Rovers v Everything wrong with modern football Phase 1 - Those who went to Cambridge - £5 Phase 2 - Season Ticket Holders/1875 - £10 Phase 3 - Those with a ticket history and Wrexham fans - £25 Phase 4 - anyone who hasn’t been before, or who hasn’t been since the Oxford L1 promotion game £50

Getting rid of Gallagher wouldn’t be a miss. He’s been missing pretty much all season. 2 starts since 19th April last year. His wages could definitely be put to better use just by finding someone who isn’t always injured.

I imagine it will be a big part of the match debrief and a big concern for the HSE. It will have to go down as a near miss. If it had happened during play the game would’ve been abandoned, and thank god they didn’t have kids on the pitch taking penalties this particular half time. It’s only extreme fortune that somebody wasn’t badly hurt or worse. I saw Martin Winters from the Community Trust removing the remnants from the pitch. It looked like a broom handle. I’m not a big fan of fireworks at the best of times, but surely something like that should not be readily available for any idiot to buy in a shop. It’s a potentially lethal explosive. Have to agree with Abbey, they ought to be facing some very serious criminal charges.

Got there just after 2pm and Ewood was dead. A very stark contrast from a fortnight ago… that two weeks has been pretty horrific on and off the pitch. I was in a stinking mood before kick off because of it, combined with not being able to sit in my usual stand, let alone seat. Apparently there were ridiculous queues to get through the turnstiles as kick off approached too, with people struggling to scan their digital tickets. We started like we thought we just had to turn up. No urgency and a lack of effort. Our quality showed through eventually, no surprise as we are a long way ahead of them in terms of ability, we didn’t always match their effort and application though. Thank god for Szmodics. Dreadful defending for their goals. Wharton visibly frustrated with his team mates on occasion. The one time Brittain was brave in his play he created a goal brilliantly. Sigurdsson clearly has bags of ability but was pretty pathetic on occasion too. Hyam looked like he was pulling a caravan from the start and doesn’t look right at all. Moran needs a spell out of the side. Telalovic works hard off the ball, but doesn’t have much idea on the rare occasions he gets it. Him and Leonard (great header withstanding) both demonstrated our need for a new centre forward. Turn in a performance like that in a league match and the result is very different. It was apparent Finneran and Gamble were coming on from about 70 minutes. They kept getting told they’d be coming on in a minute… they came on as the clock hit 90. Shame our youngest ever player didn’t have chance to show a bit more than one touch and one foul. There was also a very near miss at half time with the firework hitting the pitch. If things like that can be bought legally in shops by anyone, the law needs tightening. If that had happened during play there’s an abandonment and several hospitalisations. Thank god there were no kids doing penalties on the pitch today. A big concern for Rovers H&S bods.

Obviously Travis is a big character. He’s captain, long serving, and if he’s anything like his on pitch performances and the glimpses you get from club media suggest he will be very vocal and influential on the training ground and in the dressing room. If he’s liking instagram posts criticising the manager for the way he’s been utilised and if people around the club at all levels are aware he isn’t happy, then it’s not a stretch to think that his big influence might have become a negative. If he thinks he should be playing above other players, particularly young ones, as a captain you’d hope he’d put his disappointment to one side and give them some guidance and encouragement. If he’s been doing that, great. If he’s sulking at them, not so much. While his “shithousery” is often celebrated, I don’t think it necessarily demonstrates a mature and level headed leader. Of course I accept I might be doing Travis a disservice, and it might all be speculation wide of the mark, but if JDT is willing to get him out on loan perhaps increased squad harmony appeals more than his playing abilities. We hung on to a much more successful captain too long once before, and his negative influence was a big factor in costing Roy Hodgson (who I still think had us playing THE best brand of football I’ve seen when it clicked) his job and our Premier League status.

I think this is very much player driven. I’d guess he’s not happy at not starting and has always been very vocal about his unhappiness at JDT during his spells out of the side. The qualities he brings when he does play will definitely be missed, and ideally I’d keep him around. We need players who can battle and tackle, not to mention his leadership. But if his head and heart isn’t in it, you’ve lost the best of Travis. Loan is far from ideal, they are increasingly the way that championship deals are done though. Not a lot of money for fees anywhere outside the top flight.

Similar goings on elsewhere… https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/sunderland-supporters-left-baffled-at-club-decision-ahead-of-newcastle-fa-cup-clash/

I’d hope he’s got more pressing matters to deal with at the moment in all honesty. His focus needs to be on helping improve matters on the pitch now we are in January.

I’m certainly not complaining about any improvements to the Riverside!

I’ve just received the following update from what I posted last night: “This was the reason the murals were behind the riverside at the match. We were waiting for our memorabilia guy to work with our maintenance team yesterday to install across the back of the riverside. Just a shame they weren’t the other way around which gave supporters the impression they were just being dumped.”

For absolute clarity, my best guess would be to knock off several zeros!

Not directly, but I believe our immediate financial situation is much improved and I’d expect incomings to bolster the squad.

Only to reiterate how unpopular the decision was. We discussed at length and provided examples of feedback and proposed solutions previously.

Perhaps Travis isn’t happy here anymore. Maybe he thinks he should be picked ahead of Wharton/Tronstad and makes his feelings on it known?

Update from meeting with Waggott tonight regarding the pictures and Liverpool Legends night… Regarding the pictures dumped at the back of the Riverside: It’s not acceptable, nothing should be getting dumped there and especially not pictures of Jack Walker. Thanks for bringing it to his attention and he will get it sorted right away. Things that are being thrown away should be in skips, but these could be put up around the concourses or used elsewhere. Asked me to forward him the pictures. They are definitely from blues bar and were taken down several years ago (pre Covid) when the blues bar had a refurb as it was in need of one, it had got tired and a bit of a mess. It had a full refurb with new floor, seating booths, and obviously walls were decorated. He found out about the Liverpool legends night via the Rovers media team (who had picked up on it yesterday or today). The booking of Rooms is done by Sodexo and a third party company has hired the space as many do every month. There is supposed to be a process where any sensitive/commercially conflicting bookings are flagged to the club. This hadn’t happened. He didn’t seem very happy that it was taking place and agreed with all the reasoning we gave that fans were angered by it. The use of Rovers name or IP in any of these externally booked events would be a breach. The entire matter is being looked at.

Hilton Duru Gamble Wharton Batty Travis Garrett Gilsenan Leonard Telalovic Ennis

In little over a month Alan Shearer is doing a legends night in Blackburn… at King George’s hall rather than Ewood Park. Less than three weeks on from that the club where he became a legend and won his only major honours is hosting three Liverpool players. Our community trust are reluctant to do any work to build our fan base in places like Chorley and Great Harwood at the risk of upsetting PNE and Accrington Stanley. It’s pretty undeniable that we have lost far more potential fans to Liverpool and Man Utd via Sky TV than we ever would to any team on a bus route from Ewood. So as well as it being insulting having glory supporting fans roaming round our ground listening to tales from other teams players, it’s also facilitating and encouraging the exact sort of football “supporting” that damages clubs like ours.

I think we’d need a full back considering the amount of time Travis and Hill have both played there. Maybe Buckley will be seen as the Travis replacement in midfield? I know he can’t really do the same role as Travis, but Garrett could.

All the pictures in blues bar came down and the walls were painted magnolia a couple of years ago. I may be wrong but I think it coincides with when Sodexo took over the running of the place. There is the odd picture on the wall including one of Mowbray and one of Elton John, but the murals have been gone ages. How long they have been sat at the back of the Riverside I can’t say.

I didn’t really register, but you may be right. Carter definitely made a big effort and walked right down the Riverside deliberately applauding the fans. Looking back he may well have been making a point.

I’d swap most players in our squad for Sean Morrison. He might be 32, but if he’d been playing for us today and not Rotherham we’d have won comfortably.

The JDT era was supposed to be the start of something better, with a new “model”. The old model was rubbish and poorly executed. “Polish them up and sell for a profit” fell at the first hurdle due to a nonsensical and arbitrary wage structure that meant players walked away for nothing. The new model seems to only expand on and double down on the old one, and while better use of the academy and a better approach to contracts should lead to improvements it’s still doomed to failure. Our coaches aren’t good enough. Let’s take Ben Benson as the most obvious example - without even going into his lack of experience, he is in charge of goalkeepers and set pieces. We are terrible at defending set pieces, particularly our goalkeeper, and the only time we score from a set piece is when Adam Wharton puts a corner on his brother’s head. Our entire coaching set up is cobbled together, inherited and no doubt cheap. Questions have to be asked about our injury problems too. Our signings have been mixed. Tronstad is clearly a well thought out addition, Sigurdsson a good addition, and Hyam is good championship centre back. Brittain is nowhere near Rankin-Costello - the only fullback fit for JDT’s purpose - who was on the verge of being shipped out. We’ve wasted money on Markanday (who’d have been released by Spurs by now and playing non/lower league), Wahlstedt (plenty of reliable keepers available on frees), Telalovic (no need to relitigate), Ennis looking disastrous. Our loans are invariably more young players when we are bereft of any nouse and experience. And most of the young lads coming through aren’t trusted to get a kick even when we are stretched to the limit. Perhaps it would’ve been different if we hadn’t had the budget debacle this summer, but I’m not sure. The deeper this model is embedded the worse things are getting. The squad gets less experienced every window, we are shifting players in the cheap to keep the lights on, we are wedded to a style of play that is completely reliant on and only suited to a few players (take Adam Wharton out of this side and we are completely useless). How aligned JDT and Broughton are is questionable. Looks like Travis is off, didn’t bother warming up today, which in theory would be fine. However when he’s replaced with teenage loanees it weakens us.

The other full back is far more of a liability.

5/1 on a Rotherham win, 8-1 Rotherham win and both teams to score. Rovers win, I’m happy. Rotherham win, I’ll win more than enough to drown my sorrows. 0-0 draw incoming.

Wahlstedt (reluctantly) Travis Hill Carter Pickering Tronstad Wharton Garrett Szmodics Sigurdsson Telalovic