Another game where we completely outclassed lower league opposition. The gulf is immense. Still some really worrying signs and we’ll need to step up a good couple of gears on Saturday. If today is a glimpse of life without Wharton, we had better all brace ourselves for another trip to league one. Oh, and please play a normal formation on Saturday JDT. That weirdo Moran fan has been keeping his head down the last couple of weeks… no surprise as his boy has been off the boil for months. Miles off the standard of most of our player and a light years behind Wharton. Moran and Sigurdsson both very poor again today. Dolan and JRC were both really good today - we’ve missed them badly. As maligned as he often is, Gallagher is clearly our best forward, and I’m afraid Telalovic isn’t going to cut it despite his best efforts.

That goal wasn’t Gallagher’s fault. He was zonal marking at the front post. Helik got clear of all our centre backs who didn’t track his run at all. We’d have had a lot better chance of defending the set piece properly if we employed basic marking rather than convoluted systems.

I’ve no doubt I’ll be incredibly pissed off when we do sell him. I certainly won’t be wanking myself into oblivion at the prospect of replacing him with a few loans and couple of half million punts from league one and Scandinavia like many seem to be.

Also, half of 25 million is 12.5 million. That’s 2 million per player. If we pay them 10 grand a week for 3 years that’s 1.5 million each. Leaves an average of half a million in transfer fees.

Knowing quite a number of people who have taken this stance, a cup draw against a team we used to play consistently for a couple of decades before Venky’s showed up is certainly not going to win them back! Direct your ire at the ones who would rather watch us play Rotherham on a firestick while defending Venky’s and blaming our downfall on our low attendances. They will be all over the Newcastle game (if we beat Wrexham in another game they can’t be bothered attending).

So while he is on a 4 year deal that he only signed a few weeks ago, he doesn’t go anywhere. Maybe there are conversations to be had and decisions to be made in the summer, but a move to Palace won’t do a lot for any England ambitions, and it wouldn’t guarantee Premier League status either. There’s nothing to suggest Adam Wharton isn’t 100% happy at and committed to Rovers. People who are seemingly desperate to see him sold with vague hopes of money being “reinvested” seem to forget what the point of a football club is.

Why would you pick one player transfer out of the hundreds that happen every year as your benchmark? And why that particular one? I don’t really give a toss how much other players have gone for, as a club our primary concern should be what benefits us most. I’ve even heard people talking about a “fair price, which is just a ridiculous way to approach things. First and foremost we shouldn’t want to sell our best player. If someone wants to buy him they must expect to make an offer we can’t refuse. Venky’s literally have more than £25 million set aside with Indian courts so they can send over money to keep paying wages and bills. It is not an amount of money that is going to allow us to progress in the pitch. Losing Wharton would weaken us massively and put us in real danger of relegation, what good would £25 million be then? No amount of money we could spend would allow us to improve on Wharton at the present moment, and while swapping one exceptional player for 4 or 5 good ones might be something that we can reluctantly accept, swapping him for a years wages for his inferior teammates would be inexcusable.

As much as I hate the whole “”like a new signing” nonsense when a player comes back from injury, Rankin-Costello has been a massive miss for us and we will look infinitely better with him in the side. Dolan is another very welcome return.

That would be the price for us to start even entertaining the idea of selling him. All the talk of 15/20 million and reinvesting is stupid, it’d be swallowed up instantly for a few months wages. Selling out most integral player needs to be money that can make a positive difference.

My money is on another story linking Adam Wharton with a move away… it’s been almost 48 hours since his last one so he’s overdue.

That sounds more promising. Can’t claim to know much at all about him, but it sounds like he’s performed well in spells. No shame in not getting into the Liverpool side regularly, but I was surprised to see how few career appearances he had.

He looks massively inexperienced for a 26 year old! Only 60 career appearances apparently.

I was really looking forward to the Royal Rumble tonight, and was actually going to bother watching a live PPV for a change with all the potential intrigue. It’s as exciting as it’s been in a long time. However these revelations have left me feeling like I really don’t want to bother. Obviously it’s been common knowledge Vince’s behaviour has often been questionable, and of late there was obviously something particularly unsavoury going on. But this is absolutely horrific. I think Dreyski hits the nail on the head above, the industry is pretty horrible. What consenting adults do is one thing, and in that particular environment there’s probably a fair bit of salacious activity and minor scandal goes on, but it’s pretty evident there are still a lot of things that go way beyond what is acceptable. I’m sure a lot will come out about Vince now, plus there’s the recent revelations regarding Jericho and his NDA. Lesnar surely can’t be used again, Don Callous shouldn’t be employed… could be another watershed moment like the me too movement of a few years ago with some top names outed rather than just brits and indie workers.

Harvey was chief exec of the EFL between 2011 and 2019. Need I say more.

That was my thoughts. £26 million seems to be the annual amount Venky’s are happy/willing/prepared to remit. At a guess yesterday’s amount would be around £15 million given the 11 in October. With some, but far from all of it earmarked for tax.

Absolutely. They can’t release any funds without that No Objection Certificate.

This isn’t absolute gospel, just my understanding of the situation, and I’m no expert. However there is possibly some info that isn’t really widely acknowledged or maybe known: - The investigations started back in 2021, initially there were no restrictions on them moving money out of India as the RBI had no objections. This changed in August 2022, at which point it became a requirement that any company under investigation required a No Objection Certificate (NOC) agreed by the entity doing the investigation - the Enforcement Directorate in this case - We received the NOC for remittances in 2022 - We applied for another on 17th January 2023 which was rejected on 6th March, and a further rejection on the 31st March (for the amount of £26 million). This was rejected on the basis of the “Pedancy of investigation”. After this rejection Venky’s legal team also requested a quick resolution to the ED investigation - On the 27th April 2023 Venky’s received correspondence from HMRC threatening a winding up order. - On 24th May Venky’s received a letter from BRFC advising them of the potential consequences of not receiving immediate payments (presumably administration) - On 23rd June Venky’s were granted permission to transfer £3.5 million based on the potential consequences outlined in the above letter. They were instructed that an equal amount had to be set aside as a guarantee as any future action taken by the ED would be a financial penalty (so presumably they don’t want Venky’s sending over money then pleading poverty if/when they get a fine) - On 16th August the ED reported that their investigation would be completed within 15 days - On 31st October Venky’s submitted another application for a NOC in which they highlighted the reason for these funds. As we know, this was allowed with some conditions: A further guarantee of an equivalent sum Auditors at club have 3 working days to file an End use Certificate (this certifies club are the end user of these funds and they won’t be transferred elsewhere) The club must provide bank statements to prove these payments were made - In this hearing it was outlined that club activities were not under suspicion, BUT the investigation was only at a “nascent stage”. This is very much contrary to what was reported on August 16th, and suggests these issues could run and run. It also suggests club finances will come under the microscope at some point - Wording suggests that future remittances will be allowed, with the same caveats attached, but we’d still need to apply for the NOC, and this would likely not be granted if the club becomes under investigation So while the money remitted has to be used for the specified purpose, it’s not entirely accurate to state Rovers can’t spend anything that hasn’t had court approval. They don’t care about the minutia of Rovers accounts (yet!), and funds generated by the club can be used for activities outside the scope of the court document (which covered Wages, tax, VAT, loan repayments, utilities and agents fees). So our fixture against Chelsea probably covered a chunk of the O’Riordan fee. This latest round of funding we went for was likely to cover the same expenses from January til the end of the season. I expect there will be some funds available to cover some of those expenses, generated by TV payments, ticket sales, league payments etc. whether that lasts til the hearing in March, we will have to see. It almost certainly means that our very modest transfer budget has disappeared and we will be in another period of extreme austerity. I’m waiting for the announcement that I can’t sit in the Riverside on Monday. So we will probably muddle through until the next date in March, with threats of winding up orders and missed payments, unless it gets moved again. Our transfer window plans are of no interest to Indian Courts who have cancelled and delayed several hearings already this year. Maybe there is some sort of contingency (player sale, short term loan). A further delay might be catastrophic though. Either way, this situation has become farcical and can’t continue much longer.

He’s not a luxury at all, he’s absolutely integral to the way our manager is hell-bent on playing. If anyone thinks we are bad now, imagine how much worse we will be if the one person capable of actually getting the ball from the edge of our box to the edge of theirs goes. There’d be no point in signing a striker as the ball would barely leave our half.

I would love to know which specific events of the last 13 years are leading people to conclude that selling Adam Wharton would allow us to strengthen multiple areas of the squad and mount a promotion push. People getting all excited at the prospect of a fee that’s dwarfed by the amount Venky’s have had to set aside in order to guarantee monies they are sending us to keep the lights on. Swapping our best player, who has a genuine chance of becoming an England regular, for a few months worth of wages for his inferior teammates who will likely fail to keep us in the Championship. It would definitely make a statement - that we have given up anything resembling ambition or a plan. Being a feeder club to the likes of Crystal Palace is a disgraceful position for Blackburn Rovers to find ourselves in. Lets hope the stat obsessed football manager enthusiasts are left heartbroken and it’s all just paper talk/Nixon bollocks.

I don’t think Wharton is going anywhere for the moment. I certainly hope he stays. Take him out of our side and we will struggle to get out of our own half.

Nobody was marking him. The genius with the iPad and the FA Level 2 in coaching goalkeepers course has decided our players are better off standing away from opponents when they have a corner, and marking space instead.

Bloody hell Chaddy, have you not suffered enough for one day!

JDT has completely lost the plot. Chrisene spent the entire first half looking exactly like a full back being asked to play as a wide forward. Pickering gets injured, he immediately drops back in to his natural position, but JDT decides to sub him off and just completely give up defending our left hand side. It’s been a big question for a while what Rankin-Costello’s actual position is, but I don’t think anyone had him down as a centre back. He did well but imagine how effective he might have been playing in a position he has actually played before! Adam Wharton clear MOTM, most of the rest poor to average. Tactics are now a major problem - any other team in the division would’ve beaten us today. Even when we became completely cavalier and reckless defensively we created nothing and our goal was purely down to bad play by them and exceptional reading of the game by an exceptional player in our squad. Ben “Keepers and set-pieces” Benson is robbing a living. Sack him and bring in a 40 year old pro as a player coach. He swans around with his iPad while we have Sam Gallagher stood on the front post at corners. His idiotic stat driven defensive routines need binning. Get back to basics, get our best headers marking the opponents best headers, the players can manage that themselves.

I think one of the worst things about the whole reinvented history of our position before Venky’s came along is the disservice it does to everyone involved. We had a brilliant board headed by John Williams who deserves to be held in extremely high regard by all those that care about this club. We were literally praised in parliament as being the model of a well run club under his watch. And while his idiot relatives sold us down the river, it also implies that Jack didn’t make suitable provisions for us after his death, which is as insulting to his memory as it is incorrect. Although I’m sure if he could see the state we are in now those provisions would have been a lot more robust, but that’s on his arrogant and selfish children.

Absolutely!!