‘John Eustsce doesn’t think has been told Rovers don’t need major surgery this summer’

Very lucky too. Like Chelsea twenty years ago they got to initially spend huge to get up to elite level - Newcastle would’ve been the same, but haven’t been allowed to.

Course players don't, 'show me the money' is usually the top and tail of it. My point was more the fact the article is making out we have some sort of dynamic exec team flying in to close deals... I'm not quite sure who those would be, maybe Venkatash.

So now the 'model' is now *not* young players to polish and sell on for a profit? You see it's why I don't ever take any notice to what the latest 'plan'/'model'/'philosophy' is at BRFC (unlike a certain few posters on here) as before you know it the whole thing has been chucked in a skip and we have a totally new approach under whoever the flavour of the month at the club now is. There is no plan at this club under these owners, never has been, never will be. It just stumbles on from year to year.

What ‘exec’ would that be then? Swag, Suhail? 🤦‍♂️

Call it what you want, ‘boycott’, ‘protest’, or just sick of watching and being treat like shite for a decade. But to go from nearly 20,000 ST holders when they bought the club to, what? 6/7k next term means it’s happening regardless of labels and anything organised.

I don’t blame Sky, they’ve got 10 channels to fill - blame the greedy clubs, they didn’t have to take the offer. Though of course the best bit of all this is the extra revenue will go straight in the clubs’ account and straight back out again into that of the players and agents.

Not sure ‘help us stay out of League 1!’ Is much of a driver to buy a £400/£500 season ticket but there you go.

To me the EFL is suffering from hubris. They’ve seen attendances boom everywhere (well, almost everywhere) and they think they can follow the Premier League model of more, more, more TV and it won’t impact bums on seats. But the clue is in the name, the ‘premier’ league, it is the elite level and has an enormous national and global profile so can withstand saturation coverage, it can withstand fans being pissed about - I’d wager the EFL can’t and the high watermark of lower league crowds has now been hit and crowds will start to decline in the medium term.

Of course. That’s why offers/reductions have to be timed right to dovetail with a bit of positivity/momentum around the club, we’ve had opportunities over the past few seasons to do it… but that certainly ain’t this summer.

Season tickets still not on sale… but the club is busy re-sharing/tweeting across social media this morning that we will be on Sky at least 20 times. Roll up, roll up for your 400/500 quid tickets!

I honestly think Swag saw a promotion (merely back to the second division, a league we shouldn’t have fallen out of in the first place), that Oxford crowd and honestly expected us to suddenly sell thousands of extra STs on the back of it, whatever the price and ticket campaign. Six years on and I think he gets out fanbase now, and the effort it takes to re-engage, so fuck that!

He would if he could, that pesky caveat - a Lidl would accompany the Aldi across the road nicely.

We went from 8,700 in 22/23 to 9,100 in 23/24, and he was strutting around the place - the strut being on the back of being the club with the 23rd highest number of ST holders in the second division 👏

Do you get chance to get over to the Etihad much these days, Vinners?

Are they even particularly good shot stoppers? They stop some, as any pro goalkeeper would, but they also let plenty of saveable efforts go through them, under them, over them. Both poor and a new keeper has to be a priority.

The money wasn’t good, as the entire game knows full well, but I agree the fact we will spend zero of it is also not good, but the very reason why the money wasn’t good is also the reason we won’t be spending it - it was a fire sale.

We obviously didn’t get a good price as proven by the other 20 year old in the Championship.

Some excellent suggestions, but if they pretty much ignore the lot where do you stand engagement wise going forward with the executives at Ewood?

Lies, damn lies and… We’ve gone from 8 to 9k ST holders, yes that’s an increase, 9 is higher than 8 after all, but it’s a very low bar in comparison to pretty much the whole division. It’s nothing to be proud of, though it will be bonuses and slaps on the backs all round. But lets use that as a baseline regardless and let’s continue to build… so do you (and the club) foresee that progress continuing next season? And if not, why?

So you think the club is in a good place on the pitch?

PL scouting isn’t based on U21 caps or even just assists, they are looking for that ‘wow’ factor and he had it. But maybe you’re right, maybe the rest of us are. But it is only a debate because of the owners flogging him as soon as they feasibly could, a distressed seller is never going to get top whack - but yes, if it was, say, next January that he was sold his price could well have shot up post another year of assists, goals and U21 caps, and he would still have years left on his contract. We’ll never know because of the club killers in situ.

You certainly have an issue with the commercial side, who doesn’t. You do though seem to be happy enough with the football side.

Yep off our heads to think we could get something similar to another 20 year old who made the move just months earlier. But at the end of the day something is only worth what folk will pay - and yep, we weren’t getting much more when a ‘please buy him, we can’t pay our bills’ sign was stapled to his forehead.

Nobody expected £60million, bloody hell. But the price we did get was shite, as proven by Bristol City - but as to be expected when the seller is desperate.