4 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

How anyone can suggest that he shouldnt have played is incredible too. He was scoring 20 plus goals every season, he was the strength of the team, not the weakness.

Rhodes limited how we could play when he was in the team. He did fantastically well for us but it sadly was to the detriment of others. The fact that we had a 25 goal a season striker yet never reached the play offs is testament to that. Look at how Rhodes has faired elsewhere in comparison to Josh King.

Top guy and he’s made the best of his ability but I wouldn’t swap him for Armstrong or Dack. 

They are being paid what the market dictates is their worth. Devils advocate, should everyone earning above £1m a year take a 50% pay cut or is just footballers? 

It’s such a shame to see some of the messages on here. We’ve had 3 years of stability and gradual progress. Look at what came before that. After all the nonsense we’ve been through we finally have some calm in the club and a reasonably decent team.

Of course it can be better, but look where we were in early 2017 compared to now. Read the team sheets. Is it REALLY going that badly at the moment? Slamming every decision the club or Mowbray makes just feels unnecessary. There’s a strong chance that we’ll be wishing for times like these in the not too distant future.

For context, Bolton kicked off the new season in League 2. 

Just now, blondie said:

As a supporter for some 50 odd years, I have renewed through blind loyalty to the club.

I appreciate people's reluctance to commit for whatever reasons.

My main gripe is the appalling lack of awareness of the club to the current situation.

To withhold season ticket sales for so long, then put on sale days before an obvious tightening of lockdown rules is unforgiveable.

Then to plead to fans as a form of blackmail , further strengthens the disconnect between Waggot and reality.

Yes we are on the brink of a financial precipice, but an increase in prices for a diminishing product is financial suicide.

I would dearly wish that we emerge from this crisis intact, but the blame is surely at Waggot's door.

 

It’s not as his door. That’s a ridiculous accusation. Could the club have taken a different approach? Definitely. But to suggest that the club folding falls on the date STs went on sale or the decisions that the club has made over the last 6 months given the global circumstances is pathetic.

3 hours ago, JHRover said:

Kits aren't on sale are they? Last I heard you could order one but they weren't available for anyone to physically have. So that's one thing - find a kit supplier that actually takes this seriously and get kits out early.

Another is to take season tickets or passes seriously. I'm afraid doing nothing until 15th September then cranking prices up is only going to reduce the numbers buying.

Waggott is completely out of his depth.

What more can they do right now? You want the club to find a new kit supplier in this climate?!

They've taken it seriously but it’s obviously a very difficult situation to predict. Putting a product on sale that they can’t guarantee providing is hardly straightforward to navigate.

Its incredibly easy to criticise but I haven’t yet heard of any groundbreaking ideas to fix this.

1 hour ago, JHRover said:

I dont believe that for one minute.

I'm not up to speed with what is happening in India with Coronavirus but imagine the situation there is very different to that in the UK. Their business interests are likely unaffected by what happens in the UK. 

The club has had no income since February yet carried on spending.

I think they already decided they weren't putting funds into the transfer kitty. The money spent on Kaminski and Ayala will have come from funds already allocated to the wage bill and saved since July by getting shut of Downing, Graham, Tosin and the others.

I very much doubt they know anything about it or the situation with crowds.

You doubt they know anything about our situation but admit that you don’t know anything about theirs and assume everything is fine.. 

Isn’t that exactly what you’re accusing them of with the UK restrictions?

Slightly hypocritical I’d suggest.

6 minutes ago, JoeH said:

Look, people can criticise, mock and disbelieve. I think going forward I’ll be saying nothing, people love to shut down anyone who shares anything they’ve heard.

I get why people can feel conned, but I only posted what I’d been told. I don’t take any enjoyment from transfers being delayed, transfers going wrong or being given false info, I don’t know why people think that would be done from posters purposefully.

I was extremely careful only to share what I knew/was told and nothing more, I never gave a name because I didn’t know one. I’ll be saying nothing more on it, and anyone else who feels like having a jibe or a dig can cope with being ignored.

To be fair, I think everyone appreciates inside info.

But if you put info out there, you have to expect questions if nothing materialises. If you interpret that as a jibe than fair enough but everything I’ve read seems fair game in all honesty.

8 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Not quite as I made it clear that I wouldn't buy a season ticket (with Mowbray and Waggott at the helm) even if I'd win the £62million Euro jackpot.!

However, I won £150 across two bets (Rovers to win and more than 1.5 goals in the match) so I put my money where my mouth is/was.  As a bonus, I also took £20 off a Burnley fan in the pub when our fifth went in.  So, all in all, a nice little earner today which will allow me to add some very decent reds to my wine stock.

What a healthy attitude. Just when the club needs your support more than ever.

Great result. Deserved a big win after the encouraging performances in the first two weeks. Very impressive.

He’s not going to say Bell isn’t good enough. Saying that Bell is ‘doing alright’ is hardly a ringing endorsement.

Why don’t we wait and see how the window pans out before jumping on every word.

Deleted. Kaminski looks decent at least.

57 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

He shouldn’t have been sold to start with, £10 million in 2020 or £3 million in 2019, so the rest of your post is moot.

Again, hindsight. Based on the facts at the time, selling him was understandable and that’s how it should be judged.

47 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

‘We all thought he was poor’ ‘everyone was happy for him to go’ is justification for their own poor judgement of a player.

No one has been making those statements. 

He didn’t want to be here, had come off the back of an inconsistent season and we had received a reasonable offer. I wasn’t ‘happy’ that he went but I can understand why we sold. We are all agreed that he had potential and Walton was a step down.

I disagree that it was inevitable a top level PL club would be willing to throw £10m at him this summer. 

4 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

The initial fee and 10% would be a poor deal.

The initial fee and 20%? Just about an acceptable deal.

This is all being written with the benefit of hindsight. If we’d known that Raya would fetch £10m in 2020 then obviously we should have kept him. But at the time, £3m was a reasonable price for a player who was inconsistent and didn’t want to be here. He undoubtedly had potential but it was hardly inevitable that he’d be going for big money this year. 

19 minutes ago, LeftWinger said:

Raya wanted to leave after being dropped and publicly criticised by his manager - completely understandable.

Raya did have/still has huge potential - he's still very young for a keeper. Definitely a mistake selling him - and I thought so at the time. Even worse was how we replaced him.

Raya was dropped because he made mistakes. Frequently. I don’t think there were many protests when he got dropped. 

Walton was definitely a downgrade and we shouldn’t have sold Raya without a decent replacement lined up. However, I can understand why he was sold in the first place. Frankly I’m very surprised that a top side wants him. 

21 minutes ago, LeftWinger said:

Did we miss him last year? Not with Walton doing such a superb job, no.

Why wouldn't we have got £10m for him eventually? 

No one on here thought we could get £10m for Raya last year. Very easy to re-write history. He didn’t want to be here and so we took the Brentford offer. £3m was perhaps on the low side but not by much. I can see why he was sold. Should have found a better replacement however.
 

For me, selling Raya is not in the same category as selling Cairney. That was criminal.

I’m yet to see what JRC brings. Got to give him a chance and certainly hasn’t let the side down but can’t pretend that I’ve been overly impressed.

Thought Brereton did alright yesterday. Made things happen and certainly more positive signs than there were a year ago. Needs to do more in the box.

Dolan stood out again. Ball of energy and confidence. Brings a different dimension. If he keeps this up he could be massive for us this season.

25 minutes ago, Stuart said:

If you want to praise him for converting a positive player into a negative one go ahead. Dunny gets the original credit from me.

You’re trying too hard. Be reasonable. Mowbray has plenty of faults, why go about inventing them??

Absolute torture. The worst way to lose. Dominated but never looked like scoring. Hated every second.

It’s great to watch but not effective. Against a packed defence we’re not good enough.

Newcastle were terrible.

3 minutes ago, arbitro said:

This could be the biggest own goal since the1960 Cup Final fiasco. A significant price increase (after an 18% increase the season before last) with no guarantees of when you can access the stadium with some predictions of next year being the earliest. And if the ground capacity is over subscribed there will be a ballot with priority given to supporters who purchased 'premium seats'. So much for 'We are Together'. I originally thought we would struggle to shift 5000 given the circumstances, I have revised that to 3500 now.

Fuck you Waggott.

This is why season tickets shouldn’t be on sale. Too many variables and unknowns. Trying to sell a product that might not exist. 

8 minutes ago, CambridgeRover said:

What the hell are you chatting? No one is saying Raya is some mega bucks world class keeper. But the facts are, he was worth far more than the 3 million we sold him for and he is far better than any keeper the club has had since

He didn’t want to be here. Hindsight is great but I don’t think anyone would have expected Arsenal to come in for him after one season away. He was better than Walton and we probably should have got a slightly higher fee but not by much. £10m is a ridiculous price to pay for him.

10 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

Well no, because we are happy to sell for peanuts. Even if he had a 10 mill market value with Arsenal snooping we would let him go for about 6 I reckon. 'We couldn't stand in David's way by asking an unreasonable fee, we had to do right by the player and let him go as soon as Arsenal were interested. Not a problem anyway, there's this bright young keeper at Brighton we can loan, we will be fine.'

We can't consider it a successful piece of business because after what, 6 years of developing him, we will have let Brentford make more money off him in a year.

Not sure where this is coming from. Selling players for peanuts? We certainly got market value for Rhodes and Jones when they were sold. We’re useless at signing players but not sure we’re as bad at selling them. We haven’t actually sold many of our better players over the last 2/3 years. Let’s see how much Dack and Armstrong go for.

42 minutes ago, toogs said:

Not putting a single striker in the starting 11 vs PNE 2 seasons back when we were looking like we could kick on and become a force in the division was my turning point. Mind boggling at the time and unforgivable. Told me everything I needed to know about Mowbray and the setup at Rovers. 

Armstrong played and Graham was rested from what I remember.

The 4-1 defeat pissed me off more than the selection to be honest..

20 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

Where is the business in not taking money in when its offered?  Especially when the same prannock making this decision is the same one stiffing the fans who decide to buy their tickets after 12.30.  The club looks like a lazy set up on and off the pitch.  No drive, no creativity

I assume it has something to do with selling a product they can’t guarantee will be provided and having to refund fans down the line. I get the point that there are ways to make it happen but there are equally valid reasons for why they haven’t gone down that road. Simply accusing the club of being lazy is overlooking the nature of the situation.

2 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

I've said already that the Club could have introduced a direct debit scheme which could be amended as appropriate when it is known whether a season ticket membership for this season will take the form of an i follow pass, actual attendance or a combination of both as the season progresses. As it stands we'll be left completely high and dry once the Government make a decision.

As far as the Club Shop is concerned, how much does it cost to have a couple of staff manning the shop? And especially seeing as said staff will be on furlough anyway any cost savings will be absolutely minimal.

You seem fairly desperate to condone downright laziness on the part of those behind the scenes at Ewood whilst labelling my relatively mild criticism as over the top hyperbole!  Extremely odd behaviour.but then these are bizarre times I suppose.

Not sure mild criticism equates to labelling it a disgrace.. 
 

I don’t pretend to fully understand why the club shop has remained closed but it’s not hard to imagine what the reasons might be and I don’t believe it’s simply down to laziness. I’m not condoning anything, I’m just not jumping to conclusions when there are clearly a variety of factors that we aren’t privy to.

The ST issue is similar. Whatever the club does, they’d be criticised. I can certainly understand the logic of not putting a product on sale when there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to provide it. I’m not denying that the current approach has drawbacks but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to at least understand the way the club is dealing with it.

There are plenty of other areas where the club need to improve, Why the new kit isn’t on sale for example is disappointing. But to criticise the club over issues where there are clearly no straightforward outcomes is unnecessary imo.

19 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Disagree completely.

How come other shops can re-open for business and put a few distancing stickers on the floor and plastic screens up and we cant?

The answer is simple and is the same as the refusal to try and sell any form of membership or season ticket for next season - we simply can't be bothered putting any thought into it about how to overcome any potential obstacles.

To use the much hackneyed cliche, it's an absolute disgrace and I don't think Waggott should be surprised if the fan base show a similar level of apathy when they finally pull their finger out of their collective backsides and come up with anything.

A disgrace? Drop it. It’s clearly a business decision. Selling season tickets for games that fans can’t yet attend is hardly difficult to comprehend. Not opening the rover store when I imagine there’s very little custom outside of match days is also not difficult to understand. 
 

Got no problem with fans disagreeing with either stance but the hyperbole is unnecessary. Clearly all clubs are struggling to make ends meet so I’m sure all cost cutting measures are going to be considered. Have some perspective.