I am certain JDT is 100% in the picture about what Broughton and his team are working on. If JDT is feeling excited, I am allowing myself a little twinge.

I had forgotten PNE and Wolves were in the old 4th Division.

I asked myself, what would I write if the club faced a crunching cash flow crisis in the first half of this year, the hearing in March was a wing and a prayer and we faced a bonfire of club assets in June? I came up with something pretty close to that club statement. The issue currently is less whether Venky's wish to continue pumping in 20 m each year than whether the Indian Courts will allow them to. If the Court allows Venky's to support Rovers financially to then we are back in a Catch 22. FFP and especially the new club revenue formula determining the cap on ownership injections will permanently cripple Rovers without crowds recovering to 20k+. The ill feeling caused by Venky's tolerating Anderson, Kean and other utter cretins wrecking the club mean there is not a cat in hell's chance of those crowds returning under Venky's ownership. And there is the wild card that for the next season or two, we will have promotion places from the Championship blocked by clubs relegated not because they were rubbish but because of points deductions (Everton and Forest?) or punitive relegation (City and Chelsea?)

Wrexham have been hit heavily once or twice in League 2 so Rovers could cruise it if we get our noses in front then make dominance pay. The longer this goes without Rovers scoring, the more dangerous this fixture becomes. I will be astonished if JDT doesn't put the strongest starting eleven he can on the pitch- what else have we to play for this season? The bench might have the likes of Finernan and Gilsenan on it.

Being very careful how I word this. When I met with Glen and the team in the House of Commons with MPs Nigel Evans, Jake Berry, Jack Straw and then Sports Minister Hugh Robertson, I floated the words "match fixing" and got a reply that I think shocked all of us. The amounts staked on the Asian betting markets and illegal betting in India make a 20m a year loss look like a rounding error. I am no money laundering expert but I cannot see how Rovers is being used for money laundering and the utterly clumsy way the Neville Mansion and Balaji Birthday Party got mis-categorised suggests to me money laundering is absolutely not what is happening here. As it happens, Declan Hill, with whom I was in contact when he was at Oxford University, posted this on his Linkedin yesterday: Declan HillDeclan Hill • Associate Professor of Investigations, Author, Journalist - University of New HavenAssociate Professor of Investigations, Author, Journalist - University of New Haven "In sport, corruption is normalized..." An honour and privilege to be interviewed by the superb French journalist Patricia Cerinsek on bribery, corruption and criminality in sports. She asked the fundamental question, "Why are so many athletes corrupting their sports?' Three main reasons: i. They are told to do so by their bosses. Il sistema/the system/cooperativa is alive and well in many sports leagues. To be a 'good professional' is to learn to lose as well as win. ii. They are not paid their salaries. Non-payment of salaries is a chronic problem. If a player has not received their money in six months, what do you expect them to do? iii. They are gambling addicts. There is a silent plague of addiction among athletes. Very few people speak about these reasons, they have been influenced by the leagues, the bookmakers and the bosses. They are taught to frame the debate as an issue of 'ethics' and 'individual choice'... just like the tobacco industry bewitched academics/the public for decades.

I cannot see the 26m figure for the HMRC debt being correct. Rovers make no profits so the debt will be 100% PAYE. We have a big payroll expenditure but we would have to be well into the third year of collecting PAYE and not sending it to HMRC for the accumulated debt to be 26m. Remember the HMRC debt up to October was represented to the Court in India as being cleared within the payment of 11.4m Venky's injection which the Court approved. That 11.4m did include a substantial disputed and very late payment to one or more agents so if that was being cleared down to zero, I cannot think for a moment the winding up-happy HMRC preferred creditor wasn't being settled in full. More evidence the figure of 26m is incorrect is the Rovers audited accounts to June 2022 would have had to be showing a very significant unexplained liability which, without looking them up again, I have no recollection of being the case. However, a 2.6m debt to HMRC as has been speculated on here would be completely in line with Rovers "managing" our cashflow and HMRC getting itchy and threatening winding up orders against the club again. With regards to Ian posting about Company Directors' personal exposure in these circumstances, the Rovers directors should have been closeted with their personal lawyers as soon as that delay in the Indian Court hearing came through this week. If they haven't, and having personally steered a company in perilous conditions after the parent companies of our two biggest customers went spectacularly bust within 6 weeks of each other, my free advice to the Rovers Directors is to call their lawyers now and start writing personal files documenting why the business is not trading illegally and updating why Rovers can continue trading with hard evidence every week.

There are and I have spoken to some of them but the Venky's are sufficiently wealthy and litigious to have frightened them all off/ had a word with the editor and got them re-assigned/ sacked.

Great- here's hoping for a really juicy tie which motivates the Blackburn public to get down to Ewood on Monday.

Adam Wharton is on a long contract so Rovers can play this long if we and the player want to. However, the Indian Court delay probably is forcing a short term cash flow crisis with no certainty the decision will go in Venky's favour- probably will but no bankable proposition. So do Rovers sweat it out to the summer when we might be forced into a sale by further delay in India gambling on Wharton staying fit and in form and there being competition to sign him to prevent a single PL club exploiting our vulnerability? A club like Palace could be the best place for him to go- he is more certain to get PL game time immediately and if he is as good as we all think he is, we could get two dips- the immediate 20m+ transfer and the 10% share of the 100m-20m profit Palace get when he is sold on to one of the Manc clubs. I am afraid to say it but Adam probably will be bidding his farewell against Wrexham. The only upside is Rovers will be seen not only as an Academy youngsters will be desperate to come to but also those we have will want to battle through into the first team to improve their chances.

James Hill never had a thread on here but by way of compensation he did pretty well in his 55 minutes against Liverpool and had the good sense to get substituted before the second half deluge.

Ferguson got injured which meant he had a much better chance of Brighton first team football.

Just put it on. Pundits reckon BBD is best player on the pitch and he scored a cracking equaliser for Sheffield United against West Ham.

Huddersfield had enough good chances to have won easily but statistically we comfortably dominant. Pears looked very confident and was just about the only Rover to do so. Adam Wharton anticipated so well for his goal. Chrisene totally frustrated. So many opportunities to drive into open space and was cutting back inside every time. Makes the QPR game more anxious.

Rumours Mowbray is bidding for Gallagher.

Looks the strongest team we could currently put out. Will be a big blow if we don't win. Dropping from 10 unavailable to 4 out injured transforms the bench as well.

I would start with both Gallagher and Garrett. Our confidence is bound to be brittle but from what I have seen of Huddersfield they can be pressured into giving goals away. Gally and Garrett are a totally different proposition for Huddersfield defenders to face from Leonard and Moran.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/mancity-premier-league-charges-relegation-31915493?utm_source=mirror_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Mirror+-+Football+Newsletter_newsletter&utm_content=&utm_term=&ruid=65793af6-e550-407a-9098-19d8798f0366 Well that's one promotion spot tied up next season.

Quite a big game this one. Not losing is rather important. No reason why with the returnees from injury and illness we shouldn't return to November's form. Despite the recent rotten run, JDT has some nice selection headaches.

I fell for an AI generated hoax.

Not at all. Yes things could have been handled much worse but SWAG is still the first person I would fire. Looking backwards, he completely ducked the O'Brien fiasco and is speaking out of turn about senior colleagues but more importantly, looking forward, he is the wrong man for the job. He doesn't have what we need going forward under most scenarios. I would only keep short term if Venky's get an ambiguous answer from the Indian Courts later this month.

Very interesting the LT have focused on the first person I would fire too. IF there were to be a change of ownership, Rovers would need a CEO with far more JUDGEMENT, MOTIVATION, COMPETENCE and RELEVANT EXPERIENCE than SWAG has. In the more likely even of Venky's staggering on, Rovers need a CEO with more ENERGY and ORIGINAL THINKING than Waggott is ever likely to bring now after Donkeys' years in the seat.

No matter how bad we were at Huddersfield and West Brom, it is still a big ask for a bottom three club to make up 10 points in 19 games. All of Huddersfield, QPR and Wednesday have to win at Ewood to send us down.

I didn't have our play-off prospects to be at an end at 4.45 on 13 January when looking forward to the 23/24 season last August. But here we are. To go down, all of Huddersfield, QPR and Wednesday have to win at Ewood so being realistic a long tail of mediocrity is what we have to look forwards to unless the Cup can lift our spirits. I never expected I would be desperate for the return of Pears but here we are. Goals 1 and 3 only needed Wahlstedt to grab a ball in easy reach. A keeper on top form makes a decent attempt at stopping 2 and 4 also. I understand the experiment of Brittain and Carter at full backs but it didn't work and doesn't say much for Chrisene as a loan signing. Garrett has got to keep his place and Moran lose his. Garrett was the only bright spark yesterday. Gally showed us what we have been missing. Physical presence and a first touch which breaks down our forward momentum. Oh dear.

Astonished there isn't a melt down on here about Sweden almost certainly offering JDT the national job. And remember he won the title twice with Malmo. To be honest with the absence of Swedish players coming through (Walstedt and Ayari excepted of course 🤔) the Swedish national team is a bigger opportunity to destroy a reputation than Rovers and even less upside. So I think it is only 50/50 JDT would take it. Irrespective of the football, virtually every interview JDT gives, his humanity and intelligence leaves me with a happy smile in stark contrast to his predecessor who was perfectly OK . JDT is totally different class and not only for his Champions League Medals and Danish top leading scorer..