gally were in anything better than diabolical form we’d have beaten Wigan by 3 or 4 playing the same way tonight.

Goals change games and we / the manager are getting badly let down by the forwards at the minute. Which is the reason JDT is fuming with GB etc.

Did enough to beat them comfortably. Most did ‘ok’, the standouts were Sorba, Trav and JRC. Vale (non-entity) Brereton (might not get a club at this rate) and Gally (Stump) absolutely dog shit…we’re just waiting for them to turn up again before we can win a game.

JDT musr be going out of his mind!

The biggest compliment I can pay JDT in how he’s heightened our expectations is that we start tonight’s match expecting to win, with JRC, Carter, Pears and Vale playing!!

That interview of JDT on the Rovers website is interesting. He’s obviously pissed off but he goes a bit further for me…he completely (and rightly so) ‘outs’ the other side (GB’s side) of the club. Which is risky.

But the most salient point for me is the one he makes about ‘his side’ overachieving. It feels like, for the first time, he’s peacocking which is what you do when you’re looking around for other options?

Ive said before, it’s my belief that JDT will go LONNGG before he’s pushed. He’s a born winner, incompetence like this does not exist in his world!

I would not be surprised at all if he resigned.

3 minutes ago, Boz said:

Hells bells, it's rare that I ever respond to an individual's point, but this is just so tiresome on here.

Paul Mani, multiple folk have tried to write down your error that it was 25 years ago when there was a downturn in attendance, whereas it was 2010, plus shared tables and also as Miller11 just did in a surely easy to see graph.

But still you are not grasping the facts, please take your nonsense elsewhere, cheers. 

The facts. Go and look for yourself. 

2 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Highest gates since 1996 the year they arrived, 26,000 average crowds.

So how were we heading towards 8-10k gates before they arrived? Tied yourself in knots here.

Read my first post and this is REALLY really simple.

There WAS a drop off in attendance between 96 and Venkys landing from 26k to an average of 22/23k with a couple of 25k’s. It certainly wasn’t improving. Fact.

The drop off accelerated once Venkys got in with the critical point being relegation, where we lost 7k supporters overnight.

Then a mixture of terrible leadership and not winning dwindles that 15k down to the 10-12k we have now of hard core fans.

Which is historically where we were until Jack Walkers intervention.

3 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

But they weren’t falling as Venky’s arrived. They were at their highest level since the mid 90s, so your whole argument is moot.

Zzzz look at the numbers. There is drop off if you draw a line from 1996 until Venkys turned up. Venkys seasons in the PL were actually similar to the messiah, Hughes average attendances!

Going down creates the most noticeable drop. Which is exactly my point.

11 minutes ago, tomphil said:

You'll find in the Hughes era a season ticket hike that didn't go down well as well as match day ticket increase which impacted the crowds. Then there was a better deal and reduced walk on prices, all this can be fact checked if it doesn't fit your agenda of course but often it's a case of basic economics.

As we've seen with cheap deals at Preston, Bolton and good early birds at the other lot.

Jesus man, what agenda!? The point I made was based on attendances that in fact started to tale off from 1996, steadily (barring a couple of years) until Venkys came in which accelerated the drop off, such is how utterly shit they are at owning a football club!!!

The attendance drop off before Venkys isn’t a criticism. It was a symptom of our population, socio economic situation which was leading us back to our previously steady 8-10k gates.

Do I think we’d have retained another 10-12k supporters by staying in the PL? Yes, lots of people are enamoured by elite level sport. Are Venkys culpable for that subsequent drop? Yes.

So, it leaves us with 10-12k of die hard fans attending games now, much like the 8-10k’s we had in the 70’s. 

2 hours ago, Gav said:

I think you're taking the piss to be frank Paul.

The Mark Hughes era was superb, as just one example. 

Nah, just saying it as it is. I liked the Hughes era too. Vs what we’ve had since it feels better than it was. Vs us at peak…it was just, ok.

As for “superb” Mark Hughes managed us 04-08. During that time, our average crowds started at 24k, DIPPED to 22k then 21k before a little resurgence to 23k at the point where Hughes left. Awkward.

SO, going back to my point….the drop off in attendances started from 96, having won the league in 95..if you pull the timeline out it’s a fairly consistent, shallow drop until we fall out of the PL when it drops off a cliff, For the reasons I stated. 👍🏼

23 minutes ago, superniko said:

Absolutely baffling that you weren’t entertained when we

1) won promotion

2) won the league cup

3) finished 6th multiple times in the league and

4) played in multiple European competitions. 
 

That 25 years should be 15 years. We were entertaining in the 00s. From the Duff/Jansen/Dunn team to the Bentley, Bellamy, Santa Cruz, McCarthy team. 

Kinel, this is getting tiring….I’m not saying I wasn’t entertained during sporadic parts those years. I even pointed out the Early Souness and Hughes teams.

The context of my initial post was around fan attraction and falling attendances. There’s a difference .

16 minutes ago, Gav said:

I assume you were in a rush when you wrote that and added a 1 instead or a 2.

25yrs ago we were playing European football against Lyon under the stewardship of a future England manager and I could go on, but Matty has eloquently beaten me to it. 

I’m talking from a fan attraction pov. Maybe the term should be…we haven’t been sexy enough for 25+ years! 

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

In decline long before they came? Totally wrong. They turned up here in 2010. In the 2009/2010 season we had 20,000 ST holders and an average crowd of 26,000.

No good for 25+ years?! We certainly were ‘good’ up to them turning up. Cup wins, multiple semi finals, top 6 finishes, European campaigns, quality footballers throughout the team. An established PL club was more than good enough for most fans of Blackburn Rovers.

Just opinions, my point was that attendances were on a downward trajectory from peak (1995), albeit small drop offs, crowds were lessening.

In respect of being good I meant a top team. We’d had flashes of good teams (Early Souness and Hughes era) but most of the rest was average. From a fab attraction and entertainment pov we’ve been weak for 25+ years imo. Especially when considering the success of Northern teams during that period. 

7 hours ago, Miller11 said:

I’m late to this but…

considering what happened between 1992 and 2010, our hardcore number should’ve grown. And it did. In 99/00 and 00/01 we were nearly at a 20k average in the second tier. 

The hardcore aren’t the same individuals for the most part. Someone who attended their first match as a 10 year old in 1992, and caught the bug is 40 now. A 40 year old who was one of the 8,000 in the early 70s likely won’t be around.

If we accept a percentage of all attending fans will be fanatical, with a period of success, and consistently higher attendances throughout the 90s our fanbase should’ve grown to the point where the hardcore wasn’t slipping back to pre-Jack levels.

Venky’s are responsible for the absolute decimation of our crowds. The only thing comparable to the effect they have had is the drop off and widespread falling out with the club that occurred as a result of the 1960 cup final. That took nearly 30 years to turn around.

I worry that phrases like “natural level” or “core support” give a pass, or at least make it easier for Waggott and co. to shrug their shoulders and not bother trying to reverse the trend.

I think you’re mistaken. If you look across the board, fan attendance for any club is dependant on several factors. Including, primarily - population size, economic profile, fan/club culture and success.

The standard ‘8000’s’ in the 70’s & 80’s were artificially modified by Jack Walker in the 90’s through winning, creating aspiration and improved culture (I’m 41, it was without doubt the greatest time to be alive). 25-28k supporters at Ewood was Uncle Jack wringing every bit of feel good factor out of a working class town. Incidentally, the last time we had 25k+ at Ewood was final day of League 1 season we won promotion because that is our potential when things are going well.

It is true that Venkys have decimated that feel good factor but in truth the decline on attendances started long before they turned because it was unsustainable unless Jack kept pumping millions in and we kept winning!   Money and success is the magic sauce.

So it doesn’t surprise me that we’re down to 10-12k fans. Imo that is our base level based on the above. The job of Waggott and co is to inspire the area to want to watch us play. I think the clubs focus on the Youth lads and high profile work in engaging ethnic minorities is them trying to create a buzz and open up new markets because they have no money. The problem (aside from the money) is that leaders must inspire, they must be great orators and be trusted. Waggott is none of those things…

For me, the 10-12k is our base level including population growth since 70’s & 80’s. The biggest problem is that the leadership is poor and we haven’t been any good for 25+ years.