This is not to cut Waggot any slack (perish the thought!); but I've just been thinking about my post above & don't know, but can guess, the answer to the question, "If we'd asked for our full allocation but hadn't sold every seat, would we have had to reimburse Chelsea for every unsold seat in that allocation?" Does anybody know the rules on that?

Corrected for you, @MarkBRFC .

Can't help wondering if Venky's are also involved in organising the Cricket World Cup at the moment? Given all the complaints about ticketing arrangements, etc, it's got a horribly familiar ring. (Not from personal experience, you understand; just what I've read in the papers!😉)

There's an interesting article in today's Times about Hull City and Rosenior, their manager. The thing that caught my eye, though, was that our old loanee, Morton, is on a season's loan there from Liverpool. Given that he's still being loaned out and that he wasn't the worst Liverpool player we've borrowed, I wonder if he might be a useful acquisition, maybe at the end of the season.

Clever, @Upside Down! I like that one.

🤞🤞🤞

He's a novice when compared with Vince Grella. He - Grella - played so rarely that I don't know how anyone could identify him as even a midfielder.

I bet Mrs. M. had to make a huge Lemon Drizzle cake later on this afternoon!! 😉😁😅😂🤣

Well, for one, I don't; but I like to think that JDT wanted Wahlstedt to get himself acclimatised to British conditions before making him the first choice goalkeeper. I was going to say I'd like to think Wahlstedt will be our regular League goalkeeper from now on, with Pears as the Cup keeper and on the bench for League games. But I also think we've a better chance of winning the next Carabao Cup game - and making more money (for re-investment in the squad, please, Venky's!) - if Leo's also between the posts for the Chelsea game. So I kind-of hope JDT will be pragmatic about which goalkeeper plays in which game. After all, that's how he seems to be in his choices for who plays when and where where among many of the outfield players. And, allowing for a lower League position - presently - than we'd prefer, I trust him.

Ah, well; you'd have thought so. But if we've learned nothing else about JDT, we've surely learned not to predict his choices from one game to the next!

And, according to Radio 5, singing about being in a library, cos it's that quiet! 😁😅😂🤣

😁😅😂🤣

That could be a quote - apart, appropriate though it may be, from the word before "situation"! 😉 - to which I’ve been listening on Radio 5 in their discussion on ManUre's "plight". It's a mark of how far we've fallen since our owners bought us. Even Leicester City - the only other PL Champions to be relegated - get sympathetic comments, as much because of their owners' commitment to the team they've bought.

🤞🤞🤞 Finished the sentence for you, @rovers11! (I fear!)

Sad, but almost certainly true, @Tyrone Shoelaces.

Sorry, @Mashed Potatoes; I deliberately didn't quote a figure in the post to which you replied as above. So I don't know how you can reply like that.🤔

That may well be true, @RTM08 ; but if our owners can't/won't make a proper budget available, then you can only recruit in those parts of the market you can afford. And if we can't recruit players to pull us away from the relegation zone, then, for me, there's only one family responsible. And their base is in Pune. Why don't they sell us? Surely they feel some embarrassment at the way our fortunes have declined since they bought us??

Always look on the bright side of life!!

Sorry this is so apparently late; I'm only just feeling strong enough to read the Board. Just wanted to offer two possible answers to @Blow-in 's rhetorical question: i) Not very much; ii) But more than our owners are, apparently prepared to invest.

Don't feel like focussing on tonight's result, so I'm catching up with threads other than the one dealing with that match. I remember driving back from Brizzle that Saturday evening totally gutted that, as @Penwortham Blue comments, we'd done all we could be expected to, yet were coming home to another season in Division Two. It felt like a real kick in the proverbials, especially when we passed their supporters' coaches on their way back to Wales. Little did we know of the roller-coaster ride we were due to experience over the coming thirty years or so! Then the Walker Trust sold us. 😟🙁☹️

Dead right, @Ghost7; but, after the word "connected" I'd add the following "... who is prepared to invest in the football club ...".

Now I'd be highly surprised if that were to happen. I suspect he's a pragmatist, who can justify his salary by pointing out that he's trying to keep his side of the bargain he made with our owners about 15 months ago. At the end of the day, his reputation in the game is higher than Venky's could hope theirs would ever be. Doubtless things haven't gone as well for him - or us! - as he would have hoped when he signed on the dotted line last summer, but he can always argue the owners knew what they were getting when he joined the club.

... and JDT would doubtless point out that he was hired for his part in a particular, ongoing "project", which isn’t yet complete.

I, too, can't comment on the game because I'm still too incapacitated to get down to Ewood; still haven't got round to getting Sky; and was a bit hacked off by the commentary on talkSPORT 2. Because I haven't yet got Sky, I'm largely dependent on Radio 5 for comments on the Rovers. I'll be interested to see if the other panellists - especially Mark Chapman, if he's back from the Ryder Cup on Radio 5 - pick Chris Sutton up on his remarks over the weekend on tonight's Monday Night Club. I'm always impressed by him and by how much he obviously loved his time with us. I honestly don't know what we can do about the owners. They obviously satisfied the conditions of the "Owners' Test" before the Walker Trust washed their hands of us and I guess it must be one of those tests that, once you've passed it, it stays on your record forever. More's the pity for us.

Not having a go, @Sweaty Gussets; but we'll have to get better, or we'll be back on board the League 1 Express before any of us is much older. What does it take for the penny to drop with our owners? The damage their stewardship is inflicting on our club must surely be affecting their general reputation.