Big Sam/Promotion?Will They Go Up.

Trotter Fan In Peace

Sadly at Blackburn I see history repeating itself. Big Sam is brought in and starts to improve the club but slowly as he doesn't rush in but under the current owners that's Ok, there's been a mess and Sam's cleaning it up a bit at a time while getting the best he can out of a squad some would say is limited.

New Owners come in, decide they want glamour and sack the big guy. The club goes into free fall on the pitch and barely scrapes survival once but the following season they drop like stones and go out of the premiership.

Newcastle United did it when Ashley came in and paid an awful price for it albeit they did bounce back and are doing superbly under Pardew now BUT they had a huge fan base and a chairman who was willing to open his chequebook to numbers Blackburn and us can't possibly match.

That for me is the worry for you guys. I can't see Rovers walking the championship the way newcastle did under Hughton with Kevin Nolan and the other Sam signings leading the way. I said at the time when the Venkys claimed they wanted a 'bigger name' that I feared history would repeat itself.

I know it's not official yet and I hope i'm wrong and we both survive but in all honesty I truly fear for the Rovers at the moment. Ashley at least tried to listen and fix his mistakes. The Venky's seem frighteningly unaware that they've made any and Kean seems to be in a state of complete denial that appears to be impenetrable by anything short of a neutron bomb being dropped on his head.

Good luck guys, I think you're going to need lots of it and it's not fair that a proud club with proud fans is being so appallingly mismanaged.

Great poster Peter. I think we're all with you on the general concern for next season. I can't see us finishing any higher than mid-table in the Championship if things carry on as they have been. We probably won't be back for some time.

`We probably wont be back for some time`

The reality is that you wont be back ever. Once you are out of The Prem, you are no different to Barnsley, Burnley, Preston, Huddersfield etc and as a small town Northern Club you will rank behind the bigger City clubs such as Leeds, Sheff Wed, Forest etc.
You have punched above your weight since Uncle Jack injected his cash, but those days are long gone, The longer term picture probably will see the `small town` clubs battling it out in the lower divisions.

Just consider this. If you were a billionaire wanting to buy a Football Club ( unless you wanted to asset strip) and your options were say Forest, Rovers, Sheff Wed, Preston, Blackpool, Coventry, Southampton and Reading (pre promotion), West Ham, Millwall, Cardiff, Rangers, Leeds, Boro, Birmingham, Ipswich,etc. Which would you invest your 20 million in ?

You would like me to say Burnley!Football is not so nice anymore its all about money and there are no Duggys or Skippys(kindon)both our clubs have had great players and done well over the years but its now all gone to pot!No club loyalty or a real rover or claret,aye its sad times.

I agree we're no different to those clubs, but as 2 of the 4 have already been in the PL, its hardly impossible, just very infrequent. Hence me saying some time, rather than never.

Agree with the rest of your post, which is why I was one of the Rovers fans fully behind Allardyce. I'd rather have watched the ugliest football in the world if it meant holding onto the one thing that elevated us out of the small-time, our premier league TV money.

Nobody deserves Venkys but some of our fans did deserve a wake-up call for thinking we could do better than Big Sam.

blueandwhitehalves.

I agree that nobody deserves Venkys but on the other hand does anybody `deserve` an Uncle Jack ? No , but Rovers were fortunate enough to have one. You have one or possibly 2 seasons to get back in The Prem, after that its all downhill as the records show.

Nope, so if what you're getting at is JW and Venkys average each other out then I'd agree. Although to be fair Venkys will still have to do quite a bit more bad to even out how much Uncle Jack did good.

We'd have 1/2 seasons to get back if this was a normal relegation. A normal relegation would indicate the parachute payment money would be spent on something that helped the club, i.e. holding onto a few players still on PL wages, buying some top quality football league players, or shelling out for a high profile manager.

Unfortunately I suspect our parachute payment money will vanish. So I think we'll skip that phase and its all downhill starting right now.

As long as this clown is in control and I am afraid its a long way to the blue square premier!

agree with blue and white halves- we ain't goin to cut the mustard in the championship as it still requires a certain level of investment from owners keen to progress (theres a sentence with keen and progress in it )

In a way we have had our 15 minutes of fame and should be happy we were all here to witness it. However I am a bit greedy and felt with good management (which we had up to 2 years ago) we could have gone on forever. The reality is so different.

Not sure about `forever` Walkden, but you certainly would have survived longer.