Oh, that would be here. ☺️ Actually I'm sure it won't be. 😄 But if Saturday's estimate of 48 new season tickets since the price hike is anywhere close to reality, there will be a u-turn on a second hike I would have thought. I won't know about renewals until Saturday when, hopefully, there will be a full picture of what is going on. I'm dreading it.

The third phase is probably just the releasing of all non-renewed seats to anybody rather than a second price increase. Where did that come from, anyway? Or was it just an assumption?

While JDT might jump at the chance to manage Feyenoord, I would expect the Dutch champions to set their sights a bit higher than the Head Coach of a team in the second tier of English football that didn't reach the play-offs. Not everyone here has been convinced by JDT, and while I think he has done well, take sentimentality out of it, and I doubt he'd be anywhere close to a job like Feyenoord. When Feyenoord appointed Slot, he was a standout candidate. I'm not sure JDT is.

That's my Saturday morning sorted. 🍔🖥️🔢

There was also Ronny Deila we were supposedly interested in before appointing Tomasson. He's set to quit Standard Liege, but it looks like he's set for Club Brugge (where Scott Parker has been sacked).

I don't think we'll be appointing a manager that is 50 or above. Broughton seems obsessed with numbers and processes (talks about the average squad age that he'd like), and I suspect the only candidates he'll be looking to take on will be younger managers that are willing to take on the Rovers "project". Forget Wilder, Rodgers, or any other manager of that ilk. Scott Parker would be more likely. 🤭 Anyway, JDT is nowhere near leaving as it stands. It'll be an interesting few weeks ahead.

It looks like part of the reason that Farke is leaving Borussia Monchengladbach is because they don't have the budget that he was hoping for. If there's any truth in that, there is probably little chance of him being attracted to Rovers unless he'd be happy with selling our prized asset for a hefty fee to reinvest. Then again, I think Farke is the type that we'd be after. It appears to be style and process (whatever that means) over substance. Here's what looks like a fairly common viewpoint from one of their supporters that I cribbed from somewhere: "Don't know if I'm in the minority here but I'm glad Farke is leaving. I've never been convinced by him. People talk about his time in Norwich but I wasn't too impressed by that either. Yes we pass the ball around a lot but we are not incisive. We also don't seem to have a plan B." Sound familiar? Either way, I can't see him ending up here, but then again, I'm not sure his stock is that high since his days at Norwich. And that's starting to be some time ago, now.

Fairly clear that Thomas hasn't been working training well enough when JDT was asked about him: "What you are showing in training first, and what you show in games," Tomasson said. "You pick yourself, the manager doesn’t pick you, you pick yourself." I thought he did OK on the pitch, but the last thing we want at the club is a disruptive influence. Fell out with the Huddersfield manager at the time, doesn't appear to have pulled his weight in training here. I don't think JDT would want him back in any case.

Apparently, Spurs haven't approached Feyenoord for Slot, yet. They appear to have had advanced talks with Nagelsmann over the weekend, with a Director of Football position being the sticking point. Thing is, I suspect other clubs that haven't been thought of may well make an approach for JDT this summer. Feyenoord probably won't be the end of it.

Not as good a gig as Nathan Jones got. It cost Southampton £8.6m in total. Jones bagged around £4.5m for four months of work.

Big Sam's magic has worn off in the last couple of Premier League rescue jobs.

Getting 12 players under contract is at least better than what has gone before. I agree that fannying around in Manchester also cost us. You would want everything settled, first, and then go for your fancy meal (Broughton smiled when he said "made sure he had food and was looked after"). Having a little chuckle at remembering your "cheese butties and a tin of pop on the coach" comment at the time. 😄 However, the bigger failure than the farce surrounding O'Brien was the failure to get a striker in. That's what cost us in the end - goals.

Looking back at the January window, I think it's become fairly clear that the club's administrative staff were at fault for not getting O'Brien and Brierley over the line. I know Broughton has said he shoulders responsibility for the window as a whole, but it's not his role to do the paperwork (or even oversee it) when you have senior staff involved with that. However, I think there was a naivety from Broughton regarding Deniz Undav. The moment Undav started to umm and ahh, we should have perhaps moved on and not hung on to wait for his decision (if that's how it unravelled late on). I believe there was another striker that we were trying to bring in on the day, but ultimately, we didn't. The striker issue is on Broughton's shoulders, and I suspect this is more the issue (not having another striker through the door) that JDT had a problem with, rather than a not getting two non-essential midfielders through the door.

To be honest, I was seriously wondering about his abilities in the Dingle away game and Preston home game (amongst a few others). Those two are the ones that hurt and were embarrassing. Overall, though, he's done a good job, and there's a reason he is being linked in the nationals to better jobs. My first choice would be that he stays and gets more of the players in that suit his style of play. If not, I'm more hopeful than before that we'll make a good appointment thereafter. I don't want to arse-licken the Greggen, but I think he knows what the club has to do. We have to start making money on assets at the right time, and do our best to replace them. In a way, that's how we operated under the Walker Trust. Unfortunately, we're in a far worse starting position, but I think it's the only way we're going to be able to start functioning properly as a club again. Sell an asset for the right price at the right time, reinvest as best we can, and move on. I feel as though we've been hanging on too stupidly or sentimentally to players. That'll be down to the owners.

😲 That's an extreme change of opinion form just a few weeks ago: "Jdt can fucking resign. Fuck off you gormless bastard"

The thing is, I can believe that he's on "the list". He appears to like possession-based football to little effect, which the owners have a fetish for. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the owners want a certain style of football. I think it's partially why we have been largely rubbish during their tenure. Leave it to the football people.

Having read it, I agree. It's just a several lines of linking him to Feyenoord for the obvious reasons. And that we had earmarked Russell Martin as his replacement. Well, let's hope this is over sooner rather than later. We really don't want this dragging on beyond the next two or three weeks.

You're spot on. But, to be fair, I think we all know the story for what it is. It's just a logical possibility, as you say. There is one good thing coming out of all of this. How long is it since Rovers had a manager that had attracted interest from clubs with better opportunities? I think Hughes might be the last one. It's not the worst position to be in. Same goes for some of our players. At least the club is doing things far better than it was, even if it's far from perfect.

He only moved to Sunderland because Corrie Evans was there. 😄 I suspect he wouldn't get away with loyalty to players at Sunderland. I've never been a vociferous supporter, so I probably add to the soft element of the supporter based, but I don't think Sunderland fans would tolerate the player loyalty that Mowbray enacted at Rovers. Incidentally, I mentioned that I wouldn't be surprised to see Josh Maja go back to Sunderland. I believe he missed two penalties for Bordeaux yesterday. 🤦‍♂️

Might also be able to catch Steve Kean before he boards his flight to Kutaisi.

Yes. Or, at the very least, incompetence within the club by other staff members. Had January gone better for us, I've no doubt that we could well have been in the play-off final with a chance of getting promoted. JDT is ambitious. We may not like certain styles of his management, but he seems to be very decisive and assured about what he wants to do with the team. It's unfortunate that we are still suffering from incompetence and idiocy in other areas of the club. And that is why he's got every reason to leave.

Not so sure about that this time around, to be fair. Broughton appears to have led the way on getting players under contract, and he did well to land Tomasson last summer. I think he's here so that things can be done at a better pace. Granted, January was a disaster, but I can imagine things would have been far worse without him this season just gone.

Which JDT has already managed in. And played in. Feyenoord will no doubt have that in mind. Seems like a perfect move for him, and it would still give a route to the Premier League for him if he does well there. From his point of view, both footballing and personally, it would be a no-brainer to go to Feyenoord. The only silver lining is that Rovers will be much better prepared to get a replacement this time around. If it's going to happen, we need it to happen in the next few weeks.

I think it was Mike Tyson that said something like "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face". Last summer was chaos all around. I suspect the club will be happy with another 2,000 on top of the existing 7,000, and that'll do for the bottom line. We certainly won't get there over the next two or three months unless a very good transfer window comes to our rescue. Depressing to say "get there" - to 9,000 season ticket holders. A shame the empty seats at Ewood are the fall guys for a very static financial target.