8 hours ago, Mike E said:

I’m afraid I don’t understand why the AGM is held in the Training Centre (a place not readily accessible to anyone travelling), and has the manager as guest speaker.

Comes across as far too pally for my liking.

It’s a 7 minute drive or a 13 minute bus journey from Billington Brass Band Club, which was the venue for 2 out of the last 3.

I’m sure you’ll recall that neither of those were very well attended, neither was the one at Ewood last year. All three had politicians as the guest speaker, although one sent a statement rather than attend.

Hopefully a change of venue to a place that is an integral part of the club and an important part of Jack’s legacy, but not normally accessible to supporters, will pique some interest. Same applies with the manager, and personally I see the fact he is keen to come along and find out about what we are doing as a positive.

I enjoyed that!! To a man we were excellent.

Hyam with a really dominant display, which has been lacking far too often recently. I thought Chrisene was very good too. JRC makes such a positive difference, and if he didn’t have his fitness issues, and was a bit quicker he’d be playing in the Prem. Szmodics doing what he does, what a finisher. Hedges was great and Dolan absolutely unplayable - deserved his goal and MOTM on the day.

The Boro, Ipswich and Sunderland performances have been a lot more coherent and we’ve deserved more than the 4 points out of those 3 games. Massive win that, and I’ll sleep a lot easier tonight!

For me this is the most clear and obvious bit of incompetence by Atwell and his dopey linesman…

https://x.com/roversradio/status/1774105427116003775?s=46

                        Pears

Carter   Hyam   Wharton   Pickering

                Ayari          Tronstad

   Hedges      Szmodics     JRC

                         Dolan

If Gallagher is fit by some miracle, I’d play him over Ayari with JRC and Dolan reshuffling.

It’s a while since I thought we’ve been really hard done to, but I really believe we deserved all three points today. The officiating from start to finish was diabolical. Aside from the goals their keeper caught the ball a foot outside of his penalty area right under the liners nose. The time wasting was outrageous, and on several occasions the linesman on the Riverside and the ref both stood staring at each other with no idea of which way to award decisions.

We will beat Sunderland comfortably if we apply ourselves in the same way on Monday. Obviously the squad needs some serious restructuring in the summer though. 

5 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

OK thanks. Sorry for putting words into your mouth.

But in devil's advocate mode why not embark one one of those other methods long before now as an interim measure if they were keen to get money over?

I have long since stopped trying to figure out how Venky’s think. 

One scenario might be that one of the directors makes a personal loan to Rovers in the interim. I’m sure Balaji and his siblings all have personal access to a good few tens of millions. It might be a viable way to get us through for a period of time, but probably not what they’d ideally want to do given they have funded it through the parent company.

17 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

So to summarise:

They currently can't send ANY money over without permission and if they do so it has to be matched by a security bond for an equivalent amount.

However it SEEMS as though there should be ways around the problem if they wanted to send money badly enough so are you insinuating that they might see these problems as somewhat convenient?

If that were the case, why bother going to Court at all? They could just do a Waggott, shrug their shoulders and say "We've done all we can."

I’m not insinuating anything of the sort. If they didn’t want to carry on owning and funding us they would’ve stopped a long time ago.

I’m considering ways they will still be able to keep doing so despite the court case being delayed again, just as I expect they are.

1 minute ago, J*B said:

Not necessarily true. The general understanding (as above) is they can still fund it as normal, but for every £1 they send to the club they have to put a £1 deposit into a Indian Government owned Bank as a deposit. Which in summer they obviously didn’t want to do. Either they’re terrified they’ll lose the case or they don’t have (or don’t want) the cash flow of double bubble.

1 minute ago, Herbie6590 said:

So the next question is “do they intend to send the cash notwithstanding the bond/escrow requirement”?

 

Being able to do so is one thing…being willing to is another…

 

Apologies, I think I may have jumped the gun on the above. Didn’t read Josh’s posts in full.

For every pound they have sent so far, they have had to guarantee with equivalent. But they can’t send money without permission. 

The case that is ongoing is not directly linked to Rovers or VLL, which probably goes a long way to explaining the silence from the club. If anyone at Rovers was even aware of how the case had gone (or hadn’t) before it became public record, I expect they’d have been forbidden from commenting on it.

I suppose now we will see what Venky’s appetite to keep funding is, as there will no doubt be ways around it. Without a No Objection Certificate, or a one off exemption, VENKATESHWARA HATCHERIES PRIVATE LIMITED can’t send remittance overseas. The purpose of this hearing wasn’t just to get that agreed, but it would’ve been one desired outcome.

I’m speculating here, but I don’t see why they couldn’t get money over from elsewhere, or apply for the certificate directly to the enforcement agency away from the ongoing court proceedings.

9 minutes ago, J*B said:

My understanding of this was that this means for every £1 they send here, they also have to send £1 to a bank account owned by the Indian Government as essentially a bond whilst the case is underway. Can anyone confirm/clarify that?

Confirmed.

2 hours ago, J*B said:

He's already uprooted his family once in the last 12 months, I would imagine with his new role being an international manager with less day to day training ground work and them now settled in schools and playing football he’s not in a huge rush to pack all the bags again — which is exactly why he left the club in the first place.

If I was him I would knock around until the end of the year simply to watch this club completely fold into a standard-less shell of its former self, just to bump into Waggott and Pasha and say “I told you so”.

I think that’s exactly what he intends to do, which is why I find it so bizarre that the club appear happy for him to be spending time at the training ground, particularly if the stories of player fallouts are true.

2 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

That is a frightening team.

Has Chrisene ever played in central midfield? Not the best on the ball. And has O'Riordan ever played at full back? A big gangly centre back. I know that Buckley has started to show that perhaps he wasn't necessarily our heir to the Wharton throne but he has to be a more suitable player there than Chrisene, and I know you really cannot stomach Brittain (I am not his biggest fan, unsure if your dislike of him is more because you was so fond of Nyambe who himself wasnt particularly good) but he surely is a better option than sticking a young centre back there.

Gilsenan seems to be getting more and more popular every week that he is not selected but I am wary of being too excited just because hes scored a few goals for the under 21s, Jack Vale and even Harry Leonard showed how big the gap in quality is. Deserves a spot on the bench over players like Telalovic though.

Gallagher looked good when he came back into the team, his last 2 or 3 performances have been totally ineffective perhaps partly due to playing so much after injury, but mainly because of Eustace shoving him on the wing in a side that rarely attacks. He usually does well at Boro, I would play him up top rather than Szmodics who is best behind a striker.

Apparently Chrisene has played centre midfield. We lack physicality in there without Tronstad. I thought Ayari was a lot better than Buckley on Saturday.

I’m confident O’Riordan is a better and more willing defender than Brittain. I wouldn’t want him worrying at all about attacking, so I’d give him a go. 

Ideally I’d like to find a way to get several other players out of our starting 11 as they appear totally defeated and useless in a scrap, unfortunately our squad is a depleted, disjointed, unbalanced mess.

1 hour ago, M_B said:

Tomasson has forgotten about Blackburn Rovers already, he didn't give us a second thought. 

He’s spent a fair bit of time at Brockhall since he left the job for someone who isn’t giving us a second thought.

Very bizarre situation.

                              Pears

O’Riordan    Hyam    Wharton   Pickering

Dolan           Ayari       Chrisene   Hedges

                            Gilsenan

                           Szmodics

Time to start asking some serious questions of the players now. Big bad JDT is long gone but they are still in victim mindset. Full of excuses, pass the blame, avoid accountability, take the easy way out at every opportunity, defeatist and soft as shite.

Hyam, Brittain, Gallagher, Buckley, Sigurdsson should all be ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately the soft underbelly of this squad leaves us totally unprepared for anything resembling a relegation battle. There’s a few I’m being very generous to by not including them here, for example, how can Scott Wharton go from his Newcastle performance to the last couple he’s turned in.

We are going down with a whimper. Unless there’s a minor miracle, and we are somehow able to replace some of those utter cowards from our severely depleted and unbalanced squad.

Under JDT we were hurtling towards relegation. Now we will go down with a whimper. Probably pick up an unexpected draw or two against the better sides, but we will only draw at best with those around us.

Awful tonight. Wahlstedt is shit. We’d have fared no worse if we’d played an outfield player in goals. Can’t recall him using his hands once, and an outfield player would pass better. They’d also probably not jump under the only shot he faced.

The three centre backs was just a case of strength in numbers today, all three looked absolute donkeys. And Hyam can piss off telling the fans to calm down and gesturing that we still had time… he was wrong as we didn’t touch the ball again after that. Only time he opened his mouth all game. Gallagher was absolutely horrendous today, and Buckley’s brief glimpse on his return to the side appears to have been exactly that.

Despite my discussion with Chaddy the other day I actually thought Brittain was our best player in a terrible first half, presume he picked up a knock? Second half Chrisene tried, and Sigurdsson quickly made amends for an awful ball and actually put himself about a bit. But aside from that and Szmodics, very little to be positive about. Credit to Ayari for actually taking a shot, but he loses it again for his part in that fiasco of a corner.

We’ve been left with an unbalanced ragtag squad that is physically slow and weak, and pathetically mentally soft. The players are all still in victim mode, and nobody is willing to show the slightest bit of bravery in their play. The only thing that will give us the slightest chance of staying up this season is if Rankin-Costello is back for the weekend and manages to stay fit for every remaining game.

“We need to go into every game fighting and I think the boys will do that." - Callum Brittain

That would be a first in his case.

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

I am big fan of his and He would be first choice right back every week. Same as Hyam. 

Moran started off well here then he struggled with playing week in and week out at this level given it is first time of playing regular first team football around December time. 

I know you have always been a big fan of his, you pinned your colours to that mast before we signed him and I think that’s why you are reluctant to change your mind. He was poor last season, started this season better, but has reverted to being poor with some absolutely shameful performances added in for good measure. His better displays have come further up the pitch as his best attribute is his crossing ability. Defensively he is poor, and he lacks heart and commitment. Scored one very good goal but also had one of the most unprofessional, petulant and pathetic red cards I’ve ever seen.

I can’t believe you or anyone else would prefer him to Rankin-Costello at full back? Perhaps you could make the argument that JRC would be better utilised elsewhere, but for me Brittain shouldn’t be in the first team.

Agree with you on Moran. He has been struggling for months (Newcastle aside) and has played far more football than his form deserves. We aren’t in any position to afford him the chance to play himself back into form in our central midfield while we hurtle towards relegation.

2 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

You aren't a fan of Brittain aren't you? 

Yet Moran was very good against Newcastle in a centre midfield role so why not in Championship game? 

 

No, he’s a coward.

Moran was beyond a liability yesterday. His performance against Newcastle was a complete anomaly over the last few months and Mitchell and Saville will eat him alive.

Ideally I’d be looking for a way to get Brittain and to a lesser degree Hyam out of that defence. I’m afraid neither of them are any use in a scrap. Unfortunately injuries and an unbalanced squad won’t allow for it.

Moran can’t start in central midfield again, especially not against Millwall. Praying Tronstad is back fit. Gallagher was horrific yesterday, but on recent displays and with a lack of any other options he has to keep his place.

I’m still in a bit of a state of disbelief at how we managed to go from that display against Newcastle to the abomination we did against Swansea. It really shouldn’t have come to this, but this is absolutely a must win game.

I’d chuck big Billy up top for Gallagher now 

2 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

I wish we had a left footed Brittain to play at LB too. He's a good Championship RB, if a little soft. 

Pickering is more than twice the player Brittain is. He’s also not the softest player I’ve ever had the misfortune to see. Brittain makes Morton Gamst Pedersen look like Vinnie Jones.

Gilsenan on now has to happen. Desperation is due.

4 or 5 changes required at half time. Don’t think there’s a player who could complain at being dragged off. Disgrace.

After Tuesday I’m far less worried about our squad depth. Of course it would be great to have a bit more quality and experience, but suddenly Markanday, Ayari, Koumetio and Chrisene all look capable of playing a part, and Moran looks like he’s hitting form again.

Hopefully confidence is high in the squad and they can reach similar levels of Arte et Labore as they did against Newcastle.

1 hour ago, Upside Down said:

Yeah get rid of them. That band is a pile of wank.

Chuck my bands tune in there an'all will ya 😉

Yes! Still got a track from the Girona game so I’ll get it on at some point.

1 hour ago, tomphil said:

I came across loads of comments on a 90's Rave group on facebook going on about Hardcore Uproar etc.

Was good to read it caught the attention of non Rovers fans all over the country, even better knowing so many neutrals were watching our game.  Not seen so many complimentary comments aimed at Rovers for a long long time.

I was absolutely made up with that. Loads of traction on Twitter too. 
 

13 minutes ago, Groundhog said:

Please, please get them to bin the Chilli Poopers! Horrible band. 

We should also have I Am The Resurrection in it's entirety too, and players and officials should be made to wait on the pitch to kick off for the full duration of the guitar solo 😂

Great work on the playlist @Miller11 - are you responsible for the trad version of No Nay Never too? Nice touch that.

 

😂 I knew it was sacrilege when I edited it down to cut the solo.

Can’t take credit for No Nay Never, they were already doing that and I think it’s good. I was responsible for Singing the Blues at full time against Stoke… hope we can have that a few more times this season!

22 hours ago, Upside Down said:

Shout-out to whoever put on hardcore uproar

Cheers!!

I’m doing the match day playlists regularly now so expect to hear a lot more of it… just got to persuade them to bin the Chilli Peppers so we can run out to it!