I guess the same could be said about the financial decision to pay certain players contracts up and let them leave the club. Also sack the manager and bring an under qualified background staff member in, to give it a go. After all we still had players to cheer and a manager to listen to in post and pre match interviews. Some things have been done to feather the nest of other people and not for the greater good of the club and thankfully, some people spot things like that and quite rightly do not just sit back and accept it.

For what it's worth and again from what other people are saying, Waggott seems to justify his salary, by what he is saving. Slashing the wage bill and not spending on transfers, will no doubt be fed back to India, to show that the bigger picture is, he is worth his £300k. I might not get a reply to my E Mail and he will definitely not admit to the loss, the stand closure causes, but that needs to be fed back to India too, in the event.

Ok, so here is my E Mail. Dear Steve, I write as a very concerned supporter, as things seem to be going from bad to worse with the finances at the club, which looks to be even worse than I thought, given the recent decision to close the Blackburn end for Tomorrow night’s cup game. Just so that you know that I am not just jumping on the band waggon, I have followed the club, though thick and thin, having attended my first game in 1973. If you look back at the old archives from the seventies for example, you will see that things were once so desperate that the club arranged a sponsored run around the perimeter of the pitch, to raise much needed funds. I was a young child at the time, and I took part in that event and begged and pleaded with my family and friends (most who probably could not really afford to) to sponsor me, to take part, just to help to save the club. Pictures of this were published in what was then the Lancashire evening Telegraph, so please fee free to check this event out, which was one amongst many. Anyway, onto the recent decision to close the stand, which I understand from reading other people’s comments, has been done for financial reasons. Can you please advise, exactly how much this saves, as I have a feeling this a big own goal and assuming you have the final say on such matters, consider that to be of your making. I firmly believe, given again, what I have read, that there will be a number of people not attending the match, due to the decision to close the Blackburn end and given that you have stated that you expected a crowd similar to the Walsall fixture, if it ends up lower that, will you stand up and accept responsibility for it? Furthermore, I also consider that we have given up, what advantage a home draw could have brought and therefore the prospects of making it through to the next round. Again, if we go on to lose the tie and miss the opportunity to progress maybe one or two more rounds, will you also accept responsibility for this and acknowledge the cost of this to the club. I have read quite recently that last year’s cup runs, did bring extra revenue to the club and here we are, potentially throwing the chance of that away this season. Finally, given how things on the financial side, do seem to be so desperate, can you give me and my fellow supporters some assurances that we do not need to take to the desperate measure again, to save the club from the financial abyss, that we seem to be currently heading for? Yours faithfully, A very worried supporter.

If it’s so desperate that we need to save £2k to £3K max, that’s definitely tough times. It’s possibly worse than it was back in the eighties. No wonder Sw4aggott is bragging about paying the wages and hiring a new coach. Perhaps we need to point this out and ask for some degree of comfort, once we know the exact figure saved. The club must be on a cliff edge if this is how desperate things have become and we deserve to know.

I guess we won’t know until the crowd is announced, but it could be an idea to check what not opening the Blackburn ends saves, in advance. Waggott has stated that he expects a crowd of 6,000 so is we get 5,000 for example, the maths are easy enough. For those going, I hope he gets it from you large.

Someone who know nothing about traditions and fans feelings, so Pune is correct. The stay away fans may well increase on the back of another crazy decision though, but no way are they to blame.

One other thing to mention here, especially if we lose. Why have we not thought of a way to fill the lower tier of the Blackburn End, instead of emptying it. Surely taking full advantage of being drawn at home, should be explored, as a place in the next round could be worth 10 times more than the saving, he is making here.

Great response that and thanks again for sharing. The figures he provides in response, should be interesting. I am sure with a bit of innovation and competitive pricing, we could have got to 10,000 for this.

Thanks for sharing. Perhaps the next think to ask is given that he was expecting 6,000 and also given the quality of the opposition is better, will he accept responsibility for this being a financial own goal, if we end up with 4,000 or less? Also, how will he feel if this leads to some fans deciding enough is enough and giving up on attending, due to this tipping point. I think more than one poster on here, has suggested that is the case.

What next. The game is only available on line.

After seeing that yesterday, it almost makes me sick to the stomach. What is the point in pitting the likes of Newcastle, City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, United (when stable) and even others, up against teams like Luton, Sheff U and the Clarets (despite this years spending for them)?. If Rovers were to go up, we would simply endure that type of battering ourselves and apart from the odd victory against the teams around the bottom 5 or 6 would we really want to see that kind of slaughter most weeks? So what are we playing for right now, the right to play in the big league for one season, so that our owners can claw back a bit of the money that have put in? It all seems a bit pointless right now.

I fully agree with that, but that’s the conundrum. We don’t know how good or bad the new keeper is yet, but he is going to need to be very good to stop us conceding as many as we have. Granted there were 3 yesterday that he could have done better with, but Ipswich had 36 attempts on goal. We need to shore up the midfield and get our act together defensively too, as we are just relying on being totally kamikaze. The attacking play has been exciting and the football nice on the eye, but even as a spectator, I’m knackered after every match. Get the new keeper in, perhaps go 5 at the back and maybe temper some of the forward play a touch. I rate JDT but his philosophy of preferring to win 5-4 instead of 1-0 is costing us what could be vital points right now. Leicester up next, so we need to implement some changes in the personal and style to get a result. Grinding out a scrappy 1-0 will be fine by me, but I sense that will not be the order of the day.

Watch him get our winner

Yeah it on Rovers TV for overseas fans.

I agree. No way is this an easy win for them. Kets go at them and be a bit cooler in front of goal. No reason why we can’t win this.

It’s such a massive own goal this. Even something as simple as buy one get one free would have worked a treat here. Maybe we can’t offer cheap tickets for the Leicester game, but what about, buy a £10 ticket and we will offer free/reduced tickets to anyone buying one, for the next cup game we host at Ewood.

Don’t give him ideas. He will be switching games to the Wham next, or even considering ground sharing for the 24/25 season.

Announcing they were closing the Blackburn End, seems to have taken 4,000 off the attendance. Waggott is a total sham, doing that.

I guess that compounds the situation with cost cutting and reducing the wage bill. It's a same they don't put an age limit on CEO's and boot the current one out.

Interesting that as that is 43 wins in the whole division out of 380 games. It bears out what I posted about it being fairly rare.

I forgot about that one. I wonder if it happened at all last season, as I don't remember one.

I suspect the same might apply to us going ahead too. I can’t remember when we last lost, after going ahead.

Based on the odds, I have pasted below and taking a snapshot of our games, since Millwall last season. We were behind in that and won (granted it didn’t matter in the end) and we were behind at Rotherham and drew. That’s two in the last 8 where we didn’t lose after conceding first. I’m not trying to defend our record, but if the odds are around 14/1 then it’s going to happen 3 times each season. Statisical analysis, shows it’s not a common occurrence in football.

So the directive is, we are not allowed to play/buy players above a certain age?

Perhaps it’s not just a Rovers thing. I’m not too sure how many bookmakers offer odds on this, but William Hill do. I just checked and for Ipswich to score first on Saturday and Rovers to win, it is 14/1. Just to check the same thing on another game, I tried Norwich to score first and Plymouth to win, which is 12/1 and the same odds apply to Preston to score first and WBA to win. Find a double like that and a £1 stake would return £170 so it’s probably a rare event at most clubs.