bluebruce

They didn't have the massive hassle of going to court every time they need to send us funds last time we went down. Further cuts would likely leave us struggling to compete in League One and they may even end up with a League Two side on their books. Surely even Venkys would realise they are less than useless to us if they can't send money. Of course, the latest public message from them is highly discouraging. You can never really predict what they'll do.

I don't know why but I have a funny feeling we sneak a win in this one, and that we'll draw if we don't. I can't really give a logical reason, it really is just a gut feeling (and I'm rarely one for excess optimism, I prefer balance and logic). Closest I can come to rationale is we have some important players back and fresher legs after the break, 2 full weeks for Eustace to finally implement whatever his preferred approach is (no, I don't rate him yet, but still), we are overdue a win and we've yet to lose against the stronger sides we've faced under Eustace. Maybe it suits his game better. No, it's not enough to predict a win or draw against a side having a much better season and run of form than us. No, I won't be at all surprised if it's a meek 2-0 defeat instead. But nonetheless, it's what my gut thinks is gonna happen.

Glad to be right on mine (well, I said our form suggested a draw or a slim defeat, not the drubbing being predicted by many). I say glad, I'm still not sure if going down would be enough for Venkys to leave considering the financial issues, and my current prediction is we will scrape enough to stay up this season, then go down next season.

I don't think anybody in the Prem would need to find out if he fancied a move there, and if we go down, nobody in the Championship would need to find that out either. Even if we stay up there will be plenty of Championship clubs that will clearly be a better bet for him. The club is also desperate enough to not need much pressure to sell.

Something that is almost always overlooked is Broughton's job is NOT Chief Scout. He isn't in charge of finding players. To quote him: “It is different at every club and has to be context specific. At Blackburn Rovers the role of Director of Football is to oversee the sporting side of the Club including the six departments: First Team, Academy, Player Recruitment, Analysis, Performance and Medical." That's quite a lot of areas to oversee at once. I'm sure our Head of Recruitment/Chief Scout, with the other scouts, does the vast majority of busy work identifying players and drawing up lists based on what budget and priorities are given to them. Budgets which have changed repeatedly and made this part of matters very difficult to conduct. I'd expect Broughton's roles in the recruitment process to involve deciding (with the manager) who from the narrowed down lists they still want pursue, and then conducting the negotiations (again very difficult with the rug constantly pulled from under you). But his role is never going to involve personally finding gems, short of being recommended someone by whatever contacts he has, and if the lists presented to him are crap, there might be no gems on them, or only polished ones we can't afford. All this, combined with the fact the brief is now to find cheap, young, unpolished gems who will take time to polish so can't exactly be judged as failures or successes within 9 months or so, inclines me towards giving him more time before I decide if he's crap or not, though I do have some issues with him. He needs to be replacing scouting staff who aren't up to the task, I'm sure that would come under his remit, but, especially since we are always reluctant to pay staff off and may struggle to afford better staff, he will need to give it time to see if those players develop in order to judge the people who suggested them.

I'm not sure it shows the strength of it though if Morton is being called up before Wharton. Just that whoever is selecting the squad is a total fuckwit.

Lol Ayari has had a couple of good games. And some poor ones. He still has a lot to prove. Prefer him if you like, I did say arguably, but levels above him sounds a bit silly for now. Buckley has mostly looked good since he returned. Tronstad isn't fit so I wasn't including him.

Have you forgotten about Buckley, or has he picked up an injury? That's a lot of talking about CM options without mentioning probably our best (fit) one.

Just seen that Michalski has only just turned 17 today. Whilst it's great for him to have been on our bench lately and hopefully he's one for the future, it seems pretty damning of our situation that a 16 year old keeper was sat on our bench. Of all the positions, that's the one that matures latest. It's probably the equivalent of having a 14 year old outfield player on the bench Hopefully he becomes something special.

If that's true, the irony is that by withholding funding and thereby preventing any effective trading (as players get sold cheaply due to our weak position, we have no chance of ever buying a Szmodics/Armstrong etc again, and inevitably get relegated this or next season, potentially resulting in administration) hugely increases the chances of the SBI having to write it off as a bad debt.

I definitely wasn't taught it until high school. If it's changed, fair enough.

Well now they're incapable of doing 'the honourable thing' so that fan needs to change his mind, get a lobotomy or shut the fuck up.

That seems strange to me, as I don't see why that matters to an accountant and surely there need to be accounts for the authorities to go over regardless. But I'll take your word for it.

There's a chance that will change after this latest news. If not, that's their problem, chant it anyway. Fuck those fools, the club is at stake.

That's the worst case scenario. The best case scenario is they sell the club. I'd take administration before the scenario above.

Didn't think about that. If we can't even offer Dolan the same terms we will lose him on a free rather than getting compensation. Don't the accounts get signed off if they're accurate and not suspicious, rather than because the club is financially secure going forward?

The only positive contribution Venkys were able to make to this club was to send us funding. If they can't even do that, they're precisely zero use to us, yet still the enormous cancerous liability they've always been. Surely even those who bizarrely wanted them to stay, and even Venkys themselves, must admit that now. They were going to go crawling to the Indian courts every 3 months or so it seems, but by the time the January one is dealt with there'll have been an additional 7 months passed. Utterly unsustainable, and we'd have to sell an Adam Wharton a season just to tread water in the same inadequate way we have been doing for years. The only chant at Ewood now should be 'we want Venkys out' or variations on the theme.

We got battered 1-1? Don't be daft yourself. Failing to beat anyone doesn't mean you're odds on to get beaten by more goals than you've been beaten by so far, when only 2 out of 8 teams have beaten you at all lately (9 if we include Stoke) and a strong Prem team couldn't beat us over 120 minutes. As for haven't played anyone, Newcastle aside, Norwich are 5 points clear of Boro and Cardiff and Preston are tied with them on points. So by that logic, Boro aren't anyone either. We also drew with all 3 of those. I'm not saying we definitely won't get pasted, absolutely that may happen, but there's nothing daft about pointing out the concrete fact it would be against recent form if it happened. Form suggests a draw or a slim defeat.

You had just said British people are shit at learning languages, implying an actual lack of skill. I think saying we can't be bothered to learn them because there isn't as much need is an improvement on that. I'm also British, so reckon I'm alright to give an opinion on a people I belong to. But you do you.

And got downvoted for my troubles, for some reason! 😂

I agree, he could get injured for the rest of the season tomorrow and he'd still be my pick by some distance.

I'm a bit confused, you said no hint of a transfer story, then posted a link that mentions a transfer story?

Some predictions of an absolute drubbing here. Keep in mind that since the managerial change, we haven't lost by more than a goal, and that's only happened twice in eight games. If we do get turned over like that it will be a sign of further regression and I'd imagine a hammer blow to the team's confidence. But form doesn't suggest it. The one saving grace of Eustace's start to life here is we've proven fairly hard to beat for whatever reasons.

British people aren't shite at learning languages, they're lazy at it because English is so widely spoken that there's less need. And Ben is indeed being very lazy, it's no excuse. Also they haven't said he's not being picked because of this, the coach has been clear on it not being the cause. So clearly it's because of his poor form.

Not sure what you mean, the common convention is that transfer fees are amortised in the accounts over the length of the contract. I've also never heard of Venkys taking anything out of the club as 'management charges' in previous accounts, though I stand to be corrected. That said I do suspect some dodgy accounting has happened, we seem to make losses no matter what according to the accounts.