Brereton gets slaughtered by most fans I speak to, but to the great credit of the Ewood crowd they still really get behind him when he’s on the pitch. SG also gets a load of grief. I’ve not heard a single person write off Buckley either on here or at Ewood - how many have written Brereton off? Fans opinion will always differ, don’t disagree, but to say it’s ‘bias’ or ‘an agenda’ if someone has a differing opinion on JRC’s form so far is non sensical. p.s, Hill? Bloody hell! How far back we going

You reckon Joe? Sure I’ve been reading posts saying Wharton isn’t good enough/not going to make it/what does L2 prove etc - you being one of those posters. And as I said, there’s merit in that view, so I certainly don’t see you as ‘biased’. Who’s said the above (I.e. actually writing off) about JRC?

Why would someone be biased against him? It makes no sense, especially as any criticism has been very mild. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. I suppose it’s easy to blame ‘bias’ when you can’t understand why someone has a view against a player you personally rate highly, but that’s football fans. Wharton has been written off by some on here, and you yourself think he won’t make it - that’s harsher than any criticism of JRC, so are they/you biased against Wharton? Of course not, it’s just opinion.

I don’t particularly disagree that where we are now means it’s a logistical minefield and no wonder the club is sitting tight for now, but it’s a bit of a stretch to say the ‘club is putting the fans first’ instead of mere struggles with the practicalities and no steer from the owners.

Miller - Example of who’s said ‘they’re shit’ and who’s ‘written off’ JRC or Buckley. Would be quite ridiculous, but I don’t recall ever reading it, merely stuff like Buckley needs to ‘bulk up’ ‘toughen up’ etc and JRC hasn’t blown anyone away so far, but with the caveat he’s been slotted in in various positions. Whilst Nyambe, Travis and Lenihan are seen as pivotal men. Which is all fair enough and obviously isn’t knocking our vital Academy one iota. (Oh and if we are talking about ‘writing off’, Joe’s comments about Wharton are probably closer to doing that than anything I’ve read about Buckley or JRC, which seems unfair for a lad that’s paid his dues on loan and done well, though that’s still an opinion with some merit for a lad who’s never played out of L1/L2 and is 22 pushing 23. Never black and white, is it...)

You can’t fathom it because nobody is ‘biased’ against Joe Rankin Costello, they just have a different view on his effectiveness thus far, game of opinions and all that.

Nowhere near oligarch level, doubt they’ll be back again.

They’ve blown a big opportunity to really grow the club with the constant wrangling over the ground. Large and affluent catchment area, there was a massive waiting list for season tickets, but of course with a 10,000 capacity ground you aren’t getting them in. That waiting list will now miraculously disappear and they’ll probably be back in the third tier at some point and back down to 4/5,000 crowds. Their PL legacy seems to be massive debt and enriched players and agents.

Lenihan is a standard Championship centre half, and fair play to him as he’s converted himself to be more than adequate there. But he obviously isn’t better than PL regulars or he’d be at least in with a shout of getting a move there.

Both sides of this argument seem to have missed the actual reason they have been on sale at a majority of clubs. It’s fairly simple to me, the clubs selling them (or were selling) are doing so because they’ve had them on sale for an extended period, pre lockdown in most cases, as is standard at most clubs to have a sale window of months. The few that haven’t had them on sale at all are the ones that are always late getting them out, I.e Blackburn Rovers, who usually scramble them out post annual Pune meeting leaving a few weeks to sell a standard 8/9,000 in the summer. So of course, taking a look at the logistics of it all on the 2nd August, it’s no surprise clubs in our position are giving the whole thing a wide berth and waiting for some clarity from government/EFL.

It’s a turn of phrase.

This forum isn’t representative, we all know that, and that’s said as someone who is a staunch defender of brfcs. As I said, if you think we have an outraged fanbase over the refunds, fair enough. I jus didn’t see it, actually expected more outrage than there was.

You pissed? Obviously they exist, there’s posts on this very thread. But if you think there’s also widespread outrage in the fanbase over ifollow, fair enough. But not the impression I got.

Who wanted refunds? A few on here? I didn’t come across a single person in real life. Wasn’t aware I was expecting people to sign up for a full season, as my previous posts today have been about ‘when we are finally back in grounds’ ‘‘yesterday’s announcement adds to the uncertainty, so we ain’t selling many if they go on sale on Monday’, ‘when they do go on sale’

Read that 3 times and I’ve absolutely no idea if that’s supposed to be a sarcastic or not...

Was there an uproar out in the fanbase over refunds and ifollow? I didn’t particularly detect much... though there’s a chance it was suppressed as ST holders will be expecting their loyalty and understanding of the situation to be reciprocated when prices are announced.

Major difference is that lots of Championships clubs are proactive and due to getting them on sale early every year they had thousands signed up for next season before the country even went into lockdown. I imagine relatively few have been sold between April and now, but it doesn’t particularly matter as the cash flow is there. But as our leadership team have to wait for the annual summons to Pune to get anything signed off, it can often be June before we usually finally get them on sale, this dysfunctional state of affairs always puts us behind the curve, but this year it leaves us with little room to manoeuvre cash flow wise, as of course, with yesterday’s announcement adding to the uncertainty, you ain’t selling many if they were put on sale Monday morning.

Changing tack slightly, lets presume fans are back at some point next season. What happens to ifollow? We, unlike the majority of Championship clubs now have 0 ST holders, so obviously a ST holder streaming service can no longer be offered to a non existent ST base. So those first few months of the season, is it £10 a pop every 3 or 4 days? Or will ifollow for UK residents even continue? The connection to the team will get ever more distant...

When the time comes, there is going to have to be a hell of a marketing campaign, and a proper enticing price structure, or even selling 4/5,000 will be a real struggle. Many months (a year?) out of the ground, ongoing reluctance to gather (especially amongst our sizeable older contingent) as presumably no vaccine, mass unemployment/job insecurity and generally being out of the habit is some heady brew. The club needs to wake up to the fact the game is facing an existential crisis, and it won’t be business as usual for a long time. Alas I worry that those running the club just don’t get it and they will be expecting the core match going fanbase to just march straight back to Ewood paying standard prices after the usual minimal marketing - if they do they will be in for some rude awakening.

Murphy is on there too now? Christ.

Is a force majeure clause, which a pandemic could be classed as, mentioned in the rules? If it isn’t, then what’s the line of defence?

Contracted players go on loan all the time, bloody hell every team in the EFL is full of loanees. The player never misses out financially, it will normally be a wage split between the two clubs. Smallwood stands out, as he didn’t go on loan for some game time, which he’s perfectly entitled to do, but the fact it was so noticeable shows it’s not the norm to sit out a year when fit.

To be fair if he does get a move to Sunderland then it was a canny move all round...

Made me laugh the other day that ‘Instagram Influencers’ were hysterical that they are no longer getting free meals to post on their pages because the restaurants are skint.

Maglorie is never going go make it as Championship level.