Miller11

He does get done pretty quickly. Takes the opponents right wingers about 8 minutes most games.

There’s some really silly things being spouted about this, mostly on other platform. ”The contracts were on the table for 2 years” Yep. And in that time all the players have gained another 2 years experience, grown 2 years older and wiser, played another couple of hundred games between them. They’ve also had a one year option taken up on them meaning another year of wages below the level they can expect elsewhere. Even if we make allowances for the lack of timely negotiations, surely we should have been at the point this summer where we ripped up the previous offers and negotiated from the starting point of where the players are now, not where they were two years ago. ”The players are disloyal” If Nyambe, Rothwell and Lenihan have wronged the club, the club have by that logic done the dirty on Johnson, Davenport and a load of young lads this summer, and countless players before. ”The grass isn’t always greener. Ask Gestede, Marshall or even Phil Jones (!!!)” Or ask Raya, Cairney, or even Amarii Bell (!!!). ”Even Liverpool, City and PSG lose players on frees” And which of those claim their entire survival as a club is based on developing academy or cheaply signed players for an eventual transfer windfall? Funny how the same people who claim we can’t be spoken of in the same breath as times like Bournemouth, Brighton and West Brom are happy to make comparisons to absolute giants when it suits their narrative. Its inexcusably bad management to allow this to happen. One walking away, annoying, but ok. Two is really bad. But all three is unforgivably pathetic. I guarantee we spend more in the long run on what will turn out to likely be inferior replacements than we would’ve done if we’d offered them better terms. Broughton has a massive job on his hands, and needs the correct backing and autonomy to do so. Everything currently is illogical, cheap, and often amateurish. The saving grace might just be that we hit the start of a new “cycle” and the shortsightedness and stubbornness disappears for a year 🤞🤞

If that’s the case the model we are trying to implement is doomed to fail from the off. If the only players that have any value are a Brereton or Armstrong, unearthing one of them every year or two is going to be a really difficult task.

So Nyambe makes it three for three. ”The model” we are trying to operate on is broken. Badly. It’s a mammoth task for Greg Broughton to fix. Penny pinching, can kicking and a complete lack of foresight has led to three valuable first team players walking away for nothing. Our two longest serving players gone, both academy graduates, and both who statistically improve results massively when they play. We’ve also lost our only two remaining players who pre-dated Mowbray. It’s a good job they have gained some good will with the recent appointments, because this situation is extremely poor. If we still had Mowbray or had appointed another dullard in his place there’s be absolute uproar.

I’ll be happy enough if we see Dolan crossing the ball over for Gallagher instead of the other way round.

I’ve bought mine. I’ve spent too long previously denying myself of something I have enjoyed for almost my entire life in what I recognise as a futile protest. I still think the pricing is badly misjudged and the offering woefully inflexible. There also needs to be added value around match day experience. The disappointing (and even if we beat last seasons total, sub 10k in poor) sales show that the club needs to address these issues, but repeatedly fails to do so.

Good question! I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive, so possibly a bit of both. He definitely doesn’t just blindly agree with everything, there are always points of contention, decisions we question and he defends, and disagreements. I’m hopeful that going forward we can see some of the things we discussed come to fruition. To echo what I read on another thread earlier, actions speak louder than words.

Nothing from the owners, but we have recently discussed the marketing prospectus and the fan led review at length with Steve Waggott. We’ll be communicating our next steps and some upcoming projects after the AGM.

👏👏👏 spot on!!

I think this will be a good early indicator of how much backing the new set up will get. Broughton clearly rates Nyambe, and if Tomasson prefers playing a 4-4-2, I can’t see many better options out there. Obviously Mowbray never fully backed him and the contract offer reflected that. If he does stay it would suggest we’ve allowed the new guys to improve the offer, and that we are paying him at or near the going rate. If he ends up at a club on a similar footing to us, like Lenihan with Boro, there’ll be the start of faint alarm bells.

I’m hopeful that Waggott will now give up his Brockhall office to Broughton. He needs to now stay at Ewood 99% of the time and concentrate his efforts on the issues there. So many reasons to be positive about what is going on on the pitch. I think it would be very hopeful to expect anything really radical, but serious effort needs to go into fan engagement, ticketing, sorting out the ground, marketing, commercial etc.

Oh I know Gav. Unfortunately our head of commercial spent about 2 hours telling me how wonderful they were and how they would replace tickets sales as a revenue stream for Rovers.

Who wants a season ticket when they could have a JDT NFT!

I like him already based on that. Talking us up, and focusing on winning. What a refreshing change!

Much better appointment than I expected. The HSH hoodoo is broken! Optimistic at the moment. With adequate backing and autonomy this could be exciting!

Someone did that last week. According to Wikipedia he’s our 4th manager this month. They never learn!

I’ll be back to normal by the time we announce Tony Pulis a week on Thursday!

Don’t tell people off on here who haven’t renewed their season tickets for whatever reason. The fact they are still coming on BRFCS and getting angry shows they still give a toss. It’s much more productive having a word with someone you know who has totally disengaged. I’m sure we all know people who fall into that bracket. These are the people it’s really difficult to get back. Maybe it’s the comparatively high single ticket prices compared to a season ticket, maybe they realise they don’t miss it that much, but when people say they are giving up their season tickets and they will pick and choose their games, they generally just stop going. My Dad is a prime example of this. Despite hitting pensioner age last season he’d had enough. The only games he went to were 4 on my ticket I couldn’t attend due to a holiday, work commitments and Covid, plus one tenner deal around Christmas. It’d have been zero if I’d been able to make them all and it hadn’t been his Grandson’s first ever game. Whingeing at someone you only know from a messageboard will only get their back up. Have a chat with someone you know on a personal level, see what is keeping them from coming back - if you want to let me know I’ll report it on to the club as part of some ongoing work I’m doing with the Trust. I’ve heard from fans who’ve given up Rovers for golf, caravans, fishing, sessions in the pub. Many of these wouldn’t have a clue what our first 11 looks like anymore… people who have clocked up thousands of miles over years and years have stopped caring. Trying to get them to care again would be really useful, criticising and sermonising to people on here does no good at all.

Are you really reading that post as a glowing endorsement of Steve Waggott? Re-read that first paragraph objectively. I completely share your opinions on the failings and have voiced similar (although I think the Brockhall scheme was a lot more nuanced than you do). Where we disagree though is the idea that simply replacing Waggott would bring about any sort of meaningful change. He’s kept his job longer than any other person they have appointed in a similar position because he doubtless knows which side his bread is buttered. While we aren’t happy with him, Venky’s clearly are.

As a point of clarity on my earlier post, I should have used google… The comments I attributed to a Matketing Employee were actually from our Head of Commercial, Paul Fielder, who is still in situ.

Definitely had a hand in it, but any suggestion he was trying to do it without Venky’s knowledge, as has been suggested, is ludicrous.

@1864roverite here’s my thoughts following my interactions with those at the club. Despite some ill tempered run ins in the past, I find Steve Waggott is approachable and attentive. He asks the right questions and seems to want to improve things. Whether his hands are tied, or he’s just giving lip service, the improvements don’t come and very little materialises. He clearly has very specific financial targets. Making minimal savings seem to be far more of a priority than league position, commercial growth, or fan engagement. It’s pennywise, pound foolish, just like our wage structure… more on that later. A prime example is our differing views on the catering at Ewood. To me, Sodexo offer crap service and crap products, I’d like to see a much more imaginative offering. To him it’s cost effective and easy to tender it out, he sees the long term deal with them as good business. In my opinion, Waggott spreads himself too thin. He seems to spend more time at his Brockhall office than his Ewood office. Maybe he likes the whole back and forth with agents better than the day to day running of operations. Perhaps this will be remedied somewhat by the appointment of Broughton, but that leads us on to another issue… I’ve long since thought the structure at the club is an absolute mess. It’s completely convoluted and unclear. We do know that Venky’s have the final say, and I strongly suspect they are micro-managing via Pasha. This leads to things being done at a glacial pace, or not at all. Mowbray’s parting comments all but confirmed this. As soon as he is no longer interested in self preservation, we got the truth of the matter. He was desperate to tell us Waggott has no real power, rather than banging on about Venky’s being knowledgeable, humble and supportive. The club have finally started to make strides in engaging with the local Asian community. It’s long overdue and the efforts of Yasir have been fantastic. It’s seeing more tangible benefit than I thought it would. Kudos. Enticing new fans and re-engaging with lost ones are two very different things that require very different strategies. Unfortunately they are doing nothing to mitigate the drop off of long-standing fans. I’ve discussed this at great length with people in the club. It’s always acknowledged and I’m asked for solutions, which I’ve made suggestions on. So far nothing has happened. I’ll be interesting to see if there are strides made over the coming months though. Nobody at the club understands the fanbase. We’ve made a real effort to remedy this, from history lessons of 1960 to presentations about lapsed season ticket holders. I’m hopeful this will change, but not at all confident. Here are some things a senior employee in a confusing marketing role told me: - There’s nothing special or unique about Blackburn Rovers - Kids aren’t interested in going to football matches, we’d be better off selling them NFTs - Why should a child or senior ticket be cheaper than an adult one? A seat is a seat. - Pretty soon nobody will go to matches, they will watch interactive things in their phones instead There is little wonder there is such disconnect between the fanbase and club! Onto our current situation… the jury is very much out on the managerial appointment. I’ll wait til it has actually played out, because I’ve gone over this in depth. If we get a good appointment, I think it’s props to Waggott. If we get a HSH pick, he needs to resign. In my opinion the process has become so drawn out it’s farcical. I can’t say for sure why that is, but I am not in the least bit surprised it’s happened. All this talk of implementing a vision and long term strategy is trying to run before we are even crawling. Those idiots in Pune get no credit for not liquidating our academy, it’s been a money spinner for them, not an expense… but they are ballsing that up before our very eyes. Our supposed sustainable long term strategy is not working as evidenced by Lenihan and Nyambe going for nothing. Our wage structure is inflexible and nonsensical. We absolutely should have a wage cap, but the current approach is not fit for purpose. The can kicking approach we seem to favour of triggering year options rather than properly negotiating in a timely manner was always going to come back to haunt us. Pennywise, pound foolish again. What I will say is Waggott acknowledged the importance of this appointment and that the club is at a pivotal juncture. How much he can actually influence things though is questionable… and he’s supposed to be our CEO. As out of touch as those on the ground at Ewood undoubtably are, they still have a far better handle than 3 billionaires on a different continent who surround themselves with people who slavishly obey. Venky’s do not delegate effectively, and we remain at the mercy of their whims. They never learn and continue to be “badly advised”. It’s their own fault of course, they generally sack anyone who tells them anything they don’t want to hear. Thats my opening gambit. Happy for you to tell me how and why I’m misguided.

I’ve done this. Several times. I’ve shared a fair bit of the output of those meetings on here. The reality I took away is very far removed from the one you appear to have.

I’m not sure how happy his memories of his time over here can be. He absolutely flopped at Newcastle. The only blot on an otherwise really impressive career. Seem to remember a lot of talk at the time about him struggling to adapt to the English game.

Don’t count your chickens (sorry). Tomasson hasn’t been appointed yet. Rich Sharpe is only reporting that we have finished the interview process, which suggests there is still a long way to go with our dysfunctional setup. Negotiating terms could still be a stumbling block for any appointment, and I’m positive Honeyman and Horner will have a last throw of the dice. Coming up with songs for a new manager has already blown up in some faces. There were people making Farke their profile picture. At least Simon Grayson is out of the running now, but let’s not be getting too giddy until anything is official. I’m now just hoping for someone better than I feared. Underwhelmed is better than apoplectic.