4 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Yes, morten I know you think we have shit support, you’ve made that very clear over the years.

I’m talking about other clubs who also have a plethora (but yes, not as many as us) of empty seats. These clubs also have no parachute payments and I would wager wouldn’t mind the extra revenue from 5k+ followings, but they choose to restrict - why? If not to the protect home advantage?

We’re a Championship club with attendances more commonly seen in League 1. What part of that do you disagree with? It’s no comment on the quality of support or underlying reasons for why our attendances are low. It’s impressive that we get c10k fans each week considering pricing and catchment area, but it doesn’t change the overall situation.

I assume other clubs don’t allow such big away allocations because they wouldn’t normally have an entire stand empty of home fans to reallocate. They’d probably also expect to sell out whenever the big games come around which we never do even with cheaper tickets. Oxford is the only outlier and that’s once in 12 years.

11 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Plenty of clubs in this league have c10k empty seats most weeks yet they cap away allocations at 2/3k - Middlesbrough, Birmingham, Stoke, Cardiff etc.

They don’t give away teams 5k+. We choose to, it doesn’t particularly bother me, but it is a choice and it’s a choice a lot of other clubs wouldn’t even entertain.

10k? We have closer to 15-20k empty seats each week and even with reduced prices, we’ve not sold over 25k home tickets for any game in the last 5 years. We have more empty seats than any other club and given our financial situation, it’s understandable why we offer big allocations, despite the downsides.

If we had enough fans to fill the Darwen End then there’d be no conversation about giving teams the full stand. We’re desperate for the cash and are usually only able to partly fill the home ends. I’m well aware of the underlying causes which include ticket prices and catchment areas but that doesn’t change the reality going into Sunday. If we want to be more financially self sufficient then we have to maximise every opportunity to generate income.

11 hours ago, grinder said:

Back to the bbc team - thought it was good to hear Shearer  mention Tony Parkes in the build up...yes he is going to favour Newcastle but clearly still has fond memories Lineker I thought was his usual anti rovers his comments after the 1st half were way off - Murphy we know about maybe not as bad as he can be but anyone listening would think he used to be a decent footballer... 

When is Lineker ever talking about Rovers? Thought he was fine and pleasantly surprised by Murphy who actually spoke about the club in positive terms.

10 hours ago, 47er said:

Some interesting points in this LT article. For Example I didn't realise that their keeper was off his line for Hyam's penalty and it should have been retaken.

That just about sums up the official's night in my view.

Apologies if its already been posted, I haven't seen it before.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/24150752.shearers-treats-tennis-balls-blackburn-moments-missed/

The keepers were off their line for almost all the pens including when Pears saved theirs.

Proud of that. A cruel way to go but couldn’t have done much more.

Buckley in particular stood out, he’ll be a massive player for us second half of the season. Pears was faultless. 

Deep down, I had no expectations so don’t feel overly disappointed given how well we played. Still hurts but doesn’t come close to Sheff Utd last season.

2 minutes ago, roverblue said:

I know they wont but Waggot or Broughton need to come out and explain exactly what the f is going on.

They cant hide from the fact with Raya and Wharton being sold that it’s roughly £25m coming into the club.

They can’t hide from the fact we have butchered the squad of experience and saleable assets meaning the wage bill must be massively lower than it was in the last few seasons.

What is the plan for £25m and will some or any of it be reinvested?

Until that becomes clear they can stick my season ticket up their ass for next year.

Raya hasn’t actually been sold yet has he?

Butchered the squad is a bit strong. Wharton obviously was first choice but Travis and Ennis barely featured. Hill wasn’t our decision. Wharton was the only (although a major) asset we sold unless you consider Ennis to be a significant loss (?).

Mixed feelings over the window. Considering where we were yesterday morning, to pull three signings out of the bag isn’t bad going and at least we got McGuire over the line.

The Travis move makes less sense than all the others. Exactly the type of player we need but clearly off the pitch factors played a part.

Wharton hurts. The money is good but the timing clearly speaks to the dire financial situation we’re in. If Wharton going secures the club’s medium term financial future than so be it - but it’s going to need to be a big summer to fill all the gaps in the squad and justify the sale of our biggest asset.

Also, Elliott Jackson is completely out of the loop with what’s going on at the club. Declared everything was done after McGuire and was feeding off other journalists all day.

1 minute ago, Spankus Munky said:

With all due respect I doubt you thought Szmodics would be raising much 12 months ago either. You may not like it but all Championship clubs sell the better players on the books year on year if the Premier Leage come calling, it's the lay of the land in the Championship.

Exactly, our main issue in recent years isn’t that we sold our best assets it’s that we let them go for nothing. Wharton is going to be our record sale (?) so if anything it’s a good example of how the model should work - assuming we can reinvest a reasonable chunk into the squad, which I doubt. 

It hurts but £20m is too big to turn down. Secures the club, fulfils the remit of the academy and hopefully gives us something to play with in the window/summer. Like someone else says, I actually think he’ll be more suited to the PL than the Champ. 

Not convinced by the American. Would rather keep Gallagher and given the AW money, get someone proven at this level rather than £2m on a punt.

9 minutes ago, damo100 said:

Riverside apart I'd say that's pretty accurate. 

 

If anything the JW looks slightly fuller than usual. Offsets the gaps in the BBE and Riverside to bring it close to our average home gate which is roughly 10k these days.

14 minutes ago, TheRevAshton said:

Update;

JW Stand - 5,594
BBE Lower - 3,108
Riverside - 1,446
All Home fans - 10,148

Relatively impressed given the opposition and time of day. Probably on a par with what we’d get for a regular league game on a weekday night.

4 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

My money is on another story linking Adam Wharton with a move away… it’s been almost 48 hours since his last one so he’s overdue.

But wasn’t he correct with the last one? 
 

1 hour ago, booth said:

They were pushing him to go last season but he dug his heels in. He wanted to stay. Waggott wants to sell.

He’s 19, has his family close and living his dream. However the money being offered for him to disappear to a far away land (aka Palace) is madness.

If Rovers do sell for £20m it’s not because Waggott or the club held out. Thank Adam for that as he would have sold for a lot less in Summer.

So why has he been given a new contract and why have we rejected a decent bid for him this window? Completely get that the club will be looking to make good money on him at some stage but their actions don’t suggest they are actively trying to sell AW. 

16 minutes ago, CambridgeRover said:

So seems like either 

 

1. We sell wharton and Venkys hide the money as it is too late in the window to spend

2. Dont sell wharton and rely on indian court system to bail us out

Is that right?

I assume the situation is more that the Wharton money would keep the club afloat for the foreseeable future rather than being ‘hidden’. If Venky’s were desperate to simply cash in and take the money, I don’t see why they’d reject the relatively decent offer from Palace.

Aside from whether any of the money would go on transfers, I don’t get the argument that we’re actively looking to sell AW because if that was the case he’d be already gone. Doesn’t mean to say we still won’t let him go if Palace or others start throwing stupid money around, but if they’ve turned down £18.5m then I’d be surprised if they crack at £20m.

54 minutes ago, neophox said:

Watching the highlights from Plymouths games last year...if our scouts thought Ennis was the better of Ennis/Whittaker last season that's madness....they got it wrong and now JDT wants him out after half a season...I think he's fuming... Surely JDT wanted Whittaker but got Ennis...

So you believe the club got confused purely because you saw them both play last season and thought one was better than the other..? There are enough reasons to criticise the club, there’s no need to invent them.

1 hour ago, OldEwoodBlue said:

Not sure there is any link between selling Wharton and the court case being delayed.

We need cash for wages. Hard cash, now.

Can't see that coming from a deal to sell Wharton. Probably installments, etc.

More likely the club will take out an emergency bridging loan. That is what they did last time when it was put back to October. Little choice really apart from deferring wages.

 

Selling Wharton or whoever else is a necessity to comply with FFP. We need to get circa £11million of sales into this year's accounts - so before June 30th.

So why did we reject the 18.5m bid from Palace?

29 minutes ago, pick32 said:

Am I missing something or have we not signed a player and rejected a club record bid since the court date was pushed back? 
 

I don’t think Wharton should be sold at any cost and I don’t think we will see a reinvestment, I think next season he is worth double what he is now. But also talks of the lights going of and administration seems a little far fetched from what’s actually happening at the minute.

To some people, turning down a bid of £18.5m is actually a sign that Venky’s are deliberately trying to sell him to avoid transferring funds from India…

I think it’s clear that we’re not actively trying to sell him but if the money gets high enough then of course he has a price tag. 

2 minutes ago, alex l said:

If we get £20m guaranteed for Wharton and it allows us to spend at least £10m on 3 quality players, I'd reluctantly say we should. CM is probably our strongest area - Tronstad and JRC will probably play and there's Garrett and Buckley when he returns, as well as the Swedish loanee. Sometimes you have to cash in to build the rest of the team. 

I’m not sure we can expect to get much more for a Champ player. If £20m isn’t enough to sell, I’m not sure what is. The timing is a problem alongside the obvious question of how much we’d get to reinvest, but £20m+ does seem too much to turn down. Ideally we hold out to the summer so don’t weaken the squad and get a slightly higher fee, but can understand if the club chooses to take the money now.

Impressive if we’ve turned down £18.5m. Always find it surprising when people criticise Venky’s for actively trying to sell our best assets when they so often refuse to sell until the asking price is met even if it means players running down their contracts.

Everyone against the prospect of selling Wharton because we wouldn’t reinvest the money is exactly the same talk when the prospect of selling Rothwell came up a couple of January’s ago. Same people then criticised the club for allowing players to walk away for nothing.

£15m is reasonable for Wharton and we clearly need the cash. Don’t want him to go and clearly we won’t reinvest all of it but if it gets us 2/3 proven Championship players, it’s probably too good to turn down.

13 hours ago, Lancs Rover said:

You do wonder how significant Travis's absence from the current set up will be. His expendable captain.

It was a big call by JDT

 

The bigger call was not playing him over the last few months. Hardly like he was getting a look in so I doubt there’ll be a big impact. I can’t understand why but JDT clearly doesn’t want Travis in the team and had no issues with him leaving.

34 minutes ago, RoverDom said:

Was watching liverpool fulham last night where Cairney, Reed and Tosin were on display for Fulham and Elliot involved for liverpool and thought about doing a slightly different 11 of players we've had since 2012 now playing in the premiership. Got depressed when deciding between Raya and Kaminski and gave up. 

Thought about that the other day. Bell, Steele, Giles, Branthwaite, Brereton Diaz and Van Hecke all now playing for PL clubs. 

Cairney is still the one that hurts the most. Best midfielder at the club, didn’t want to go and sold to (then) a Champ rival for a trivial amount. 

2 hours ago, Mike Graham said:

There are only about 150 tickets left in the whole of the JW which equates to 10,650 sold in that stand when taking into account the netted off area which surely should be removed today.  I cannot recall it being that full for 15+ years.

Wouldn’t the Oxford and Bournemouth games have had similar figures? Certainly very few other occasions though including local derbies.