.

Neither Arsenal nor Brentford seem to have announced as such.

He certainly is, he is bang average but those who celebrate his departure prematurely seem keen to ignore any notion that we are then left with Leonard, Ennis and Telalovic.

Why, are the under 21s playing on Saturday because the first team arent.

They would be far dearer unfortunately. Theres a reason if its even true that we are digging so far down into the barrel.

Went through £100m of owners funding is the ridiculous comment because it implies blame directly on to the manager. We dont lose exactly £20m a season anyway but this idea that its the owners funding us as if they for years have done anything but merely raise share capital and the odd loan to pay creditors (as many Championship owners need to do) to avoid administation as the bare minimum is creative. The way he left us is massively skewed by the way that the owners blocked sales. We had £10m plus (net of Newcastles chunk) of the Armstrong money still in the bank from one of his signings. We should have had £4m in the back pocket from selling Rothwell but, well you know. We still had Brereton who we then were offered £8m for but, well you know. We had Kaminski who has since been sold for a few million. We had the Raya sell on which will soon be activated. So lots of value there. But again youve fixated on Mowbray out my overall post which is convenient.

Do the number of other non parachute payment club owners even get acknowledged for doing likewise? They have no choice. Their business needs to pay more out than is coming in. They either pay via their own pocket (loans or shares) or the business cant carry on as a going concern. The main source of income for Championship clubs is player sales. Who are the blockers of that source? You bet it. Venkys. Not the supposed incompetents. Not that im saying that Waggott for example is anything other than incompetent in this regard, but it pales into insignifance when the owners turn away £12m in 6 months. Im sure you once made out that Mowbray had blown £100m. In that case, lots of managers in this league are blowing obscene amounts too. Lets make it clear, over a number of years not just hiding behind government issues, Venkys have been investing the bare minimum to cover costs with no intention of pushing for anything else.

You often praise the owners for their "level of funding." Do you not acknowledge that they merely do what is common practice as a non parachute payment club in the Championship? They pay out more than they can generate in as a business therefore the owners have to offset the money they have spent (via loans or raising shares) merely to remain a going concern. And thats its not a reason for regular praise hence why other clubs and their owners dont get praised for doing likewise. Over a number of years leading to what we have today, the owners have spent very little in terms of actually allowing the team to be improved. No fee above 2m on a player spent since 2019 and opportunities even to sell to generate reinvestment opportunites blocked.

Broughton and Waggott were rightly lambasted after that farce so this idea that poor old Venkys get all of the blame for everything is simply not true.

I just think you repeatedly posting totally context-less posts like the above as fact is not very useful, especially in this instance where there is a direct source where at least we can decide for ourselves if it is likely to be accurate. That is that twitter account that reads exactly like how Mercer speaks, but he claimed it wasn't him. Either way, big mound of salt needed when they are only being scanned today.

A regular source for random rumours posted without any context unfortunately.

Where is this from?

Pickering clearly isnt our biggest liability. He will be a loss especially as Chrisene looked far less competent.

He should have been given a new contract, but that decision didnt prove to be terminal in protecting the asset. We could have still sold him for a substantial fee but Venkys wouldnt entertain the idea.

Excellent post. The now legendary £20m a year investment is almost mentioned as if its a sign of ambition to push the club on. Im sure @RevidgeBlue once suggested that Mowbray had blown £100m of the owners over 5 years in not getting promoted during that time as if it was splashed out on a team of Championship all stars. Many Championship clubs not supported by parachute payments make 8 figure losses every season because the revenue is dwarved by expenditure. A company that pays out more than it receives has to offset that personally (often by loans or raising share capital) because of a lack of retained earnings, merely to continue as a going concern. Its bizarre how that can be levelled as praise. Since we bought Gallagher in 2019, a summer in which we actually spent a net amount of between 1 and 1.5 million, I dont think we have spent over the 2m on one player that Szmodics cost since then.

You are suggesting that the fault of this window lies with Waggott and co and that they are making excuses for not getting signings in. Surely the issue lies with the issues in India, not Waggott and co? I dont think we would have spent much if anything anyway. For a start, before these cuts came in Tomasson mentioned it was a summer of frees and loans. In the last 4 summers, we spent about 4m last season which was reasonable but they prevented the further reinvestment of potentially selling Brereton. (and Rothwell 6 montbs prior. The summer before, we sold Armstrong for loads of money and they allowed only a nominal fee for Edun. The summer before, we barely spent anything, about 500k on Kaminski. You like to make out as if they spend 20m a summer as a competitive advantage, when they do what basically all championship owners have to do and offset losses simply because Championship clubs spend more than they generate. The current squad is not just so thin based on cuts for this season, money hasnt been spent on the team in a while.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/20671027.blackburn-rovers-reject-ogc-nice-bid-ben-brereton-diaz/ 10m euros. To a team playing in European competition. Ultimately had we accepted and he said no, different question. But they wouldnt even consider it. Therefore the blame lies solely on the owners in this instance. Should he have been given a new contract in that season during covid when he went from useless to decent? Quite possibly. Was this the main block and a terminal blow to us receiving a substantial fee? No, thats on the owners which I have no doubt you will not concede.

Is the main issue stopping us signing players not that each deal needs ratifying through the budget slashing owners amidst these supposed government issues? Will the blame still lie closer to home for you?

Theres no reason to suggest that he wouldnt have accepted a bigger contract at a club in a better league. You just cant and wont accept that the owners directly prevented us from potentially getting a big fee because blame has to be diverted elsewhere. It was a foolish decision without hindsight to not take the money. We essentially loaned a player for 8m.

We received a bid of 8m in the summer prior to his departure. A lot of money for us. The owners themselves refused to accept it. Not a lot they could do though.

Would make little sense for such a conspiracy to be true.

Another Sunday of Nixon shite. Obviously we are not going to sign Rajovic for 4m, he probably knows that so our supposed interest has the perfect excuse for when the deal obviously doesnt happen. Plus why would they sell him so soon. Watford fans dont rate him at all, hes slow, cant hold the ball up and is useless outside the penalty box. But he does score goals. Not that it matters from a Rovers perspective.

What was most confusing about the decision which I am amazed people havent made more of, Sigurdsson as essentially a left wing back and Rankin Costello as a third centre back. A decision up there with Gallagher playing RB for 5-10 minutes between changes and Matteo in midfield. Is that it wasnt even a case whereby there was no reasonable alternative. Brittain could have gone to left back and Rankin Costello to right back with Sigurdsson in his usual position on tbe wing. It was especially perplexing when Moran came on shortly after as we could have just gone to the 4231 that we usually play.

It would have been well spent had the owners not blocked the potential sale last summer. Had we brought in 8 million or whatever it was, it would have meant that we had brought in a profit on the three as well as having loads of goals in the process. Brereton had 2 awful seasons, one decent one and then 2 in which he scored a combined 37 goals in 2 seasons, making him far and away our top scorer and right up there with Championship goalscorers across those 2 years. Armstrong obviously also scored lots of goals for us and made a big profit, his fee covering the 3 fees combined before Newcastles cut. And no team gets recruitment bang on, but if you are bringing in 20m+ for 2 of the 3, which we would without moronic owners as you say, you can afford to swallow up the third who wasnt as successful. And its not like Gallagher has been a total waste of time who scored 1 or 2 goals, he has contributed in his time albeit certainly not for the value of the fee paid. Couldnt agree more on the owners being moronic. Ultimately if they had cashed in on Brereton, which they had to, and also had stuck to a model of buying, selling at profit after the individuals did a good job for us and then reinvesting, then they would have been well in line with such a model. As it is, they have a model of sometimes interfering and stopping the income entirely, or just not reinvesting sales at all even when they do come in. End result, the mess we are in today.

Set pieces are always reflective of coaching on the training ground. Those numbers do not reflect well on Tomasson at all.