Just now, Tugay-is-God said:

Commentary just started.

And about 3 seconds behind play.

37 minutes ago, JHRover said:

No new season ticket through yet. I suppose we have 3-4 days left but I would have expected it by now. I certainly won't be happy if they ask us to go and queue up for a paper ticket before the game on Saturday.

I went to the u23s game at Ewood last night. Fair play to the club they made it free admission to all (although I wonder how much of that was down to the issues above with no new season tickets produced yet).

There were loads of kids and youths, some with parents, some on their own.

Now I would have expected Rovers to use the opportunity of having a healthy crowd on to push season tickets, match tickets or memberships. Perhaps put adverts up on the big screen during the game, announcements at half time as to prices. The new kits being advertised. I'd have put the stewards to use and instead of having them stood around staring at people give them leaflets to hand out to everyone there with prices and promotions for tickets.

Get the game on Saturday advertised (yes the prices are outrageous but at least try to sell some tickets).

Yet (unless I'm deaf and blind) the big screen was switched off and the tannoy barely audible with a few songs playing at half time.

Complete amateur hour. Someone there just for the free game last night wouldn't even know there was a match at Ewood this Saturday.

Amateur hour is right. Today, we’ve received a ST card for one of the three I renewed over the phone at the same time.

I disagree about the marketing suggestion though. Good money after bad, as the new pricing strategy has doomed us to close to ST holder numbers at the ‘biggest’ home games this season.

Mind you, there aren’t even any glamour ties to bring people in this season. PNE and Blackpool are about the only interesting games and purely for local reasons. (Aside from the fact that Mowbray doesn’t seem to care about local derby games).

Waggott’s strategy of seemingly holding fans hostage to STs, with the threat of increased walk-on prices, was as stupid as it was crass. The only surprise was that they didn’t market the removal of the Waggott Tax™️ at the same time.

“How to destroy a football club in 10 easy steps”, eh? Any one of several ex and/or current Rovers incumbents could write that book!

18 hours ago, tomphil said:

Surely it is the only way to actually build for the future with a lower cost base.

Instead bringing in loads of short term fixes and prioritizing them and their appearances is counter productive.  Finish 12 th, go around in circles every season wasting a few million in loan fees.

When you get lads like Elliot as good as they are you end up building your team to suit them. They prosper and move on and you have to start again.

This season should be about utilizing that 12 million quid strike force and our own assets. They need some help but they should be the priority not some kid from Liverpool or City.

Agree with both your posts on this. However, we also need to bring in some experience to make sure we don’t put all of our eggs in the youth basket and get relegated. Mowbray is not good enough at developing young players quickly and spends the majority of their contract lengths bringing them in and out of the side. They need older heads around them (and so does Mowbray).

Meanwhile Mowbray is busy getting in even more young players, who I assume won’t question him. Although it makes me wonder if Chapman did and suffered the consequences…?

A cheap one with the lowest level maintenance contract?

31 minutes ago, Armchair supporter supremo said:

As much as i like the lad (as a footballer and a person).... 

 

anyone else starting to think the whole "Diaz" thing is starting to look a little silly now! 

Nope. Quite the opposite, it has seen his confidence soar. Long may it continue.

Sixth after two games. Nose bleed territory.

Mowbray must be furious. Venkys won’t believe him now when he says he needs more money/players!

Diaz!!

Imagine being a football manager who runs out of ideas so carries on doing the same things again and again regardless.

I bet he can’t believe they haven’t paid up his contract yet.

10 hours ago, jim mk2 said:

Good post. Amid all the well deserved praise for Souness in his early years he had well and truly lost the plot by the end. You're right - there was a sigh of relief when he went, and his decision to leave took some of the heat off John Williams, who should have sacked him several months before. 

Overall he was great for Rovers, but certainly left the club in a mess. 

He left the club in the PL.

Personally I thought his biggest mistake was signing Dwight Yorke. Cole has been reinvigorated and Yorke brought him down again, and Souness along with him.

Three nice shirts really. When Mowbray leaves we will probably purchase three shirts.

#oldshirtsontil…

Oh stop it Stuart, nobody cares about any kind of symbolic but financially impactful protest to put any pressure on, they’d prefer to only moan on a messageboard.

BBC don’t see the irony of interviewing a family outside the ground before the game: “we we used to have a PL team and now this is our PL team, followed by a commentary line of “scoring in front of the Brentford faithful”.

Football is a mess. ‘Supporters’ are ‘consumers’ who are just expected to come and go with success and failure. If their team is in the PL then they are in “the club “ and it artificially inflates the number of people who suddenly call it their team. Average gates of 10k in the Championship.

Still, with only 16,000 fans at a season opening home game against Arsenal, (even if 90% of capacity) it just shows what a small club they are - a much smaller club than us. (Despite what people will tell you - including people well paid to work for our club).

9 minutes ago, DE. said:

It was the lack of transparency for me Gav. It all felt very sneaky to me. If people want to separate Mowbray from that and say it was all OK then fine, but it made and continues to make me feel very uneasy about Mowbray, Waggott and Venus.

Meanwhile we have billionaire owners.

If they are happy to sell off Jack Walker’s legacy rather than put right their own mistakes there is something wrong.

On 10/08/2021 at 10:08, only2garners said:

????? I think one of the comments at a meeting was to maybe reverse the charge i.e knock £3 off the price if you buy in advance rather than adding it on before kick-off. Right now that would be a sensible move, although still in my view the prices would be too high.

It’s the same thing though.

He doesn’t think like a Rovers fan, or even a football fan. He thinks like a businessman. An old school, out of touch, one.

The fan comment was “knock £3 off of you buy early”. He heard make the Waggott tax price the actual price - and then maybe offer some occasional discounts.

This bloke needs to be removed from his post. In the meantime, the FF need to continue to hold him to account.

9 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

I disagree with that.

As much love as I have for Jack Walker, I hate his kids and the Walker Trust for selling us to these absentee owners. 

We, as a fanbase, have the club we deserve. We have done nothing to protect it - 300 hardy souls was/is not enough.

The Walkers were always going to sell, and they too will have been fed lies, just as we have.

The fact that they walk all over us now, and have people like Waggott who take the piss out of us, is on us.

6 minutes ago, callumrovers said:

I was there in the Blackburn end of Saturday and Tony Mowbrays blue and white army chants were minimal. Crowd was cheering on the team not Mowbray, infact i saw a number of people not singing when the was being chanted.

Nope. I was there too Callum and they were extremely vociferous in the second half.

The official line is Mowbray IN.

We deserve the club we have.

2 minutes ago, West Yorks Rover said:

Mowbray just doesn't give a toss, he's got the safest job in football.

He will need to be forced out by the fans, that's only way it's happening.

Let me save you the suspense. The fans will not force Mowbray out.

Fans are more likely to force out other fans as the bickering in the stands starts. The “Tony Mowbray’s Blue And White Army” chants were long and loud on Saturday.

The ONLY way he is leaving is if Venkys don’t agree a new contract for him - and I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

It’s just typical Mowbray. As soon as he can he will meddle with the line up, or the formation, or the tactics.

We can all put the ‘concentrate on the league’ spin on things but it’s simply embarrassing.

Thankfully for league games the side picks itself but if he brings in a few new signings we will see more of this.

WDL, rinse and repeat.

10 hours ago, WarriorSaint said:

Thanks for the replies. Consensus is that he’s a gamble, but that is the pool we are swimming in. Can’t believe we are seeing the sums for lukaku and Grealish.

 I had forgotten about Ostenstad. What a great player. I was at the dell when he destroyed Man utd. Lovely player. So underrated. 

I get the impression of all the strikers that have traded places he is at the lowest rung of Shearer, Davies, Beatts, Ostenstadt.

Always liked Rovers. Never been to Ewood, sorry to say.

 I have been to Turf moor and to be honest was the best Balti pie I ever had(sorry)

Good luck on your season. Have fun. You’re not missing much in the premier league.

Why do you keep mentioning Davies? He was, pound for pound, one of our worst ever signings. Bolton did well out of him though.

All the best with Armstrong. I think ‘gamble’ is right. Quite frustrating that PL clubs can now throw £15m-£20m at a player and call it gambling money though. Even more frustrating that, thanks to Venkys, we are now on the wrong side of it.

It’ll be very interesting to see how he gets on in the PL. He is quick and can score goals. The trouble is he won’t get as many chances as he did for us in the Championship and won’t have Mowbray there to give him game after game even when out of form.

If he gets double figures he will have outdone my expectations.

We shall see.

We will probably loan a Southampton youngster.

Without a player in exchange, I agree with @Dreyski the actual amount is immaterial. Still expecting undisclosed at this end.

8 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

I thought that the service on the concourse's was again piss poor. So slow to the point that even though I went down for a beer a few minutes before half time, with the queue curving past the toilets and going down at a snails pace, I gave up. Custom is being lost. Could beers not be pre-prepared and also perhaps the bottle bars be used again?

Could this be something that is raise at the next fans forum please? @only2garners

They really have no idea about making money from volume at Waggott’s Rovers. It’s all about the unit price and just sell it to whoever will pay and keep costs and innovation to a minimum.

What’s interesting about today is that the first XI picked itself and we had very few options from the bench for Mowbray to overthink his substitutions.

We have often done well when that has been the case.

Much now depends on injuries and what kind of loans we can get in. We don’t need more youngsters, we need some experience to balance the squad. We also need another CB, I like Magloire and Wharton but still think we are thin when (not if) Ayala gets injured.