Sounds like he might be a decent punt this lad.

Kneeing people in the gnads, i'm sure there'll be a song for him soon ?

As for the timing well if they string it out long enough they won't have to start him on the payroll till next month. That appeals to the loons money men apparently.

Perhaps use one or two of their many other companies to 'sponsor' the shirt/stand/stadium ?   Once upon a time that would have been met with hysteria but probably just grim acceptance now.  Besides some of them don't carry the Venky name but non of that would likely fit into their corporate accounting structure.

Maybe set up something funded by their personal wealth - Big Barry's Classic Auto's Riverside stand - Sponsorship 3 mill per season !

In truth though in the grand scheme of things the way they guarantee to underwrite the losses is probably no different to finding avenues to put money in regularly to say balance crowd takings to a bigger level, the way Jacks Trust did.  All comes to the same thing in the end it just doesn't provide the same cold hard cash flow on a weekly basis.

He only got involved in knobend as an after thought and it suited his Northern Trust property company to do so. They obviously had a few hundred grand a month they wanted to use and the advertising and corporate facilities of a local club fit that.

Should have stuck with Chorley instead and tried to make them into a solid pro club it would have been far more rewarding.

Like i said it's a knapsack of weedkiller once every month or two and would take no more than an hour or two.

I know, iv'e done enough of this kind of thing and costed enough jobs.  If it the club was on genuine hard times i'd have done it for free !  For this shower of fat arsed suits on several hundred grand then no chance.

Just now, Mashed Potatoes said:

His racing interests are a hobby not a business.

Well there you go then it's nothing to do with the football side of it and running racing stables is costly and time consuming. I believe he was quite hands on with that so if he's scaling down his hobby then it makes perfect sense. It's likely something that would have happened sooner or later anyway.

Just now, Mashed Potatoes said:

Those still thinking billionaires are unaffected by the Covid crisis might want to buy today's Racing Post in which Trevor Hemmings has announced that he's selling about 50 of his string of 75 racehorses. He cites his health(he's 85) and the effect that Covid has had on his businesses.

That doesn't sound like good news for Preston fans hoping for an injection of funds to finance transfers.

That's probably nothing more than the effect it's having on his racing stables business itself and will have little bearing on the tight ship he runs at PNE. The club that out performs us simply because they are run better and have better directors and manager !

18 minutes ago, alex l said:

Even with my limited gardening knowledge, weed killer doesn't remove the weed. Still requires someone to pick them out of the ground and dispose of them. I imagine doing that around the stadium will take a bit of time. 

I'm not defending it - it looks horrible and there should be more pride about the place. But I do try to understand why it hasn't been done, the same with ST not being on sale. someone commented people know what they're paying for - do they? Number of games? Which seat? I would say the main aspects of a ST cannot be determined and it could take more work to fix or resolve selling something you can't provide. 

If it's done as part of a regular routine then that shouldn't need doing as you are eliminating them before they really take hold and get big. That's the whole idea of regular maintainence. You wouldn't expect them to not mow the pitch for a few months because they aren't playing on it.

Most small weeds are eradicated anyway but once grass and moss gets hold then it's a problem as that'll need manual removing and that's looking the case down there now. As with everything Rovers related in this era the regular neglect costs a lot more in the long run but nobody has the brains or balls to flag this up.

Just keep drawing their wages.

12 minutes ago, Stuart said:

We take him on a free and expect SW to pay a percentage of his wages? On loan, fair enough but on a permanent move?

Have to laugh at “value for money signing”. I hope they include “not getting relegated” and “the opportunity of promotion” in that equation.

With this lot we could be perennially having these same discussions season after season with Venkys “paying the bills”.

We had better hope that we don’t get relegated any time soon because the new salary cap could be the nail in our coffin.

I don't know his contract situ but maybe angling for a pay off and if so the more he got he might consider less wages here for 1st team action ?

Unlikely in this climate i know but tell these lot there's a 35 yr old who was on 33k at Boro last year but he'll come here for a 1 year 20k deal and they'll likey say 'yes' great VFM !!

I think that's how the idiots operate.

i

Wonder who the Sky boys will obsess over in the CHampionship now they've given Leeds a help up ?

Derby probably, they fit what the Prem marketing boys require.

8 hours ago, Miller11 said:

Venky’s continuing to put the money in makes perfect sense!

They run a conglomerate worth upwards of 2 billion. Part of that conglomerate, and that value is their £200 odd million shareholding in BRFC.
 

They liquidate Rovers tomorrow, that wipes £200 million plus off the value of VH group.

We need a £10 million signing, they move some money around, send it over to Rovers account, and in a month or two convert it to an extra 10 million shares. They lose nothing.

Obviously in real terms the club is not worth north of £200 million, but it has that value to them. This isn’t food off their plates, rollers out of their garages or the chains of Balaji’s neck. It’s certainly not altruism either. It’s common sense for billionaires.

That said, it can’t carry on indefinitely... and then being able to find an exit strategy that doesn’t cost them seems impossibly far away. God knows when, why or how breaking point will arrive.

This needs pinning and re posting every time this debate pops up.  All i'll add to it is i presume to pacify their non family shareholders and bankers they say the same as they do to fans. The aim is the Prenier League which then reverses the trend and could wipe out that cost and add more value to the portfolio in terms of advertising etc.

Just paper talk but it's what you'd say to placate the accounts along with maybe saying the investment is also to create a club that produces regularly to sell players and that also reduces cost and adds value to the main group of companies. 

Whilst it's on the books then theoretically even if they don't do it in practice they could sell a player for big money and send it back the other way if it was really needed. That's all the bankers and shareholders need to know. As stated though it costs the family nowt out of their actual pockets.

That could change though.

Football clubs cost a lot of money they learned that quickly and they should have bailed out quickly. At least 100 million of that 200 million has been thrown directly down the tubes so no sympathy whatsoever. They create the mess they pay for it and it isn't morals or principle or being generous it's just arrogance "we can afford it so we'll do it".

They get off on it and presumably get some enjoyment out of it whilst their finance whizzes have found a nice niche for the oversees loss maker within their group of companies.

Lets not pretend it's anything other than it is and it's still a great vehicle for those in the middle who've got their feet firmly under the table to take advantage of. 

We'll line a few ducks up, we know we won't get the go ahead but it'll look like we are doing something. 

Meanwhile get Pears on the phone.....

I noticed the weeds and moss on the vid of the Stuart Metcalf (RIP) drive past and it's embarrassing.

The suits down there really are a shower of shite these days in fact they are an outright disgrace letting it get like that. A gallon of weedkiller costs what ?  You'd either tell the groundsman to whip round with his knapsack once a month or you'd get someone in.

If i was a boss down there i'd pay for it myself.

2 minutes ago, Ewood Ace said:

We made an enquiry but Wednesday said that they weren't giving him away for nothing so that was the end of the conversation.

Wasn't it some of the same people telling us you don't need to know your budget to make tentative enquries about players not long ago ?

They are hilarious some of these nudge nudge wink wink brigade ?

2 hours ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

On the whoscored.com website the ratings for these and a couple of goalkeepers last season were :

David Raya   6.68

Christian Walton 6.63

David Marshall   6.47

Keiran Westwood     6.41

And ???

The midtable messiah with his wealth of wisdom sold the top one on yur list for 3 million because they had a strop with each other.

Waltons gone back, he would probably have had higher ratings than Raya if he hadn't thrown the towel in like the manager & team post lockdown.

As for the other 2 our manager wouldn't have the bollocks to sign either even if he was granted the wages and they phoned up to say it was their life's ambition to come to Ewood.  Though strangely enough if either was under him at Boro or Coventry he'd probably suddenly conjure up a 1 year 20 grand per week deal !!!

That's where we are at. 

Westwood would be decent he fits what a lot of us would like as a no 1 here and now. Has a bit of attitude on the pitch which is needed we've had enough of the shrinking violets.

Trouble is they are the types the Mowbrays and Bowyers of this world just love to manage.  

No need to worry though the wages will frighten our mon off.

15 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

Nice bit of analysis that @JoeH

Im not generally a statto, but there’s some really interesting stuff in there. The heat maps and formations support my theory that we expect a hell of a lot of Nyambe. Brereton’s are damning as you’d expect.

I genuinely wonder if the analysis done by the recruitment team is as good as this. I have my doubts. The goalkeeper situation last summer was ludicrous, but looks like it could be even worse this year! When Mowbray talks about players falling into our laps, has a tendency to sign players he has worked with before, and we make complete head scratchers like Brereton, the entire process needs a serious overhaul.

Timid manager whose first concern is protecting the status quo, so he's reluctant to step out of the comfort zone of signing guys he knows or his mates know or known agents present. It's served him ok till recently but he's beginning to get seriously found out now.

Take that formula away and it looks like he doesn't know which way to turn.

Fair play to Bolton and their hard core fans although given their situation it's a big risk trusting them enough to pay up front.  It won't be Covid denying them a refund if they aren't getting the action it'll the the fact they've gone bust due to bad management !

1 hour ago, Mashed Potatoes said:

I'd love to know what people would have said about Mowbray if we had blown the opportunity to get promotion in the regular season the way Brentford did followed by a goalkeeper on which millions had been spent presenting the opposition with a gift to lose the play off final.

As long as he'd given it a good go the reaction would have been mostly positive. If it was his meek and mild tip tap stuff with players out of position and someone dropped for Bennett hindering the side he'd have got stick, quite rightly.

I don't know whether you noticed but we bottled it after ONE game back after lockdown under no pressure, no fans and absolutely nothing to lose. Never mind what Brentford did that's their problem they are more than good enough to learn from it and bounce back.

Play offs are a lottery and bring their own fear of failure.

31 minutes ago, LDRover said:

Ah, so we've seamlessly gone from 'slow build' to 'rebuild'. 

Don't leave out the 'transition' stage in between.

The man is winging it he doesn't know which way to go from one week to the next.  

We'll never be near a finished article because collectively they aren't capable of getting anywhere near putting that together finance or no finance.

Post lockdown highlighted that more than anything.

Best job in the Championship they have lurking in the Pune - Blackburn vacuum.

58 minutes ago, Stuart said:

Question:

If it meant having to play Fisher (1) and Hilton (2), would we be better off than if we had to sell one of Armstrong, Dack or Lenihan in order to buy a new keeper?

Great question.

From the way they do things here and the lack of real investment in defense over the last 4 years or so you'd have to assume if they have the option they'll plump for a rookie in the sticks and keep the rest.

Personally i'd hope they could cut some more chaff away and find a taker for Mulgrew then use that to take a decentish loan keeper with Fisher no 2.

1 hour ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

Mowbray's had quite a bit of money to spend compared to every other manager since Kean. The onus is on him to wheel and deal in the way clubs like Brentford do. He's had a relatively easy ride so far in terms of who he's had to sell and who he's been able to bring in. 

He's had a very easy ride in that respect so far but that could disappear overnight. His efforts at 'building football clubs' seems to be from within but on the grass it's a hotch potch of signings and selections.

As for the share issues isn't that just an accounting process squaring off the books every now and again whilst they pay the shortfall on bills and wages every month ?

It's an odd time this though and some clubs are known to borrow against Season ticket money in advance. Possibly to get them through lean summer months or sign a few players.

If the likes of Bolton etc have borrowed in advance they'll be under pressure to get them on sale to get something back in to meet their repayments.

We are never on the ball here anyway though so no surprise nothing has been mentioned. Owners probably on their annual summer leave so everything stops then.