Exiled_Rover

I'm curious to see what the 'stage 2' of the protest is. 'Express yourself' is incredibly vague. Are they asking people to stay away? Go in numbers and protest? If they're not careful you'll just have the usual crowd with a small number in the Blackburn End chanting anti-Waggott / Venky songs.

Of course Waggott is a massive part of the problem. He's absolutely on cruise control heading into retirement. He's doing the absolute bare minimum to hit the financial targets set by the owners (which apparently appear to be to invest £0 into the club). A proactive CEO employs experts to engage with the local (and surrounding - which is where the vast majority of our support comes from if we're honest) community to get as many bums on seats as possible. Instead he's let fans drift away and fleeces the remaining hardcore. A proactive CEO allows his Director of Football to reinvest half of the money we received from A. Wharton into new L1 / L2 (and I guess failed PL Academy graduates) signings so we build on the windfall and kick on as a team (with said players also viewed as saleable assets). Instead he was happy to piss off the manager, piss of the DoF and lump all of that money into the financial targets he has to hit. A proactive CEO tries his hardest to keep Eustace happy - a man who was turning water into wine. Instead he released a bitter, petty club statement accusing Eustace of being disloyal and replaced him with a cheap clown. He's a horrible CEO and, by all accounts, a horrible man.

Like clockwork. It's startling in a way, comforting in another.

Who's the clown sat across from him?

That's pretty much how I see it too - which again points to the fact there's no clear immediate support coming from the Academy next year.

I always thought he looked neat and tidy with the right amount of aggression - but he needed regular minutes (which he wasn't getting here). For Bristol Rovers and Tranmere not to play him though - bloody hell.

Good lord we're in trouble next year when most of these lads will be starting / filling out the bench at Ewood. I'm glad Batty has got regular minutes (he desperately needed it) and Duru seems to have shone - but beyond that, bloody hell. We've clearly not got anyone close in the Academy that can come in next year and help us out.

You don't expect him to stop it - but you also definitely expected Murphy to score it. When was the last time he pulled out a good save? He's a woeful GK.

You'd get a "no comment" and it'd quickly be forgotten. You have to remember where we are in the football / media hierarchy. Garnacho liking tweets that criticise his teammates gets splashed across the back pages. A former Premier League winner in serious crisis gets 5 minutes of coverage IF we conduct a massive PR campaign on a slow news day.

Bingo - the club would definitely push for prosecutions.

He's genuinely not fit to lace Tronstad's boots. Could you imagine if they played against each other? Tronstad would have his slippers out.

Just for shits and giggles: Toth JRC Hyam Batth Ribeiro Tronstad Travis Dolan Cantwell Ohashi Gueye

It's bonkers how we're still so close to the playoffs. We've lost 10 games this calendar year. Imagine if they'd backed Eustace - despite all the crap around the club we'd be looking forward to a Playoff game right now.

Which I always counter with "your club would be dead in the same situation".

Honestly I don't think an empty ground says much these days. We've regularly seen crowds of 12-13k in a 32k seater stadium and besides some chants / comments (that completely miss the mark) about our poor support, nothing is said. Now maybe the season ticket sales hitting an all-time low might make a change, but they're already pitiful. We clearly don't live and die on season ticket sales - they just raise an eyebrow at Venky HQ. In my opinion the only REAL way to make a change is to get games postponed - which requires fans to repeatedly invade the pitch. The club gets fined if we do that (which will obviously hurt their bottom line) and we'd get a lot of coverage in the media. However, as stated multiple times on here - I for one am not willing to get a banning order and a criminal record to achieve this.

I think the way they handled the Eustace debacle has pulled the wool from some eyes. He wasn't asking for the world - just some security for himself, his players and a conversation with the owners to find out what the long-term plan was. Instead they performed deliberate sabotage (again), followed by them pissing on the fans with that statement. I won't be going next year and I gather many around me in the stand won't either.

One glance at the performances of the Academy graduates on loan would make you pump the brakes on that plan - if you were committed to driving the club forward (or whatever that AI statement said). The next wave is clearly miles off it. You're absolutely going down if they're getting major minutes next season.

I think we'll go winless the rest of the season. Make no mistake about it, Portsmouth were abysmal today - one chance, one goal (Pears tried to gift them a second, but Buckley managed to get back and clear the ball). If we can't even beat the likes of Portsmouth and Cardiff we've got no chance.

Hedges should have scored and Carter should have done better with both of his chances. I appreciate he's a CB being played at RB, but the one in the second half was particularly wasteful - nobody around him in the area and he crosses it out of play (I think he was shooting).

Fixed it for you.

It's pretty clear most of the players aren't arsed any more. Sure they'll take the win if you gift it to them, but the way Eustace left has taken the fight from them. Travis is a shadow of the player he was earlier in the season.

Eustace had an immediate impact - you could see he was trying to stem the flow of goals and make us hard to beat. This French lad though - fuck knows what he's trying to do.

He's had nothing to do all game and he still tried to give us all a heart attack on an innocuous ball over the top. Awful, awful GK and the fact he has so many starts is a glaring indicator or how bad things are at the club.

That's the only positive in all this. We're mathematically safe and in their haste to get ahead of the negative PR around Eustace leaving for a smaller club in dire straits they've appointed an absolute turd of a manager and given him a long contract. JDT and Eustace kept the heat off Waggott, Suhail and the Venkys because they were performing miracles. Ismael has turned the spotlight back on them.

Gueye has made a big difference, but Hedges and Dolan aren't goal scorers and Cantwell is dropping so deep to get onto the ball. Woodrow is terrible mind and Ohashi is a pure poacher - he needs the ball in and around the box.