And once again with Waggott's statement in the accounts we see why he should be nowhere near a club of this size - he considers routine maintenance - like cleaning parts of Ewood and repairing crumbling concrete - as noteworthy jobs requiring reference in public - just like he did the other year when he boasted about the new bus and laying of a new pitch. These are not improvements or significant expenditures - they are essential maintenance steps that are par for the course at a large, professional football club with a 30,000 capacity stadium Non-league clubs have to lay a pitch, repair crumbling concrete and clean the roofs - it isn't impressive that this is done at Ewood and it should be done each and every year not once a decade. Impressive noteworthy expenditure would be new floodlights, new sound system, a new Riverside stand, a Desso pitch, a new jumbo screen, real improvements that go above and beyond the bare minimum. These are things that are done at most other Football League grounds at some stage or another, but not under this regime at Ewood. They expect credit and gratitude for repairing and maintaining their own facilities.

Steve's £125k pay rise through to £433k a year needs funding somehow. Just remember when we are waving off our core playing assets as their contracts run down that this charlatan is taking this much out of the club every year.

I'm not worried about anything Chaddy other than your state of mind. Too much water passed under the bridge for me to be worrying about trivial minor inconsequential issues like coaching and backroom staff who will be here for at best 12 months before they give up / are forced out. My references to the Rothwell nonsense were tongue in cheek comments making fun of the claim because it was and is ludicrous. People like you were using it as an excuse and reason as to why he was leaving Rovers to join Bournemouth because that's what you enjoy doing - convincing yourself and others that there is a reason beyond Rovers' control why bad things happen and that they are not to blame - when in most cases I think Rovers are at least partly responsible. Heaven knows how Rothwell got permission to move to Leeds in the summer, how will his Mrs cope with that one? Or maybe it was just made up drivel as some of us knew from the start.

We are, allegedly, a Championship club challenging to secure a place in the biggest and most valuable league in world football in the next 2-3 months. And we are worrying about Eastbourne Borough's manager being grateful for them giving him a job and wanting to 'see the season through' in the National League South? Good grief Chaddy. Next up you'll be telling me that Adam Murray's wife enjoys living in Eastbourne and doesn't want to relocate to NW England.

Maybe Ismael insisted that a condition for taking the job was that he would be allowed to bring in his own backroom staff and Rovers have 'agreed' to this in the summer. We all know what jam tomorrow promises can be made at Rovers and how often those don't materialise once 'circumstances change'

Every single ingredient is in place for a recipe for disaster here. Hope to god I am wrong because nothing less than a win will be enough for our fading play-off ambitions. Sell out relatively large away following travelling in confidence/expectation - rarely bodes well Eustace factor / added spice Our struggles in recent weeks and unconvincing performances Most of the season we have struggled away against struggling sides - Plymouth, Oxford, Millwall, Swansea They have a couple of monkeys on their back that will have to end soon - no goals in ages, no wins in ages, no points or wins for Eustace, risk of getting cut adrift They need a result to keep in touch with the teams just outside the bottom 3 - if they don't they will be adrift very soon with the likes of Hull and Stoke still collecting points As others have pointed out their defensive record isn't bad for a team in their position and given our troubles putting the ball in the net and Eustace/Ismael caution expect a low scoring affair decided by an odd goal So yeah, I'm worried. The thought of 3000 Rovers fans spending 90 minutes obsessing over and abusing Eustace rather than the real scumbags sat in the directors box doesn't appeal either.

Sales of Carter, Travis, Hyam, Tronstad and Brittain should net them £10 million+ which in their eyes is another year of losses Venkys don't need to cover. What's not to like? Achieving this whilst also selling some season tickets and not getting relegated from the Championship could be tough so suspect they will have to try and hit some middle ground. They can dress most of it up under the guise of Ismael and the new era wanting to put a new fresh stamp on the squad and get players suited to his style of play. Then they will also turn the tables on the players themselves and make them the enemies by suggesting that they are refusing to sign new deals and therefore forcing the club into an impossible position where a sale is the only realistic option. Of course most of us know that there are no new deals on the table, they have no intention of offering these players improved extended terms because that costs money. Unfortunately quite a lot of Rovers fans will just accept it and shrug shoulders.

The club finds itself in the top 6 by complete accident, it was never planned or intended and is simply a result of a tight knit dressing room working their backsides off all season overseen by a decent manager and his staff. Nothing at all to do with the wretches in India, or their cowardly stooges in the boardroom. They deserve not one single iota of credit for it as not a single act they have performed has helped the team get into the position that it is. The fact that they never had any expectation, hope, plan or intention of being in the mix is evidenced by the CEO publicly declaring 18 months ago, a few months after missing the play-offs on GD, that his ambition for the season was survival, and then having twice ended up in the shake up for the play-offs since then to have successfully forced out two good managers by making their positions untenable to the point where one preferred to be unemployed and the other preferred a probable spell in League One next year. Quite the achievement to make it so unpleasant and undesirable to stay here and compete for the top 6. So no real surprise then when Ismael rocks up and there's no talk about promotion, but plenty about projects. His discussions with the stooges will have been based on yet more vague promises with no real intentions of delivering 'jam tomorrow', probably telling him not to worry about the summer as money will be available, things will get sorted out. He will discover in the fullness of time that these are lies aimed purely at getting him in the building and under contract then worry about the rest later.

They're just making it up as they go along. None of them - I include Ismael - can be taken seriously when they speak publicly. I'm not suggesting Ismael is in on it or should be compared to the scrotes in the boardroom but at this early juncture he is just repeating the same old stuff the last three have come out with, he will probably have been given the same false impression in his discussions with them and it is totally pointless as he will find out in the next 6 months.

Whoever writes these things down there needs to get a grip on their use of exclamation marks.

Think Waggott is going to be kicking back and celebrating a fantastic few weeks for him and his mate in the shadows. 6 figure compensation for Eustace and his staff 3 off the wage bill. A 2 week long search concludes with Ismael accepting their terms on the basis he works with existing staff. No compensation required. As it stands a wage down with Gardiner and Downing off the books and Whitehead on. Fans gearing up for a day at Derby giving grief to the bogeyman whilst Waggott and his mate sit in the comfy seats upstairs (at our expense) enjoying the show. If we fall short of the top 6 everyone can blame Eustace upping sticks and leaving mid-season and the instability of having to find a replacement. Job done.

I believe that part of his attractiveness to the regime will be that he won't have many demands when it comes to his own staff and that the current establishment behind the scenes will be brought further into the fold than they were under Eustace, where other than Benson the others were rarely seen and apparently sidelined. The regime will want to ensure they are front and centre again.

What the players want or think doesn't matter to this regime. Nor does what the manager, staff, fans, think. They won't be staying because the owners and their stooges have decided they won't be getting offered reasonable competitive new contracts, hence nobody renewing in over a year.

Brentford sell Watkins to Villa for £30 million and within weeks have invested most of that back into their squad and the show rolls on - either get promoted and recoup the money or sell the replacements and reinvest - and on it goes. Here the name of the game is to save cash for the Indians with no end in sight. No promotion, no reinvestment, no sale of the club. Just purgatory.

This is all part of the grand plan. Getting Ismael under a longer contract creates the illusion that there is some sort of strategy and medium term aim here. It persuades him to come in and commit to the club. They'll go with the 'new era' stuff now as for a relatively small cost - contracts for Ismael and Whitehead - they'll delude most into thinking there is a new bright era on the horizon. Then out the back door they will bundle the few remaining quality players, who have worked their socks off this season to get us into this position and who we should be building around for years to come. I can see it now - come the summer - release a load, sell a few, the rest heading into the final years of their deals - all dressed up under the heading of Ismael is building his own squad, new era, give him a chance. I call it a con job to achieve their longer term aim of gutting the squad of senior proven players and replacing with low cost alternatives. They'll push Ismael to the limits with it as they did JDT and Eustace and call his bluff.

Edit - double post

In the middle bracket for me. Not an appointment that excites me or enthuses me, but not what I would describe as a poor or shocking appointment. There is logic to it and reasons for optimism. I'm not sure there are many that would enthuse me whilst these owners are in charge because even if we hit the jackpot and get a managerial genius all we know for certain is it cannot last long here. I'm perplexed by the awarding of the 3 year contract. I don't know who they are trying to kid with this. I find it doubly baffling that they've given this guy longer than Eustace and JDT despite not renewing a players contract in over a year, even though Ismael has never lasted more than a season in any of his 8 club jobs to date. It is almost like they are trying to make a point to the fans and to themselves. Maybe they consider it a price worth paying to create a pretence of a plan and stability. Of course Ismael references the obligatory 'pathways' for the academy players AKA we are going to release all our proven quality senior players, get their wages off the books and then throw in the kids and hope it works out ok so we can save the owners money and we hope we've found a manager willing to go along with that. They aren't fooling me and of course Waggott can't resist getting on the bandwagon to gather some free brownie points from this. I just hope nobody loses sight of the real issue or forgets the events that led us here - our manager walking out to join a side likely to be going into League One - that's the important thing, not what soundbites they come out with now whilst they distract the masses with this sideshow.

Very convenient that he won't be demanding any more than 2 staff (the number of slots freed up by Eustace's staff leaving) and thus ensuring that Lowe/Benson/Johnson are secured through the next managerial regime (unless they opt to move elsewhere). Good work if you can get it. I suspect the fact that Ismael only wants to bring 2 with him and that they are available (free) has helped him land the job. Whereas when we could have had Farke but wouldn't accede to his staff demands.

So Nixon reckons we are giving him a 3 year deal. I don't see the point of this. Why are we giving a manager with a patchy record a long contract when our entire squad is out within the next 15 months? I would much prefer a deal until 2026 and an option beyond that if things have gone well.

At Barnsley, West Brom and Besiktas his assistant was Adam Murray, now the manager of Eastbourne in National League South. Not sure who he had at Watford. Edit - just looked it up and it was Dean Whitehead and Omar Riza (now Cardiff manager) who assisted him at Watford. Whitehead also worked with him at Besiktas, was at Stoke earlier this season but I think left when Robins took over. So perhaps one option for one of the two vacant positions at Ewood (unless we go cheap again and impose existing staff on him).

West Brom results in the league under Ismael: 12 wins, 9 draws and 8 defeats. Concerningly though 4 of those defeats came in his last 6 games. Their first defeat was not until 1st October when they lost 1-0 at Stoke, so they lost 8 times in 19 games. This is what worries me, his initial impact usually seems to be quite positive - at WBA they went unbeaten in 10 winning 6 - but then things started to unravel quite quickly and when you consider they were fresh out of the Premier League with a pretty strong squad for this level the form they were displaying in the last 2-3 months under him was pretty terrible. Having read that report in the Watford Observer it seems other than a purple patch in the middle it was pretty poor throughout.

Having reflected a bit more on it I have some limited and vague hope that Ismael might perhaps be able to get a positive reaction out of the players between now and May to get us into the top 6. He comes across to me as a bit of a motivator. I am saying that purely based on the fact that he had an initial positive reaction at Barnsley, coming in mid-season and leading them up the table, and his initial time at WBA and Watford appears to have been ok, it was after his first 20 games that things unravelled quite quickly, perhaps once the players got fed up of him. If he can do the business over the next 12 games that is the main thing. I am not confident at all of what happens beyond that but then again the club are ensuring that we could go for Guardiola and he'd struggle with half the squad out the door and no commitments or ideas on budgets.

They'll be keen to offload Cantwell this summer as I think he was only a late 'splurge' to keep Eustace quiet and the intention was always to get him back into the English shop window and sell again. Introducing a manager totally the opposite of his style will see to that.

150+ applicants and over 2 weeks of searching to come up with two names that were both employed and sacked by rival Championship clubs last season for failing to deliver what they wanted/expected. There were people on here surmising that Ismael would be in contention that first weekend based on his availability and status. Why has it taken the 'powers' another 2 weeks to progress with it?

Because it is totally false that he has been 'bounced out' of those clubs you mention. At QPR he was only the caretaker manager, had a good return of points and then they appointed a permanent boss and he left. Rotherham he transformed them from being bottom of the league to survival in the space of 2 months. They wanted to keep him but he wanted to be somewhere with a chance of promotion, so ended up at Cardiff instead who he kept up then got promoted the following season. Middlesbrough he kept them up from being in a relegation battle and was replaced by Chris Wilder when they were mid-table. Huddersfield he kept up from a disastrous position and had them mid-table the following season before their American owner wanted his 'own man' in and they went on to get relegated after he left. The other issue here of course is that a Warnock would be an interim appointment, just for the rest of the season to deal with these last 12 games and then revisit the manager situation with more time. A Wagner or Ismael would inevitably want, expect and get at least a couple of seasons of a contract and we all know that Rovers won't get rid of them during that time. Wagner was very unpopular with large parts of the Norwich support. I'd suggest their 'achievement' in getting into the top 6 was not that impressive when you look at their resources and squad, and they spent most of the season in mid-table. https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2024-05-17/where-did-all-go-wrong-four-reasons-why-city-axed-david-wagner