JHRover

I'd suggest maybe Lambert a bit like Eustace albeit less effective in that he wanted results first and wasn't brought in and didn't have any intentions of all the above stuff. But yeah other than that whether it be Kean, Bowyer, Coyle, Mowbray, JDT and now Ismael there has always been a 'project' running alongside the bread and butter of results which takes over from it. The sad thing is that in both JDT and Eustace - for totally differing reasons but both very effective - they had people here that could deliver for them. Eustace showed he could do it on a shoestring budget without the need for some elaborate network and scouting, and JDT showed he could do it whilst handing debuts and game time to a raft of academy players, most of whom proved themselves to not be good enough yet were given plenty of opportunity at Championship level whilst we remained competitive. In avoiding both of the above we now seem to have gone down a third route - totally ditched the academy model, totally ditched the 'tried and tested' experience model, and ended up with a massively inferior manager working with a raft of players not good enough. Idiots gambling with the club's future and Championship status, for no good reason other than to perhaps benefit third parties outside of BRFC.

It's just the low hanging fruit again. Cheap and easy. Play it straight after the Derby game so there's no significant additional costs in opening Ewood/getting staff and stewarding on. Play Old Etonians it requires no effort or cost to bring them here for it. Is there supposed to be some particular relevance to playing them? I mean I know we played them in an FA Cup final but didn't we lose to them? So it isn't even a commemoration of a famous historical success. Are we now really at the stage of playing a game against an amateur outfit from the other end of the country who happen to share the same name as a team we lost to in an FA Cup final 140 years ago? Seems a bit tenuous to me.

It's never been about results on the pitch. Results have not been the priority at this club for over 15 years. If it was Allardyce wouldn't have got sacked, Kean wouldn't have been appointed, Kean would have been gone within a few weeks or at the end of that first season, both Bowyer and Mowbray would have lost their jobs earlier than they did. It is about cost and compliance. If you are willing to operate in the structure these people want and not complain, and are relatively speaking cheap, then you're set. Allardyce wasn't ever going to play their game so he had to go, Bowyer and Mowbray put up with it both because they got answers directly from India and because neither would have got similar jobs elsewhere. Coyle wouldn't have got the job and definitely wouldn't have been parachuted in ahead of Warnock and would have been sacked in October or November rather than February. Lambert wouldn't put up with it, nor JDT or Eustace because they all knew they were able to get employment elsewhere

Oxford's draw at QPR puts us into the bottom 3, albeit we can lean on the excuse of having a game in hand on most due to it raining at Ewood against Ipswich. We can take some comfort that Sheffield Wednesday, with their unpaid players and points deduction to come, are for now below us. Sheffield United WILL climb the table sooner rather than later once Wilder gets them sorted out.

If McBurnie continues scoring for Hull (he's up to 7 for the season already) and those goals keep them in the Championship whilst we go down due in part to a chronic lack of goals, I wonder if the bean counters and laptop carriers upstairs at Ewood will reflect on that as they count the £10 million+ cost of relegation? Of course they won't, they'll just resort to more and more excuses as to why we couldn't have signed him.

The owners and their stooges have been 'building' for relegation since the summer of 2023 when they decided they weren't going to support Broughton and JDT and then actively undermined them both by drastically slashing an already limited budget in the middle of the summer. It was only through a combination of good management by JDT and Eustace, and having the remnants of a good Championship side (Hyam, Travis, Brittain, Szmodics, Dolan, Batth) that we've kept ourselves afloat, although, again due to mismanagement they nearly managed relegation from nowhere in 2024. Now they've dealt with both of those issues - forced out the good managers who could overachieve and replaced with a highly questionable manager and dismantled the remains of that solid squad - so we are back on track. If it isn't a deliberate plan to relegate us it is at least recklessness and gross negligence.

Stoke had a tough away match at Middlesbrough last night, travelling back down after the game, late night. Us two home games in close succession. Could be an advantage there but then again just have to hope Ismael has no more birthday parties to go to before Saturday.

They didn't get rid of Coyle until February. February. This mon won't be going anywhere, especially with his 3 year deal and alignment. Remember lesson number one under this regime - football results and performances are irrelevant. Have been since day one.

Of course they did. That's life. Sometimes you benefit, sometimes you lose, but for the good of football overall and when tasked with making a decision for the integrity of the league, for once I agree with what the EFL did and feel they had no other option, and the whole 'representations' stage was a waste of everyone's time when it was clear from 5pm on the Saturday what the only realistic outcome was going to be. If we'd have been 1-0 down with 10 men we'd have got away with one and would be in the same position. There's one way of taking these sort of things out of the hands of Kieran McKenna, Ipswich players, the referee or a group of 'board members' at the EFL and that is to ensure that the Ewood pitch and drainage don't fail again in heavy rain. Never used to, now it has become an annual event. I wonder why that is.

You've told me that I've been wrong for having an opinion for years now, calling me a conspiracy theorist and many other things simply for offering a view. Yes they could have set a new precedent. And it would have led to all sorts of chaos in future. That's why it has never been done before in a century of football, because as 'unfair' as the decision is on Rovers it is the only outcome that works and ensures fairness in the long run. My only criticism is that it took them a while to make their minds up and inevitably we are now going to wait until November or beyond for the game to be rearranged. As far as I am concerned it should have been replayed last Tuesday or Wednesday and bollocks to whether that was inconvenient for Ipswich or their fans.

I'm getting fed up with this now. The EFL have made the correct decision. You and others at Rovers might not like it given the circumstances, but that's how it is. It would be utterly ridiculous for them to let the result stand with probably 15 minutes+ left to play and even more ridiculous for them to have just played the last 10 minutes or so starting with Rovers being 1-0 up against 10 men. There is no precedent for it in English football history and for good reason - it wouldn't work and would open the floodgates to all sorts of shenanigans in future when there are issues with the weather, floodlights etc. If you are angry about it I suggest you spend less time worrying about the EFLs difficult but ultimately correct decision and more of your time working out whether Rovers have invested sufficiently in their facilities to ensure the pitch is in the best possible condition to ensure this sort of thing doesn't happen. I can safely say that Rovers could have done more, it isn't just the weather or the River Darwen, just as we had no issues with drainage getting games abandoned from 1992 - 2012.

There has been a long standing assumption that the shadow man is a Venky man. To me this appears to be based not on anything concrete but rather a combination of the fact that he has been around the place throughout Venky ownership, that he originates from South Asia, and that he has a direct line to them. None of the above actually mean he is a Venky man. It would be the natural and logical assumption that he is, but if we think outside the box maybe he isn't a Venky man at all, maybe he's representing other interested parties. His Asian origins may just be coincidence, his 'direct line' to them may be a business arrangement for their management of Rovers rather than him being their dogsbody reporting back every now and again. When we look at things from that angle whilst it may make some feel uncomfortable and might be suggested as implausible it is certainly possible and would stack up with some of the things we have seen. If he was the 'broker' that got Venkys to the table, that they trust and always have done, and this is his project, things start to make more sense. The installation of structures that compete with his little fiefdom - like Mowbray and Venus, Broughton and JDT, Waggott, all to varying degrees handed their own power independent of him - all swept aside. This is how he likes it - just as it was back in 2016/17 after Shaw, Myers and Bowyer had been removed. Whose interests was Waggott representing and acting on? I am inclined to say the Indians, as he was allowed to go out there with Mowbray. I don't think the shadow man has ever liked other people getting a direct line to India and he will stop it whenever he can.

The Telegraph conducting themselves with dignity and professionalism with what must be an extremely challenging development for them. Unlike the cowboys running Rovers who wouldn't know the meaning of the word professionalism and continue to drag a once proud institution through the gutter

'Alignment' claxon again!

They have destroyed, and will continue to further destroy, everything about this once great club. The only question is how much longer it continues and what state it is in by the end. Hopefully we still have a club left to rebuild from but I wouldn't approach that with confidence given the amount of damage done up to this point and a continuing refusal to leave.

Ismael's managerial career to date, starting in 2014: Nuremburg - 5 months and 14 games Wolfsburg - 4 months and 17 games Apollon Smyrnis - 3 months and 1 game LASK - 14 months and 50 games Barnsley - 8 months and 44 games WBA - 8 months and 31 games Besiktas - 7 months and 19 games Watford - 10 months and 41 games Average tenure - 7.3 months Average games - 27 Rovers - 7 months and 19 games (and counting). Within a few weeks he will have eclipsed his average tenure at a club and with another 8 matches will have matched his average games in charge at a club. Most of the above decided to sack him - infact the only one he walked away from voluntarily I think was Barnsley to take up the WBA offer. Gestede and Pasha in their infinite wisdom decided to give him a 3.5 year contract.

I wonder if we have now basically reverted back to the original plan whereby Venkys are the legal owners of the club and top up the running cost shortfall every year but aside from that the practical day to day management of the club is 'handled' by a third party - it appears that back at the start the intention was that certain 'consultancy groups' were given that job, nowadays it is the shadow man doing it. I thought it was interesting / strange when the shadow man mentioned that when it comes to a new CEO it would be India deciding on this and he would simply find out about it when it happened. That stacks with the above - perhaps employing a CEO is a job reserved to the India side of the equation and such an individual is 'their man' on the ground at Ewood, beyond the responsibilities of the management. Would explain the numerous power struggles and different approaches over the years. One being implemented by the management group and the other being implemented, albeit at some distance and slow pace, by the legal owners in India.

They're doing the same thing to the men's team as they did to the women's only more slowly, and it will end with relegation to a lower level more in keeping with their capabilities and investment 'strategy'. An absolute total disgrace, yet not a sniff of anyone at ownership or board level giving a single solitary stuff.

Impressed with Vipotnik for Swansea who joined them on a free transfer last year. 22 year old international who has been in the goals this season.

They're only banned from Ewood Park and other Rovers' owned property. Fortunately Rovers can't do anything to make other clubs ban journalists from their grounds, although it seems they've tried. I'd rather they spent their free time making an effort for our 150th anniversary or dealing with contract renewals than ringing up rival clubs begging them to ban Elliott Jackson from their grounds

They love to give novices power and responsibility beyond their standing in the game. Kean, Singh, Berg, Agnew, Hunt others, now Gestede and Pasha, neither of whom have any right to be anywhere near positions of such power in professional football. The owners enjoy this because these sort of people are so grateful for the opportunity that they'll sit quietly and put up with the Venky nonsense. Trouble is that the Club burns in the meantime, but they aren't arsed about that, as long as they can tell themselves they are wonderful and pay people to tell others they are.

The only resolution to the 'issue' is for the owners to clear off and take their disgraceful henchmen with them.

Good grief, they've somehow made themselves appear even more diabolical than they appeared after yesterday's statement. No doubt shitting themselves now they're realising what this actually means and national attention growing as powerful media and journalists take notice, so a slimy attempt to backtrack by piling it all on Jackson. Horrendous. Clearly trying to get him removed by the Telegraph and replaced with someone else. I've criticised the Telegraph many times but individually and publicly targeting Jackson is outrageous. I really hope the Telegraph double down here and go to war on the Club. Who the hell they think they are at Ewood, like all crooked, corrupt evil regimes around the world they want the media in their back pocket and support 'reporting' as long as it's the version they tell them to report.

The truth disappeared from the nest of vipers that is Ewood Park a long, long time ago. They've managed to maintain a facade of the truth during that time by having the right people in place to 'handle' the media aka Waggott, Mowbray, Eustace, Broughton and JDT. All gone, fed up of being used to legitimise a corrupt and poisonous regime, and not replaced, or at least not convincingly. Only the deluded and naive have continued to believe that the party line put out is accurate. It might make some feel better if they convince themselves that every comment and press release from Rovers' end is the gospel truth but it simply doesn't stack up. That's why I shook my head with bewilderment at far fetched claims and praise for Gestede, Waggott, Pasha and Ismael for their 'honesty' simply because they sat in front of a friendly interviewer and answered comfortable questions. Doesn't mean they are telling the truth or providing an accurate account of things. With the amateurish Pasha now in charge it is clear that he hasn't got the skills that the likes of Waggott had - he was a crafty old goat but at least he was crafty enough to recognise a need to keep the local media and fans quiet. The clown Pasha instead thinks he can silence criticism or questions through direct conflict. Highly unlikely to work out well for him unless the Telegraph back down and toe the line. It was clear that the regime would attempt to crack down on dissent after the diabolical performance of the stooges earlier in the summer and the building furore over their negligent mismanagement of the club. Only a couple of away wins has prevented outright rebellion and they are clearly concerned at ever falling gates. Hopefully the Telegraph now position themselves as the mouthpiece for the anti-regime movement. In a time of civil war (which this is, and will remain until they're gone) we need every friend we can get and the local media can be a powerful tool. It won't quite be Newcastle/Mike Ashley levels of local media pressure but it can help and that's important.

Probably get announced a week beforehand with tickets at Category A prices as well.