Mattyblue

Yeah I thought it was always Whitebirk/Rishton.

That is what they are doing, but let’s be frank trying to milk more and more out of our rump of 8,600 paid season ticket holders and a couple of thousand walk ones is tinkering around the edges, and is obviously an order from up high to reduce losses year in year out, but will make minimal difference in establishing a top Championship side.

Well of course we’d like to be the 5th most profitable club in England and a solid PL club, and that’s with a home support of about 18,000, but so would half of football. I don’t see how Venky’s ‘strategy’ is getting us remotely close to it.

He needs to meet him again and have a reconciliation, Cloughie style...

Only Mogga snaps by lecturing a teenage ball boy in the middle of a game on ‘the importance of values and being a good human being’.

In the Hughes era too we continued to reach semi final after semi final. Some great memories that surely is what we crave as fans? Alas, to finish 17th and hit the PL jackpot for another season is all that matters, to the extent a few extra games a year in order to actually achieve something is deemed beyond the pale.

5 days until the window shuts. You’d imagine they’ll have a new team by September. Though not sure who’d be signing them..

We did it from a position of strength in the post Jack John Williams era. We were already where we wanted to be, largely a mid ranking top flight side. A squad of quality PL footballers added to or taken away from piecemeal year in year out. Now this is the same in some ways, the big difference is that we are instead a mid ranking second tier side. And I don’t see this model having us doing much better than that. In many ways, that’s football, ‘you cut your cloth’ and all that. But we can’t be expecting promotion fights.

In an FFP world, for a club of our income levels, this ‘model’ is as good as any. But for me, it isn’t a plan that will see us as a consistent top 6 side. Too many variables with young players, some just don’t ‘polish up’ very well, football is awash with tales of ‘potential’ that fell by the wayside since time immemorial . Why the owners are happy to see us tread water in the second tier for year after year as they inject in more and more capital they haven’t a hope in hell of seeing a return on is another matter entirely.

Do we? Thought Mani’s inside scoop was that was dependent on selling Dack? Let’s hope he finds his mojo again soon if that’s the case.

Ah I see. I thought the 2013-2015 era team had much more quality personally. And the problem with potential is that it is just that, said promise often doesn’t amount to much. With another round of FFP not far away I forsee us spinning our tyres for some time yet.

Does the club seem more stable? Yes. Playing side? Aren’t we exactly where we’ve always been since relegation (the whole Coyle debacle aside), a middling second division team?

‘Modern football is dying’. Yet most clubs in England, from the Premier League through to non league are attracting higher crowds now for league games than any time since the 60s (we are one of the few to go the other way) The support is there, the interest is there. However, football’s governance has not changed since the 60s either, a time in which the game was largely run sustainably, clubs run by a local businessman who in many ways would own the club on behalf of the community, though let’s not pretend a Bancroft or Bill Fox were going to invite fans on the board in the style of Germany. And that chairman and his fellow directors would hear many a chant of ‘sack the board’ when a star player was sold, but clubs did try and exist within their means. Alas the money that has flowed into the sport since the establishment of the PL has led to a Wild West industry in which chancers, gamblers and spivs are making merry, from average players making fortunes, agents skimming off millions, clubs recklessly gambling to try and reach the promised land and a whole cadre of dubious characters owning clubs. The governance of the game is not fit for purpose and needs root and branch ripping up.

Thinking the same on Nyambe. His game seems to have disintegrated at right back, getting a very Adam Henley vibe with him at the moment.

Really poor keeper who it is pretty obvious was only signed to allow us to gain international breaks in League 1. Not remotely Championship quality. Certainly wasn’t pulling up any trees for Shrewsbury... http://blueandamber.proboards.com/thread/94541/fao-paul-hurst-drop-leutwiler?page=1

Definitely no Blackburner with that accent (a lot of hollow words in that interview)...

His business was based on Shadsworth business park, but is he actually a Blackburner?

So they’ve found money for Friday’s payroll then?

You’d imagine without an EFL or match income they’ll have to liquidate?

Me too! Shame it’s not this week as a fair bit of rain next few days.

Did he have ripped jeans on?

The FA are the ‘governing body’ of the game, yet have been entirely absent.

I want the best for the club, always, so I will carry on. Cheers.

Jim White is putting on his best faux concerned face. Like Count Dracula. In a sport full of compete tosspots he’s got to be right up there.