Sounds like Tony trying to take the heat off his mate I think. He looked promising the other night, but blimey, he hasn't even had 45 mins yet, it's fairly premature to be bigging him up to that extent. Presumably Park was instrumental in loaning the centre half who isn't yet available due to injury as well. Didn't hear Tony making a point of that the other day.

That sounds a lot more plausible sort of scenario to me Len - Venkys' financial clout combined with a top class manager and coaching team and genuine direction and expertise behind the scenes. Sounds like the dream combination to do well. The only way that could be bettered would be if the ridiculous FFP rules were ever to be scrapped altogether or at least modified substantially.

Well, you've obviously been pushing for it at one Club or another for long enough, all the best in your new endeavour. Have to say the data based analytics approach appears to have done the square root of naff all for Rovers in terms of their recent recruitment though. Hope it works better for you up in Scotland.

They're 100% down to him.

How much would they be left with after all the borrowings secured against the garages are paid off though? Genuine question as I don't know. And what would happen to Rovers if Asda hits a bad patch?

Spot on. And unless I'm reading it wrong it's incorrect and misleading to say a deal has been done with this lad anyway as until pen is put to paper an agreement in principle to sign means nothing.

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. You can criticise Venky's for their decision making at various points but they have proved their financial commitment to the Club over a period of ten years or more and their ability to inject in large amounts of capital at will. All the talk in the financial press at the time of the Asda takeover was that the Issa Brothers Group were in a precarious financial situation as a result of overextending themselves with the takeover and were leveraged up to the hilt. Better the Devil you know and all that...... Is this alleged "local interest" even supposed to be them anyway?

And for that reason alone he should have been sent down the road long ago with a size 10 up his ample derriere. It's his job to fill the stadium with home fans on a long term sustainable basis. Not scare them off by chasing one off gains from away fans.

He'll "look into it".

The only surprise is that anyone is surprised by last night's turnout. It's the culmination of a piss poor CEO persevering with a piss poor pricing strategy (which was unbelievably originally introduced in the midst of a pandemic) after the fans have also had to endure three years of piss poor football and results on the pitch under a piss poor manager. Said manager hardly fired up enthusiasm for the new season either by spending the summer desperately touting around our star striker to anyone who was interested and, then showing a stunning lack of self awareness by helpfully informing us it was unclear as to whether any funds were available for a replacement when it was his fault star striker had to be sold in the first place due to the money he's previously wasted. And that's only the last three seasons. Apart from the brief respite of a League 1 promotion the years before that were pretty terrible as well. The question is: What do the owners do about it now in the medium to long term? Big changes required: I see no possible scenario whatsoever in which the fans come flocking back to Ewood with either Waggott or Mowbray in situ. Let alone both of them.

Have to say I'm still not convinced that this is the reason the benefit was removed, can't see HMRC having either the resources or desire to police and monitor something so trivial. If anyone can confirm this definitely was the reason, fair enough.

Not convinced by this argument, if you don't actually take up a free ticket, how can you be taxed on it?

I'd have thought so as well. When Brereton is on song at least he can turn and run at you with the ball and be a real threat. Gallagher just plays in front of you, has no real pace, guile, trickery or technique and is weak as a kitten for his size. Must be meat and drink for any centre half.

Disagree on Dolan completely, you really appear to have it in for him, constantly saying he isn't up to first team standard and highlighting the penalty incident on Saturday. I'd say he's been one of our players of the season thus far along with Ayala and thought he was our only bright spark tonight as well before the 2 subs came on.

Because although they both still have plenty to prove BB does have some glimpses of talent imo. His main problem for me at the moment is staying on his feet instead of trying to go down at the slightest touch all the time. Gallagher on the other hand has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. No striker's instinct, 6ft 5 and jumps 5 ft 8, no technical ability - nothing.

You did see Gallagher on Saturday then? I thought BB was very poor tonight his goal apart but he was still nowhere near as bad as Gallagher imo.

Well done, must admit at half time I thought you had been donating money to the bookies with your customary largesse. I was going to volunteer to bring you a food parcel round on Christmas Day! 😉

Credit where it's due, the manager cost us two points with his substitutions on Saturday but his changes transformed the game tonight and breathed new enthusiasm into the rest of the side for long enough for us to secure the three points. Butterworth looks an absolute gem, how's he not been starting? Very good from Khedra too, you'd think they would both have to start Saturday or they would under a normal manager. Healthy start but papering over the cracks is also how I'd view it at the moment. These early points could be invaluable come the end of the season.

Butterworth has been a breath of fresh air. Mowbray can't see the riches right under his nose.

Agreed. Completely useless to me. What does he bring that one of our own youngsters couldn't?

Think he did fail a medical. Suggest you follow the player's progress on social media. If he's back next weekend you may have a point but I think his problem was a bit more serious than that.

Has to be part of his ongoing campaign to earn himself a pay off surely. Either way comments like that one and "I don't bother looking at League tables" etc show the Club and the supporters zero respect.

Agreed. Ludicrous situation but then of course we've seen it all before with the Ben Gladwin situation then handing out temporary contract extensions to Hart and Smallwood who hadn't featured all season.

This thread has wandered off topic quite considerably over the course of it's relatively short life but the question posed by the original poster remains a valid one. Imo The fans have to unite as far as possible whether as individuals or part of various fans groups to exert pressure on the management at Ewood. Why wasn't the manager sacked last season after the 3rd worse run in the Club's history? What's Mark Venus's role at the Club? If he is assistant manager, what's David Lowe's role at the Club? Subject to the answer to that, what's Damien Johnson's role at the Club? Why do we seemingly need three assistant managers? How could we possibly let a 29 goal striker go and not sign a replacement? What has our new Head of "Recruitment" (that's a good one) brought to the table? I get that we may have been unlucky with a particular player who failed a medical but a replacement should have been brought in at the same time as Armstrong was sold. We shouldn't have been scratching around on the last day. Why are we constantly loaning in Premier League youngsters? It doesn't benefit us in the long term and it doesn't benefit our own youngsters. All it does is benefit the Premier League Clubs concerned and those who benefit financially from the various moves taking place. How have most of our key players been allowed to get to the stage where they can walk away for nothing within the next 12 months? Why were plans floated to flog off part of the Academy, the only fixed asset of any real value the Club possesses and Why were said plans then scrapped at presumably considerable expense to the Club? Why can't the Club under the auspices of CEO Waggott get any of the mundane day to day running of Blackburn Rovers Football right? And why does everything that happens under his watch seem designed to turn supporters away from the Club? Be it raising prices during a pandemic, removing affordable seating, match day ticket pricing, the match day surcharge, not keeping the stadium stick and span, promising a new pitch then failing to deliver, not following up on a promise to return cardboard cutouts to donors, hiking up charges in the Blues Bar, not having enough staff to cope with demand in the ticket office, not being able to get the new kit out in time, not making sufficient numbers of the new kit available for purchase, not having season ticket cards ready in time, introducing a more expensive and inferior Club TV channel, unavailability of away travel, the list goes on and on. Im sure there's more. The owners put in £31 m in the last pandemic hit season to keep the Club afloat. Their level of financial support has been astonishing really and whilst the argument can quite rightly be made that much of that support has been necessary to cover for mistakes of their own making, my preference would still very much be to combine their financial clout with a top class manager in the dugout and a competent management team at local level running the Club in such a way as to invigorate the fan base and win back some of the support lost over the last ten years. Can sections of the support unite to that end I wonder?

Fair points Len........ but to be fair, for £300k p.a. I think it's not unreasonable to assume or at least hope in the first instance you've found yourself a bloody good babysitter!