[Archived] Joint Blackpool Protests. Venkys Out, Oyston Out, Fans United.

[Stuart]

Lambert was taking us down? If that's not conjecture, completely alien from fact as well, then I don't know what is. On what possible basis could that be true? Your bitterness towards Lambert and praise of Bowyer is almost irrational.

It was absolutely unacceptable for Bowyer not to have us at the very least in the top 6 with that strike force and such an attacking force. Why on earth wouldn't he focus on shutting the back door? Something which Lambert immediately focussed on. If Lambert had the backing Bowyer had, I'd wage any amount of money that he'd have done better.

Just prior to his latest stint on ignore, he told me I had wasted my time because he didn't read my post. Yet he replies to my posts time and time again.

Aside from that, agree with all of your post. Some folk were hoping Lambert would fail so that they could praise Gary "Open House at Brockhall" Bowyer. Lambert didn't get chance to fail so history is being reinvented.

But all of this is tittle-tattle keeping fans at odds with each other and the spotlight away from the real enemies: Venkys. Is it a pro-Bowyer agenda or a pro-Venkys agenda? Whatever people say on here, pro-Venkys people do exist. Is it really a stretch that they post under pseudonyms on here? Of course not!

[JBiz]

Away from the Bowyer debate, on the match report on the Rovers website it states something along the lines of 'Rovers have kept their unbeaten run in preseason intact', yep against league 1/2 teams! another example of the Rovers media team putting a positive spin on hopeless things . We were getting hammered off a team full of trialists but it's OK because at least we're still unbeaten in pre season, despite playing shockingly and drawing to BLACKPOOL with the likes of Marshall, Graham and Duffy (our only valuable assets left) playing. Two of those three may not even be here by September, left with only Graham. No hope whatsoever until venkys left, and they ain't doing that in a hurry.

The club will always do that, it's standard media. I think it just takes some level of acceptance or expectation - ofcourse it's easier to go with it when we are doing better. Pre season results are fair meaningless, I expect if we'd got beat the headline would've been "good workout at Bloomfield"

I can say that without being pro-Venkys either! Weird how it's always boxes with this website, you're either a. Or b. ...

[Ozz]

Why would you chant for Coyle?

Cos he's the @#/? Rovers manager .

[blueboy3333]

Just prior to his latest stint on ignore, he told me I had wasted my time because he didn't read my post. Yet he replies to my posts time and time again.

Sigh. You became your usual patronising self so i didn't bother reading the rest of your post. I explained this. Thanks for the update on your ignore list, i wasn't aware. Does this mean i can't reply to your posts on a public forum? You're not precious at all.

Word to the wise, if you have me on ignore don't keep mentioning me in your posts, like you did last time. That's just plain goading and also very cowardly. Now please continue with the 'spats' you're having with others at the moment.

[Parsonblue]

Surely the debate about Bowyer and Lambert is as pointless as it gets. Both are part of the club's history - not it's present or it's future. Both had their strengths and both had their weaknesses. I believe both served the club well during their time at Ewood. Bowyer, over eleven years, did a remarkable job for the club in so many ways and it was fitting that the supporters recognised that at Bloomfield Road yesterday and it gave Gary a chance to acknowledge the support that many fans had given over his time at the club. However, we are now in a new era with Coyle at the helm and although there were some boos, it was good to see a large number of fans getting behind him and the team yesterday. Talking to one or two Blackpool fans yesterday - and there weren't very many - they simply hope that Bowyer can steady the ship and I must admit that on the evidence of yesterday they seem to have a side that could be decent at that level. Rovers will need their supporters behind them during games because Coyle is going to have his work cut out with a very limited squad. The bottom line is that Coyle is now our manager and he's the guy who we are now relying on to keep us up. It was good to see that yesterday people were prepared to give him a chance and get behind him and the team.

[blueboy3333]

Irrational to dislike a manager with ambition who wanted to take the club forward? Ok then. How many late goals did we concede that lost us points? Madness he couldn't fix that. So, so poor. He wasn't a poor manager but he should have done better with the squad he had, simple really.

duplicated post

[LewisF]

The club will always do that, it's standard media. I think it just takes some level of acceptance or expectation - ofcourse it's easier to go with it when we are doing better. Pre season results are fair meaningless, I expect if we'd got beat the headline would've been "good workout at Bloomfield"

I can say that without being pro-Venkys either! Weird how it's always boxes with this website, you're either a. Or b. ...

fair enough

[blueboy3333]

Irrational to dislike a manager with ambition who wanted to take the club forward? Ok then. How many late goals did we concede that lost us points? Madness he couldn't fix that. So, so poor. He wasn't a poor manager but he should have done better with the squad he had, simple really.

Anyone can have ambition. I could stroll into the Rovers job and promise the earth, doesn't mean i can deliver. What was it, 'fast attcking football' and 'not accepting mediocrity'? He delivered the opposite. He was a snake-oil salesman.

If you could do the research on points lost to last minute goals that would back up your speculation. Also have a look at last minute goals scored. There were quite a few of those too. Should we discuss Lamberts inabilty to create chances from open play? No manager is perfect but the attacking play under Lambert was embarrassing...and nine games without a win is truly pathetic. I think it was 8 away games without a win too. Incredible sequences for a manager who wasn't here long.

I was actually pleased when he got the job. His performance and his mouth made me think again. Simple as that.

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

I suppose the reason there is such polarisation on the Bowyer era because there are 2 different ways of looking at that time.

One is it was a period of our best opportunity to regain PL status. In Bowyer's first season he got £16m, riding on the back of £16m the year before, in parachute payments, in his second he got £8m. This allowed us somewhat to bully most of the rest of the league in terms of transfer fees and wages, just like Newcastle and Villa are doing now. He had Rhodes and King acquired from the season before, brought in Kane, Cairney, Marshall, Gestede, Evans, Duffy. Was able to keep almost all his existing and acquired good players, only losing Olsson and Dann of particular value to my knowledge (having had Dann for the first half of his first season anyway). Looked at this way he had very good Championship squads, the likes of which we won't be able to afford again, and failed (massively in his second season) to make the play-offs twice.

Then there's the counter argument that the club was in disarray, bottom half finish in 12/13, 5 different managers that season, the Shebby-Shaw war, other clownish upper management figures and a raft of garbage/ageing Kean signings to get rid of. Bowyer steadied the ship and allowed all the bizarre comedic elements of the club to return close to normal.

So I do get why people look back fondly but just totally disagree with it. Sam's final season here was during equal disarray and if we'd beaten Bolton as we deserved to that away game before he was sacked, we'd have gone 7th. Good managers don't need endless time to steady the ship, give Lambert the resources Bowyer had and we'd have made the play-offs, guaranteed. As for the value of him steadying the ship, has there been any? We just appointed a bloke Houston Dynamos were over-joyed to get rid of, who has more shady links to an agency with a vested interest. No appointment has looked dodgier since Kean. So Bowyer hasn't steadied anything in my opinion, just treated water whilst our parachute payments and good players sailed out the window.

[DE.]

I dont know how you can blame Bowyer blame players wages cos I dont think he would have much of a say. Surely that job would have been Derek Shaw or Ian Slivester job? Maybe why Shaw was let go?

I know mate, but I already mentioned in the post you quoted I appreciate he didn't necessarily have control over the exact wage. My point is only that he did have at least 10 k pw wage wise to spend on Koita, plus whatever wages Delfouneso, Williamson (renewed contract), Petschi (or however it's spelt), Lawrence, Guthrie, Akpan and Barrow were on whilst they were here. When you add those to the rest of the squad's wages, I'd guess that equals a pretty substantial wage budget for this division. Over the course of his tenure Bowyer had finance to work with, and at one point built a pretty good squad with it. Unfortunately he couldn't get that team to where it needed to be.

I've always said Bowyer did a better job than could be expected given his inexperience. Nonetheless, the club and fans shouldn't be aligning their ambitions to the manager's experience or lack thereof. It was Bowyer's remit to get us into playoff contention and he couldn't quite get it done. That's all there is to say, really. Nice bloke (ignoring the end of his tenure), heart in the right place, but ultimately didn't have what it took and that was probably our last realistic shot of getting back into the PL.

[blueboy3333]

I suppose the reason there is such polarisation on the Bowyer era because there are 2 different ways of looking at that time.

One is it was a period of our next opportunity to regain PL status. In Bowyer's first season he got £16m in parachute payments, in his second he got £8m. This allowed us somewhat to bully most of the rest of the league in terms of transfer fees and wages, just like Newcastle and Villa are doing now. He had Rhodes and King acquired from the season before, brought in Kane, Cairney, Marshall, Gestede, Evans, Duffy. Was able to keep almost all his existing and acquired good players, only losing Olsson and Dann of particular value to my knowledge (having had Dann for the first half of his first season). Looked at this way he had very good Championship squads, the likes of which we won't be able to afford again, and failed (massively in his second season) to make the play-offs twice.

Then there's the argument that the club was in disarray, bottom half finish in 12/13, 5 different managers that season, the Shebby-Shaw war, other clownish upper management figures and a raft of garbage/ageing Kean signings to get rid of. Bowyer steadied the ship and allowed all the bizarre comedic elements of the club to return close to normal.

So I do get why people look back fondly but just totally disagree with it. Sam's final season here was during equal disarray and if we'd beaten Bolton as we deserved to that away game before he was sacked, we'd have gone 7th. Good managers don't need endless time to steady the ship, give Lambert the resources Bowyer had and we'd have made the play-offs, guaranteed. As for the value of him steadying the ship, has there been any? We just appointed a bloke Houston Dynamos were over-joyed to get rid of, who has more shady links to an agency with a vested interest. No appointment has looked dodgier since Kean. So Bowyer hasn't steadied anything in my opinion, just treated water whilst our parachute payments and good players sailed out the window.

Staggering. The reason why the debate continues is because nonsense like this is trotted out. Rovers under Bowyer spent about £4m IN TOTAL on transfer fees over 2+ years.How on earth is that bullying most other clubs 'like Newcastle and Villa'? Brentford spent more in one summer than Bowyer spent in his whole time here. The parachute payments were used mainly to cover the losses and pay off the player and managers that had gone before.

[Stuart]

Surely the debate about Bowyer and Lambert is as pointless as it gets. Both are part of the club's history - not it's present or it's future. Both had their strengths and both had their weaknesses. I believe both served the club well during their time at Ewood. Bowyer, over eleven years, did a remarkable job for the club in so many ways and it was fitting that the supporters recognised that at Bloomfield Road yesterday and it gave Gary a chance to acknowledge the support that many fans had given over his time at the club. However, we are now in a new era with Coyle at the helm and although there were some boos, it was good to see a large number of fans getting behind him and the team yesterday. Talking to one or two Blackpool fans yesterday - and there weren't very many - they simply hope that Bowyer can steady the ship and I must admit that on the evidence of yesterday they seem to have a side that could be decent at that level. Rovers will need their supporters behind them during games because Coyle is going to have his work cut out with a very limited squad. The bottom line is that Coyle is now our manager and he's the guy who we are now relying on to keep us up. It was good to see that yesterday people were prepared to give him a chance and get behind him and the team.

Agree about Bowyer and Lambert.

Of greater concern is the here and now, and the issue with Coyle. His appointment divided the fans on day one and now it looks like this will continue into matchdays. Although I suspect more at away games than at Ewood.

It's all well and good blaming the fans but this was entirely foreseeable by the club, yet they selected him over better managers. If we are skint then we are skint and they should stop patronising fans by making out that all that is happening is positive. However, a skint Rovers owned by multi-millionaires is not palatable or acceptable. With Venkys gone we can understand scraping around the cheap freebies and bringing in local youth players but whilst they remain, keeping up the pretence that all is well, we will remain in two camps: Venkys-haters and Rovers-lovers. And with this comes the schizophrenic internal dilemma that such polar issues create at the overlap. Both between, and within fans.

Until everyone 'gets' that Venkys are slowly destroying our club rather than keeping it going the fissure dividing the fans will only get wider.

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

Staggering. The reason why the debate continues is because nonsense like this is trotted out. Rovers under Bowyer spent about £4m IN TOTAL on transfer fees over 2+ years.How on earth is that bullying most other clubs 'like Newcastle and Villa'? Brentford spent more in one summer than Bowyer spent in his whole time here. The parachute payments were used mainly to cover the losses and pay off the player and managers that had gone before.

What's staggering is how you ever had a blummin column in a newspaper, it's frankly embarassing to the fanbase given some of your bizarre minority views. Bowyer was poor at best, most Rovers fans think that, most neutrals think that. A League 2 club in total meltdown were the only offer he had, what does that tell you??

[adsfortheblues]

Staggering. The reason why the debate continues is because nonsense like this is trotted out. Rovers under Bowyer spent about £4m IN TOTAL on transfer fees over 2+ years.How on earth is that bullying most other clubs 'like Newcastle and Villa'? Brentford spent more in one summer than Bowyer spent in his whole time here. The parachute payments were used mainly to cover the losses and pay off the player and managers that had gone before.

Think you've misunderstood the post mate. He doesn't mean, he actually had £8 million to spend on transfers, but that the club was still bringing in that amount of money and Bowyer was able to spend more than what we can now. He did bring in something like 25 players in his time here, and the calculations were done, in terms of fees, signing on fees and wages and it totalled up to a decent amount of money spent. If spent more wisely, e.g. bringing in say 7 or 8 players of good quality, it could have made some difference. He did make some good signings, but for every one good signing he would maybe make 3 or 4 poor signings (my opinion of course).

[RoverCanada]

Staggering. The reason why the debate continues is because nonsense like this is trotted out. Rovers under Bowyer spent about £4m IN TOTAL on transfer fees over 2+ years.How on earth is that bullying most other clubs 'like Newcastle and Villa'? Brentford spent more in one summer than Bowyer spent in his whole time here. The parachute payments were used mainly to cover the losses and pay off the player and managers that had gone before.

We did have a major revenue advantage with those parachute payments (giving us some £30M in total revenue vs the £10-12M we're looking at today...) The problem was the vast majority of that was already being spent on pay-offs and absurd wages. Our wage levels were £36.6M in 2013 and £34.5M in 2014. I'd be curious how much of that was actually being spent on the squad on the field (which was probably overpaid anyway) vs. on the likes of Best, Murphy, Givet, Vukevic, Etuhu, Kean, etc etc... We tried the Newcastle/Villa approach in 2012/13!

I'll always defend Bowyer's overall transfer dealings (people mention the plain number of incomings, while forgetting the number of outgoings, and occasionally doing some odd math that the Gestede deal minus, say, the Dabo loan = 0), but his final bit of dealings under the embargo were essentially a failure. I was flabbergasted that Koita was on £10k/week (and relieved we managed to recoup that when we sold him), Guthrie's ok but injured too much, Delfouneso was pretty useless, Petshi was bizarre, while I actually don't mind Akpan... He may have been guilty of going on about the difficulty of the embargo too much, but in fairness it WAS quite a constraint!

I'll be curious to see how Bowyer does with Blackpool. Seems he's stuck with free transfers there, so it'll be interesting to see whether his shrewd dealmaking requires some upfront capital!

[adsfortheblues]

Kane, Rekik, Jones, Keane, Stewart, Marshall, Evans, Gestede, Cairney, Kilgallon, Judge, Marrow, Dabo, Varney, Taylor, Feeney, DJ Campbell (granted was agreed before Bowyer), Spurr, Eastwood, Conway, Songo'o, Duffy, Steele, Paul Taylor, Henry, Brown, Baptiste, Tunnicliffe, Spearing, Koita, Guthrie, Akpan, Delfouneso, Lawrence, Barrow, Petshi.

36 players in two and a half seasons Bowyer signed, let's not be saying Bowyer had nothing to spend, and out of them, I would say out of those 36 7 maybe 8 were a success - Keane, Marshall, Gestede, Cairney, Conway, Duffy, Baptiste - Eastwood could have been if given more game time, Evans could be 1 every 10 games. Some may say Spurr, I think he's a poor player.

[blueboy3333]

Think you've misunderstood the post mate. He doesn't mean, he actually had £8 million to spend on transfers, but that the club was still bringing in that amount of money and Bowyer was able to spend more than what we can now. He did bring in something like 25 players in his time here, and the calculations were done, in terms of fees, signing on fees and wages and it totalled up to a decent amount of money spent. If spent more wisely, e.g. bringing in say 7 or 8 players of good quality, it could have made some difference. He did make some good signings, but for every one good signing he would maybe make 3 or 4 poor signings (my opinion of course).

I understood it perfectly. SKH compared our situation under Bowyer to the current situation of big spending Newcastle and Villa.

[Stuart]

I'll be curious to see how Bowyer does with Blackpool. Seems he's stuck with free transfers there, so it'll be interesting to see whether his shrewd dealmaking requires some upfront capital!

If Bowyer thought he had financial problems and lack of fan support at Rovers then he's in for a big shock at Blackpool.

Over there the diehards have joined the protests as well.

[Parsonblue]

Agree about Bowyer and Lambert.

Of greater concern is the here and now, and the issue with Coyle. His appointment divided the fans on day one and now it looks like this will continue into matchdays. Although I suspect more at away games than at Ewood.

It's all well and good blaming the fans but this was entirely foreseeable by the club, yet they selected him over better managers. If we are skint then we are skint and they should stop patronising fans by making out that all that is happening is positive. However, a skint Rovers owned by multi-millionaires is not palatable or acceptable. With Venkys gone we can understand scraping around the cheap freebies and bringing in local youth players but whilst they remain, keeping up the pretence that all is well, we will remain in two camps: Venkys-haters and Rovers-lovers. And with this comes the schizophrenic internal dilemma that such polar issues create at the overlap. Both between, and within fans.

Until everyone 'gets' that Venkys are slowly destroying our club rather than keeping it going the fissure dividing the fans will only get wider.

I don't know of anyone Stuart who doesn't get that Venkys are the problem. But for many their love of Rovers is more important than their hatred of Venkys. The owners, whilst pumping money into the Academy - and it's good to see that Category One status has been retained - are clearly not prepared to spend large amounts of money on transfer fees. Clearly, many of us have seen this attempt of making the club self sufficient in the past and it has never really worked. Coyle will have his work cut out to keep us afloat in the Championship with such a limited budget. However, the realities are what they are - no matter how much we dislike them and we all do. Our future rests in the hands of Coyle and I'm more than happy to support him and hope that he can keep Championship football at Ewood in the short term until the ownership issue changes - either with new owners or this lot deciding to invest in the first team.

[chaddyrovers]

Kane, Rekik, Jones, Keane, Stewart, Marshall, Evans, Gestede, Cairney, Kilgallon, Judge, Marrow, Dabo, Varney, Taylor, Feeney, DJ Campbell (granted was agreed before Bowyer), Spurr, Eastwood, Conway, Songo'o, Duffy, Steele, Paul Taylor, Henry, Brown, Baptiste, Tunnicliffe, Spearing, Koita, Guthrie, Akpan, Delfouneso, Lawrence, Barrow, Petshi.

Rekik and Stewart were signed by Michael Appleton on loans not Bowyer. Bowyer never signed them in the summer permanent.

Bowyer did a good job but should have done alot better in his second season.

[blueboy3333]

Kane, Rekik, Jones, Keane, Stewart, Marshall, Evans, Gestede, Cairney, Kilgallon, Judge, Marrow, Dabo, Varney, Taylor, Feeney, DJ Campbell (granted was agreed before Bowyer), Spurr, Eastwood, Conway, Songo'o, Duffy, Steele, Paul Taylor, Henry, Brown, Baptiste, Tunnicliffe, Spearing, Koita, Guthrie, Akpan, Delfouneso, Lawrence, Barrow, Petshi.

36 players in two and a half seasons Bowyer signed, let's not be saying Bowyer had nothing to spend, and out of them, I would say out of those 36 7 maybe 8 were a success - Keane, Marshall, Gestede, Cairney, Conway, Duffy, Baptiste - Eastwood could have been if given more game time, Evans could be 1 every 10 games. Some may say Spurr, I think he's a poor player.

Pretty standard for a Championship team. Some clubs accrued many more players in that time. The point is he had to sign that many because he had to get rid of the overpaid dross and portugeezers. I think he shipped out 50 players in his time. that was his remit. Get the wage bill down drastically and get promotion!

There was an article in the Guardian a month or two ago that stated Bowyer was told by the owners that his remit for 15/16 was to get promotion. The day after they sold Rudy. That's what he was up against.

[Stuart]

I don't know of anyone Stuart who doesn't get that Venkys are the problem. But for many their love of Rovers is more important than their hatred of Venkys. The owners, whilst pumping money into the Academy - and it's good to see that Category One status has been retained - are clearly not prepared to spend large amounts of money on transfer fees. Clearly, many of us have seen this attempt of making the club self sufficient in the past and it has never really worked. Coyle will have his work cut out to keep us afloat in the Championship with such a limited budget. However, the realities are what they are - no matter how much we dislike them and we all do. Our future rests in the hands of Coyle and I'm more than happy to support him and hope that he can keep Championship football at Ewood in the short term until the ownership issue changes - either with new owners or this lot deciding to invest in the first team.

I can only assume you are not privy to any of the Fb groups or other forums.

As for the rest of your post. Take our super-rich, Bentley-driving, negligent owners out of the equation and I'm completely with you.

Until then IMHO we are only a financial vehicle to keep them rich at the club's expense. I continue to go for all the reasons you mention but I can't pretend that it's ok.

[DE.]

I don't know of anyone Stuart who doesn't get that Venkys are the problem. But for many their love of Rovers is more important than their hatred of Venkys.

The problem is, imo at least, increasing numbers of fans are struggling to see where the line is between the club and the owners. We have a (skeleton) board room and manager who have a serious disconnect with large amounts of the fanbase, have endured years of baiting and often outright disrespect by Venky's employees, been ignored, lied to and sometimes directly opposed by these same people.

The club is still recognisable insofar as the stadium, general staff, kit and location are concerned... but it's not hard to see why more and more people are failing to identify with the club and subsequently walking away. This is an institution that for six years now has given the middle finger to its customers. It's not hard to understand why so many have fallen out of love with Rovers - and the game in general, most likely.

[den]

Getting rid of the overpaid dross was of no consequence, because apart from Dann, Bowyer didn't play, and didn't want any of them. Let's continue to ignore the 35 players that he did want, and did sign though eh?

Bowyer had excellent backing at this "championship club", what else could he have asked for - more time, more players, more money?

[47er]

Anyone can have ambition. I could stroll into the Rovers job and promise the earth, doesn't mean i can deliver. What was it, 'fast attcking football' and 'not accepting mediocrity'? He delivered the opposite. He was a snake-oil salesman.

If you could do the research on points lost to last minute goals that would back up your speculation. Also have a look at last minute goals scored. There were quite a few of those too. Should we discuss Lamberts inabilty to create chances from open play? No manager is perfect but the attacking play under Lambert was embarrassing...and nine games without a win is truly pathetic. I think it was 8 away games without a win too. Incredible sequences for a manager who wasn't here long.

I was actually pleased when he got the job. His performance and his mouth made me think again. Simple as that.

You are a very dogmatic poster. Try to remember what you have posted above is merely your opinion. I believe we would have been relegated had Bowyer continued, I believe our best chance of promotion would have been if Lambert had been backed.

I can't prove it and I won't be posting it four or five times.

In the end it's all irrelevant anyway. We will never prosper under Venkys and I wish all fans could see that.