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?

On 19/10/2023 at 18:02, MarkBRFC said:

Couldn't get any more as Chelsea had already started selling them in the Shed End next to the Rovers fans.

We Waggot, who obviously doesn't give a toss about the fans stated to Chelsea at the beginning that we didn't want any more than 3k.

Corrected for you, @MarkBRFC .

1 hour ago, DE. said:

We've seen it under numerous managers over the past decade plus - the common denominator, Venky's. Their low standards seep through the entire club like a poison. JDT's ambition has already been undermined this season by Waggott proclaiming we're a development squad who will be happy to simply stay in the division, alongside the owners tearing apart our recruitment plans by slashing the transfer budget. Lack of true ambition from the top unfortunately leads to performances like this. 

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.

2 hours ago, Upside Down said:

There's a lot of tumble weeds. Mainly in the heads of those that ru(i)n this club.

Clever, @Upside Down! I like that one.

18 hours ago, tomphil said:

Probably because hes scored his goals at B level at his former club in front of no fans.

Hope he isn't the new Joe Nuttall.

🤞🤞🤞

On 16/10/2023 at 15:07, Blow-in said:

Corey Evans played for us?

I knew he was on the books but I don't remember him actually playing 😄

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.

22 minutes ago, tomphil said:

Great win and Burnley, Knobbers, Bolton ..oh and Sunderland all spanked, great day.

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

8 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Sigurdsson is first choice, he's just being handled carefully as he missed the entire preseason with a groin injury. I don't think he's played more than 60 minutes this season - hopefully we'll see him finishing games after the international break.

As for Wahlstedt, well he's clearly a much, much better GK than Pears ... but JDT seems to have a blind spot for Aynsley,so who knows. 

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.

2 minutes ago, Danishfan said:

I was impressed by Leo and Siggy. Surely they must be first choice now?

 

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!

19 minutes ago, Cherry Blue said:

Chelsea have scored 4 too!

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

3 minutes ago, rigger said:

I'll switch the oven off and eat the humble pie cold.

😁😅😂🤣

19 minutes ago, DE. said:

Just comes down to the lack of quality. With a decent striker on the pitch I think we win the game Wednesday comfortably. That system would work if we had a proper finisher at the club. Unfortunately we don't, which is why JDT is being less pragmatic with his approach in most matches. He knows we need more chances than normal to score, and that puts huge pressure on a defence which has unfortunately not been able to cope, hence being joint worst in the division for goals conceded.

Just a shit situation really,and it's all on the owners. 

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.

32 minutes ago, rovers11 said:

QPR fans not happy with their line up either so maybe we have a chance!

🤞🤞🤞

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

Just now, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

They’re shameless. They probably don’t even know we played tonight.

Sad, but almost certainly true, @Tyrone Shoelaces.

27 minutes ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

They are putting in a fair bit more than that every year.

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.🤔

1 hour ago, RTM08 said:

We can forget about the playoffs this season. We're dire at both ends of the pitch and that is 100% at Venky's door. Though Broughton's signings have been largely pointless as well.

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??

57 minutes ago, Madon said:

8 points off bottom, 6 points off the playoffs. Can't see what all the fuss is about 🤷🏼‍♂️

Always look on the bright side of life!!

2 hours ago, Blow-in said:

What does £8m get you these days 🙂 

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.

On 02/10/2023 at 11:48, Penwortham Blue said:

Indeed, a golden age when we were on our knees and he brought us back up and then very nearly made it to the top tier the very next season. We were skint but he wasn’t bothered about taking years for a journey, just happy to make us incredibly hard to beat and loving 1 0 wins. Still remember the hurt at Eastville, we did our job that day, Kevin Stonehouse (RIP) with the goal but Preston losing to Swansea saw us miss out.  

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. 😟🙁☹️

9 hours ago, Ghost7 said:

One positive thing to come out of this summer is that all of the fans are now united in their opinion that the club will NEVER go anywhere while owned by Venky's. Surely.

Everyone is clear we will forever be held back by the current owners while they are here. 

The same goes for any football club with detached and uninterested owners. They are parasites to the beautiful game.

A sensible, ambitious and CONNECTED owner is the key to success and sustainability.

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

9 hours ago, simongarnerisgod said:

i feel jdt will walk rather than be sacked,he`s not the sort to hang around picking up his wages,the guy is ambitious. V.   . 

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.

9 hours ago, harryhealless1928 said:

The answer to the question" should JDT be replaced if results dont improve ?" is fairly irrelevant Id say. Simply because he wont be. 

Look how the Venkys let Mowbrays contract run out.

Sacking managers costs money and the purse strings have been tightened.

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

8 hours ago, SuperBrfc said:

I can't bring myself to comment on the game or the situation the club is in, as it simply angers me a great deal. The way I feel about the owners, their lapdogs and their tosser agent friends, can't be put into words.

I felt from day one that this project would lead us to L1. We've had that toad Waggott come out and say "the aim is to avoid relegation". I fear he's going to get exactly the opposite of that. He and his bosses deserve nothing less. This club has felt cursed ever since they walked through the doors in 2010.

I just want to say how proud I am of Chris Sutton for dropping those truth bombs live on Sky. That's a proper Rovers player right there, he knows about standards at Rovers and he knows bullshit when he hears it.

He was absolutely spot on with what he said. In a nutshell:

JDT hasn't been backed, despite repeated requests for strikers. We've got a CEO talking about avoiding relegation. The ambition at the club is not good enough. We're looking at a development team and asking a development team to win promotion. It simply isn't good enough.

Hearing Sutton speak like that hit me. That's one of 'our own', back from when the club was healthy, saying it how it is. This has got nothing to do with entitlement before some smart arse tries to come out with that crap.

It's quite simply a disgrace what these bastards have been allowed to do to the football club. I don't give a shit about their £20m yearly bill. That does not mean we should silently put up with all of this. Something needs to happen, to get these owners out.

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.

8 hours ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

Agreed on the score line flattering them.

We create lots of opportunities, but like you say, our decision making in the final third often lets us down. 

Siggy will get better and I thought Moran looked class. 

Gally, HL and Ennis being injured obviously isn't helping. 

I think we'll get better as the season goes on. 

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.