Fail to beat Wigan, assuming we don't pull out unlikely wins at Wednesday or Villa, and we're in deep trouble. Wigan at home should be the ideal fixture. They've won 1 away all season and that was way back in August or September. My worry is Wigan have threatened to turn it around. They led at Derby midweek and Reading today before losing both late on. They'll be fuming and will be looking over their shoulders. We don't have the ability to come from behind as those others have done.

Only positives today are that we aren't any nearer the bottom 3 than we were yesterday thanks to Sheffield United, and we didn't get hammered as we did at Deepdale. Groundhog day stuff again though. Our home form has now deserted us and was previously the cornerstone of our points return. Norwich, Middlesbrough, Bristol City and Preston. All the same old tale. Narrow defeats. Zero goals for us. Lots of possession but nowt to show for it. Wigan is must win. No ifs or buts. My guess is we will start slowly and salvage a draw and it will be dressed up as a win.

More home fans than the plastic people at Preston managed for a 3pm game at their place earlier this season. Interesting.

Of course the alternative explanation is he was instructed to let someone out to save cash and foolishly thought we'd get away with it

Preston are in for the play-offs and we aren't safe yet. So a lot to play for with 10 games to go. The positions could and were the opposite only 6 weeks ago but we weakened from being in a good position whilst talking about its and buts whilst Preston immediately strengthened on a sensible budget and have been unbeatable since. Their manager was talking of promotion when they started this run more than 10 points behind us whilst our manager talked about slowing it down and waiting for another year. Rubbish.

Despite the official attendance today there were around 30 or more empty seats in the immediate area of 5 rows either side of me. Vast majority have been occupied in most 3pm games this season. Then folk reckon needless early kick offs don't affect numbers attending. Rubbish.

Hang on, I thought Venkys never refused to sign cheques? If this happens I'll look forward to the excuses that Waggott comes out with. He'll be under pressure to shield our wonderful owners from any blame or criticism so prepare for some ludicrous explanation. We all know what this is about. Cost cutting. The ladies team will be a loss maker as it is at virtually every club given so few people pay to watch it and suits like Waggott and Cheston, under pressure from above, will quickly identify this as an area to cut. No surprises. We spend less on our pitch and infrastructure than Accy Stanley these days and it shows with the state of the place so it's no surprise they're cutting in other non essential areas.

Should be over 20000 if 7600 of that lot. Be very disappointed if not.

I don't know the answer but would suspect the place opens at 9am for breakfast etc. however will only serve ale from 10am.

When you're conceding 3 goals against Rotherham then any game is tough. Until or unless we sort out the defence and learn how to keep a few clean sheets we're going to struggle to win games. Unfortunately our limitations are such that if we aim to keep a clean sheet it will probably come at the expense of any attacking play at all as we will have to adopt an ultra'-cautious approach if we're to have any hope of shutting the opposition out.

When will Jacob Davenport be ready for first team action?.................

Norwich have already sold 21,500 season tickets for next season. Meanwhile tumbleweed at Ewood as we await a decision/announcement on tickets.

Nah, Bolton are bigger than Preston. Traditionally they may have been similar but the Premier League years have made Bolton bigger. I've always looked at ourselves and Bolton as being quite similar in terms of size, crowds, recent history, although we've got the added weight of having won the league a few times. Preston are an odd case. Because they are based in a 'city' there seems to be a belief that they should be 'bigger' than the towns around them - Blackburn, Bolton, Wigan, Blackpool and Burnley - yet the evidence shows that not to be the case. Actually their performance as a club over the last 30 years or so is more in keeping with Blackpool or Oldham than Rovers/Bolton. It must be strange supporting them and approaching pension age and not be able to remember a game in the top division, all the while the clubs around you are/have enjoyed recent success up there.

I've been quite surprised by the language the League have used in relation to Bolton. They've made it very clear that they're prepared to go to significant lengths to help Bolton and get their takeover through quickly. Usually in the case of takeovers they are silent on the issue until the deal is done and they've been waved through the 'fit and proper' test. I half wonder if this is because Bolton are truly on the precipice and there's a real risk of them not finishing the season if they don't get an injection of cash quickly. The League will go to great lengths to try and protect their image and reputation, particularly when it comes to media and commercial deals, and the prospect of a member of the Championship failing to complete fixtures or going bust probably worries them. I hope they go down and don't come back for a long time. They've got away with it for too long now and it isn't fair on those clubs who pay their debts and bills that some clubs are allowed to continually get away without paying up.

I have a question for the big club fan - will the special 'Pride of Lancashire' banner be making an appearance on Saturday? Special day out - special banner made for the occasion.

Of course the sign of a 'big' club accustomed to getting big away followings is for giddy fans to take the time to visit other fans forums, create accounts and type messages about how many fans they are taking to a one off game. Of course all this only facilitated by good old Rovers who are the only club in the Football League daft enough to hand over nearly 8000 away tickets and effectively set clubs the challenge of selling them all.

Presumably spent the last couple of days frantically trying to find a way to enable more away supporters to get in. I noticed that they've blocked off the end block of the Riverside as 'segregation'. I'm fairly sure there are season ticket holders in that block so just another example of the club showing a complete lack of interest in its home support. No matter, I'm sure those affected will happily shuffle along to other seats.

Time to brace ourselves for more chopping and changing. Expect a back 3 and then probably Bennett moving between 3 different positions within the first 30 minutes. If we start with our customary horrendous first half at home as we have in most home games this season we'll probably see a multitude of changes to try and overcome it. It might be fun for those who like to guess the team/formation or observe with interest as we juggle different systems and players but I'm really quite tired of it. I'd just like to have some sort of consistency with regards to selection and positioning. A favoured formation and starting XI that can have a run of games together. I expect Reed to be back in after his sabbatical, probably Evans too. I'm left with little alternative but to conclude that the manager still doesn't really know his best XI or formation. There really is no other logical explanation for the constant juggling and changes. The more frustrating part is that having spent £10 million in the summer we've ended up in a position where we've so few options defensively that we're now having to change systems to come up with something that resembles a defence now Lenihan is injured. I'm far from impressed about this, it appears to be either negligence or over confidence in the extreme to think that we could soldier through without sustaining any injuries, especially given the medical histories of Lenihan and Mulgrew.

Oh well at least Waggott and Cheston will be happy with the coin coming in from 7,500 away fans having their big annual day out. Caley will be happy as he can be back home in time for tea.

I half wonder if the reckless decision to allow Downing out was done to open space on the payroll for Chapman to come in, or free up some cash for the nominal fee we will pay Middlesbrough to get him here now. Without wanting to accuse Mowbray of lying stranger things have happened here over the years. I've always believed that the club budget and transfer budget are two completely separate things. The club budget is what Waggott and Cheston oversee, base their forecasts on and are instructed to work within by those in India. The transfer budget is extra dosh that Mowbray goes and gets from India when the need arises or when someone over there takes enough interest/has some spare cash/gets excited following a decent run of results. The club budget sees Waggott and co. scrimping for every penny they can find as they are under pressure to reduce the reliance on Venkys to top up the shortfall. The transfer budget sees someone over there chucking Mowbray millions for a teenager to develop. If there was money 'available' in January I doubt it was sat in the club accounts waiting to be spent. It may have been 'available' had Mowbray picked up the phone to India and requested it from Mrs Desai. But then we've the added issue here of the ownership diplomacy that the manager seemingly has to play here. Mowbray may have been under the impression that in requesting additional funding in January he may have been diminishing his pot or credit in the summer. He may also have felt it might erode his credibility or popularity in India if he was to go to them cap in hand mid-season to request extra cash having agreed to a healthy budget last summer. There's all sorts of plates spinning here in terms of different issues to deal with so whilst technically he might have been able to get some extra dosh through had he needed it he probably felt the best way to win the Indians over was to cart on with what he had and then turn up in May having kept his powder dry hoping that would mean more credit and a bigger budget then. The other issue is however that since then our form has collapsed alarmingly and if that continues much longer we could easily end up in a relegation scrap having been in with a sniff of the play-offs. I don't know whether the owners understand such things or not or if their advisors do but in normal circumstances if the manager could have spent cash, elected not to and then oversaw a complete collapse in form there would be eyebrows raised in Pune HQ.

It comes back to the development of football in India mantra that was supposedly one of the main reasons they got involved in this venture in the first place, along with developing their business overseas. All well and good if Rovers can benefit from that through increased exposure, access to new markets and access to a vast pool of talent in India. Unfortunately it raises suspicion because they've owned the club for more than 8 years and yet in that entire time we've seen little to no evidence of any serious attempts to develop the club over there, their business over here or generate beneficial links to India and Indian players/businesses. I would absolutely embrace the idea if I could see serious efforts to do it properly- friendly matches out there, tie-ins with Indian clubs/academies, lots of Indian sponsors etc. Leicester have put loads of effort into developing their 'brand' in Thailand with friendlies, merchandise, trips out there etc. The most we've had was that mid-season friendly match nearly 8 years ago, supposed plans for an academy over there that never got off the ground and now this. So it is quite difficult to buy into the suggestion that there is a serious effort to build something. I suspect it is once again an issue as to cash. I don't think they've ever been in this to spend considerable amounts of their own money and they probably felt that they could do all those things on the cheap and it would be easy as the only Indian owners of a PL club. Unfortunately it isn't cheap nor easy and there is ferocious competition around who will invest millions in develop overseas. I know City have made inroads into India and probably Liverpool and others who invest millions every year into spreading their presence around the globe. Without wanting to sound too critical the cost of return flights and lodging at Brockhall for a few months is probably well worth it for Balaji and his PR efforts. But again if there was any serious aim of doing something big with this it is going to take a hell of a lot more than that. One thing I will say is that this sudden 'interest' from him along with his lad turning up at Ewood a couple of months ago to watch a game suggests baby steps towards them taking more interest and pride in their 'toy'. Whether that is a good thing or not remains to be seen.

It signifies a remarkable collapse from where we were less than 5 weeks ago that we are now looking at Rotherham's remaining fixtures and hoping they don't pick up more than 11 points from them.

It doesn't seem like Anderson has or has ever had anywhere near the level of cash required to bankroll a loss making club. It seems his plan was to get control of a club for a relatively low price, get the finances into better shape before selling them on for a tidy profit. Can't really have any sympathy for him nor anyone else that buys into a Championship club as it is clear what the costs are. Also no sympathy for those who buy top division clubs, wreck and relegate them and then get lumbered with tens of millions of losses every year.

Bowyer and Mowbray both ended up as manager effectively by accident rather than design. Both arrived into abysmal, chaotic and horrible periods in the club's history and followed a succession of failed managers and boardroom instability. Bowyer followed Kean-Berg-Appleton and the chaos upstairs with Agnew/Shaw and Singh. He steadied the ship by securing survival from a tricky position, established a link to the owners and was able to construct a team that fans loved for being honest, genuine and likeable with none of the baggage of the seasons before. He was liked, trusted and did a good job. Mowbray followed a similar spell of chaos after Lambert and Coyle and also the boardroom shenanigans with Myers and Shaw leaving, Cheston running the place on his own and then the activities of Pasha behind the scenes. Mowbray inherited a slightly worse position on the pitch but was unfortunate to take us down with 51 points. Mowbray, like Bowyer, has established trust with both the owners and the fans and seems to be well liked and respected by almost all involved.

Indeed. More from the horses mouth on this relatively minor issue than we've had from all the owners combined in about 5 years. Clearly the whole thing has been orchestrated in India, presumably this is Balaji showing off as the Owner of Blackburn Rovers to influential people in India. I notice the rather lame attempt to photoshop a Venkys badge onto the lad's T-Shirt. I've no strong opinion on the matter. If it helps build relations with India and the owners or help's bring through a line of young players then fine. I just think it is odd that he's suddenly taking such pride in being our Owner that he's arranging stuff like this when there has been radio silence for years despite clamours for information.