The Relegation Thread

[JHRover]

As I've already attempted to explain in the past, the cost of maintaining a remotely competitive Championship club, even one content to just tread water and avoid relegation every year, is huge.

Rovers are not the only loss making club in huge debt in this league and it is only going to get worse as the years go by as bigger wage bills come down from the Premier League and more foreign investors get involved to try and get there.

Even for Venkys, after 5 years of languishing in mid-table and bottom half of this division at a cost of £20 million per year is massive, with absolutely no guarantee of success if spending increases and people like Lambert saying it will need another £20 million or whatever even to get into contention for promotion.

Go into League One and the game changes completely. No other rich backers, most clubs get by on gates of 5,000 a week. The Port Vales and Southends of this world are easier to compete with than the Derbys and Wednesdays. Relegation would enable another scale back on the wages. From £30-50k per week in the Premier League, to £10-15k a week under Bowyer, to £5-10k a week now, to less than £5k a week in a lower division.

Each step along the way it becomes easier to absorb annual losses for a group of people who clearly didn't get into this to invest substantial sums every year. The limit of their 'investment' in recent years has been to pay the wages they committed to and to keep the doors open at Ewood Park. Keeping things ticking over to avoid a humiliating, power losing and potential legal action series of events should they refuse to pay the bills.

Rather than try to keep up with other clubs through serious sustained cash investments which EVERY other club that wishes to be successful does, the alternative is to put the club somewhere that requires the bare minimum 'investment' and effort to maintain. League One and League Two make it easier on every level if you aren't interested in anything but cutting costs.

The big elephant in the room is the Category A academy and the substantial annual costs of running that, but presumably that would be another area earmarked for closure if relegation took place.

I'm not suggesting a deliberate strategy of relegation, but can see why they aren't doing anything to avoid it as that would require CASH, which they either don't have or won't spend any more of.

Edited January 25, 2017 by JHRover

[tomphil]

If we don't go down this season it will be next surely as like you say and iv'e said in recent posts there will have to be another big cash injection in the next 12/18 months just to keep things ticking over as they are. Unless of course everything is slashed in half in terms of budget and running costs which is the way i think it will go in summer. That equals nailed on relegation.

If not it brings us back to them being happy to absorb huge losses on the accounts every year. There has to be a beneficial reason to them for that which opens up the rest of the conspiracies.

Bonkers.

[Rover_Shaun]

Where we are now is where we will finish

[Doaksie]

spread betting on this crap team you co own who are nailed on to lose more than they ever win.

Only one confusing bit. Mercer always tells us that he's kept in constant supply of red wine by betting on us to win all the time. Or the partners are raking it in betting on us to constantly lose. A quick glance at the league table will tell you which one I believe.

[DE.]

The red wine might be gifts from Mercer's bookie tbf.

[philipl]

Relegation is now Rotherham plus two from Rovers, Wigan, Burton, Forest and Bristol City.

We have yet to play the return fixtures against all of them. Our results to date are:

Rotherham H 4-2

Forest H 2-1

Burton H 2-2

Bristol City A 0-1

Wigan A 0-3

If we can get through the five reverse fixtures without losing or get a 3-1-1 WDL we give ourselves a chance.

Anybody optimistic of doing that? I am not.

[47er]

Everyone else in the relegation zone has changed their manager and are looking to strengthen their squads.

We are keeping our lame duck manager on and looking to offload players to get the wage bill down.

If that isn't deliberate relegation strategy then I don't know what is.

[donnermeat]

Everyone else in the relegation zone has changed their manager and are looking to strengthen their squads.

We are keeping our lame duck manager on and looking to offload players to get the wage bill down.

If that isn't deliberate relegation strategy then I don't know what is.

Exactly. If those at Ewood/Pune don't have the ambition or put the effort in then how can the fans do the same?

[blue kiwi]

teams around us will have played twice before we play leeds on wed night could be the fat lady singing time.

[rigger]

teams around us will have played twice before we play leeds on wed night could be the fat lady singing time.

Or it could be, we are in a slightly better position, than we are now.

[Tom]

A step closer to relegation today with Burton winning away and halting their slide

They have Fulham and Wolves at home this week whilst Bristol City host Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday then Rotherham at home Saturday.

You expect them to get at least 3 points each so we need results

Edited January 28, 2017 by Tom

[perthblue02]

A step closer to relegation today with Burton winning away and halting their slide

They have Fulham and Wolves at home this week whilst Bristol City host Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday then Rotherham at home Saturday.

You expect them to get at least 3 points each so we need results

Also important for us ,Sheff W away at Wigan next Friday, with Wigan having 2 extra days recovery time

[West Yorks Rover]

Nigel Clough interested in talking to Forest, just announced on BBC, maybe Burton will be looking for a new manager soon.

If I was him I'd stay at Burton, Forest owners are nut jobs.

[JHRover]

I'm not really bothered what the other teams are doing. Until we get our own house in order what our rivals get up to is almost irrelevant.

These owners and the people running this club have made their position quite clear in the summer and in January. It seems they are quite happy with the job Coyle is doing, are happy with being in the bottom 3 all season and see absolutely no reason to make a change or allow some new signings to come in.

That's their decision. If that's the way they want to play things then I'm not going to waste my time concerning myself with what other clubs are doing, especially as all these other clubs are making efforts to survive which we are not.

We're on course for about 40 points at most this season which gives you no right at all to expect survival.

Edited January 28, 2017 by JHRover

[den]

A step closer to relegation today with Burton winning away and halting their slide

They have Fulham and Wolves at home this week whilst Bristol City host Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday then Rotherham at home Saturday.

You expect them to get at least 3 points each so we need results

We need wins.

We've so far this season, managed to win 6 games out of 27. Put another way - in a very poor league we've played on 21 occasions when we couldn't win the game. It's a good job we got very lucky twice against Newcastle.

For us to survive from this position entering February, we need to hit a run of unbeaten games, containing a sprinkling of wins. Draw one, lose one just won't get us anywhere near to what we need.

No matter what Coyle says, the situation is quite bleak.

[DE.]

We need wins.

We've so far this season, managed to win 6 games out of 27. Put another way - in a very poor league we've played on 21 occasions when we couldn't win the game. It's a good job we got very lucky twice against Newcastle.

For us to survive from this position entering February, we need to hit a run of unbeaten games, containing a sprinkling of wins. Draw one, lose one just won't get us anywhere near to what we need.

No matter what Coyle says, the situation is quite bleak.

More worrying is that most (all?) of our wins have been absolute flukes, where the opposition has dominated the match but had lapses of concentration in front of our goal and defending their own. You'll always get the odd match where a team gets a result they don't really deserve, but over the course of a season it's extremely rare for a team that regularly plays poorly to pick up enough points to survive. How many league matches have we had this season where we've been objectively better than the opposition and won the match? The 4-2 against bottom of the table Rotherham, maybe? Overall, as you say, the season's performances and lack of action from anybody at the club paints a bleak picture and I can only see this season ending in relegation.

[jim mk2]

Clough turned down Forest to stay at Burton according to the Beeb.

Meanwhile, Wolves have smashed their transfer record by paying £13 million to secure permanent signing of winger Helder Costa from Benfica.

No wonder Lambert left us. 

Edited January 30, 2017 by jim mk2

[roverstdt]

Out of interest what does everyone feel of the summer transfer so far how would you review them after 6 months?

 

Williams: Looks like a decent capture
Gallagher: Good Signing

Graham: Good signing

Feeney: Adequate...Had one or two assists so not totally useless...

Hoban: Excellent

Greer: Okay

Emnes: Decent

Mulgrew: Very Good

Stokes, Byrne, Samuelson, Hendry: All missing in Action so therefore not impressed

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Just now, roverstdt said:

Out of interest what does everyone feel of the summer transfer so far how would you review them after 6 months?

 

Williams: Looks like a decent capture
Gallagher: Good Signing

Graham: Good signing

Feeney: Adequate...Had one or two assists so not totally useless...

Hoban: Excellent

Greer: Okay

Emnes: Decent

Mulgrew: Very Good

Stokes, Byrne, Samuelson, Hendry: All missing in Action so therefore not impressed

 

I can't say because I've only seen a few games on tv. You missed out Brown by the way.

[Blue blood]

1 hour ago, roverstdt said:

Out of interest what does everyone feel of the summer transfer so far how would you review them after 6 months?

 

Williams: Looks like a decent capture
Gallagher: Good Signing

Graham: Good signing

Feeney: Adequate...Had one or two assists so not totally useless...

Hoban: Excellent

Greer: Okay

Emnes: Decent

Mulgrew: Very Good

Stokes, Byrne, Samuelson, Hendry: All missing in Action so therefore not impressed

 

Think that's overly positive tbh and posted as much in the Coyle out thread. Feeney as ok after a couple of games blowing hot and cold is a stretch as is Hoban being excellent in a leaky defence.

My main gripe is money not spent well especially on a bunch of crocks. Hoban and Mulgrew may well be good players - and am not convinced about the former - but when they miss half the season through injury it doesn't matter how good they are. They could be as bad as me or as good as Messi - when they're out injured it's irrelevant as either way they're not contributing.

There's also planning issues - like all 4 cb and 3 cms all being crocks and holes in certain positions but will leave it there. Not a great bit of summer business

[jim mk2]

 

 

Cardiff 2 up v Preston.

Lambert's revival of Wolves continues 2 up at Barnsley

[Hasta]

On 30/01/2017 at 8:05 PM, roverstdt said:

Out of interest what does everyone feel of the summer transfer so far how would you review them after 6 months?

 

Williams: Looks like a decent capture
Gallagher: Good Signing

Graham: Good signing

Feeney: Adequate...Had one or two assists so not totally useless...

Hoban: Excellent

Greer: Okay

Emnes: Decent

Mulgrew: Very Good

Stokes, Byrne, Samuelson, Hendry: All missing in Action so therefore not impressed

 

Williams: Lower end championship player.

Gallagher: OK for this level.

Graham: Decent for this level. Lamberts parting gift.

Feeney: Birmingham game aside, totally useless

Hoban: OK

Greer: Desperate

Emnes: Declined after initial promise. Uninspiring

Mulgrew: Very Good but that contract length is madness.

Stokes, Byrne, Samuelson, Hendry: All missing in Action because they are so poor.

Edited January 31, 2017 by Hasta

[Leonard Venkhater]

On 1/26/2017 at 7:50 AM, 47er said:

Everyone else in the relegation zone has changed their manager and are looking to strengthen their squads.

We are keeping our lame duck manager on and looking to offload players to get the wage bill down.

If that isn't deliberate relegation strategy then I don't know what is.

It is deliberate sabotage.......yet people still won't boycott even one game!

[Wing Wizard Windy Miller]

I see Cardiff and Wolves are disappearing into the distance under their competent managers.

[JHRover]

The minute Warnock and Lambert arrived at their clubs that was Cardiff and Wolves out of the relegation picture. At the moment the only things keeping us alive are the Forest madhouse and Bristol City's implosion, both of which can be rectified through a change in manager.