A year ago I posted a thread on Championship turnover vs finishing position for the 2021/22 season, but it got locked because I said its time for Rovers fans to get real on expectation levels for our manager and owners. So no accompanying comments this time, this is turnover vs finishing position for 2022/23 and make of it what you will: Club (league finish) Turnover (£ millions) Norwich (13th) 75.6 Watford (11th) 65.4 Burnley (1st) 64.9 Sheff United (2nd) 63.9 West Brom (9th) 56.7 Sunderland (6th) 35.1 QPR (20th) 34.3 Stoke (16th) 31.2 Middlesbrough (4th) 28.6 Cardiff (21st) 26.2 Swansea (10th) 21.6 Rovers (7th) 21 Coventry (5th) 20.4 Millwall (8th) 19.4 Birmingham (17th) 19 Bristol (14th) 18.6 Luton (3rd) 18.4 Hull (15th) 18.1 Huddersfield (18th) 18.1 Blackpool (23rd) 17.3 Rotherham (19th) 15.7 Preston (12th) 15.6 Reading (22nd) Haven't done their accounts yet Wigan (24th) Couldn't find

Personally I've long thought the expectations of Rovers fans to be very demanding and that its time to get real in terms of what our turnover is now, what our player wages are, and where we should actually finish in the league. Nothing ever seems to change on that front though, irrelevant arguments about us winning the league 30 years ago etc seem to be persist. Anyway, just to emphasise the point further (and because I'm clearly a bit sad!), I decided to look through the most recent accounts for all clubs on Companies House, which were for the 2021/22 season where we finished 8th under Mowbray. Couldn't find Derby's as they were going into administration so were a right mess. But otherwise I hope the below demonstrates what Mowbray was up against back then and what JDT is massively up again this season (given Venkys cut our wage bill quite a bit over the summer). Our wages were mid-table in 2021/22, this season they're very likely solidly bottom half. 1. Fulham £90.4m 2. Bournemouth £61.4m 3. Notts Forest £58.6m 4. Stoke £47.9m 5. West Brom £42.4m 6. Sheff Utd £42.1m 7. Birmingham City £31.1m 8. Middlesbrough £28.4m 9. QPR £27.6m 10. Swansea £27.6m 11. Reading £25.3m 12. Preston £24.6m 13. Rovers £24.4m 14. Bristol City £23.8m 15. Millwall £22.3m 16. Cardiff £22.2m 17. Huddersfield £20.3m 18. Luton £17.8m 19. Coventry £15.7m 20. Barnsley £13.1m 21. Hull City £12.7m 22. Blackpool £11.6m 23. Peterborough £9.1m

I'm getting it from reality. Maybe the 2001 and 2011 census results for Blackburn are easy to miss living in Yorkshire, but the town has changed massively since the 80s. We'll see what the results of the 2021 census in terms of ethnicity/religion when they're published in November, but I expect another huge shift. Better put the usual disclaimer that this is in no way a political opinion on anything, its just the facts. Many white people have moved out of Blackburn and into the Ribble Valley, the Preston/Leyland/Chorley area, or other surrounding areas. There's a direct correlation between the distance someone lives from the ground, and their willingness to go to games. Mill Hill, Higher Croft, Darwen etc are a huge source of Rovers support because its as easy as walking out your front door and 10 minutes later walking through the turnstile. Its the same reason clubs with town/city centre grounds tend to do better for gates. Rovers are losing local fans, have been for decades now. A football message board can live on far-flung supporters, but a football club can't. It needs the locals, so I'm all for Eid prayers on the pitch etc, but its not turning into significant numbers of fans yet and I'm not sure how the club is going to make that happen.

True but IMO that's where Rovers are fighting a losing battle. Rovers' future hinges on getting Blackburn's Asian population to matches. Every year that isn't happening (in large numbers, know there are some that go), our fanbase is decreasing. Without Mill Hill and Darwen I shudder to think what our attendances would be these days. There's also the gloryhunter effect that takes its toll on us more than most clubs. We've Man Utd, Man City and Liverpool practically on our doorstep and if anyone still plays a bit of 5-a-side in the area (the Soccerdome in Guide for example), you don't see many kids running around in Rovers shirts. I genuinely think we're a League One size club now without Venkys, that's just the way things have gone in the area.

Hmm are you sure? Our brief stay in the Championship in 1999-2001 was fun because we had a top team that racked up win after win, in front of 20,000 crowds. This time round the Championship isn't so much fun because we're stuck here with an average team with average results, and as a result with 13,000 crowds. Similar thing with League One, the 2017/18 season was fun because again we were destined for promotion, so had 13,000 crowds (and the best away following in the division). Stick us down there without Venkys and with less than half our current wage bill, we'd struggle to get back out and god knows what our crowds would drop to, 8,000 would be my guess. In terms of Venkys financial support, personally I think it is quite a big deal even with their size. Couldn't find anything on their current turnover (their Wikipedia page barely says anything and their website looks like it was built by a 12 year old). But found an old article from 2010 saying the VH Group then had 28 companies, an annual turnover of £1 billion, and a profit of £100m. So if you're on the VH Group board, couldn't give a monkeys about English football, and see 1 of these 28 companies contributing about 2% of the group turnover, but eating into 20% of the group profits, you'd be saying offload it asap. I don't know enough about finance to know what happens when you want to sell/close a company with £200m debt, or how the FA/UK government might get involved. But either way the fact that Venkys haven't even hinted at doing that, and as I say are still funding a squad wage bill that far outstrips our revenue and absorbing the subsequent losses, has to been seen as a credit to them IMO.

For 10 years now since relegation, our wage budget has been about 150-200% our club income. If you don't have rich owners, that can't happen, running it at even 80% is pushing it. So if Venkys sold the club to say the Rovers Trust for 1p tomorrow, the first thing the Trust would have to do is work on halving our wage bill. And you generally get what you pay for in football, so that would leave us struggling to stay in the Championship. Obviously Venkys made the biggest mistake in Rovers history swapping out Williams and Allardyce for Anderson and Kean. And for those of us who were Allardyce fans, I think we've more reason to be livid than most as our argument was relegation for a club Rovers size is a financial death sentence, so its insane to take such a risk in the name of pretty football. But you can't turn back time. Without Venkys 10 years ago we might still be a PL club, but without them now we might be a League 1 club, so I just think we have to forgive them.

He deserves a hero's welcome. Took over when the club had been on a downward slide for 6 years. Fantastic effort to keep us up (going down on 51 points is ridiculous), promotion first time of asking, a steady improvement in the Championship except for one season (15th, 11th, 15th, 8th). And those last 2 seasons he did it on a meagre budget, signing players for under £1m/for free/on loan, when other teams in the Championship are getting parachute payments of now £80-90m (depending on how long they're in the PL) over 3 years. Its Rovers fans ridiculous expectation levels and the Big Sam situation all over again. Back then it wasn't good enough to have us as a solid mid-table PL team, "We're Blackburn Rovers, we've won the PL. Mid-table and long-ball football isn't good enough, get him out!". With Mowbray it wasn't good enough to be slowly edging us up the Championship, "We're Blackburn Rovers, we should be in the Premier League, get him out!". How about we're Blackburn Rovers, we generate about £16m per season in revenue (peanuts, absolute peanuts). Our wage bill is about £24m, our operating costs about £8m, we lose about £15m per season and are now £200m in debt. Maybe we aren't a PL club, maybe its not the manager's fault every time we fall short. But JDT will find out soon enough how he's not good enough either, and so will the next manager, and the next manager, and...

I seriously doubt Rovers fans spent decades after WW1 moaning that we weren't living up to our history of winning the FA Cup 5 times and the league twice. I reckon they accepted that our situation had changed, big city clubs had properly got involved in football, and those days were past. When we got relegated, 90% of our income vanished and our situation changed. History contributes jack to present circumstances. It scores 0 goals, keeps 0 clean sheets, wins 0 corners, retains 0% possession and adds 0 points. Yeah Burnley and Bournemouth have recently made it into the PL. Whilst clubs like Forest, Derby, Middlesbrough, Stoke, Coventry, Bristol City, Cardiff (all much bigger crowds than us), Sunderland, Sheff Wed, Ipswich, Charlton, Bolton, Portsmouth (all getting bigger crowds than us a league below) and Bradford (bigger crowds 2 leagues below) haven't. So why should we expect to be the tiny minority doing better instead of the large majority doing the same/worse? This entitled attitude has been ingrained in Rovers fans for 30 years now, and other clubs fans rightly mock us for it. It seems to be the inevitable price of a period of incredible success. I just thought 10 years after getting relegated, fans might have finally started getting real by now. But no, its blame the manager. The abuse Mowbray has got this season is disgraceful, I'm not surprised he wants to go and heaven help the next poor sod.

Stick it where? The club is £200m in debt and Mowbray has barely seen a penny of any sale (Armstrong included) since he bought Brereton/Gallagher 3-4 years ago.

Personally I don't understand the "taken us as far as he can", "won't get us promoted" etc arguments. Reasons why we're doing well to even be in the Championship: Fanbase - we have one of the smallest catchment areas in the entire football league. The town demographic is rapidly changing to a culture less football-obsessed. And we've 3 super clubs on our doorstep (City, Liverpool and Utd) that kids increasingly gloryhunt. Attendances - thanks to the above, plus it being a low wage area, we have among the lowest crowds in the league, even selling below average priced tickets. Income - not much TV money outside the PL, so our income is pretty much dictated by the above 2, i.e. its very low. Squad strength - dictated by our income. Take Brereton and Gallagher out, and its a bargain basement squad. Reasons we should be in the PL: We were in it most of the 90s/00s - contributes 0 points per season. We won it in 1995 - contributes 0 points per season. We won the League Cup in 2002 - contributes 0 points per season. Our expectation-levels should now align with the likes of Preston, but I've heard louder boos at Ewood for draws than Preston fans gave their players for getting beat 4-1 in a derby. The fact that Mowbray has been getting stick this season given all the above is insane. I honestly think we've got the most entitled fans in the country, and as long as that continues, every Rovers manager will get undeserved stick based on delusional expectations.

Yeah totally agree Tom. He's looked a lively player but he's a striker isn't he? Playing him in between midfield and attack in a 4-5-1 (like against Everton) is fine, playing him in centre mid in a 4-4-2 is suicidle. I thought that cost us the game because before that Jones and Dunn were bossing the midfield and after that City regularly had 3 players to over-run Jones. Typical striker attitude as well after losing the ball for their goal, did the slowest grandad run ever to get back and defend.

I think its unfair to judge Shearer on his seasons after 1997. He sustained 2 massive ligament injuries in '92 and '97 that each would have ended most players careers, the second unfortunately finished off his pace and agility and made him a shadow of his former self. 1992-97 though he had everything and had them in abundance: pace, strength, heading, finishing off either foot, link-up play, crossing, aggression, penalties. I consider Shearer of 92-97 to be the second best striker of the modern era in world football (after Brazilian Ronaldo) and the best player to ever pull on a blue and white shirt. So he left to play for his boyhood club after we finished 6th (not before like some who jumped ship with Kenny), he outgrew us, what the could possibly be wrong with that? I find it very sad when Rovers fans talk about him with a lack of respect, if he's not a legend then nobody from that side should be. On Benni, real shame. Great player, lousy attitude, but his goalscoring record at Rovers is something to be admired.

I think the only thing that supports her is 25lbs is a bloody heavy bin and something that really should have been flagged up on a health and safety assessment of the concourse at the start of the season. Wouldn't have taken much effort to secure them to the floor or just remove them all together. The rest of the blame has to rest with the guy himself and his mates. Taking coke at a football match is insane considering the excitement at a game already. Add substantial chemical encouragement and I'd probably end up running on the pitch if I did it! Anyway hopefully his death has taught a lot of people a lesson, Rovers fans have certainly seemed better behaved this season in the concourse at away games.

You can't argue with Crouch's scoring record since he entered the side, its been nothing short of excellent. However being honest about his footballing ability, he is no Micheal Owen and certainly no Wayne Rooney. Against the better sides we will need to stop hoofing the long balls and get these 2 on the ball and in scoring positions.

I'll admit that Wright can be a bit annoying in that he seems to know very little about the game outside of what the strikers are up to or if he does he completely fails in getting it across and very rarely says anything of interest. Still, you can't fault his patriotism and support of England, something completely non-existent on TV now in these ultra-PC times. Mark Lawrenson is just a Irish-supporting tit and Martin O'Neill seems to jabber like a demented idiot half the time. Probably the only very good pundit on TV is Alan Hansen.