Anybody after a river...this is available.

Very disillusioned with this appointment. He has nailed his colours to the mast with the no excuse culture nonsense. This suggests that he won't ever publicly say anything about what's going on above him and that he only wants to focus on matters on the pitch. Which is exactly what that lot want.

Is it a coincidence that the past week has seen an increasing number of Rovers fans suggesting that JDT was a big whinger who needed to go? I don't like how valid criticisms and issues raised by JDT are now being passed off as 'whinging' and 'excuses' by some. Those fans don't realise that they are playing right into the hands of these clowns.

JDT truly felt like one of us, to me. Somebody who understood us, who was on our wavelength and who spoke up for us. That's before mentioning his ambition for the club. Him leaving is a big blow. The new man is one of them, a perfect pick for them, chosen by a bastard who was bricking it at the fact there were chants against him, and that makes him not the manager for me.

At a time when the pressure was ramping up on the car salesman, he brings in a friendly face to try and quieten the unrest. Looking at the owners, transfer issues and so on is excuse making now, is it?

All of this PR fluff about Gallagher too. Please. It doesn't take much to work out who might be behind this. The same as always.

People may disagree and say it's too early etc and that's fine, it's all about opinions, but this is my take on it. I won't keep on repeating it so as not to annoy those who want to give him time and for those who don't want to see it posted over and over, so I will just say it the once here. I am firmly Eustace out.

13 minutes ago, superniko said:

Exactly, no leaders and no ambition on the pitch outside of Szmodics. 
Starting with our ‘captain’ Travis. Spineless bunch of players, highlighted with the comments in that Waggott meeting

I seriously can't stand most of them. Brittain is one that needs shipping out pronto. The shit that he has served up over the last few months, then he has the nerve to come out and have veiled digs at JDT. F.O!

Tonight shows that all this "happy playing to our strengths" is hogwash. They quite simply aren't up to it.

Eustace coming out with the "no excuse culture" shit can get stuffed as well. Convenient how the first thing he says is he won't look towards the owners, failed transfers, injuries etc as an excuse. The perfect appointment for these clowns.

They've driven the best hope we had out of the club and I won't be getting behind this.

Eustace Out.

An ambitious manager replaced with a yes man.

These soft lads who threw the towel in because they couldn't hack JDT need to hang their heads in shame 

4 hours ago, Salgados Hair said:

Accrington's owner seeking attention again.

Yep, can't argue with him. Three FA Cups, a League Cup and three top 4 finishes since Venky's bought the club. Best owners in football.

Another prat who is praising them for paying the bills. I'll wait for the same praise to be dished out to the Hemmings family and others who are quietly doing similar in the Championship.

9 minutes ago, martonrover said:

Gregg keeping a low profile since the latest debacle.

Wonder when he'll re-appear to weave some more spin?

I don't think we're likely to hear from him until the summer now. If rumours are to be believed about him possibly leaving, we may not hear from him again.

Looking at the last few days of the window, it feels like others might have overseen transfer matters. I could be wrong, but McFadzean and Fleck don't seem like his type of signings.

The appointment of Eustace isn't in keeping with the 'project' of wanting to play a particular style to increase player value. Didn't GB say that the plan was to find another head coach to carry on with the same identity whenever JDT did leave?

It looks to me as though a few down there are now bricking it about relegation, therefore the 'project' is on hold for a few months. 'Just stay in the Division' being the aim. Remember Waggott stating in the bus interview that we can't afford to go down and the aim is to avoid relegation. That's all the next few months will be about.

There doesn't seem to be much urgency to act when faced with the opposite scenario, but the threat of relegation shakes them up. That's what the QPR result and being five points off the drop zone did to them, imo.

I've got a feeling we won't be hearing the word 'project' again. That requires an end goal, and only two people in the building believed the end goal of the project was to become a 'sustainable Premier League club'. One of those people has gone. The other might be about to follow him too.

3 minutes ago, only2garners said:

Well he was at the QPR game. He emailed me on the Monday asking for a meeting with me and the chair of the Fans Forum and we had it on Tuesday. He invited us both to the meeting with players on Wednesday but Mark was working and I went away on holiday.
 

I was told at the QPR game that he was off to India the day after but that can’t have happened. 
 

He presumably could have gone later in the week though.

Seen a couple of comments saying none of Waggott, Suhail or Silvester were at the game on Saturday. I don't know how true that is, but it is possible that they all left for India after Wednesday's meeting with the fans/players.

A few banners spotted around Ewood. One reads "Steve, Suhail, Silvester, Snakes". Another says "Waggott Out".

Chants of "we want Venky's out" and "Steve Waggott, get out of our club" have gone round too.

Good to see the fans won't be distracted by the new appointment.

On the game itself...Hedges has been superb so far.

1 hour ago, phili said:

 

I also expect a 25% increase in season tickets with Waggot saying we can't expect cash from the owners all the time and now is time for us to help them out.

That's exactly what he'll say. He said those very words in the summer of 2018 following promotion from L1.

Then, a couple of years later during the pandemic, he talked about how generous they have been and how we need to help them out.

In his last interview with Andy Bayes, late 2023, the same spiel was rolled out again about us needing to "help them out" as they "have been so generous to us".

It has been his M.O from day one here. Save the owners from having to spend wherever and however he can. Which makes me question who recommended him for the job.

Remember, from the very outset the Venky sister said "we will lease players". I think the person who pitched that idea is the same person who recommended this clown.

27 minutes ago, booth said:

He got some of his facts wrong sadly, but he's not going to know the ins and outs of a club that's been down in the doldrums for the past 13 years. He did mention John Williams, but then went on to say they'd spent £200m without mentioning they undermined John Williams with a football agent, which forced him to resign along with the club secretary.  Kean and Anderson led to relegation, and without people like Williams and Finn that led to them losing so much money. It led to them losing paying fans which they've never recovered from, and that's why now they are having to pay to keep the club afloat.

Whichever way you look at it, they are paying for their own mistakes.

That's the issue in general with quite a few of them in the media today, not just Jordan, that they don't know the ins and outs so resort to 'but £200m though?'. The other fella who was chatting with Herbie on there the other day displayed a similar lack of knowledge, so just stuck to on field matters.

Those that do know what has happened, do their level best to avoid the mention of any agent related issues. It doesn't even need a name to be mentioned for them to start sweating and jump in to steer the conversation towards another direction.

I can remember a few Rovers fans naming the spiv and mentioning "problems with agents" on that very "Venky's we're coming for you!" show. White reacted exactly as described above. Fidgety, panicky, jumping at the mere mention of the word 'agent'.

The truth is out there, but they would rather use '£200m' as a stick to beat the fans with instead.

2 hours ago, NeilInBristol said:

 

Jim White: "I know Steve Kean quite well".

Err, yeah. We kind of worked that out 13 years ago.

I see there was no hint of "Venky's, we're coming for you!" from Jim in the above clip this time. Has he forgotten his stance upon Coyle leaving? If only Jon was a friend of the blessed agency too.

I wouldn't take Simon Jordan's words to heart. Whenever a topic like this comes up on talkSPORT, where it is the fans vs owners, Jordan almost always takes the side of the owners. It isn't exclusive to Rovers.

I have heard him do this numerous times with Newcastle, United, Everton, Sheff Wednesday, Chelsea and many others who have come on wanting their owners out. For example, he has called out United fans and the Glazers Out protests consistently by questioning what it is that the fans want.

He often approaches this topic with lesser clubs than United with a "well, what do you realistically expect, you are x Football Club, fans have an entitlement, the owner has put in x amount, I can't see anybody else lining up to do that" tone and attitude.

It's due to his own experience as a Club owner at Palace that he does not view fans wanting their owners out favourably.

15 minutes ago, Armchair supporter supremo said:

Yep that's all I was getting at too 👍

On paper he has a lot of potential, some club will take a punt on him at some point I'm sure

Has potential but not the man for this moment. Somebody will give him a chance somewhere though, you'd think.

To be honest, I personally don't want any former Rovers' players or managers from before 2010 to walk in to this mess, only to be treated like crap by these tossers.

Seen Duffer mentioned along with Hughes and Benni as manager, and Wilcox as DOF too. All of those guys were a part of a clean and honest Rovers setup and provided us with fantastic memories.

They do not deserve to enter this circus operated by devious bastards and end up tarnishing the good memories that we have of them. No manager can succeed under this setup, imo. It's why I want our former favourites to stay away.

I didn't want Henning Berg to come here either in 2012/13 for the same reason. He came here with honest intentions and was shat upon by clowns. He deserved better. I don't think any less of him as a Rovers player, it's just a shame that these idiots got the opportunity to mess him around.

For any of the hierarchy thinking appointing a former player will quieten the unrest...dream on! 

1 minute ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

What is even worse is that I fear the ploy from Waggot Will work. He was feeling the heat. We never had these meetings during Mowbrays bad runs, and my god he had them just as bad as this 

This whole meeting was based around trying to be seen as though it is the atmosphere and the booing that is at fault. It has been made to look in public as though any protests will seriously affect the team

It is called “heading them off at the pass”. Without a concerted effort to remind the fan base who the protests are about and that actually chanting “Venkys Out” will not stop Hyam from being ran past we could see serious damage to the protest movement 

I agree. It is a devious move to try and strike the first blow before any protests take off.

The follow on from this is, we will likely now see days of Rovers fans being portrayed as being 'angry' and 'unreasonable' before any protest has even got going. Thus, the outside world will be conditioned in advance to see Rovers fans in a negative way.

Then, if anything goes off against Newcastle protest wise, it will be us who get blamed for everything.

"The players even had a meeting with them telling them to stop their protests and to back the team, but they didn't listen".

"They did this with poor Steve Kean too".

We are dealing with scum, no doubt about it.

8 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

There’s hardly been any booing (despite the results, despite the club being in one of its worst states in its history).

There hasn't. Watch them run with this narrative and agenda now though.

'The Rovers players have had to put up with constant booing. The anger of the fans has affected the team on the pitch. If the fans backed the team more, they might be further up the League. It's hard to pick up results in a toxic atmosphere'.

It's coming. The slimy toerag has laid the groundwork for all of that with this stunt.

Sad that it had to end like this for JDT. Both arguments hold true, in that he has been let down by those above him, leaving him trying to pull off heroics with a weak squad.

It is also true that he hasn't adapted his tactics, when he could have done, to get us away from relegation danger. He isn't the man for a relegation scrap, so a parting of ways is the right move.

Lee Bowyer was my initial thought as the next man in, but he appears to be happy with his own project, trying to get Montserrat to a World Cup. I think this is likely to be Garry Monk or Alex Neil up next. No compo for either as they are without a club.

I wouldn't put it past this lot to do something ridiculous though, like pay compo to get Woodgate here, out of his assistant coaching role at Boro.

1 hour ago, roversfan99 said:

Im not sure its an accurate comparison because although Mowbray did have more money to spend, the squad he inherited on the brink of relegation was worlds apart from the one that Tomasson inherited off the back of finishing 8th. Lenihan and Rothwell as permanent players admittedly left but were replaced by Hyam and Szmodics in the only summer in years in which any reasonable money was spent. He did well to match the points tally though and definitely showed enough in that second successive league above expectations finish to suggest that in a more normal club he would be capable of achieving something good.

Would have loved to have seen JDT in a normal Rovers setup with none of this mess around him.

Under normal owners who showed a bit of care and ambition, no development project, no focus on increasing player value, no DOF above him, a reasonable budget and JDT in charge of finding and bringing in his own players.

I know there are a lot of ifs there, but I think under those circumstances he would have been the man for us. Another Hughes' type manager, maybe.

Basically, imagine him working under John Williams, with both of them working towards promotion.

As it is though, we have wasted the opportunity that his appointment brought, due to the chaotic way that those above him operate. He isn't the man for this mess and situation.

I think it was the right idea from GB to bring him in, just like the O'Brien signing was the right idea.

Unfortunately, this isn't a normal club with a normal hierarchy, and any kind of stunt can occur at any moment, meaning well intentioned moves from a few go to waste.

38 minutes ago, TheRevAshton said:

Has anyone else picked up on how responsive Nixon is being on Twitter to those who are suggesting that the cock-ups were intentional?

Seems unlike him to repeat himself so much, I also don't recall a time where he's defended the Club this much...

Something's telling me that he's been slipped a few quid to dismiss the theories and try to keep the peace a little.

Yep, I see he tweeted something like "all the best trying to find an owner willing to invest £15m a year. I'm sure there'll be a queue of them waiting".

When a Rovers fan challenged him on this lazy argument and pointed out other Championship clubs lose similar, he got angry and told the fan that Rovers are "living wildly beyond their means".

No different to the spin that we are seeing on FB. It's the people orchestrating the spin that need rooting out.

3 hours ago, Glosrover said:

Anyone up for contacting Andy Cole for a statement on what he thinks of Waggott and his influence on the decline of the club??  [ I'll be the first to admit that I wouldnt know where to start.......]

It's a good shout. Cole has inside information relating to the takeover too, as he revealed that somebody told him what was going to happen at Rovers in 2010 with this lot, Kean etc, months before it actually happened.

Not that he would share with fans, but I feel he is one of a few former players that 'worries' the bastards behind the scenes.

Does anybody know how the following video came about?

It says he was sent by the 'League of 72' to shoot the video, but obviously somebody at the club cleared it for this to happen. Did he meet Waggott during this visit, I wonder, and what is his view of him now? Would be great if we could get in touch with Coley somehow, but it's a longshot.

If this was Liverpool, United or any of the other big names, where two identical so called errors had been made messing up two transfers, there would be an investigation by media and non stop coverage until answers were given.

As it's at Rovers all we'll see is outsiders laughing, a few "bizarre goings on at Blackburn" references and neutrals waving it off as "oh yeah, those chicken people, ha" before moving on to something else.

We are likely to feel the after effects of these 'errors' for a long time to come in the transfer market as the pillocks have made us look like a laughing stock to be avoided. This needs investigating.

I really can't see how Broughton is going to front up to this, after promising that nothing like the O'Brien situation would happen again.

I'm not blaming Broughton for this or O'Brien though. There has been a constant theme throughout this 13 year mess and it all leads back to the same place.

4 hours ago, Upside Down said:

Good article there. 

Maybe our calls for Jackson to do his job were taken on board.

Even the two comments are normal.

Fair play to the LT and Jackson on this one. Goes to show how important the LT could be in getting the truth out there and bringing fans together against this joke of an ownership. I mean, a lot of Rovers fans rely solely on the LT for their club news and there has rarely been an article like this in recent times.

We've been saying many of these things for a while about the hierarchy, but get called angry, negative, conspiracy theorists etc. However, when the LT prints an article like this, it has an impact. Pleased to see many in the comments section there are now realising what the problem is. A few of those have been staunch Venky defenders in the past too. The tide might be turning.

1 hour ago, Irish_Rover said:

After the last few days I was checking the Rovers page on Facebook and its got to a stage where I fully believe there are Venkys plants employed by the club who are putting up a good 1/3 of the posts.
Some of the content there is just beyond mental. The lad below with his 172 likes about how selling our prized assets for 18m and just bringing in loans and freebies is the sign of smart business. Oh and that we should basically be counting our lucky stars that we have our glorious overlords as no one else would want to own a club that is one of only 7 teams that has won the Premier League!! I despair, I really do.

That does look like plant behaviour. Throw all of the propaganda into one post, surprisingly backing everything that the club has done. Add in the (false) idea that the club might not exist in the future to create a bit of fear and in turn, gratitude towards Venky's.

Then throw in a "get over yourselves" as a show of what they really think about the people they are aiming it at.

Oh and a "who will buy us" for good measure. Move along, Craigy boy. Next!

That's the way they operate. Say anything against the fake positivity they are pedalling and they start throwing insults around and getting tetchy. Seen it on here too from one or two playing the long game.

1 hour ago, G Somerset Rover said:

Not according to a tonne of ‘em I’ve seen on Twitter tonight. There is A LOT out in force defending Venky’s.

’Didn’t hear from any of them (the fans) last season when things were good.’ ‘£5m for Hyam and Szmodics last season alone’ ‘they sold the training ground just to stop us from going into admin’. 

Just a few of the comments I’ve seen tonight.

I received a text this evening from a casual Rovers fan who stopped following the club during the Kean days. He's told me previously that he hasn't kept up to date with anything Rovers related in the time since.

Anyway, he's been posting on the Rovers fan groups on FB these past few days and decided to share his thoughts with me.

I open the text and I see all the classics before me. No other owner could fund Rovers like Venky's. They pump in so much money, Rovers are lucky that they do. Rovers would be finished without Venky's. Rovers don't have the fanbase to attract a new owner. Even if a new owner came in, it would make no difference because the club needs too much money pumping in. Amongst other complete tripe.

Not one of those are his opinion, but all taken from the herd on FB. That's how easy it is to con people who have zero/little knowledge of the last 13 years.

I took a deep breath and carried on watching Coronation Street.

I'm tempted to ask him to get on the FB group and ask the Rovers fans what they think of our new striker. Tommy Orpington.

30 minutes ago, G Somerset Rover said:

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I think we need the McGuire decision to go against us given the momentum that is building behind our ownership. Of course I know how desperate we are for a striker, and I feel incredibly bad that our once proud club has let down yet another player. But you just know if this goes in our favour that outside of this forum, and fans with half a brain cell, that Venky's will be yesterday's problem once again.

I agree. As 'bad' as it may sound or unpopular it may be, I think we need the McGuire decision to go against us and for the Indian High Court to say no in March. It's for the greater good.

Recent events show just how much of a shambles the club still is. Despite this, there are still large parts of the fanbase waiting for this McGuire deal to go through so that they can spin this window as being a success.

"JDT wanted a striker. He's got one."

"What more does he want GB/Waggott/the recruitment team to do. He needs to quit moaning".

The Court approving the release of funds in March will likely set off a wave of sickening pro Venky propaganda, orchestrated by their hidden agent friends, with the naive beating the "look how loyal the owners are" and "the club is finished without their generosity" drums. More arguments, more confusion amongst the fans, whilst the enemy within takes the club down.

Nah. We can't be doing with any of this shit. Most of us have had it up to here (head point) with this utter bullshit. Both situations need to go against the owners/club, for the greater good.