7 hours ago, Nuttall is lost said:

If we do get promoted I would fear its too soon as the squad would need serious serious investment in order to have a chance of staying up.  I think they would go straight back down.

Too soon to clear off the debt of the past ten years and to come back down with parachute payments to enable us to compete with the bigger spending clubs in the championship? 

I don’t think so.

Our financial situation is getting more perilous every season. Is it too soon to keep the wolves away from the door for another ten years?

Of course not.

4 hours ago, Devon Rover said:

Thanks very much, Sky and/or EFL, for giving me a huge, and quite perilous, Valentines Day dilemma: Whether to go with the previously-agreed plan of cooking a romantic dinner for my, currently injured, wife and watching a 'nice film' together, or to order a takeaway and watch the match in standard 'Rovers Losing on TV' sullen silence. Definitely a difficult decision to make, here...

 

Chinese or Indian?

For me the balance is no problem  - IF Rovers win. If we get three points I’m happy, charming, loveable, fun to be around and generally a pretty good husband and Dad. Thus, the Mrs doesn’t mind me watching the football under those circumstances.

However, loses lately see me irritable, short tempered, intensely annoyed at everyone who tries to speak to me and feeling like I’m an angry and desolate teenager, reliving those three heartbreaking play off loses of the late 1980s. It’s the hope that kills you! I’d adjusted to being shit for like the past ten years, but now I’m dreaming of Wembley in May and watching Rovers on MOTD again. 
 

It’s not conducive to harmonious family life tbh. For God sake Rovers (if any of the team are reading) - either be shit or be good - one or the other - give us time to adjust. You can’t be really shit, then absolutely amazing, then really shit again - it’s killing me and making me not the well rounded individual I was hoping I’d matured into.

Thank you.

8 hours ago, riverholmes said:

Mowbray's West Brom promoted side were relegated the next year, in 2008/09, bottom of the league - albeit, only three points of safety. He stayed, in the job, I think, but then, Celtic came calling that summer. Barring a miracle, a club like Rovers would not survive in the Premier League and, more likely, would be relegated by Christmas, moreoreless, given the huge inflation that has occurred in the top division as, now, a full-on playground for oligarchs. 

We're really trying to get promoted for the money and to try to get into that pack of parachute payment clubs. It's depressing and somewhat masochistic for us fans but the game has become terribly unequa, unfair and, frankly, dull, in creating a predictable procession based on wealth.

On a different point, an aspect of the transfer window that I find notable is that Mowbray has given a clear indication of his backing for Bradley Johnson and Aynsley Pears. As far as I can tell, Johnson remains third choice CM and will be on the bench every game - possibly as a fourth choice CB, as well. And, Pears, will remain No.2, despite his high frequency of errors.

We still have a sizeable squad of players, with purchases and loanees possibly not making it into the matchday squad. Consider that our subs bench, if everyone is fit, will likely be: Pears, Gallagher, Hedges, Dolan, Johnson, Ayala and Zeefuik. This means that Giles, Rankin-Costello, Davenport and Edun could miss out (as well as Dack and Poveda, if they make it back but they aren't in consideration currently). Garrett would probably next in line after the seniors.

Johnson will have a big say in our latter half of the season, possibly, in a number of roles. I would hope Pears isn't but it's possible. Whilst the numbers might be there, to an extent, the quality on the bench in centre midfield and the goalkeeping department remains questionable. For our sake, we must also hope Ayala stays fit and Hedges is effective as a forward, despite having come from mid-table in the SPL. We have limited options if not, as we have sent Carter, Butterworth, Chapman, McBride and Burns on loan, so won't have much else to turn to, except the U18s.

Very good post indeed - and your first two paragraphs in particular are spot on.

The mistakes of the past decade have created an ultimately unsustainable level of debt. Unsustainable, that is, unless we spend at least the odd season every ten years or so in the oligarchs playground.

One season in there wipes the debt and then gives us parachute payments to start to rebuild as a genuine top championship/yo-yo club. Any thoughts of going up and recreating Souness’s or Dalgish’s years are fanciful. We don’t have the worst manager in the world, but a football genius miracle worker he most definitely ain’t.

Listening to the crowd on Rovers Audio - before the commentary starts. Cleaning my fish tanks and I can hear the Rovers fans all the way from Kenilworth Rd to Inverness. Superb Rovers fans. Making me feel more confident.

I have thought this for some time. Mowbray might be better as DofF rather than first team coach. His acquisitions have been more positive than negative - no manager’s purchasing record is perfect. He has overseen/been in charge whilst there have been significant improvements in scouting and production of players from the youth team. He is not the worst ‘manager’ in the world.

However, please can somebody else be given responsibility for selecting and setting up the team on match day. Why, after finally coming across a winning formula, did we abandon it last night and drop Buckley in to replace Travis - when we pay a wage to Johnson and Davenport to provide back up in Travis’s position?

He’s not terrible, but please can somebody at the club, do the tactics for him. It’s such a debilitating weakness for him.

13 hours ago, Spartakfenni said:

They’ve continued to put as much money into the club that’s allowed. We’re not a Derby or Reading. Their crime is having no knowledge of the crooked underworld of football and it’s agents 

Hmmmm.

I think they have lots of knowledge of the crooked underworld of football and it’s agents. Maybe they lack a bit of understanding, but knowledge, no I’d say they have lots of ‘knowledge’ of each other. Almost in the biblical sense of the word.

What they have no knowledge of is actual football - the importance of defence, setting a team up right, how to choose and deal with managers, not pissing off the fan base, the importance of winning, what happens to teams that don’t win, how the English league system works, what a league table looks like, how to get to Ewood.

I could go on.

I am not convinced they have any knowledge of business either. I don’t buy into the commonly heard fallacy that because you’re rich you must have at least some brains. These guys prove how ridiculous the modern capitalist world is - stinking rich, yet utterly incompetent, dumb as fuck and totally bent. It isn’t a conspiracy btw - they genuinely are as stupid as they seem.

So no knowledge of anything useful at all actually, except, of course, crooked underworld agents and shysters who have their ears.

7 minutes ago, CambridgeRover said:

VENKYS OUT

WAGGOT OUT

MOWBRAY OUT

What else is left to say

Venus out!

7 hours ago, roverandout said:

Don't agree. Celtic are a massive club in Scotland but European wise they're small fry. Arsenal are undoubtedly a bigger club.  Far more European prestige.  Spurs aren't that much different to Celtic.  The odd final here and there. I would class the likes of ajax Atletico Madrid etc as bigger clubs than Celtic.  They don't even come close to the likes of Barcelona real Madrid juventus man utd Liverpool inter Milan ac Milan bayern Munich.  For the amount of seasons Celtic have played in Europe, 1 trophy is pretty pathetic.  Ajax have 4 champions leagues. A couple of uefa cups.

Absolutely typical example of English people not understanding how big Celtic and Rangers really are. Arsenal as big as Celtic? Aye right, dream on. The only English clubs that have the same level of support and history as the old firm are Man Utd and Liverpool. Spurs and Arsenal don’t even dominate their own leagues, let alone have any European heritage. 
 

Celtic and Rangers shouldn’t be judged by the SPL or the ability of their current squads to win the Champions League. Neither should Ajax, Porto or other European giants misfortune enough to not lie in the borders of the big four or five leagues. The SPL - and UEFAs commitment to supporting a multitude of irrelevant minor tin pot national leagues - holds the old firm and other European clubs back massively. It creates a temporary and wildly unfair situation where by only the English, German, Spanish, Italian (and at a push the French) clubs can consistently compete. 
 

Either UEFA allows them to unite in leagues that can compete financially with the larger countries leagues (e.g an ‘Atlantic League’ and other potential Eastern & Southern European amalgamations) or it allows Ajax and the old firm to join the PL, Polish and Austrian clubs to join the Bundesliga and so on. 

Clubs of the big 4 or 5 leagues have European competition stitched up currently so only they can dominate and attract the best players. It’s unsustainable and outrageously unfair.

All ideas in football can work as long as they are based on a pyramid system. An Atlantic league would be awesome as long as there was a system of promotion and relegation from feeder national leagues. It’s either that or allow the big 4 or 5 leagues to expand their promotion to serve as the top of a pyramid for smaller countries too. However, personally I think those leagues are quite big enough anyway myself. Allowing the clubs outside the big leagues to unite into their own multi-national league pyramids is such an obviously good idea for European football, it is only the greed of the already big league’s clubs that currently acts as a veto. It’s a situation that won’t last forever though. What seems immovable and permanent in football often isn’t.

4 hours ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Get those excuses in early. Anyone left in any denial that he is staying? 

And Mowbray said: “I hope the supporters understand where the football club is in the history of the football club at this moment.

“It isn’t Blackburn Rovers of 1995 competing and fighting at the top of the Premier League.

“While the money has ran away in the Premier League, it’s created a divide to the teams that haven’t been enjoying the Premier League and it becomes more difficult to get out of this division and all we’re trying to do is compete.

“For a lot of this season we did compete. Everyone will have their own reasons of why we fell away.

“In February we lost nearly all of our games after three wins and a draw in January and moving forward all I ask of the team is they compete and give their very best.

What! Does this mean the owners have given up on qualifying for the champions league now????
 

I thought the past ten years were just a temporary set back and once TM had got us promoted we were going to be back on track for the champions league in a few seasons. Has nobody told Tony the Venky’s plan? Has he not been paying attention? We’re their baby! Come on Tony you’re not saying your employers have been talking shite are you?

10 hours ago, JHRover said:

I'd love to believe this was the case but I just can't see it.

For starters, with so many out of contract, would it not make much more sense to make the manager change now so that the new guy could decide on who he wanted to stay?

Rather than clearing the decks then bringing a new manager in?

No. I think we are at the limbo stage here, where they have given up on Mowbray but won't do the job of sacking him so we end up in this middle ground where he does what he is told whilst funding is cut and Suhail runs it.

The club suffers because neither party is happy with things but they tolerate it to keep themselves in work.

I think Bowyer fell out with Pasha and his involvement in 2015 which is why he was replaced. Not sure if he has the clout to do that these days with Mowbray and his henchmen.

The owners have absolutely no idea of how the footballing calendar works. We all know this.

Also - I doubt Pasha or anyone would even dream of being so disrespectful as to ever tell them when they should do something. Their time on the payroll would be over as quick as Paul Lambert’s was. Even if someone did dare suggest to them that in football there is a certain time to make decisions, trying to explain to three knuckle headed, spoiled and perpetually waring siblings that they have to make a decision - like now - would be like trying to explain quantum physics to Mowbray. They’re never going to get it.

The owners have no concept of a season, a league table, an organised defence, the importance of set pieces, the need for coaching players, fitness or the need for a functioning management structure at the club. They know absolutely nothing about football. I mean nothing.

Therefore, to make the assumption that Mowbray not being sacked at the sensible time to sack him, is evidence that he’s not going to be sacked, does not stack up. The running of our football club does not follow any logical rules. 

Mowbray could be sacked a week before the first game of the season, after signing new players. It would be because that is the point when Mrs D decided to bother her arse to make a decision. It could be done late just to spite her brothers for all we know. 

If Mowbray is to be sacked it will be done at a time that suits them, not a time that suits the English football season. 

17 hours ago, Ulrich said:

They can all cut it playing at their clubs, no one questions that, but when it is all english playing as a collective they have a big tendency to underachieve.  If they could play as they do at their clubs, I think you'd win something, but to date you have not.  It is odd but clearly it is to do with 'english' players playing solely together, they are better at club level, against better teams, when playing with players from other nations.  It is quite bizarre, but very much seems the case, a purely English attitude/approach/unit/whateverwordyouwant doesn't win trophies in football (yet we do in other sports, so it's an English football thingy majig).

My dads generation (70s) were England players who knew what it takes to win trophies and given England haven't won diddly squat since, I don't think any generation has had that knowledge since.  Knowing how to be the best, is not the same as actually finishing 1st.  Wayne Rooney should have been a player not far off Messi etc, but alas he was knackered by 28, the supposed physical prime in football. 

What trophies did England win in the 1970s?? I think we failed to qualify for two World Cups! 
 

When I was younger, 80s - 90s - 00s, England had lots of heart and passion, a dangerous cutting edge, but lacked technical ability. Now, IMO, England seem to have technical ability (well we can play more than 442 at last and don’t give away possession as cheaply as previous generations) but seem to lack the heart and passion of previous generations.

The f-word is the most versatile adjective in the English language. It serves an important function, as does the presence and status of all taboo words. The irony is that if you don’t ever use them you make them more powerful for those of us who do.
 

Being able to express yourself without swearing is undoubtedly a priceless tool. Everyone is well served by learning to express themselves in formal English with no swearing at all. However, if you are not capable of a Malcolm Tucker style rant - in the right company - you are not using the language to it’s full potential. Your choice I guess.

IMO, the current situation is a perfect example of when the previously taboo vocabulary should come out of the drawer. Mowbray right now deserves the odd F-word. If he doesn’t leave soon he’ll be getting the odd C-word too. It is for times like these that we save these words.

14 hours ago, AllRoverAsia said:

League Table of Most Disliked Managers at Rovers:

1. Kean

2. Mowbray

3. Coyle

Mowbray is making a determined late season charge to take the No. 1 spot.

I wonder what Maggott makes of this? Here he is quietly working out how to do his annual scam of Rovers ST holders and he also has to deal with the loose mouth of Mowbray.

Tip to Steve: Check the Meds!

League table of most useless managers - personality not considered - at Rovers IMO (I go back to the mid 1980s):

1. Kidd

2. Kean

3. Coyle

4. Ince

5. Mowbray

Also rans - Bowyer, Lambert, Appleton, Berg.

However, if he gets us relegated twice, he jumps to number one and can proudly be crowned Rovers worst ever manager. Which is no mean achievement considering for many he’s already Celtic’s worst ever manager.

I don’t remember Jim Iley obviously. I believe, like Kidd and Ince, he was a nice enough guy, just useless.

I don’t think we need a league table for worst owners in recent memory.

3 hours ago, OldEwoodBlue said:

Tony's latest utter bullshit ramblings

 

“I don’t know how the league is and how the other teams are doing, because I don’t look."

Wow, wow, wow.

I’m a teacher. Can you imagine if I said to parents, or my head teacher, or to my employers at the council  “I don’t know how my pupils perform in their exams, because I don’t look at their exam results”?

Is there anybody on this website who could conceivably come out with such bullshit with regards to their performance at work? Imagine a manager at one of their battery chicken factories telling the local Indian paper “I don’t know how many chickens we have sold, because I don’t look at sales figures”. 
 

I thought reading about ‘expected goals’ was the daftest thing I would read in a long time. Now we have a manager of a football team claiming to not know what the league table looks like - in April!

I want to work for Venkys. What a laugh: 

“How much shit did you shovel today RoverInverness?” 

“I don’t know Mr. Pasha, I never looked at the pile”

“OK, we will review in summer”

Easy money. Literally stealing a living.

34 minutes ago, RoverKyle said:

If there's any ounce of truth in it, Mowbray needs sacking just for that. I'm not having our better players getting sidelined/hounded out of the club due to his piss poor management.

Raya, Nyambe - He has form on this.

44 minutes ago, tomphil said:

Wouldn't be surprised i mean how dare we get angry and worried at a run like that. We are only Blackburn Rovers the smallest backwater club in England with the budget of Bamber Bridge Fc.

Should be so grateful to still have the God of midtable football wasting that budget on his mates. 

God of Midtable? We wish! God of Two Relegations to League One is starting to look more like it. 

24 minutes ago, DE. said:

Venky's either couldn't or wouldn't sack him. Hard to say which as I think there's a lot about that situation we still haven't heard. Either way they clearly parachuted  Shebby into the mix to make Kean uncomfortable. Kean saw a way to get a payout without getting sacked and took it. Arguably a win win for both parties as Venky's get Kean out and Kean gets a payoff. As usual the club and the fans were the losers, as we have been ever since the owners purchased the club.

The TM situation isn't the same as Kean. More akin to Bowyer I'd say. Somebody the owners like and trust. Combine that with what is likely a passing interest at best in the club's fortunes and you get obvious decisions being delayed by months. Who knows how often Pasha reports back to them and what picture he paints. I doubt outside of his updates they care enough to look into us any further. 

I feel the mistake being made here - and it’s one that is often made - is people think of Venkys as a single body. They are not, they are a group of dysfunctional quarrelling siblings who often act in contradictory ways. My memory/reading of the Kean situation is that Barry probably wanted him gone, Mrs D didn’t (she got on with Kean’s wife), so Barry appointed Shebby to make life difficult for him.

Similarly when Lambert was appointed, somebody - probably Barry again - promised him the Earth, but Lambert soon realised a promise from one of them means bugger all.

It is why their decision making is so glacial (as beautifully described by someone here earlier in the day) even when the correct decisions are glaringly obvious (like sacking Mowbray). It also explains bizarre decisions like the double audit one summer, but no sale of the club afterwards. It also explains why they still own the club, despite it doing them no good. It explains why senior appointments are made - Waggot, Senior, etc, but the appointees appear to be powerless. It explains why they one season call a fire sale resulting in relegation, followed by three seasons of throwing money at a dope who has no chance of achieving anything. None of it makes sense because it’s different parties, with different objectives, making different decisions.
 

Pasha may well be the communication channel to one of them, but as they all seem to have the power of veto of each other’s decisions, it takes more than Pasha to pull the trigger. Someone has to get all four of the loons to agree to sacking Mowbray. 
 

The best hope is Mrs D is distracted and just says ‘yes’ without paying much attention. She’s the most cautious of them, but also the one with least knowledge of the realities of football (which is some achievement).

All this said - I still have another page or so to read - maybe by the time I get to the end of the thread there will be some news.

Please, please.

In 2017 we went down with 51 points. In the seven games left we need six points to beat that total. Surely, surely the Raos have to notice that. I know they’re not paying close attention, but surely they see the points total at the end of the season.

Is anyone confident we’ll get six or more points in the games left?

Tony Nobody 

6 minutes ago, tomphil said:

Why not splurge spare money you can afford on a 'real life' game of football manager though ?  They won't be the only rich people to do this the game is littered with them. They just don't normally stick it out this long once the novelty has worn off.

If it sits there in the companies portfolio though swallowing up 10/20 million of profits per year that surely helps against the tax bill.  Propping up a cash hungry arm of the conglomerate that sits in the books as a 200 million dollar oversees asset. That theoretically if you really needed to could send money back the other way it it ever made sense to do so.

Daft, distracted, busy and odd as they may be there team of accountants and financial whizz kids aren't.

OK - genuine question - what other clubs are strategically owned to make money by losing money? If it works for V’s it could work for many others. I will stand corrected if you can tell me some examples without just entering into more speculation. 

Also - Balaji stopped playing real life football manager years ago. We all know this. It wasn’t him who put Gallagher to right back, he doesn’t even know who Gallagher is. The only person ‘playing’ at football manager these days is TM. And he ain’t any good at it either.

Finally - I take the point about their accountants not being as dumb as them - but I don’t believe that people who were simple enough to be taken in by S***e K**n are listening to their accountants because they are wise enough to know good advice from bad advise. Venkys listen to charlatans and con-men, we know this for fact. You’re speculating that they are now listening to financial whizz kids - well they never did before.

I’m not meaning to be deliberately argumentative btw, I don’t normally think you’re wrong, in fact probably the opposite, but I don’t buy those arguments above at all.