Miller11

It’s been the case for years that we have always opened negotiations with our established players by offering them the exact same money for an extended period. Was the case with Lenihan and Nyambe, both of which were declined but further negotiations didn’t happen “because of covid”. Then it became too late. It improved under Broughton as Suhail was too far removed from the process, which he won’t have liked. It went Broughton - Waggott - Babu. Broughton actually got some deals done (although one of the main reasons he was dispatched with was he was seen to be too generous with contracts. Wahlstead was nearly our highest paid player, Jake Batty was on several times more than all other youngsters, JRC got a huge pay hike). Reckless spending, or bringing our wage structure up to the going rate? With Broughton gone things initially went Waggott - Babu - Suhail, then simply Gestede + Suhail. Last summer there were attempts to get Szmodics to stay by treating him as an exceptional circumstance and obliterating the fairly loose wage structure. He was certainly open to discussing it, but too much dithering from Venky’s end meant the Ipswich move became inevitable. Before the end of last season there was an idea to offer Dolan a hefty loyalty payment - basically a big (million plus) signing on fee to incentivise him to sign on lower wages than he could get elsewhere. Dolan and his Dad were open to this - the offer was never put in writing. Travis and Hyam will all have been given contact offers a while ago - extensions on the same money. No follow up will have taken place after the initial rejections so Rovers can say “we offered them a deal”. This is Suhail 101. Gestede was always a Suhail man, but he further ingratiated himself with the signings of Ohashi and Gueye. Yuki took a pay cut to come to England. Gueye came from the notoriously poorly paid Belgian League. Between Suhail and Gestede they have now decided that there is no need to pay more than 10k a week for a player with those two as their proof. 11 “A” players on a max of 10k. 11 “B” Players on a max of 6k. And 11 Young players on a max of 1k. Any exceptions will be phased out.

No they didn’t. It was a big bone of contention between Eustace and Suhail/Owen/Gestede - they felt he didn’t play enough youngsters and were sold on Ismael’s willingness to do so. They are financially incentivising him to make sure it happens.

I expect the fact that Ismael is bonused on giving young players their debut and minutes is a bigger reason for his team selection.

Team Waggott were keen last summer. Team Suhail not so much.

In the FF meeting Suhail answered the initial question regarding Waggott with one word. It took a lot of probing around directorial responsibilities and EFL rules for him to admit that Waggott was still employed. He seemed very reluctant to do so. I don’t think Lowe being absent from Brockhall or Ewood will necessarily mean he isn’t being paid by Rovers. I expect that both he and Waggott will have very nice looking gardens at the end of the summer.

Yeah. That happened. A couple of examples of club requested songs I vetoed: Take Me Home, Country Roads (someone had been to Old Trafford) Glad All Over. More than once.

Unless there is some sort of miracle before the transfer window closes, I think our best bet is to play Gueye, Kargbo and Miller every game. Smash long balls up to Gueye, get Miller on every throw in, tell Kargbo to run at people. This was where we looked most effective yesterday and pre season - particularly against competent opposition. I don’t think we are scoring many goals otherwise.

No. To correct the first paragraph. Version 1 was sent to the club before being sent to other attendees. As soon as it landed in my inbox I messaged Glen asking what he thought of them. As he hadn’t received them I forwarded them to him. We both came to the same conclusion on them, as did others on the forum at that time.

Another example here of why it’s important to add context to the minutes. Neither Glen, I, or anybody else in there demanded an apology from Venky’s. In response to Yasir stating that he didn’t believe pricing was the biggest issue regarding ticket sales, I agreed with him. I said that for me the biggest issue is people losing hope, being sick and tired of the same old mistakes, and that the significant drop off 13 years ago was due to people’s anger and frustrations with the owners. I suggested that if they want to start attracting those people they lost back then to return, then a little bit of contrition, and an acknowledgement from the owners of their mistakes might go a long way - although I did caveat this with we are now at the stage where actions are needed rather than words. I adied why every bit of comms that comes out of the club paints everything as rosey. You’d think we were highly functioning and free of any mistakes or issues - just show some acknowledgement! ”Balaji’s” statement yesterday shows it fell on deaf ears.

A couple of points I’ll add… The April fans forum was the first I’d ever attended, and the level of professionalism on show was very different this time round for number 2. In that meeting I’d pressed Suhail and Waggott on whether they would be requesting significant transfer funds given we had headroom under P&S rules given the profit we posted in 23/24, but that opportunity to spend would disappear. Waggott stated that he hoped so and that transfer funds and an increase in wage budget would be forthcoming, and he acknowledged that there was a window of opportunity to spend. Suhail repeatedly claimed the squad had been reinvested in (mentioning the spend on Sam Gallagher at one point) - I argued that we’d only really replaced outgoing players (I used the term backfill), usually with cheaper options and there appeared to be no desire to progress and improve. He eventually stated he’d be requesting the maximum budget available given our FFP position. Which in the July meeting he admits he didn’t do. When asked about the owners aspirations he simply stated “A sustainable club.” Given that Waggott had always previously said “A sustainable Premier League club” I asked him “Sustainable regardless of what division we are in?” He responded by accusing me of putting words into his mouth. I pointed out I was asking the question - I redirected to Adam Owen given he has some football knowledge and background. As you can see above he wasn’t wholly convinced on the idea of breaking even. He mentioned different models we could go down and cited Brentford, Brighton and Ajax as examples. I stated each of these models relied on reinvestment of fees and presently we were more like Crewe circa 1998. Suhail stated that expenditure doesn’t guarantee success. Despite this Yasir later used the term “Punching above our weight” in a way which contradicted Suhail’s claims. At one point Suhail’s repeated attempts to absolve himself of any blame and put it in Waggott led to very audible widespread groans and comments such as “He’s passing the buck again”, “of course it’s not your fault”, and “That’s convenient”. Aside from my personal opinions on suitability, professionalism and competence, my key takeaways were: - Priority one is cutting losses. - Priority 2 is dumbing down expectations. - Suhail is feared by some employees - There is no desire to see Rovers promoted - Fans are an inconvenience, and any expectations we have are viewed as unreasonable

Just to add to this, no minutes produced could do justice to the amount of probing we had to do to get a straight answer to questions. There were instances where discussion points were attempted to be shut down with a one word answer and we as attendees had to continue to push for answers. Like pulling teeth.

I’ll come on here and provide clarity, context and corrections to all the parts where I’m quoted when the minutes do come out. If Glen and @K-Hod do the same at least the regular poster on here will get the true story.

This is the crux of it. Waggott had complete autonomy to appoint Eustace. This time he is part of a committee including Suhail and Gestede.

Similarly it shouldn’t be understated just how good Dolan was for the first. Not just the touch back into Forshaw but the fact he played the ball in to Brittain to start the move on the halfway line, then got to the 6 yard box to knock it back. Not often you see 60 yards covered in a 1-2!

Date TBC, we have requested a date so waiting to hear back.

No, didn’t really expect anything as yet. We expect it will come up in our next official MOU meeting.

Everyone at Rovers, except one person, refers to the club as “we”. That other person refers to VH Group as “we”.

Absolutely not true. Waggott has been broaching the subject of bringing it back under club ownership, but that will depend on 2 things. 1. The EFL compliance people allowing it 2. Venky’s doing the right thing

We won’t come up against a worse side defensively all season than Plymouth. We wouldn’t have had to be anywhere near our best to score 4 today. Unfortunately of the starting 11 only Pears and Pickering should be able to look themselves in the mirror (although Carter got ruined at full back he looked a lot better in his actual position). Every other player who started gets a 3/10 at best. Should probably have been 5 changes at half time.

I’ve seen it’s cropped up again lately on a few threads. There is obviously quite a bit of resistance to digital tickets, and getting all the discussion in one place seems sensible. I’m not sure how aware everyone is of the following… https://www.premierleague.com/news/4071456 But the Premier League are fast moving towards digital only tickets, and you’d expect the EFL to want to follow.

It’s a fair assumption. While Macron have made some very nice looking bespoke designs for our kits the quality of all their stuff is always questionable.

Agreed on all of those except Hyam. I thought he looked dreadful when anyone ran at him. Beaten in the air too often and when he did win his headers several went 6 feet in the air and 6 inches forward.

Carter defended excellently throughout. He was snuffing out danger early and had his opposing winger completely in his pocket. After their subs Heckingbottom quickly realised Holmes was getting no joy and switched him over to their right, and he caused Beck issues. He went about his business quietly and effectively, and used the ball better than anyone else. I want to see him moved centrally again as soon as possible though, he’s by far our most athletic defender and is streets ahead of Hyam. I think him and Batth could be a good partnership. No slight on Pears who was very good overall, some good saves (although not spectacular), but I’d agree with some of the comments around his distribution being questionable.

Both he and Duru were out for the warm up but didn’t make the bench. He’s just quite a way down the pecking order I presume.

Couple of PNE fans I’ve spoken to where impressed with Travis