You think? He might put his foot down for the wrong players like Bennett and Evans! A sale of one of the crown jewels would allow him a bit of leeway to waste yet more money on dross.

Apart from the one off hit, substantial cost savings would be made going forward though.

Maybe they've finally seen the light and being conned into keeping Smallwood and Hart on full pay for another month for doing nothing was the final straw. Neither perhaps do they want to top up Downing's pension pot for another 12 months for being a bit part player. (Well hopefully not anyway) If they want to save costs there's an obvious place to start.......fire off Mowbray, Lowe, Venus, Benson, and promote Damien Johnson and allow him to bring in his own assistant. Can't see what Waggott brings to the party either other than shielding Mowbray, does Greg Coar still work at the Club? On the pitch, everyone keeps telling me how good Evans supposedly is, so if that's the case, surely he'd fetch a decent fee and would represent a considerable wage saving. Ditto Bennett, he is absolutely indispensable in the manager's eyes so if he's half as good as the Mowbray thinks, there must be a queue of Clubs round the block who'd take him on for a modest outlay. Another huge wage saving. We're also paying Mulgrew a fortune to do nothing, a lot more has to be done to find a solution that will see him depart and save us some money. Let's have a bit of a spring clean and stop all this codswallop about "slow builds" from people who have no interest in that oncept from the point of view of success on the pitch but merely in hanging on to their positions for as long as possible from a financial perspective. Let's try to do as well as we possibly can for every possible minute of every possible game instead of aiming for marginal pregression and see how far that takes us. If finances dictate that we need to promote youth and give them a proper chance as opposed to cameo roles or emergency appearances as a result of an injury crisis whilst underperforming senior players receive contract extension after contract extension like sweeties then fine I can live with that. I could even buy into being relegated with a very young side that was clearly improving and had huge potential. However I can't buy i the current shambles of protecting underperforming players and spending a fortune to loan in others just to limp in in mid table season after season and then end up back at square one every 12 months whilst our few better players depart to cover costs. If Venky's are making a decision prompted by the financial crisis, it may actually long term be the best decision they've made since promotion .....if they get it right. Mowbray is not the man to oversee it!

Or you could play Wharton and you have a player available for the next 7-8 years at a far cheaper cost than paying a separate loan fee for someone every 12 months, and he will probably appreciate substantially in value as well. Won't happen. Far too obvious.

I described him as "talentless" numerous times and I'm more than happy that that description is accurate. That's presumably why he is 24 but only 4th choice at his parent Club. What "success" has he actually achieved?

If memory serves me right our record over the first 2 games of the season in Mowbray's 3 full seasons here is 2017/18 LL 2018/19 DD 2019/20 LL So trying to be "smart" and doing last minute transfer business and not being adequately prepared for the start of the season hasn't served us well so far has it? This may not seem like much but come the end of the season if you're four or five points shy of the play offs or one or two points adrift of safety you'll wish you'd been ready for the start of the season. Mowbray has been in the game long enough to know this isn't the way to go and responsibility to get the team ready from day one of the season lies with him. Stop trying to pin it on the owners.

I like your idea of being able to donate, if the Club were honest and admitted they were completely brassic and said they needed donations to keep the doors open either via a monthly amount or the full amount of a season ticket up front I would probably do it. However in practice (like 99) I can't see that that would be any different whatsoever to selling season tickets now but explaining that if it is not possible to view matches in the ground then that is due to circumstances beyond the Club's control and no refunds will be issued. Or, we could offer credit against future purchases. I agree there's a danger that this might be the straw that breaks the camels back as far as the owners are concerned, but isn't sitting back and doing nothing, and making no effort to get any income in whatsoever, making it even more likely that that will occur? Also, for those concerned about the possibility of the Club going under, could that not be addressed by purchasing on a credit card meaning g you're covered in the worst case scenario?

Paul, what is the problem with signing people up initially to a nominal direct debit for a £1 p.m. initially so that we're ready to go when the Government finally make a decision on crowds and Rovers know exactly what they can and can't do? Then amend the amount upwards as appropriate. That nominal sum already paid could be easily reimbursed against later on in the season once crowds are let back in, against next season or in the form of a credit at the Club shop or something. I'd say we'd be unlikely to run into capacity issues (unlike most Clubs) but even if we do, let fans in on a rotation basis as mentioned above. I really can't see the issue and any excuse for not selling anything from the Club's point of view.

25

? You don't give up chaddy, even when you're flogging a dead horse. I'll give you that!

I have zero excitement ahead of the coming season and it has nothing whatsoever to do with COVID, Those likely restrictions if they come in are unavoidable and out of our control and whilst I think the current measures being taken to get the virus downfrom minimal to negligible levels are a massive over-reaction and I don't agree with them, we'll likely have to suck up the inconvenience if we wish to attend in person. (I may not bother attending on principle until its restriction free but that's a separate issue) My apathy is entirely due to our lack of prospects on the pitch. And I'm sure I'll feel this way until Mowbray, Waggott, Venus and Lowe depart.

You're just being argumentative for the sake of it now. There's no comparison whatsoever between Countries with large Cities which also attract holidaymakers in massive numbers and Austria. My last word on the subject as it's not the end of the world whether we go to a pre season camp either way. I just thought it was bizarre how you were so keen to leap to praise the Club for NOTgoing on one!

I'm fine thanks. I'm not the one swearing at people. ?

Spot on. Another thing that bugs me about our so called transfer "policy" is that there seems to be no element of planning whatsoever. Most Clubs decide on the players they like, ascertain whether the fee and wage demands are within their budget, and go out and get them. We seem to go in for players without establishing their likely demands then get surprised when they're more than we thought and then hang around all window hoping those demands will be reduced. A large part of our business also seems to depend on Premier League Clubs making young players available for loan at the last minute. There's no way you can absolutely guarantee this, nor that players will be made available in the positions you want. Like you say "winging it".

Give over chaddy, please don't try and make out Klopp doesn't know what he is doing because it's different to what we're doing. I assume they've researched the pros and cons of going to Austria thoroughly and found any risk of a potential quarantine is negligible.

Ridiculously aggressive post. I'm not particularly impressed by that list of names either and you must also have missed the bit where the original poster said "nothing remotely close". Would you think there were a "few even better names" on there if we had reported interest in Messi and Pope? It wouldn't mean they were any nearer to being over the line either. The only thing I disagree with Richard Oakley on is that if we absolutely have to sign a striker I wouldn't go near Rudy with a barge pole due to his glass knees. His attitude isn't the best at times either. The key thing for me is that money has to be spent bringing in the right keeper in on a permanent deal. I fear another Walton type disaster if we bring in another loanee or scrape the barrel with a permanent deal. We can make do with loans and freebies elsewhere and personally I'd tell Mowbray he has to wee with the willy he's got on the striking front if no-one else leaves.

Thanks for sharing, I mentioned Chris Martin as a possibility a couple of weeks ago, I thought Mowbray might want a Graham alternative. Overall, pretty depressing reading, as most of us suspected it sounds like we're completely brassic which will be particularly bad news on the keeper front if we have to make do and mend once again.

Many thanks for posting, wonderful watch, I'm actually on there behind Jack looking a lot better than I do now celebrating a couple of the goals against Derby and I never knew that footage existed! Random thoughts: Terry Ibbotson right at start of clip, best Chief Exec we've ever had, had to deal with all sorts of opposition from all quarters regarding the building of the new ground. John Howarth former Club Sec - completely out of his depth after Jack took over - ditto Beamish to some extent. Dear old Bill Bancroft managing to sound incredibly pompous Crystal Palace away - shudder- worst day of my life up to that point prior to my parents passing away. later on in life. How churlish and ungrateful did Burnley Bob Coar sound about the whole thing? Dear me. Contrast that with Dalglish who showed suitable appreciation of Jack's input and knew everyone was only there because of him. I don't think anyone around today has the personal charisma King Kenny had back when he joined us nor the kudos he carried gained from the unique combination of him being a world class player and subsequently incredibly successful manager. Wonderful memories and times.

Grabbi by a country mile for me The story goes Souness wanted a centre forward and asked his team to go out and get the top scorer in Serie B. We ended up with a (homesick) player who considered himself a no 7 for a price at which you could apparently have bought the town his parent Club was in, let alone the Club or the player.

Take Downing off there and you might not be too far off! He hasn't accepted our contract offer has he?

I just randomly looked Liverpool up as well and guess where they are....... Austria, where chaddy says you can't go now! He'd better get on to Kloppy and tell him we're right and they're wrong! There must be a reason why Clubs have always used pre season training camps, it must be judged good for morale and we've all heard the old saying "a change is as good as a rest" In the general scheme of things this doesn't even register on the scale of our list of problems but it's just indicative of the general feeling coming out of Ewood that there's nothing going on and we're closed for business.

You have to give chaddy his due. With less than a month to go before the season starts, we've no season tickets, on sale, no season ticket holders, no new kit, no kit sponsor, no senior goalkeeper, one first choice centre back and no first choice left back. And he's on here applauding the fact we might not be going on a pre season training camp!

Obviously not Mark Venus!

Yep, We usually seem to have the utmost trouble getting people in at the best of times and obviously these are exceptional circumstances. This one is probably right up Mowbray's street though, with the possible exception of the addition of the cheapest keeper possible he won't be under the usual sort of pressure to disrupt his cosy little group.

Yep, the reason you can't rely on him is not because he is injury prone, it's because you can count the number of really good games he's had in eight (?) years at the Club on your fingers!