JHRover

Ipswich, just relegated as one of the worst teams in history with 4 wins all season, have today announced they have passed the 10,000 mark on season tickets for next year. This after their maligned chairman introduced an incentive scheme where refunds are given when certain milestones are reached on sales. Anything happening down at Ewood?

Have to sympathise with the few hundred Brentford fans caught up in all this. If it wasn't bad enough having the game cancelled at a day's notice and losing train/hotel costs they're now hanging on for news of the game possibly being midweek. Not that the authorities will care one jot about their interests.

We've heard and seen all this before. We want to strengthen. You don't kick that off by selling your best player. Numerous times we've seen sales of key players supposedly to raise the funds for new signings. Never so simple. To start with we would have to replace Dack's goals this season before we looked at the other positions. Unlikely to work. I'm surprised after what went on with Rhodes, Gestede, Hanley, Duffy and Cairney that anyone would trust these owners to sensibly reinvest the proceeds. Last time we tried selling to raise cash we ended up in League One.

Of course the bigger the turnover the more can be spent on players under FFP rules. But lets not make out as though our season ticket base paying an extra hundred quid each is going to enable us to shop in a better department. It will make minimal difference. It might see Venkys only need to put £14 million in next year instead of £15 million. Or if they decide to invest in another Brereton won't make any difference. Nailing your loyal and committed supporters who sign up for a season despite the rubbish we've had over the last 5-6 years is the straightforward and easy way for someone like Waggott to tick the box and turn up in India having achieved his 'target' of increasing revenues. Milk those who will be there regardless. Easy. Exploit their commitment to the cause. Not as easy or straightforward to attack the issue of low crowds at the source and to do something about it to see a longer term improvement. Waggott probably won't be here for anything beyond the next 4-5 years so he doesn't need to concern himself with losing a generation of support or being in a mess in 10-15 years time as people move away and find other things to do with their free time. Not his problem. All he has to worry about is his meeting in May with his bosses who will want to see evidence of him justifying his salary by making more money. He's already failed with his ace card which was handing over the full DE to hordes of away fans every week as expected bankers like Stoke, WBA and Middlesbrough brought very few.

So lets suppose the club sticks another £100 on every season ticket, and by some miracle everyone of the 10,000 season ticket holders renews. That will come to an extra £1 million of income over a year. So equivalent to Gladwin and Samuel's wages or half of one of Ben Brereton's legs. Alternatively the club could focus on increasing numbers, taking a longer term view of improving atmosphere and building support after almost a decade of it being on the decline. If the club aimed to get an extra 2-3000 season ticket holders by reducing prices then over a season, with those people buying food, drink and merchandise, i suspect we wouldn't be far off the same income, but with a better atmosphere and attendance.

Well in theory we should be among the cheapest if you base your prices on your local audience. Clearly incomes and general affluence are greater in places like London and Norwich where people can/will pay higher prices than say Blackburn or Middlesbrough. When I last checked our cheapest adult season ticket was higher than the majority in the Championship. Admittedly PNE and Leeds are two that are more than us. Anyone at QPR last week may have noticed the end block of the home stand to the right of the away end. Previously this area has been virtually empty, but on Friday it was close to full with vocal fans standing up. I wondered what that was all about and it turns out that they have designated that as a 'blue' category section with cheap tickets. Season tickets in there are less than £300. All done to fill a previously empty section next to the away end, improve the atmosphere and it looks like it is working.

Well beaten but fortunately a combination of a couple of good saves, good fortune and missed opportunities kept the scoreline respectable. But we were outdone from start to finish really. The fact they only needed a point to go up meant they could take their foot off the gas in the last 20-30 minutes. Ultimately I think we're so far off clubs like Norwich in our entire operation it is scary. Of course they have shown that it is possible to go from midtable to Champions in 1 year with some smart recruitment and without throwing the chequebook at it. But one look at the sort of business they've done in recruitment, their style of play and entire operation in general with a clear vision of where they want to go and how to put their limited finances to good use - way beyond anything we have. We've had a decent season but lets not kid ourselves that we're going to emulate them next season.

The biggest beneficiaries of the cheap Swansea tickets will be the few hundred travelling Swansea fans who will be able to get in for £15 rather than the £30 it cost Rovers fans at their place or the £35 we paid for Norwich. To those with season tickets there is absolutely no benefit in these cheaper tickets. To be honest I'm sick and fed up with it now. My season ticket price keeps going up. We are no longer the cheapest in the league or even close to it yet some people shield the club through the misguided belief we are still cheap. Then things like the 1875 club fiasco, whereby I am forced into joining to ensure that i can secure away tickets despite having a full buying history, just rubs salt in the wounds. The club really don't help themselves. Then folk will come out with the 'but the club needs to raise income to reduce reliance on Venkys, FFP rules blah blah blah' but the cash raised through an extra £50 a head on season tickets probably won't cover Ben Gladwin's wage for the season, so it's a drop in the ocean and a poor signing from Mowbray more than covers the difference.

That's the thing. I could almost accept/support/understand the delay in releasing information and getting tickets on sale if the club was going through some sort of lengthy research process to try and understand what they could do to improve things, or were putting together some drastic new pricing or other ideas in an attempt to overhaul the thing and boost numbers. But we all know now it will be more or less the same as this year. Same categories, same stands, similar prices, no bonuses. It gets to the embarrassing stage when Blackpool of all clubs, in receivership, up for sale and starting from the lowest base of all, are now ahead of us in the game. Does anyone know what Waggott actually does if he isn't setting the budgets, signing players or getting tickets on sale?

Join the dots time. Sky Sports - Jim White - Laurence Bassini - Jerome Anderson - Sky Sports All goes round in one big circle. All know each other. Remember Bassini saying he'd been offered Rovers before taking over at Watford? Stinks. He seems to be under the influence of something. Cant get my head around the Dave Richards references. Very strange.

Does anyone know what happens if their players stick to their threat and refuse to play their final 2 games of the season? Not clear if it is just their senior squad doing this or every registered player. Clearly if it is the former then they can fulfil their fixtures by chucking in the academy kids. If it's the latter then it will create a mess for the League to sort out. Presumably Brentford and Forest would be awarded the 3 points and the games wouldn't go ahead. Would Bolton face additional sanctions or just start afresh next season?

Meanwhile the 'competition organisers' EFL let the show continue. I hope, if this game doesn't go ahead, that they start Bolton on minus points next season. I expect they'll do nothing except release some vague statement about them speaking to the relevant people. Not really a surprise. One look at Bassini and you have to wonder how and where he has got the sort of money needed to bail Bolton out of their debts.

Yeah. The difficulty I see is that it appears to be a Mowbray brain child. I suspect he is the one who has identified it as an area of concern and has diverted energy and resources into improving it. Really it should be the owners, board or sporting director who decide to go down that route whilst the manager focuses his time and energy on coaching the players on the training ground. At the moment we've not a lot to go for on the pitch (other than perhaps getting a top half finish which would be nice) so nobody is too bothered that Mowbray is jetting off all over the place. But really you need a Director of Football who is going to do this sort of thing, organise the scouts every week and build up the database of targets. Too much for one man to handle and it all hinges on the manager being here. Such a short term position as a manager means these things need to be entrusted elsewhere. A manager is never (or at least should never) be more than a few bad results away from the axe. That's the reality of the industry. So it seems silly to be to put him at the centre of recruitment, scouting and entire direction of the club when it could easily come crashing down after a bad run of form.

Think that area has all been landscaped into a playground and parking area for the houses.

If we're level or winning the game heading towards 90 minutes then the referee will just do what usually happens at Norwich and add 9 minutes injury time. We need to be aware of this lot as they'll be well into trying to get our lot booked and sent off from the word go. My enduring memory of the game at Ewood was their manager constantly berating the 4th official and linesman whilst their players rolled around after every challenge and surrounded the referee. Not nice to watch.

I suspect the 'late April' comment from Waggott at the Fans Forum was just a stalling tactic to buy more time. He will know how daft it is to be in this position. Welcome to Blackburn Rovers - the club that moans about lack of income and small crowds but then makes little to no effort to increase season ticket sales. I still reckon we'll see the Swansea game come and go and with it the 2018-19 season without anyone being able to commit to a new season ticket. Insane.

You can scout all you like for quality players but if the owners don't provide the cash or we take weeks and weeks to get approval then the chances are that decent players will go elsewhere and we'll be running around trying to find what's left over. Good to see the manager is using this time to do some homework and preparation but until the owners allow the club to get on with it we'll be held back on that. Having known for some time now what league we are in it is simply inexcusable to be almost in May and have no confirmed budget, pre-season or season tickets.

The sort of thing Rovers should be all over like a rash and kicking up a fuss about on behalf of the 600+ fans who are being both inconvenienced and ripped off. Funny how Rovers released a statement on their website explaining how they couldn't do anything to reduce the price of tickets, then return some to Norwich who subsequently put them on sale to their fans at a lower price. Scandalous. It was explained to me today that the 33 quid price is only for their members. I explained that I don't care what it is for - the simple fact that seats originally allocated for Rovers are now available for less to Norwich is unacceptable. If that sort of behaviour is allowed then we should be doing the same thing to other clubs at Ewood.

I'm not opposed, in principle, to using a sky or pale blue from time to time, e.g. 1 every 9 or 10 kits. It makes a change and there's nothing I'm aware of that stipulates what shade of blue is the correct one. When we are tied to using halves of blue and white altering the shade of blue is one of the few things they can do to come up with different kits that will continue to sell. I'm not convinced that there's that much thought goes into it at Rovers end. I suspect they just take whatever Umbro decide to give them.

How does that work? The Bet 10 sponsor was only agreed last summer a matter of day/weeks before the shirt was released as we ran around trying to decide on a deal after Dafabet expired. We are often told that designs for kits are sorted many months in advance of them being on sale to provide time for manufacturing and shipping etc. Doubt the arrival of Bet 10 was anything to do with having pale blue. More likely is Umbro/Nike factory found it easier to use the same colour as Man City's shirts rather than using a different shade of blue. All Bet 10 will have been able to decide was the design and colour of their logo, which is why we ended up with the horrific black sticker on the front.

They've always tended to allow a few players in for relatively low fees early on in the window. Those people tend to be loans or free agents or at most nominal amounts. They never commit to substantial deals or large fees early doors. Last summer we had Rothwell coming in but the money only arrived later on for Armstrong and Brereton. Back under Coyle they brought in Samuelson, Byrne and Hendrie on cheap loans and allowed the Graham deal to go through but the cash for Emnes, Gallagher, Williams and the deal for Mulgrew only came later on. I suspect the reason for this is if there is a bit of cash left over in the budget or room on the payroll then those at Ewood have authority to do it, but expenditure above and beyond those levels requiring Venky input requires their permission, which takes time to come through.

I was trying to work it out last night. Only one of Scunny and Plymouth can catch them, which leaves one more place to avoid. I think they 'can' still go down but that would depend on Wimbledon winning both their games, and then on Southend getting 4 points from 6, and after that it would still need Rochdale, Bristol Rovers, Shrewsbury and Wycombe to pick up at least a point from their games. Of course that's on the basis Stanley lose both of theirs. They can go down, but it would be a very unusual sequence of results.

I think it must be your memory that is failing you. My memory recalls that when we were relegated at Brentford we had Paul Senior (Director of Football), Mike Cheston, Ian Sivester and Suhail Pasha all at the club in senior positions. By many accounts Pasha is the most influential man at the club as the only regular link to the owners and de facto boss. Admittedly Senior walked after relegation but the remainder of the hierarchy and coaching staff remained as it was the day Mowbray arrived. Since he arrived only Senior has departed and only his allies Waggott and Venus have arrived. Hardly a massive rebuilding job. Likewise the playing staff remained similar. Waggott's 'new management team' which took 6 months to 'assemble' consisted of no new appointments. I'm not sure how much you can blame accountants for not having any strategy at the club. It seems to me that there is little to no medium to long term strategy at the club, with it existing on a year by year basis with a budget laid down in May and nothing can or will happen until the next summit meeting. We've only to look at Mowbray's transfer comments this week to see he doesn't know what he's got to work with, I assume that also is the reason we can't function on a basic level of getting season tickets on sale even now with status secured. Signings are always late and I don't think that had or has anything to do with our relegation or accountants coming in. It's just the way they operate and always have done. A wall of silence from the top level down until they're ready to look at things again when they've some time in their diaries. This is the reason we're slow out of the blocks every summer and are always last to sell season tickets and conclude our transfer business. Please don't interpret my comments as a Mowbray bashing exercise or me trying to diminish the good job he has done. I've said many times I think he's done well and deserves a lot of credit for an improvement in fortunes but lets not go over the top with things here. In respect of the original point in my opinion League One last season was an easier division than it is this year. Nevertheless we got 96 points which is impressive and represented a job well done.

I don't see why Mowbray had to persuade the owners to do anything. Surely as the ones paying the bills they decide what happens and the manager works with that? If they wanted to keep funding the salaries to try and get us straight back up that's their decision, not sure what evidence there is that Mowbray managed to persuade them to do it or that it would have been different with a different manager. If the only reason Mulgrew, Graham and Evans stayed here was because of Mowbray's persuasion then fair enough. I don't remember any talk of those players leaving. Infact the only news we had was of Sheffield United putting in a derisory bid for Lenihan. A bit like saying Guardiola deserves credit for persuading Sheikh Mansour to spend more money after winning the league last season

There's no such thing as an easy automatic promotion, but we should have finished in the top 2 last season. We achieved our target. Of course we could easily have missed that target and not got promoted, as maybe Sunderland might do if they fail to go up. We had one of the most expensive squads that league has ever seen, had stability in personnel following relegation and didn't have any players snatched away from us. So in terms of preparation it was just about as ideal as you could ask for. For comparison's sake Sunderland have had a new manager, coaching staff, ownership and are still adjusting their squad from the one that was relegated from the Premier League. I also think it is a much more formidable League One than last year. The emergence of Luton on the brink of back to back promotions, the improvement at Portsmouth as Jackett has built them into a promotion capable side and Charlton who have improved, along with Barnsley and Sunderland who are looking to bounce straight back. Tough. Last season the play-offs contained Charlton, Shrewsbury, Rotherham and Scunthorpe. This time round potentially Sunderland, Portsmouth, Charlton and Peterborough/Doncaster.