JHRover

Birmingham is 15 quid anywhere in the ground, sell out expected. I've seen no evidence whatsoever that Rovers have any desire to see 20000+ fans in Ewood. Sadly it is too easy to cart on with 11000 home fans and hand over the Darwen End to big away followings. If you want more fans to turn up you dont: Close home stands and force people to move Put prices up across the board Introduce a ludicrous surcharge on matchday Move numerous kick offs to inconvenient times sometimes for no good reason. Until there's recognition that the above will have had an impact of some sort on numbers there's no point doing much else.

I wondered whether they might have done something like that. My suspicions were aroused earlier this week when Rovers announced the game had become all ticket with no sales on the day. That suggests to me that Leeds expected to sell out and were concerned about their fans trying to get into the away end, rather than Rovers' allocation being close to a sell out. I'd of course love to be wrong and would love it if Rovers took an impressive 2000+ following there, particularly at those prices. In theory this should be a popular one, on Boxing Day, not far to travel, attractive fixture, but at those prices I'd be very, very surprised. We've been to Leeds about 6-7 times since relegation in 2012 and I don't think we've ever got remotely close to selling 2000+ tickets, usually less than 1000 due to scandalous pricing. I'm sticking to my theory that Leeds want it on live streaming and Rovers have agreed in exchange for some sort of payment. The 'few hundred tickets remaining' line will be to appease those going and probably satisfy the authorities.

During the summer there was talk as the deadline approached of there being nothing to worry about if we didn't get everyone we wanted because we had the loan market, then as that deadline approached it was all about we've only go get through 4 months and then the January window would provide the opportunity to strengthen, now, as expected as the January window approaches expectations are being downplayed. It's a difficult time to do business, we won't panic buy, the summer is more suitable etc. That's fine if you use the summer to address your weaknesses and January is just icing on the cake or minor adjustments.

I'll eat my hat if Rovers have got anywhere near to 2500 tickets sold. What I suspect is happening here is that Leeds have sold out or close to it so Leeds now want to stream it online. The only way that can be done is if Rovers agree to it. I bet Leeds or IFollow are paying Rovers to agree to this and to 'justify' it Rovers are claiming only a few hundred of the allocation remain available. If they said 1000 were left to sell people would be asking questions as to why they have agreed to broadcast it online.

It sounds like Bolton are backing down under some intense pressure and reducing their prices for their upcoming game v WBA. They tried charging £32 for a Monday night game and West Brom fans kicked off and sounds like Bolton might be offering buy one get one free on tickets to season ticket holders of both clubs. I noticed the other day that Birmingham are doing £15 anywhere in the ground for one of their upcoming games. There's a lot from Rovers about 'backing the lads' and showing 'total committment' but other than a slight reduction on advance tickets for Norwich I'm not seeing much imagination or effort at Rovers end. Dress it up however you like and put popular Mowbray in front of the cameras every day to appeal for more people but when all is said and done it is mid-table 2nd division football, neck end of £30 most weeks for adults and that is never going to see an escalation in numbers unless either prices change or we shoot up the table. I've already raised issues I have with the going through the motions matchday 'entertainment' in comparison to things I've seen at other clubs where attempts are made to keep people in and around the ground on matchdays.

Elliott Bennett joined us from Norwich around the same time as Elliott Ward did, although Bennett had been on loan at Bristol City up to then. Lambert was bolstering the squad with his tried and tested ex-players who were cheap and he felt he could rely upon.

Sums FFP up really as Sheffield Wednesday's owner has invested fortunes in them since he took over a few years ago. For the first couple of years they reaped the rewards of that by getting into the play-offs twice, but then they are now suffering as a result. No complaints from me really as we were screwed over by FFP penalties so the more rivals that get the same treatment the better. They knew the rules before they started throwing silly money at Rhodes etc. but it shows the problem here that a seemingly legitimate wealthy owner who wants to spend more cannot do so due to these rules and it now seems is trying to sell them as he's fed up with it all. The alternative could be that they end up with a dodgy owner or one with no money who won't invest or will asset strip them but that would be fine for the Football League as long as he doesn't break FFP rules..... See the EFL are still scaremongering with this supposed points deduction going Birmingham's way. Lets suppose we get to March and Birmingham are 3 points off a play-off position, are the League really going to go down that route and try and dock them points and open the door to all the legal issues stemming from that? No chance.

Of course every consideration of our finances has to be prefaced with the assumption that Venkys are able and willing to cover losses. I reckon all but 2-3 Championship clubs are in the same boat. Forest, Derby and Sheffield Wed having 20-30,000 crowds doesn't stop them being dependent on their benefactors. Infact Sheffield Wed are in bother with FFP and struggling in the league despite being blessed with significant support and a big city behind them. All because their benefactor came along and spent too much too quickly. Aston Villa's owners have thrown fortunes in since the summer just to meet overheads. Without that investment they'd be knackered. Their 30000 gates wouldn't count for anything, except perhaps making their club more attractive to new owners. One or two exceptions like Bolton who are limping through a painful existence of struggling to pay the bills each month (rumoured to have taken out a loan to pay November and December wages). Apply the same principle to most Premier League clubs who are utterly dependent on Sky cash and without which they'd be in serious trouble. All ok as long as they survive in the Premier League or have an owner to cover losses if they get relegated but not if they don't. Selling the training ground would create a lot of trouble and if nothing else would be a lengthy and complicated process. In the scheme of things given the annual overheads and losses the money they would raise by selling it would be a drop in the ocean. I can only see such a thing happening if they were stripping the club bare and raising whatever cash they could by selling assets - like we saw at Bolton when they sold their training ground and car parks to raise quick cash. It wouldn't surprise me however to see more references to combining the academy and training grounds into one site, both for efficiency and to save some cash. It does make sense for everyone to be on one site rather than split across two, however I doubt either site at Brockhall is big enough to cope with both the senior squad and academy given the demands of having Category A status. To combine it would either need a reduction from Category A down to a smaller scale academy operation or a relocation to a new purpose built site elsewhere.

We've a decent record there over the last few years and we've also a decent record away at the better sides in the division this season. They are winning games but aren't hammering teams, a lot of their wins have been by a single goal. Noticed yesterday that Rovers fans can no longer buy tickets on the day, it is ticket only in advance. I presume that's got nothing to do with us selling most of our allocation.

I'm not sure how relevant the attendance issue is. Clearly the city clubs who can fall back on 18000+ a week will be more attractive to buyers, but I don't think lesser gates precludes us from attracting new owners in future. I look at the bottom half of the Championship at the moment and most of the clubs down there are getting lower or very similar attendances - Wigan, Bolton, Reading, Ipswich, Brentford, Millwall, QPR, Rotherham, Hull, Preston - all of them are in a similar ball park to us which is almost half of the Championship. Add in Swansea and Middlesbrough who are getting around 18000+ a week at present but are being pushed up by recent spells in the Premier League and will likely drop significantly if they don't go up again. As the figures show, a few thousand extra a week through the turnstiles obviously helps, but in the scheme of things when comparing to external investment, tv money and player sales it pales into insignificance. As you say - WBA and Boro getting bigger gates - but both have had it far better than we have in the last 8 years - WBA just out of the Premier League, Middlesbrough were up there too and have had 2-3 promotion pushes and play-off campaigns recently. Bolton are struggling to attract new owners but others have managed it - Watford, Bournemouth, Wigan, Reading and don't seem to have done too badly as yet.

Big point being that the wage bill was significantly lower than the previous year and I expect now resembles the sort of level we should be at in the Championship. It will never look much better than above at this level unless we get promoted or find a few players to sell off every couple of years to cover it (which likely prevents promotion from happening). That's a fact of life Venkys or not, sadly that is the way the Championship has gone and continues to go, and we like everyone else need wealthy owners injecting money. That's as much credit as I will give Venkys - every year they seem to be content to find money under the mattress to keep things going. Another interesting point was that our revenues in that year dropped by £6 million due to a decrease in TV income, yet still stood at £10.1 million (£2.8 million on matchday, £2.8 million from media and £4.4 million from commercial). By comparison the previous year Sheffield United had revenues of £10.6 million (so 'only' £500,000 more than ours in League One despite significantly higher numbers through the turnstiles each week - perhaps demonstrates the ever decreasing importance of attendances). Bolton's that year in League One was £30.8 million. Not sure how that figure was so high as I don't think they were getting parachute cash by then.

I think he came off the bench tonight for his first (?) action since being out long term with injury.

Yes. I can absolutely buy into the long term plan if that genuinely is what is taking place and the owners are buying into that and will support it, and they will fight to keep the assets and will support Mowbray with serious cash for new players. My concern comes in that these owners have thrown their toys out of the pram before when a 'long term' plan failed to secure promotion after a couple of attempts, they then pulled the plug and it has taken nearly 4 years to recover back to where we were under Bowyer. As you say, long term plans are lovely if everything works out as hoped and planned for, but in our case all it takes is the seemingly inevitable Dack departure and aging to Mulgrew/Graham and we've a huge job on our hands in just replacing those boys. If they'll throw another couple of Armstrong and Brereton fees into the mixer then that should enable us to compete financially at this level but Mowbray needs to get the signings bang on. These are the sort of owners who seem to work on bizarre 'trust' lines and are completely unpredictable and inconsistent which is why we might need to strike whilst the iron is hot rather than run the risk of them 'losing interest' again as they have previously.

But what about those wages? Or can we not compete with Ipswich?

The January window is a funny one really in terms of which way we go with it. Given our return over the first 20-21 games we aren't that far off the pace for the top 6, and in theory 2-3 quality additions could push us on and into contention. Then again, if we get through the next 4-5 tough games without any wins we can probably say our attentions will be more towards keeping clear of the bottom 4-5 sides rather than catching the top 7-8. I'd be reluctant to spend money on loan players who will only be here until May unless the players in question were difference makers to haul us into contention. Would either Bauer or Chapman be in any fit state to come in and start playing games for us? Surely we could arrange a pre-contract deal with Bauer which would see him come in next summer for free? Chapman I've no idea where he's at fitness wise these days but again, given the weight Mowbray seems to place on new players having to acclimatise and settle in before they are in contention to play I presume that would apply and it would be some time before either were ready to play for us.

I'm not saying we've paid the money out. We've signed the players and committed to the fees. Most clubs in this league haven't got to that level.

How many other clubs spent £10 million net in the summer? No doubt our finances are some way behind the likes of Derby, Forest, Villa etc. but if I were a betting man I'd say they were some way ahead of many of the clubs currently below us. Sheffield Wednesday an exception but the rest I reckon will be similar to us. Not a Mowbray bash by any measure I agree he's done and continues to do a decent job in tough circumstances but I don't think it is entirely accurate to say we've one of the smallest budgets in this league.

Do you really believe that Mowbray intended for Davenport to be an upgrade in CM this season? At the very best I think he was another longer term project that Mowbray intended to phase in over a couple of years. I don't believe for one minute that Davenport would have been ahead of Smallwood or Evans in CM, even if fully fit. Mowbray likes his experienced players who he can depend on. He's shown very little appetite for throwing youngsters in at the deep end.

I'm not sure it is. If we sign a load but none are good enough or ready to play for us then I'd question the point in signing them and therefore how successful the window was. Reed a big plus (albeit could depart very soon), Armstrong happy with, Brereton I was happy with but now I'm not so sure due to a lack of involvement in the team, the others - Rodwell, Rothwell, Davenport, Palmer - have done very little.

This season we have dropped 16 points from winning positions against Birmingham (2), Middlesbrough (2), Forest (2), Villa (2), Ipswich (2), Swansea (3) and Bristol City (3). We also have had a number of 'near misses' where despite being good value for the win we almost managed not to - Bolton, Hull, Stoke - and just about managed to hold on to a narrow lead - at Stoke because they missed a penalty, at Bolton because they couldn't hit a barn door and we were arguably fortunate with a fractional offside. Yes the result is all that ultimately matters and those 9 points gained could be crucial but those wins were hard going. Last season we dropped 10 points from winning positions - Bristol Rovers (2), Wigan (2), Rotherham (2), Scunthorpe (2) and Fleetwood (2). We also had a massive number of games where we won but ended up doing so by a single goal margin and were hanging on for dear life at the end. Off the top of my head these were away games at Walsall, Scunthorpe, Bradford, MK Dons, Peterborough and home games v Southend, Gillingham and Bristol Rovers - games we ended up seeing through and winning however could easily have been a different story. We cast our minds back to when Mowbray first arrived it was a similar story in our wins over Derby and Wigan - whilst we got the 3 points it was desperation stuff at the end. I'm afraid it is a trait of Mowbray's teams that we appear unable or unwilling to kill teams off and have that fragility that sees points slip through our fingers in games where we are often the better side or well on top. Nobody is bothered in the slightest if we end up winning the games in question but when we start throwing points away, especially at home, concerns will be raised. So if we want to put Saturday's collapse on Raya's shoulders and blame him for it then fine, but i think there's more to look at here. There's also a lengthy history of letting leads slip under this manager and squad and whilst we got where we wanted to be last season we may well not do this because of it. Especially when we factor in how many have been lost late on in games this season - Birmingham, Villa, Forest, Ipswich - all the last 10 minutes or so. A lack of resilience and ruthlessness.

Call me a conspiracy theorist but something doesn't sit right with me on the Davenport deal. I'll leave it at that but I'll be surprised if we see him in the first team. File in the tray along with forgotten man Gladwin. I think my predictions in the summer were by and large correct with the exception that at the 11th hour we unexpectedly went out and did the Brereton deal. As time goes by that piece of business seems to become more baffling. Other than that we were largely restricted to low cost transfers the vast majority of whom have had negligible impact on the team. Reed and arguably Armstrong the exceptions but Rodwell, Rothwell, Davenport, Palmer not really living up to the hype.

I don't envisage much happening in January. I suspect we'll get the 5 weeks of Nixon/Sky propelled Dack stuff but I'd be surprised if we sold him before the summer, unless he kicks up a fuss. Assuming he doesn't go I don't think there'll be much in the kitty for permanent transfers and would also expect Mowbray would prefer to keep going with what we have and keep his power dry until the summer. We might get a loan or two to bolster the ranks, particularly if one or two are allowed to leave. It wouldn't surprise me to see Palmer depart as he appears to be out of favour, doesn't really have a role in the team and Chelsea won't be happy if he's not featuring. Clearly the plan for Nuttall and Travis is for them to go out on loan but I think that would be a risk unless we got people in first given the lack of numbers. Also need to be careful about where they go rather than just to the first club around as it hasn't really done any of the others much good this season in terms of game time.

Parallels with the Ipswich game. In isolation most people were happy with a point away from home at a traditionally tough venue for us but then if you look at the circumstances on the day and the other results those sides had it is clear they were there for the taking, yet we relinquished leads and only managed to take home a point.

When was the last time we cruised to an easy win by 2 goals at Championship level? Sheffield Wednesday made us worry with their 2 goals.

We shouldn't have needed a 3rd to win the game yet with our defensive record getting a 3rd was the most likely route to victory. Like v Sheffield Wednesday we shouldn't have needed 3 goals to win that game against a woeful side yet we did as we managed to concede twice out of no pressure.