Pick of the bunch that half for me.

Superfan Tax!

This can’t be true. He must be on 20k per week easy, if not more. Plus a loan fee on top?! If we end up paying ridiculous money like this for loans (and I know it was reported we did this with Poveda last season), yet we can’t find the money to pay academy graduates the going rate, our “structure” needs ripping up. Utter madness. We need to be finding much better deals than this. At the moment, us employing a director of football is like a chippy employing an executive chef.

If this is the case then Waggott should be really worried at the moment. If he has failed to spend money made available and also failed to get us in the playoffs, never mind promoted, you’d expect he’d have been hauled over the coals. On top of the failings last season it looks as though we are going to struggle to field a vaguely competent starting 11 unless there is a massive turnaround pretty quickly. If this is all down to Waggott being useless, and he’s failing to carry out Venky’s wishes, they are being completely negligent by allowing it to continue. But in reality it seems like they are happy with him, and the job he’s doing. My guess is that they are satisfied with the modest reduction in losses he is making and do not care about much else.

Waggott has publicly stated that we won’t entertain gambling companies as sponsors for moral reasons, even though they offer far better financial incentive. So we’ve gone with a vaping company for less money. I know gambling can destroy lives, but it is also enjoyed by millions moderately and recreationally. I use vaping products because I have been addicted to nicotine for over 20 years and it presents a much cheaper alternative to strongly regulated heavily taxed cigarettes. I don’t know anyone who vapes for a bit of recreation. The moral stance is inconsistent at best. The commercial decision is costly.

We’d also be able to offer more if we looked a bit further afield than Stancliffe Street for a sponsor, put some companies other than Venky’s on the electronic advertising hoardings, and utilised the facilities at Ewood better on match days and non-match days. Too easy to blame it all on the fans, despite that being exactly the narrative the club want to push.

This has got “Digital Paul” written all over it

Exactly. The majority enter the football machine at 8 or 9 years old. They often don’t have the fandom of other kids and spend their spare time training and playing in a pretty pressured environment rather than supporting. Obviously all kids are different, but there aren’t many who become fanatical supporters as well as players. Their formative years are very different to those of most of us. It’s a different indoctrination.

Just watched the first game. It’s never the same watching the video back as it is being there, but here goes… You could be forgiven for thinking we still had our old manager. Hopefully JDT can coach the Mowbray out of them quickly. Really pedestrian and we only really looked like doing anything when Brereton got on the ball. Thankless task playing in midfield in that formation. I don’t think Magloire looked any worse than any of the other defenders… but that’s the faintest of faint praise. We were hopeless at the back. I suggest we get on replacing those “easily replaceable” two pretty bloody quickly, or we are in trouble. You can see why Markanday never got a look in at Spurs, he’s doesn’t have the physical attributes to play in the Premier League. Saw a few glimpses though. Pickering was decent in their half but rubbish in ours. Only a friendly, and a first one at that, but lots of work to be done. On the booing, there was one loud individual boo mixed in with the unenthusiastic clapping picked up on the recording. More annoying was the tasteless Jack Walker song being sung by a few presumably of Dingle persuasion.

I’d much rather this than loaning in other teams fringe youngsters. Agree that we need to be spending any money we have on filling the glaring holes in the starting 11, but I’d still like one more midfielder in though… a Bradley Johnson type with a few more years on his side would be good.

I think he had bags of potential playing further up the pitch. Last season was an absolute disaster for the lad and there’s a worry that injuries and being repeatedly shoehorned into a position that doesn’t suit him is ruining him. Big season for him I think, just hope to god he’s not employed in defence.

Being grateful/hopeful that there are three worse squads than ours in the league… is this what we’ve become?

Plus a wage bill cut to the bone since the last accounts were published

There have been more links for outgoings than incomings so far. And the silence from Tomasson and Broughton after their initial interviews is deafening. Apparently only us, Blackpool and Wigan are the Championship clubs yet to make signings. And they haven’t had an exodus to deal with like us. We really need to crack on.

I’ve seen people the last couple of days claiming that without fans like them buying the shirt, regardless of whether they like it or not, we won’t be able to make any signings and may even go to the wall. Lets pretend for a minute that Waggott negotiated us a pretty favourable deal with Macron… well, the club will see about 10% of the £50/60 or however much they are these days. You’d be contributing far more if you bought some of the cheap tat they stick a club crest on or a handful of the player photos they stack up on the till. One kids match day ticket trumps a shirt.

Nyambe might have more joy attacking for a team that have a centre forward in the box rather than by the corner flag.

Some very valid points there. We are completely reliant on Venky’s continued funding to exist in our present state - a state of purgatory of their own making. Everyone is hopeful this is the start of a new era and that we might actually see some improvements on and off the pitch, but I think the pessimism is entirely understandable give the events of the last 12 years. Something has to change. We can’t carry on losing £20 million a year indefinitely. Obviously we all want the team promoted, which immediately solves our financial issues, and gives Venky’s an out. For this to work there’s have to be an element of risk, but an exciting managerial and DOF appointment and restructure aside, all indications are that those in power are happy to continue with a steady process of managed decline and to make modest reductions to the losses here and there. As if that’s any sort of long term answer. This was always going to be a pivotal summer. If Venky’s make a mess of it, surely that has to be the final straw for even their staunchest defenders.

Before the season had even finished you were claiming it was essential that we replaced Mowbray within 2 weeks to allow him time to bring in players for the start of pre-season. You seemed to think there was a need to rush then, what’s changed? Or are you just altering your opinions based on the (in)actions of the club again?

A little, but then you look at all the other players in the same boat and I doubt Nyambe has any worries. Cyrus Christie who has been heralded by many as massively better than Nyambe is still without a club too. The wage bill has been cut to the bone over the last two years. It needs increasing from where it stands now if we are to avoid relegation, let alone have any aspirations of promotion.

Stopping giving out stupid contracts/extensions is fine, but not at the expense of losing valuable, contributing players through a new found frugal approach. I expect we will see the effects with Travis on his next deal. I don’t think much has fundamentally changed, as evidenced by Nyambe. Timing has also worked in our favour with Travis, but against Nyambe… breaking through as young as he did hasn’t helped him. Plus we engaged Travis in a timely manner and didn’t stop negotiating for 12 months or so like we did with the others. They only need to look back 6 years to see what happens when they cut the playing budget too far.

And we choose to offer established first teamers less than this so they walk away. As it stands we probably only have 4 players on over 8k per week.

Which is exactly what happened with Lenihan on our existing wage structure apparently. Wanting “Ayala money” is the phrase someone used. I’ve not seen anyone advocating smashing through any wage cap, but the current structure punishes loyalty and undervalues academy graduates. It’s not fit for purpose. I listened to Mark Atkins the other week talking about how when Shearer came in he was on 10 times the wages of most of the rest of the players, and none of them begrudged it. I think the whole “keeping the group happy” is a load of nonsense… players get paid varying amounts and ideally their wage should be commensurate with their contribution. Underpaying everyone isn’t a solution.

I’m our last lot of published accounts the annual wage bill was £25.7 million, basically the same as the previous year. Since those figures were taken into account we’ve lost the following first team players: Bennett, Evans, Mulgrew, Downing, Bell, Holtby, Armstrong, Chapman, Stergiakis, Johnson, Davenport, Lenihan, Rothwell, Nyambe We’ve brought in the following: Edun, Hedges, Brown, Markanday Thats all of the top of my head, so I may have missed some. There’s obviously the usual churn of youth players, plus the usual loans, where the cost is probably similar year on year. Even taking into account a few improved deals in the meantime, our wage bill must be significantly lower than 25 million now. Add to that the training ground sale and Armstrong transfer fee, we ought to have some room in the budget to make significant signings. We should also be in the best position we’ve been in for years in terms of FFP as well with those windfalls last summer. Obviously there is a chance the budget has been significantly reduced… and if that’s the case you can see how Waggott ticks boxes for Venky’s.

If there is a desire for quick defenders we might see Magloire get another chance. I wonder if Pickering will fall into the same bracket as Ayala considering his lack of pace. Either way, it’s going to be a very new look defence.

Actually he is unemployed, but clubs have to pay players whose deal is expiring for the month of July if they haven’t got a club yet. He will also be entitled to various payments at the end of his contract.