As probably the biggest Jason Wilcox fan outside of his immediate family, I wholeheartedly agree. Unfortunately though, a DOF role at Rovers in the current climate is a big step down from Academy director at Man City. Both in terms of stature, and I’d imagine financially. Cheers Venky’s.

Last point first. Faithfully assured? Not really. I’ve quoted the exact conversation in detail. At least 3 other people who have posted on this thread were there too. He was clear enough though, and if we end up with an HSH nobody he has put pressure on himself, and he will definitely be publicly reminded of the conversation. On to the rest. You ask why the owners would pass up the best candidate for the job. Million dollar (or £200 million) question. Why did they bin Warnock off for Coyle? At that point he was literally the worst imaginable candidate apart from re-hiring Steve Kean… and do we really need to talk about his appointment? Your attempts to pin the blame for all the wrongs of the last 12 years on Steve Waggott is ridiculous. It’s obvious why you are doing it - your old school mates want to basically take his job. If you want to support them in that, fine, crack on. Just come out with it though. They might well do a better job than Waggott, and I understand you and they don’t want to slate Venky’s if that’s the plan, but your reframing of everything, and glossing over or outright ignoring every horrific and damaging decision that occurred while Waggott was still knocking about at Southend and Charlton is really disingenous.

What is the correct figure then? Presumably you know it?

The really frightening thing though, if we did get Pardew he’d be one of the two best appointments out of 8 they have made

Seems strange that we have apparently dismissed the possibility of a betting company out of hand due to a moral stance, but are fine with Totally Wicked. The loophole that actually allows them to be a sponsor will be closed soon I’d imagine. I get why they went with them last year when the Recoverite deal went belly up, but doing so again shows how poor we are commercially, and how off the supposed moral compass is.

You usually tell us you aren’t interested in whatever other clubs are doing. Seem to when it suits your narrative though.

Don’t forget that they all probably played Spurs when they were lodging there.

I saw a post on here earlier, apologies, can’t remember who said it, but they used the word “grateful’ as being a key selling point to Venky’s. It was an excellent observation. I actually think it goes further, they have previously appointed people who can’t believe their luck to be given the job, Lambert aside. If you’re pathetically grateful you’ll be completely undemanding, pliable, and prepared to give up enough dignity to bang on about them being humble at every opportunity. I reckon that by October we will be wishing we’d gone for Duncan Ferguson.

You never know who you might bump into at the airport mate!! Enjoy the break!

I completely agree with the first part. Saturday was the first Champions League match I have watched in years. I thought it was dull and boring. I only really enjoy watching lower and non-league games as a neutral, and the FA cup earlier rounds. With Rovers though I enjoy seeing us win. When Allardyce was sacked we could justifiably have put it down to wanting a better style of play, but we all know what happened next. It’d be reasonable for anyone to want better than the slightly past his peak Allardyce we had then… now we can’t dream of anyone that effective.

Delusional adjective characterized by or holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argument There’s only one person displaying that type of behaviour on here. Well, you and one other.

The same people who brought us Coyle, Lambert, Bowyer and to all intents and purposes, Steve Kean.

There was plenty of praise for the kits. About as much praise as there was complaints about it’s late release and limited numbers. What was great about the sponsor? It wasn’t the financials that’s for sure.

Just on these points: The ground is in a dreadful state. It looks shabby from the outside and on closer inspection in parts it’s severely dilapidated. Occasionally being shamed into skipping piles of debris is nothing to celebrate. The training ground that they tried to build houses on and transferred the ownership of? Brilliant. I’ll give you the academy. The one bit of Jack’s legacy they haven’t disgraced yet. Mind you, it’s more than paid for itself under Venky’s reign of terror. The ticket office… dear me. It’s barely ever open. I hope you aren’t including our record low season ticket sales as a reason to be cheerful. Commercialism. We lost our shirt sponsor midway through the season and had to go cap in hand to a vaping company based about half a mile from Ewood. Our commercial revenue figures are pathetic. Most of the advertising hoardings at Ewood display that nauseating Venky’s logo. The shirt colours??? What on earth are you banging on about here? I suppose the fact they have stuck with blue and white halves and haven’t got us playing in yellow and pink polka dots is something of a plus. Or are you referring to the shirts that we didn’t order enough of and took an age to get on sale? The fans? You must be benchmarking ticket sales against the season we played behind closed doors, because by any other metric our attendances are poor, and more fans are walking away all the time. You’re talking utter rubbish.

On the day of the Birmingham game, earlier if I remember correctly, you were repeatedly saying it was essential we made an appointment within 2 weeks, and you were confident it would happen. You wouldn't entertain the idea it might drag beyond that when anyone pointed out it likely would. Now when it’s apparent we are still miles off, and your deadline has passed, you’ve done another U turn, there’s no rush and we should all relax.

It’s all gone really quiet on the Lenihan and Nyambe contract talks too. Whether that’s due to the powers that be only being able to do one thing at once and concentrating all their efforts on the manager search, or the players wanting to see if the appointment matches their ambitions, who knows. Either way it feels like the longer it takes for us to appoint someone, the more likely they will be to get fixed up elsewhere.

Having a Category 1 academy and limited transfer funds means we will bring through youth players regardless of who the manager is.

If everyone who bought one last year had already renewed (they haven’t) and 2,000 new season ticket holder had committed or returned (they haven’t), sales would still be embarrassing.

If he wants to go and manage in the UAE I think we’ve dodged a bullet. Speaks volumes about his ambition and character.

If they were to bring in someone like Dyche or Santo, I’d consider that a real statement of intent. They would get credit in as far as I’d be really happy with as good appointment, but I’d also feel it was not before time. Same really applies to Carvalhal of Farke, I think they are a tier lower than the aforementioned, but they’d be very welcome appointment and head and shoulders above what’s gone before. I don’t know how much “credit” Venky’s would deserve for proactively appointing the best person for the job. I wouldn’t praise a manager for selecting Kaminski over Pears. I’d acknowledge it though.

I completely understand your scepticism and lack of trust in Steve Waggott, I agree with it to a point. I do however find it ridiculous how you are happy to give the owners the benefit of the doubt time and time again. Purely hypothetical, but If Waggott recommended 1. Carvalhal 2. Houghton 3. Ainsworth So no real jaw dropping candidates, all have Championship experience, all should be within our means financially. But Venky’s decide instead for a Grayson or Pulis… managers of clearly lower calibre, reputation, ability and cost. Whose fault would that be? Your “acceptance” of a toxic situation if we were to get another Coyle is also strange. I’d be absolutely livid with those responsible. As for Waggott walking away, there’s been plenty of retirement rumours for a while now. Maybe he would regret saying it and think twice if it came to the crunch, but I promise you I definitely wouldn’t be letting him forget he said it.

On the 6th of February 2020 I spoke to Steve Waggott about agents involvement at Ewood. I explained the whole Anderson situation and the scale of his involvement. It’s probably fair to say he had an idea of the damage that had been done, but maybe not of the level of feelings and knowledge amongst the fanbase of what had gone on. I then pointed out that HSH (‘that’s Stephen Horner’s lot?’ Waggott asked) had been responsible for putting our last 4 managers, including Mowbray in place. I pointed out the links to SEM and told him I was concerned they were still influencing things, and would definitely do so if we were to appoint a new manager. His exact words were: ‘If and when the time comes that Tony decides to walk away, I will go to market and find the best possible person for the job.’ On the 5th May 2022 The Rovers Trust Board met with Waggott. The purpose was to discuss the Fan Led Review and our marketing prospectus. Naturally there was talk about the managers job, as it was a couple of days after Mowbray had first basically confirmed he was off. He told us he had immediately started receiving expressions of interest, and would be conducting a thorough interview process, and he recognised the importance of getting this appointment right. He wouldn’t discuss individual names, but really our concern was more around the process. I again pointed out what had gone on before with HSH, and how Mike Cheston had had the rug pulled out from under him and we got lumbered with Coyle. ’After you mentioned that to me a while ago, I went and looked in to it, and you were absolutely right by the way, so thank you for that. But we can’t have agents involved like that, it’s a conflict of interest straight away… I will interview a number of candidates. It will be a thorough process, and I will recommend who I believe is the best person for the job.’ I pressed him on what would happen if Venky’s ignored this and listened to Horner, Honeyman or Sheron instead. ’I’d have to quit. It would make my position untenable. I need to work with the manager day to day, I’d have to be behind any appointment.’ Whatever your feelings about Steve Waggott are, and I’ve had some real run ins with him over the last few years, you can’t deny that if reports are to be believed, he has so far been true to his word. We appear to have interviewed a number of candidates with some impressive and ambitious names being linked. If we end up with another dickhead, it’ll be down to 3 people thousands of miles from Ewood. If that scenario does play out, I’d expect levels of animosity towards them to go back to peak levels. It certainly would for me.

“The process went on for longer than expected as the initial five-man shortlist was expanded following further interest in the job.” Maybe Dyche has been having a think about things and decided he quite fancies it. Or maybe Honeyman has been on the blower pushing an outstanding candidate or two.

All of their stock is currently higher than that of our last two managers when they were appointed.

Too much talk about philosophies, vision and long term strategy. Our foundations aren’t solid enough to be worrying about all that. The first and most important question we should be asking any potential manager is “how are you going to get us promoted?”