Venkys - Welcome or Not?

[JacknOry]

Just now, bob fleming said:

Agreed. They spent a lot for Div 1. A drop in the ocean compared to the Championship.

It might be a year of consolidation. Would you go all out first year back? I’m not sure I would. Too much change (players wise) too soon is never good. But either way, we need more quality. Then again TM might get ten bob and a chicken leg and told to sling his hook.

Time will tell.

 

Nah consolidate, hope the winning mentality and team bond remains. Strengthen and build a base for the following year or two.

[JHRover]

Venkys' view on 'investment' in the club appears to be:

1) Continue to service debts & the overdraft

2) Pay wages and bills on time

3) Ensure the club remains solvent through honoring liabilities and meeting overheads 

The fourth form of investment comes as cold, hard, cash, millions of pounds of it, which goes above and beyond the bare minimum essential required to keep the doors open. This investment is the money needed to seriously strengthen the team, improve facilities and develop the club longer term. This cash seems much harder to obtain and my understanding is it only materialises when Madame can be persuaded to write a cheque via a face to face meeting or after other players have been sold and a small amount is then allowed to be reinvested. This has always been the case. In the Premier League they had the Jones windfall to use, then the parachute money. Rhodes' huge fee was a one off splurge that subsequently saw Rhodes have special status as a result. Since the parachute cash dried up we've been extremely limited cash wise - Bowyer nothing, Lambert nothing, Coyle a few hundred grand and then Mowbray nearly a million (big money for League One but not for the Championship)>

So on the one hand Venkys have invested by way of maintaining a big wage bill and ensuring the club remains as a going concern. They don't seem to have a problem with adding some names onto the books in wages or absorbing big losses at the end of each month, but when there's a need for some real money to be chucked in for 3 or 4 big signings it is more difficult to get done.

[darrenrover]

Just now, bob fleming said:

Agreed. They spent a lot for Div 1. A drop in the ocean compared to the Championship.

It might be a year of consolidation. Would you go all out first year back? I’m not sure I would. Too much change (players wise) too soon is never good. But either way, we need more quality. Then again TM might get ten bob and a chicken leg and told to sling his hook.

Time will tell.

 

I agree bob, I wouldn't go all out in the first year either. 

I feel that rather than fill the squad out with the likes of Gladwin, Whittingham, Caddis and co. (who should all be gone btw IMO) we should sign a few majors in key positions (centre half, midfield playmaker and a tried and tested pacy, tricky winger (Harry Chapman type) and a younger 'Danny Graham' type centre forward, who are all going to prominently feature in our starting eleven. The remainder of the squad should be made up of members of this season's U23s. I've only seen them play a couple of times but think there are some potential gems amongst their numbers. Next season, some of them should be given the opportunity to develop as part of the first team squad.

I'm absolutely convinced that if early season ticket sales are good, Mowbray will be backed.

[darrenrover]

Just now, JHRover said:

Venkys' view on 'investment' in the club appears to be:

1) Continue to service debts & the overdraft

2) Pay wages and bills on time

3) Ensure the club remains solvent through honoring liabilities and meeting overheads 

The fourth form of investment comes as cold, hard, cash, millions of pounds of it, which goes above and beyond the bare minimum essential required to keep the doors open. This investment is the money needed to seriously strengthen the team, improve facilities and develop the club longer term. This cash seems much harder to obtain and my understanding is it only materialises when Madame can be persuaded to write a cheque via a face to face meeting or after other players have been sold and a small amount is then allowed to be reinvested. This has always been the case. In the Premier League they had the Jones windfall to use, then the parachute money. Rhodes' huge fee was a one off splurge that subsequently saw Rhodes have special status as a result. Since the parachute cash dried up we've been extremely limited cash wise - Bowyer nothing, Lambert nothing, Coyle a few hundred grand and then Mowbray nearly a million (big money for League One but not for the Championship)>

So on the one hand Venkys have invested by way of maintaining a big wage bill and ensuring the club remains as a going concern. They don't seem to have a problem with adding some names onto the books in wages or absorbing big losses at the end of each month, but when there's a need for some real money to be chucked in for 3 or 4 big signings it is more difficult to get done.

...but twenty to thirty million quid cash per season in making up the working capital defficiency! That's not now the case JHR is it?

Let's see what the close season brings but count no chickens, I agree!

 

[JacknOry]

There will not be big investment. Yeah they splashed the cash in league 1 terms..of a mil and a half, to do the same in this league they would have to shell out 30 mil - more chance in me finally having an orgy with Cheryl Cole (before she got ultra-thin),  Ariana Grande, that bird from the new wonder woman movie and Alexandrea Daddario (dont get me started). 

To be honest, nor would I even want that kind of investment judging on how wrong it has gone in the past. Build on what we have and keep hold of the best that we have. Buy potential and not has-beens...simples.

[RevidgeBlue]

Just now, JHRover said:

Venkys' view on 'investment' in the club appears to be:

1) Continue to service debts & the overdraft

2) Pay wages and bills on time

3) Ensure the club remains solvent through honoring liabilities and meeting overheads 

The fourth form of investment comes as cold, hard, cash, millions of pounds of it, which goes above and beyond the bare minimum essential required to keep the doors open. This investment is the money needed to seriously strengthen the team, improve facilities and develop the club longer term. This cash seems much harder to obtain and my understanding is it only materialises when Madame can be persuaded to write a cheque via a face to face meeting or after other players have been sold and a small amount is then allowed to be reinvested. This has always been the case. In the Premier League they had the Jones windfall to use, then the parachute money. Rhodes' huge fee was a one off splurge that subsequently saw Rhodes have special status as a result. Since the parachute cash dried up we've been extremely limited cash wise - Bowyer nothing, Lambert nothing, Coyle a few hundred grand and then Mowbray nearly a million (big money for League One but not for the Championship)>

So on the one hand Venkys have invested by way of maintaining a big wage bill and ensuring the club remains as a going concern. They don't seem to have a problem with adding some names onto the books in wages or absorbing big losses at the end of each month, but when there's a need for some real money to be chucked in for 3 or 4 big signings it is more difficult to get done.

I felt Bowyer received a hell of a lot of backing from the owners. He must have brought in over 40 players either permanently or on loan and obviously we did very well out of 3 or 4 of them showing that as with Dack a modest amount invested in the right player can go a long way. Unfortunately however despite giving it "a right good go"  good old Gaz wasn't the man to deliver a promotion push.

I also think your overall assessment could be a bit harsh. TM obviously asked for a transfer and wage budget that would deliver promotion a year ago and in January and rather surprisingly they obliged. Would there have been much point in spending any more?

Looking forward I fully accept what others say about it possibly needing £25m to £30m if we were to have another tilt at promotion. However we have no idea what their view is at this stage and I'm told that TM has already delivered his list of targets to the Club.

So who knows. We might just be pleasantly surprised. (Again)

[Exiled in Toronto]

Good debate following an excellent balanced post from Darrenrover - as one would expect from a Darrener!

Personally I’m tired beyond belief of reading the never-ending pronouncements of “I’m not going back till they are gone.” Firstly because no-one, and I mean no-one, cares what the people concerned do with their time. And secondly, because chirping on here is the least effective, and least effort, protest known to man. I seem to recall Birdie did a sit-down protest in Nuttall Street when Lee bogged off - it didn’t change anything but at least it was an effort on his part.

I think it was said before: if they’d bought us last July we’d be singing their praises as owners. Nothing in life is predictable, them more than most, but if this continues  I think we are in for more good times.

[JHRover]

5 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

I felt Bowyer received a hell of a lot of backing from the owners. He must have brought in over 40 players either permanently or on loan and obviously we did very well out of 3 or 4 of them showing that as with Dack a modest amount invested in the right player can go a long way. Unfortunately however despite giving it "a right good go"  good old Gaz wasn't the man to deliver a promotion push.

I also think your overall assessment could be a bit harsh. TM obviously asked for a transfer and wage budget that would deliver promotion a year ago and in January and rather surprisingly they obliged. Would there have been much point in spending any more?

Looking forward I fully accept what others say about it possibly needing £25m to £30m if we were to have another tilt at promotion. However we have no idea what their view is at this stage and I'm told that TM has already delivered his list of targets to the Club.

So who knows. We might just be pleasantly surprised. (Again)

As I say, Venkys have never had a problem loading staff and players, often on big wages, onto the wage bill and then absorbing those costs along with the other losses. Worth bearing in mind that whilst Bowyer did indeed recruit a lot of players he also disposed of a lot, and those leaving were on much bigger wages than those coming in, so whilst it can be seen as Bowyer being backed it was actually doing Venkys and the club a favour by shedding the overpaid dross bleeding the club dry and replacing them with cheaper alternatives who would go on to make them millions in sales.

My point about their spending last summer was that a million quid goes a long, long way in League One. Being able to sign a couple of top League One players on top of what we already had made a big difference. However, if Mowbray had kept us up at Brentford, gone to India and asked for £10 million to rebuild I don't believe he'd have got it. £1 million ahead of a Championship season would unlikely be the 'difference maker' unless we really struck gold. So in some ways this investment that they supplied last summer was much less than it needed to be had we survived.

I think there would have been merit in spending more, the reason being that we're going into the summer with big decisions to make and work to do - Payne, Chapman, Armstrong, Antonsson out of loan, Evans, Conway, Ward, Graham out of contract, so they're going to have to cough up or work quickly just to replace them.

I don't think it will necessarily take £25-30 million to go for promotion, but it depends on which way they want to play it. If they are  serious about getting back to the Premier League then it might take £30 million over 3 years with a gradual building job, but acceptance that it might end in failure e.g. like Derby and Wednesday have had every year so far. What we can't have then is another demolition job as they lose faith in the manager and take a wrecking ball to the squad to recoup some money. 

I hope we're pleasantly surprised and I hope that the feelgood factor and Mowbray delivering on his remit will persuade them to have a go at it but I just don't see much past record of them coughing up proper cash for new players. They usually allow a few hundred grand through and might allow us to keep our existing players rather than look to sell, but since the Premier League dosh dried up that's been about it.

Edited May 7, 2018 by JHRover

[blueboy3333]

36 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

I felt Bowyer received a hell of a lot of backing from the owners. He must have brought in over 40 players either permanently or on loan and obviously we did very well out of 3 or 4 of them showing that as with Dack a modest amount invested in the right player can go a long way. Unfortunately however despite giving it "a right good go"  good old Gaz wasn't the man to deliver a promotion push.

I also think your overall assessment could be a bit harsh. TM obviously asked for a transfer and wage budget that would deliver promotion a year ago and in January and rather surprisingly they obliged. Would there have been much point in spending any more?

Looking forward I fully accept what others say about it possibly needing £25m to £30m if we were to have another tilt at promotion. However we have no idea what their view is at this stage and I'm told that TM has already delivered his list of targets to the Club.

So who knows. We might just be pleasantly surprised. (Again)

Bowyer spent about £3m. How is that good backing? 

[RevidgeBlue]

Just now, blueboy3333 said:

Bowyer spent about £3m. How is that good backing? 

How many players did he bring in though? He might have been able to spend a bit more if he'd brought in a bit more quality and a lot less quantity.

[Roving Mick]

Venky's In Campaign Launched

[JBiz]

1 hour ago, Roving Mick said:

Venky's In Campaign Launched

Fair hilarious that!

[JacknOry]

1 hour ago, Roving Mick said:

Venky's In Campaign Launched

Satire at its best!

[matt83]

http://www.cityam.com/285601/their-way-back-blackburn-rovers-championship-bound-but-have

[Stuart]

17 minutes ago, matt83 said:

http://www.cityam.com/285601/their-way-back-blackburn-rovers-championship-bound-but-have

Some good quotes at the end of that. Nice one John.

[bigbrandjohn]

Some quality thinking on this thread. Venkys should be welcoming Tony Mowbray with open arms if not wallets in Pune. For once the stars have aligned for us and we have a no nonsense manager who needed us as much as we needed him. 

His identity fits ours very well and hopefully now with a proper business framework around him at Ewood, we are a far cry from the dodgy dealings of recent years.  

Mowbray chooses players that fit his mould and ours. Some you win and some you lose but he won more than he lost this season especially with last minute signings. 

Mid table obscurity would be a solid start next season although the promotion bounce worked well for Sheffield United and Millwall. 

Keeping it simple, staying open with fans and players and maintaining a no bull$&@  zone around the club would be the perfect mantra for 2018-2019.  

I hope the Venkys mantra is “in Mowbray we trust.” The losses in football terms are worrying but they are a tax write off for Venkys against profitable divisions.

I am sure from a reputation standpoint they are more concerned about trying to rebuild their brand equity. Mowbray and the team have started the process. Long may it continue. 

[philipl]

The seven years 2010-17 can neither be forgiven nor forgotten.

Having reduced the club to where we are now, we finally have had 15 months of Venky's consistently good decisions and we should acknowledge that.

Venky's have supported the club in a way in which financial and footballing oblivion have been decisively avoided and we should be enormously relieved by that.

There is only a fairly weak moral obligation on them to try to right their past failings and return us to the Premier League. There is probably a greater obligation to Tony Mowbray to back him with what is necessary to give him a decent shot at getting us up to the Premier League quickly (within two seasons).

I am persuaded by the point which was made that both sets of accountants will have pointed out that the only opportunity to get cash out of football is in promotion to the Premier League- either to do an Oyston and pocket the riches or realise cash through selling the club. Even a newly promoted Rovers to the PL would probably command a price approaching £100m. There is little evidence of Venky's buyer's regret so I don't get the feeling they have a burning desire to get their £250m back- they can't even if they want to!

Which begs three questions:

- do they want to sell? All the evidence from past behaviour is a resounding NO and therefore this is not a motivation of the owners

- do they want to risk £30m (throwing out a number) on a Premier League attempt which even if successful will put them into a League which has returned to making net losses (this fact might be the killer)?

- do they judge TM as capable of mounting a Premier promotion challenge from the Championship and trust him to make a decent honest attempt with their money? This also could be a killer if they think he is too unproven at the top end of the Championship. Also possible their judgement of how much £££ is required to make a serious promotion bid is awry and given the way they seem to trust/like certain people there might also be emotional attachments to players and the Mowbray team spirit which clouds their assessment of what is really needed to finish 1st to 6th in the Championship.

Based on past Venky's behaviour, this could go any way and possibly even now throw up a bonkers answer only Jerome Anderson could come up with. Venky's put cash into Rovers for a few weeks after they took over, backed Shabby Singh, and as Revidge pointed out were not that stingy with Gary Bowyer either (although the State Bank/land security money engine was working then) so they have gambled in the past. They couldn't have got to a net £250m out of pocket position on Rovers if they hadn't had a reckless streak- imagine if they had done the obvious and put into the management team they inherited £250m net over 2010-2018....

Agreed this is a well-balanced thread with excellent points made. One thing is for sure, there is going to be an awful lot of Pune tea leave reading happening in and around Blackburn this summer.

[gumboots]

On 11/05/2018 at 14:56, matt83 said:

http://www.cityam.com/285601/their-way-back-blackburn-rovers-championship-bound-but-have

Why doesn't this come with a health warning? I'm scrolling down reading and nearly choked on my cuppa at that picture

[Speedie's Gonna Get Ya]

The key distinctions from the past (and the opportunity that lies ahead) is the quality of leadership, advice given and the trust levels between club and owners. All of which have improved in the past twelve months; this could play a part.

[matt83]

1 hour ago, gumboots said:

Why doesn't this come with a health warning? I'm scrolling down reading and nearly choked on my cuppa at that picture

 

I know that porcine face enough to put anyone off their breakfast.

I know the lad who wrote it. As he’s leaving  for pastures new his boss let him write a purely rovers article even though it’s a London pape aimed at Londoners. He said his opinions were edited down to avoid potentially being sued by Jerome Anderson. And think they removed mrs d reference of “the bitch is back”. 

Perhaps understandably he was getting digs from colleagues that no one would read it. The nos aren’t huge obviously but he said it was 4th on the most read list and definitely winding a few up. They were struggling to comprehend why their business stories hasn’t done as well as a Lancastrian football team in a paper centred on London business. 

[DE.]

For a neutral our tenure under Venky's would probably be very interesting and entertaining. Obviously for us it's mostly just depressing and infuriating. 

What's confusing to me is that if the club is being funded properly by the owners, why in the world were we - according to Cheston himself - using emergency loans to cover shortfalls? Did the owners need two bloody accountancy firms to remind them to pay the bills in a timely manner? The whole period of Lambert/Coyle is completely baffling both from an on and off field perspective. It's like after years of stability we suddenly plunged straight back into the era of madness that had preceded it, then after appointing Mowbray went back to calmer waters. I'd love to know what the root cause of that chaos was.

[JHRover]

6 minutes ago, DE. said:

For a neutral our tenure under Venky's would probably be very interesting and entertaining. Obviously for us it's mostly just depressing and infuriating. 

What's confusing to me is that if the club is being funded properly by the owners, why in the world were we - according to Cheston himself - using emergency loans to cover shortfalls? Did the owners need two bloody accountancy firms to remind them to pay the bills in a timely manner? The whole period of Lambert/Coyle is completely baffling both from an on and off field perspective. It's like after years of stability we suddenly plunged straight back into the era of madness that had preceded it, then after appointing Mowbray went back to calmer waters. I'd love to know what the root cause of that chaos was.

I think the chaos was less the presence of Coyle and Lambert but more the removal of Bowyer. Let us not forget that they got lucky in some ways with Bowyer, who stepped in at a crucial time, picked up enough points to ensure survival and following that went straight out to India to speak directly to the owners - following that Shebby and Agnew were removed and the club appeared to adopt a more conventional approach and things settled down for a couple of seasons (as they seem to have done in the last 18 months).

For the 2 full Bowyer seasons complaints about the owners went quiet as most people focused on an ultimately doomed push for the play-offs.

My interest is in the period between the end of Bowyer's 2nd season in May 2015 and then the sacking of Bowyer in November 2015, which ushered in another period of instability as unsuitable managers were brought in by persons unknown. Also during that period we saw the departures of Shaw and Myers with Cheston stepping in to do everything himself. Lambert unsuitable because he had ambitions beyond what these owners were prepared to match and Coyle because he was inept and should never have been anywhere near the club.

Strange goings on with different people involved throughout and mysterious behaviour from those in India.

 

[DE.]

7 minutes ago, JHRover said:

I think the chaos was less the presence of Coyle and Lambert but more the removal of Bowyer. Let us not forget that they got lucky in some ways with Bowyer, who stepped in at a crucial time, picked up enough points to ensure survival and following that went straight out to India to speak directly to the owners - following that Shebby and Agnew were removed and the club appeared to adopt a more conventional approach and things settled down for a couple of seasons (as they seem to have done in the last 18 months).

For the 2 full Bowyer seasons complaints about the owners went quiet as most people focused on an ultimately doomed push for the play-offs.

My interest is in the period between the end of Bowyer's 2nd season in May 2015 and then the sacking of Bowyer in November 2015, which ushered in another period of instability as unsuitable managers were brought in by persons unknown. Also during that period we saw the departures of Shaw and Myers with Cheston stepping in to do everything himself. Lambert unsuitable because he had ambitions beyond what these owners were prepared to match and Coyle because he was inept and should never have been anywhere near the club.

Strange goings on with different people involved throughout and mysterious behaviour from those in India.

I can only assume that Venky's somehow blamed Bowyer for the transfer embargo, hence selling players behind his back and providing minimal support, forcing us to bring in the likes of Fode Koita and Nathan Delfouneso. There was that strange report from The Sun that Bowyer had been sacked at the end of August, which must have come from somebody at the club. It all added to the instability and chaos, combined with poor results, which ultimately made Bowyer's sacking appear perfectly justified. It appears that there was a serious breakdown between the owners and GB that season which was only going to have one ending. 

We then had the rise of Suhail Pasha, Paul Lambert being appointed out of nowhere, Shaw and Myers leaving, the sale of Jordan Rhodes, Lambert leaving after allegedly being lied to about next season's budget, the whole Warnock/Coyle fiasco and the arrival of Paul Senior. Little surprise it all ended in relegation. 

[JHRover]

1 minute ago, DE. said:

I can only assume that Venky's somehow blamed Bowyer for the transfer embargo, hence selling players behind his back and providing minimal support, forcing us to bring in the likes of Fode Koita and Nathan Delfouneso. There was that strange report from The Sun that Bowyer had been sacked at the end of August, which must have come from somebody at the club. It all added to the instability and chaos, combined with poor results, which ultimately made Bowyer's sacking appear perfectly justified. It appears that there was a serious breakdown between the owners and GB that season which was only going to have one ending. 

We then had the rise of Suhail Pasha, Paul Lambert being appointed out of nowhere, Shaw and Myers leaving, the sale of Jordan Rhodes, Lambert leaving after allegedly being lied to about next season's budget, the whole Warnock/Coyle fiasco and the arrival of Paul Senior. Little surprise it all ended in relegation. 

Yeah, just that something changed massively in that summer. One minute things seemed to work quite nicely with Bowyer going to India to speak to Mrs Desai, the next he isn't going to India, communications break down and they start selling his best players. This all seemed to coincide with Pasha's arrival. Which one(s) of the family decided to increase his presence whilst culling the board down to just Cheston.

I suspect it all comes down to trust. Whether they lost faith in Bowyer after he failed to get us promoted, or one of the family took control of things and didn't like him, who knows.

But that summer was the watershed when the chaos began again, and I'm not particularly confident a similar thing won't happen again in future when they get bored or fancy a change.

Edited May 14, 2018 by JHRover

[DE.]

7 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Yeah, just that something changed massively in that summer. One minute things seemed to work quite nicely with Bowyer going to India to speak to Mrs Desai, the next he isn't going to India, communications break down and they start selling his best players. This all seemed to coincide with Pasha's arrival. Which one(s) of the family decided to increase his presence whilst culling the board down to just Cheston.

I suspect it all comes down to trust. Whether they lost faith in Bowyer after he failed to get us promoted, or one of the family took control of things and didn't like him, who knows.

But that summer was the watershed when the chaos began again, and I'm not particularly confident a similar thing won't happen again in future when they get bored or fancy a change.

The one obvious change was the transfer embargo coming into effect. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Venky's were caught off-guard by the whole thing - and as a result, as you say, lost trust in Bowyer and others at the club, sending over Pasha to try and work out what was going on. Pasha was obviously unimpressed with GB and got rid of him as soon as possible. 

Either way you're right, it's completely possible they'll start meddling again if Mowbray isn't living up to expectations next season. As far as I'm aware Pasha is still lurking in the shadows, so if he sours on Mowbray at some point it'll be time to buckle up and prepare for the next round of Venky Russian Roulette. We just have to hope Waggott & TM keep the ship steady and maintain reasonable expectations.