Gamst

I had the great misfortune of attending today. Easily the worst match I've ever seen. Huge positives were the young defenders who looked top class up against experienced pros like Millar and McBurnie. Cashin was decent and Toth looked his usual calm self but didn't really have a great deal to do. Doherty did well and looks to have a bit of pace. Offensively we were clueless really. Could have played until midnight and not scored. Complete lack of any talent on the pitch was stark. Really depressing to see how far we have fallen. Baradji was a slight improvement when he came on but we still created nothing. Henriksson was really poor but did actually improve a little as the game went on. I thought the effort generally was really good but that almost makes it worse as I cannot see how they could do much more. They're just not good enough and we won't pay the wages needed to recruit the players we need.

If you don’t pay championship wages the inevitable outcome is relegation. Whether that’s this season or somewhere down the line. If we survive this season which is quite possible then we will be without even more senior pros next year (Tronstad, Hedges, Cantwell, Pickering) and we will need to sell promising players like Alebiosu and Toth as they will want more money to sign a new contract and we won’t want to lose them for a free transfer. Once again we will need to find 10 + unknown players from overseas to fill the gaps. They will have no championship experience because any player with any experience will want a higher salary. This model is flawed and the only logical endpoint is relegation. This is so obvious that you would need to assume that relegation and a league 1 team with smaller costs is the objective. So once again you have to ask the question why the hell do they bother??

Sunday update from Nicko…we are supposedly making a profit on Gueye and we have money to spend on attackers. The issue seemingly is that we are reluctant to pay them.

I really cannot fathom why Pears was in goal today.

Yes of course, but what I’m saying is the odds of an expensive signing is more likely to be successful than a cheaper less established player. Obviously you can spend what Liverpool did on Isak and not be assured of success.

When you are shopping in the bargain basement the chances of a signing being good is greatly reduced. You really need exceptional scouting to yield a high success rate employing this strategy. I think given the money spent the transfers are as expected. Some bad, some mediocre, some serviceable and one unearthed gem.

We all want better than this. Things could hardly be more stark than right now. We must demand better as fans for sure and that is of course the bigger picture, but today a decimated squad managed to get a very unlikely draw and they don't deserve harsh criticism (the owners and stooges do of course). Charlton may not be Real Madrid but thanks to Venkys this is our level now and actually their match day squad was stronger than ours.

People are being overly harsh again. Yes a home draw with Charlton is a poor result, but the context matters. Coming from 2 nil down to get a point (and prevent a relegation rival gaining 3 points) is commendable when you consider how utterly terrible the match day squad is and how exhausted the few remaining fit players must be. Such was the implausibility of a comeback, I was in the process of writing a post about forfeiting the match when Baradji scored the first of his goals. Everything is wrong off the pitch, but the limited players that we have worked hard and salvaged something against the odds.

You’re being very kind to the club here. The squad situation is critical and we are bordering on not being able to field a competitive team. Getting deals done rapidly is essential. We are being told we are bidding for an inexperienced lower league player valued at 5x more than we have offered. Cashin is on the bench for Brum and Gibson is back in the Stoke team. We have not managed to bring reinforcements for today’s game whilst other teams have made signings and our need is far greater than any other club. We may well lose a relegation 6 pointer today because of this. It also doesn’t look like anything is imminent. Nobody knows what happens behind the scenes and maybe their preparation was thorough and they have had some bad luck. However, this is the team who managed to mess up O’Brien and Maguire and sold Hyam at the last minute. I don’t think they deserve the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Nixon saying Barnsley want £5 million for Cleary. We are supposedly 'shocked' at this. Obviously we have not done our due diligence as expected and have been wasting time when expediency is of the utmost importance.

With it being a bank holiday it’s probably not a realistic example of the current attendances. I don’t think they are embarrassed especially either as the chronic decrease in attendance has been a gradual decline over many years. So much so that a boycott won’t look that different to a normal fixture anymore!

But interestingly our owners are billionaires and probably a lot wealthier than our opponents who outspend us 10 fold.

I really struggle to see peak Ferguson getting a tune out of today's match day squad. It is appallingly threadbare and lacking all over the park and on the bench there is nobody to bring on who can change the game. The players that are on the pitch look exhausted and downhearted. The team has been downgraded so rapidly and we have gone from the brink of the playoffs to the worst squad in my 30+ years supporting the club. Absolutely terrible mismanagement from the Ewood stooges and continued ownership who are seemingly unwilling to sell the club out of some form of punishment for being egged at Ewood over a decade ago. I can only assume they are laughing at how miserable we all are. They will use the injuries as a convenient excuse, it's the lack of squad depth and quality that's really the underlying cause. They don't have the depth to rotate the squad and the excess physical loading that the remaining players have to go through leaves them at risk of injury. Most of the players they have signed on the cheap are duds and simply cannot step up to fill the gap. The old pros that were shipped out over the summer would have been ideal for the situation we find ourselves in. Other teams have injuries too but are able to put out a coherent team still on a Saturday. We have had injury crises before and we always still manage to have a competitive team but now we have exhausted players many of whom are well below the required standard. It's all a complete mess and I cannot see how this side picks up another point in the near future.

Hedges is a great barometer for how rapidly the squad has deteriorated. He has gone from being a much maligned squad player to a key cog in the dysfunctional machine.

Some thoughts. They have a dodgy keeper who has made a couple of bad mistakes in recent matches and we failed to get a shot on target at home. Our first choice keeper was sat on the bench whilst we were seemingly just waiting for Pears to mess up so that he can be replaced in the next match. Seeing as we have no goals in the team, a solid keeper is essential and we actually have one sat on the bench!! The team is so weak and there is nobody on the bench who can come on and change things. There was basically no way back once the first goal went in. Realistically we need 5 decent experienced signings across multiple areas of the pitch to actually be competitive. We won't spend enough money to do that and I doubt any decent players would want to join....if any prospective signings were at the match today I suspect they left at half time. Without the signings we are going to be relying on 3 other teams being worse than us and us managing to scrape together a few scrappy draws and lucky wins. 2026 is going to be another good one folks. .