‘Kinell, I forgot all about that. Born to grift. Can keep a good grifter down.

A fair point and the problem with divorces is that they’re often very messy. Of course he’s acted in his own interests, but again, each manager could’ve been kept onside with the investment that they, the players and the fans have rightly expected in the last two seasons. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Rovers supporter, so I hope we give them a proper hiding at Pride Park and that they go down and stay down, because I’m very petty. I just don’t think he comes close to shouldering even 20% of the blame here.

I’m one of the critical voices, Mike and while I still believe this could have come sooner, that doesn’t diminish how positively I view the stance the Trust is now taking. Many, many fans will support this stance and your future efforts. There are resources in the fanbase for you to lean on and I’ll be encouraging people to join or (in my case) rejoin the Trust in light of this. ”The best time to plant a tree was 15 years ago. The second best time is today.”

@LeftWinger has set out a cracker of a narrative and maybe we could be tempting the fate of a full-circle resolution doing so. Bit of black magic at play. Another narrative might be some form of Retro Rovers Avengers: David Dunn, Damien Duff, Morten Gamst Peterson, Ryan Nelsen, Tugay, Salgado, Matt Jansen. Set each to a task of coaching each positional unit. Very likely a catastrophe, but a hell of a watch, probably. If we were a normal club, I’d be all over Des Buckingham and his preferred coaching staff, but I think the scale of the job managing upwards is far too big for him. Needs more time managing in different circumstances, probably. Too much nous in the CEO/COO. I think Rob Edwards needs a stretch out of the game. Managing Luton through the things they’ve had to deal with looked exhausting. Their squad and he looked broken when they were at Ewood. Reckon he’ll make a good manager eventually. Allardyce - not anymore, for me. Looks happy in retirement. Who then? Ideally someone with nous, little to lose when it comes to paying short shrift to the nonsense, can spot a player and get the best out of them, has experience in the playoffs and promotions and doesn’t mind coming into a club in February. Basically, Neil Warnock ten years ago.

I think both Eustace and JDT being the snakes in all this is a pretty weak narrative. We’re all entitled to opinions and emotions are running high but the issue is - and always has been - anyone directly associated with the owners, representing their interests and managing the club into decline. Every compliant director, C-Suite exec, advisor, lackey, etc. And Kean. And maybe Bradley Orr. And probably Shane Duffy. But mainly the Venky stooges.

Good statement. Well done. No criticism from me.

Statement is pathetic. What’s even moreso is the childish briefing to Alan Nixon. I used to enjoy Nixon as a curiosity/shit stirrer (no shade, that’s his job). Who didn’t get a little rush for an “11 o’clocker” back in the day? Nixon’s an enabler of the club’s decline, in many ways. Ever-willing mouthpiece of those in charge. I don’t buy anything the club is selling - via official channels or the tabloids. When it’s always other peoples’ fault, it’s usually the one saying that. In that case, it’s the club, but specifically Suhail Pasha. He is patient zero. He’s very likely the source of that statement. He needs to be ousted.

I’ve encouraged my brother and his friends to stop going into the ground on matchdays and most of them are giving their season tickets up next season (or saying they will, but I’ll believe that when I see it). If you could give me the power of perfect execution, I’d say making Pasha, Waggott and Venky’s the target for protest before a game, for ten minutes during the game and after a game, as well as on the way to away days, across podcasts, across as much media as possible, via the fans forum and supporters’ trust would be the exact thing we should be doing as a fanbase. I now believe we simply cannot go up under these owners and the only divisional change will be fluke upwards and almost-inevitable downwards (eventually). FWIW, I don't subscribe to the theory that they don’t want the club to go up, but I think it’s an extremely difficult thing to do for the capable and very engaged owners that already try to do it every season. Being half the world away, taking no interest and now providing no funding takes the probability of our owners managing it to as close to zero as is possible.

I feel like at this point, Wayne Rooney would pay a club to let him manage, because I don’t know why else you’d get him in.

Sure but consider the fact that - whatever happens this season (and we’re not going up, we’re very likely not making the playoffs): there are only 13 of our 25 registered first team players that are contracted beyond the end of the season. Then look at where we are in the table, then look at how much we’ve brought in in transfer fees, then look at how much we’ve spent since and - while considering where we are in the table - look really closely at who we brought in over January. Why would you risk having to manage 13 players, plus youth prospects and whoever you can get in on a free, especially when the club has no intention of renewing contracts? If the job isn’t there in the summer, what do you tell your family? “Sorry, I realise the effect this job is having on us, but sticking it out and turning down that job in February was the right thing to do for the fans”? Nah.

If the issue is that he hasn’t literally fallen on his sword, we should bear in mind the rumours that started this thread - he apparently offered to resign at the beginning of the season. The Club apparently refused and said he’d have to pay out his contract. Worth bearing in mind the nature of football contracts where compensation is the norm, due to the inherently competitive nature of the industry. I think we can both agree that buying out your own contract to not work, with no future guarantee of work isn’t something that makes sense (and especially at or around the quoted “£500k-750k” buyout clause.

Then I congratulate you on the circumstances you find yourself in and applaud your moral standings. Unfortunately, I - and the overwhelming majority of working people - wouldn’t recognise that position.

So on that basis, anyone who has ever stayed in a job with undesirable working conditions until a perceivably “better” opportunity comes along is not - in your view - “a man of moral standings”? Believe me, if you’ve managed to live your life in such a way, you’ve lived a charmed one.

Don’t really need to be patronised and told to “calm down” by someone who can’t understand why a football manager would change jobs mid-season, given all of the variables I’ve outlined to you already. Your whole argument is “loyalty” or “but that’s not what he said he’d do” and while that is frustratingly contradictory to how you decided to patronise, I must thank you for letting me use one of my favourite response images AND invoke Godwin’s Law…

because he’s just gone through a lacklustre transfer window (despite allegedly being promised significant funds if he kept us up last season) and after publicly acknowledging the uncertainty of whether contracts are going to be renewed, he’s been given an opportunity to take a more stable job (which if we compare the back room operations - it is) with employers he can probably meet, will probably turn up to his place of employment and engage with what he will be trying to do. As a “manager” in any business, it’s kind of the least you’d expect. He’s got a good hand here, he’s done extremely well, absolutely everyone in football is falling all over themselves to point it out. He can leave with his stock high with the likelihood that he’ll be backed, give a proper timeline and project to work with. Take a step back from being a fan and consider what it must be like working underneath Waggott, Pasha and Venkys. He’s done a year and they’re constantly pulling the rug, moving the goalposts or ignoring requests. I personally think he’s telling them to improve his conditions and the conditions at the club or he’ll go, but if he does go, it’s not an indictment on him, it’s the fuckwits running is on fumes so they can get a bonus every year.

Disagree. He’s trying to improve the conditions in his existing job or taking a job that probably suits him down to the ground on every front except what’s happening on the pitch. Even still, Derby will bounce straight back up, I imagine and he’ll back himself to do that in style and stay in the championship season after next, at a club he finished his career at and is nearer his home. He often mentions being away from home, clearly it’s important to him. There’re a lot of midlands clubs about, but he had one of the jobs and lost it, has missed out on the WBA one (rumours abound that he applied for it) and who’s to say the Derby one or any other will be there in the summer? He’s essentially doing the right thing, we’d do different because we basically wouldn’t want to manage any other club, but once you’ve played for or coached a few, those loyalties aren’t so strong.

I’ve noticed how well-regarded in football John Eustace is as a person, so many of the pundits on Sky or elsewhere comment on him as a person. Doesn’t seem impossible that Mowbray has had a quiet conversation explaining exactly how you get the budget out of the owners. But I agree with your observations and - for his, the team, the club and all of our sakes - hope he gets his way.

Eustace is putting the ball in the club’s court, by name-checking “Steve” and “Suhail” (just as JDT did) he’s pointing to where the turgid blockage of putrid shit is in the club. He’s apparently never met or spoken to the owners, he’s now suggesting he’ll have to speak to the owners about it, unless that’s a shorthand for Pasha being the conduit. Essentially, he’s saying to the fans, “I’ll stay if I get the resources the club deserves and that I was promised, but if I end up going, you all know what happened.” Ultimately, he and we know that isn’t going to happen. Venky’s could sling £20m into the club tomorrow and place an equal amount into the bond account with their govt and he’d probably stay. But they won’t, obviously.

That’s disappointing, but from memory, pies are relatively aerodynamic

Well, positives - Ribeiro looks very tidy and I’d be more than happy with him starting. Kargbo looks like he has a thing we don’t currently have, which is pace and a desire to travel with the ball. Dennis has visible quality but looks a long way short of full fitness. Hopefully he can apply himself and get up to speed. Finally, at least we don’t have to go home to such a godforsaken place as Wolverhampton, which is - along with Coventry - just one of the most pointless places I’ve ever had the misfortune to visit. Negatives are obvious, but not least how thoroughly ineffectual the “cavalry” were when coming on, aside from Gueye. Hedges a never-man, Dolan a bundle of wasted potential. Woodrow looked game but played out of position. Weimann an earnest professional but really should be a bit-part player in a team looking by for top 6. Post-match from Eustace is now appointment viewing, but we’ll not learn anything until the deal is confirmed tomorrow. Pasha and Waggott looking all too comfortable in the JW Upper. I don’t understand how they’re not covered in Bovril, beer or meat pie up there.

Woodrow filling in at CM, instead we have aerial giants Hedges and Weimann bouncing around Gueye for the crosses into the box.

It’s weird to see a footballer where you wonder if there ever was “a player in there.” If you told me he was a midfielder and we were in an injury crisis, I’d believe you.

Forshaw just stopped fucking running then as he reached his own box.

Forshaw has the same energy as someone’s dad being called as a ringer for Sunday football.

‘Kinell, something about seeing the word “Woodrow” across the back of the blue and white really upset me then.