Miller11

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?”

I’d absolutely expect discussions to be in depth and carry on for a while with any managerial appointment, but I fear Venky’s involvement in any way, shape or form.

I just wonder what on earth an interview with “the owners” will look like. Which of them conducts it? Are they finally going to embrace zoom or some similar video calling software, or make them travel to India? That’s without the fact they will have to ask some questions on a subject they are utterly clueless about. ’So Carlos, can you repeat after me… “The owners are supportive, knowledgeable and humble” Hmmm, not bad, but Nigel said it better’ In all seriousness I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this step in the process put decent candidates off.

Be better than that Rev. That’s not even a low blow, it’s unbelievably poor from you. Everyone who is bothered enough to post on here clearly cares about Rovers and wants them to succeed more than just about anything. The sceptical among us see no evidence of that happening any time soon. Perhaps you or @1864roveritecan explain these green shoots you are seeing instead of telling us to do our research, or just coming out with utter shit like the post quoted above.

Aside from being totally inexperienced, if he’s anything like his Dad he will be an arrogant, entitled, bullying egomaniac with questionable morals. Involvement from him has been rumoured for a while, but I can’t see it as anything to get excited about.

A further tick for Gareth Ainsworth.

This could be interesting!

You were changing your tune on a near daily basis.

From the man who repeats himself approximately every 17 minutes.

There is at least one person among our fanbase who would be happy if we reappointed Kean and Coyle… just as long as we gave them the titles of Sporting Director and Head Coach.

If there are any proper long term plans, which is extremely unlikely, then you have to admit that Venky’s and their employees have failed spectacularly in delivering them? Whenever you have been challenged to provide evidence that things are on the up in the past, you’ve told people to do their own research, like a flat earther or chemtrailer. Now you are offering up basic pitch maintenance and not shutting down the academy. As Glen has comprehensively pointed out, the academy is currently reaping rewards because it’s a major part of Jacks legacy - and the one bit they haven’t got round to completely disgracing yet. I’m always baffled by the praise they seem to get for not pulling the plug on it. It’s not some act of altruism or a shrewd manoeuvre… it’s a complete no brainier. Besides, since they rocked up they have made more out of selling academy graduates than they have had to put in to keep it going. Oh, and nobody is forgetting that we have limited TV income. We are all well aware of how perilous our financial situation is. How could we not be? What people do often forget is whose fault it is that we are in such a mess in the first place.

Aside from the Rovers related ones have a listen to Mark Crossley. It’s quite an old one, and his Clough stories are fantastic.

If the pitch invasion fad carries on one of the first casualties will be safe standing. It’s only in a trial phase and not universally popular. Despite being a really lazy and completely nonsense argument, scrapping it could easily be portrayed as a quick fix and would grab headlines.

Yeah, he’s class unfortunately. Fortunately though that crackpot anti-vaxxer Wout Carthorse is dreadful.