Craig Short - the original overlapping centre-half

Personally I thought Waggy’s crossfield diagonal passes to Hird had the best combination of accuracy and backspin I’ve ever seen.

Hmmm tbh I agree with them. It does look dated, I don’t know why the print is yellow, there’s way too much green and no reference whatsoever to our most unique attribute: halved strip. It’d be interesting to see all the badge designs through the ages to see where it went wrong. All IMO. Blimey, all over the shop https://ewoodpark.jimdo.com/blackburn-rovers-glorious-legacy-winning-identity-badge-history/

To understand the management of a business, you have to look at where they spend and don’t spend money over time. After relegation from the Prem, we signed a “experienced” players on long contracts and high wages, such as Murphy, Etihu, Best, and pretty much none since then - lesson learned. The Academy gets £3m every year without a quibble, whereas coaching staff are, wherever possible, promoted from within. There seems to be a limitless transfer budget for young, English attacking players - Rhodes, Rudy, Brereton, Armstrong, Chapman - and yet nothing at all for foreign talent (Portugeezers hangover?) and experienced defenders. There’s no question in my mind the club is being run to minimize long, expensive commitments to wages on players and staff and to maximize the chance of capital gains on player trading, bought or homegrown. I can well imagine this strategy came from the two lots of consultants and won’t be changing soon in response to a run of bad results on the field. That being the case, Johno won’t be taking over the first team anytime soon - he makes the club a lot of money where he is - and our best bet to stiffen the back line will be a modern-day John McNamee, Kevin Moran or Tony Gale, if such players still exist today. Mowbray’s kudos with his bosses for winning promotion got largely spent on rewarding Mulgrew, Williams and Evans, so there’s next to no chance their contracts will be dumped. We are still far from a normal football club.

The shares/debt issue is really very clear. Debt is money owed to the lender, but that doesn’t mean to say is recoverable as it is now far greater than the breakup value of the club. Nor does it follow that any future buyer has to pay all of it, or even any of it - it’s a matter for negotiation. Share capital is the cumulative amount paid by the owners for their shares in the club. As every investment advertisement tells us, the value of shares can go up or down, driven by the competing forces of supply and demand, so the amount paid by Veny’s has no bearing on their value. In our case, the supply has Sky-rocketed up as new shares keep being created and bought by Venkys at their face value - which drives down their intrinsic value - while demand will be determined by whatever amount any future buyer(s) is/are willing to pay for them. Normally, a rule of thumb on share value is tangible assets plus present-day value of future cash flows. A buyer would have to take a very rosy-eyed view of our promotion prospects plus likelihood of staying up for many years to get anywhere near a share valuation equal to what Venkys paid for them.

If competition for the shirt was making them better, thank God we didn’t just have one of them.

I’m struggling to recall a time in my 50 years watching when we ever had two keepers vying for the shirt when they weren’t both a bit shit. Sir Roger, Gennoe, Friedal held the shirt for 20+ years between them and I have no idea who their number 2s were.

Conway will be gone, despite him scoring more goals than Bennett, Evans, Smallwood and Rothwell combined who have been on the field for 10x longer. Graham had to earn his contract extension for next year, and has done so in style. The conundrums are the internationals Evans, Williams and Mulgrew who were all awarded generous new contracts. My only explanation for this is that it must’ve been part of Mowbray’s negotiations persuading them to stay after we went down: “stay and help us back up, and I’ll look after you if we do go up”. Williams I never want to see ever again; Evans CAN do a job when it suits him; Mulgrew I’d use as a supersub, special teams kicker for the last 20 mins. Raya I think got derailed by being rushed back from the kick in the mush. For his sake and ours we need a new solid #1 with a year or two left in him.

Which is why The Taffia never be appointed. Venky’s have never paid for a back room setup like that, always make do and mend on that front.

I blame Williams for the first goal. I blame Mowbray for keep picking him. I blame whoever runs our club for precluding all our managers from spending money on good, experienced defenders, because they think there’s less money to be made than on young, English attackers.

Haven’t the last seven years taught you anything about what’s wrong with our club? You post 50 times a day moaning about Mowbray as though he is the only issue in an otherwise well-run, normal club. Mowbray, a washed-up bloke on the dole nearing retirement age, was getting calls from people in the game saying he was mad to come here. The one time we got an actual current manager he walked. The one time we seemed likely to get an actual current successful manager, someone, we know not who, nixed it and parachuted in Coyle. Mowbray will get fired when it suits the agenda of whoever decides these things, which will have nothing to do with what the fans think or want, nor how our results are going.

Good analysis. He’s not going anywhere for six months imo no matter how many times the Back or Sack poll gets reset on here. And Suhail’s relationship with the family will be a lot more complex than being their Rovers man so he’ll no doubt balance whatever is going on with his other accountabilities with whatever he recommends (or doesn’t) about Rovers. My guess is that losing 7 out of 9 isn’t going to get very high up his agenda.

That thought struck me too. Sounds like he’s had enough of the lot of them, but then he has either bought them or given them extended deals, and is now basically telling them he’s buying better players in the summer. Mulgrew, Williams, Rodwell, Reed and Evans play like they don’t give a shit. The only glimmer of light I can see is that the lads from the U23s, plus Graham to be fair, are our best players, still putting in a shift. Dack I’m not sure ever cared about anything but himself and is showing why he was at Gillingham so long. It’s going to be a long last 8 games.

Wow! I’m beginning to wonder if he signed Rothwell now.

That’s pretty much how I see it. I’m still convinced there’s a Balaji/agents investment budget (young, English, attacking) and then there’s Tony’s sell to buy remit. I think when he said money hadn’t been spent he was referring to the Balaji budget - maybe he was pushing back at that point leaving the money on the table but then caved the next window and gave the nod to Brereton. The fact he has referred more than once to selling a Dack (ha!) to strengthen elsewhere I think highlights what his remit extends to. I expect him to walk after the summer window when another Balaji prospect has been shipped in and the defence has been patched up with a couple of frees.

Four soft goals for God’s sake. The only sliver of hope is that today will be the last time I see Williams in a Rovers shirt.

Shambolic first 15, pretty good last 15. Williams, Evans and Reed seem intent on losing the game though. Rothwell been the standout player, brings Dack into it much more. Sneaking suspicion this could be our first come from behind victory of the year, or is it century.

Since when they have had several key players from last year’s team return from injury, which seems likely to have contributed to their return to last year’s form, given three of their signings haven’t made an appearance yet. Were you expecting to spend all season above the team that finished 7th last year?

Last season they finished 7th, so, as of right now, they’ve moved backwards.

I was under the impression it was more the players who almost got them in the play offs last year returning from injury that has propelled Preston ahead of us.

The absence of Mulgrew and achieving a clean sheet is far beyond coincidence for me, the man can’t defend. Well done Magloire, showing how it’s done, put his bollocks on the line several times.

In my lifetime we have won promotion five times, and won three trophies. The other 53 years we didn’t win anything. Trophies were amazing, promotions were wonderful. If promotion from Div 1 is such a gimme for a club with resources, why aren’t Sunderland 15 points clear in that shitty league?

Possibly. He has been caught out upfield a lot recently. For their second yesterday he got left for dead, turning our 9 players behind the ball to 5 in a stroke.

None whatsoever, Alan

Yep. I’m fed up of picking limited players to try and cover the even greater limitations of the ones behind them. The only way to stop anyone’s right winger skinning Bell/Williams/Mulgrew is make them have to sit back and mark someone who can play.