Now recently a lot has been said about the Venkys, a heck of a lot, and in this #Venkysout campaign I feel like it’s about time I voice my opinion. I want to point out however I am going to try and keep to strictly the football side of dealings. Even though certain leaked documents suggest that that is a lot of black magic happening behind closed doors.
Let’s go back firstly to when the Venkys took over, and talk about managers. On November 2010 the Venkys bought Blackburn for around £23million, at the time then manager Sam Allardyce had guided Blackburn to around mid-table and 6 points from Europe place, pretty reasonable for a ‘Small club’ in the league. The Venkys (should) had seen that in November Blackburn won 3 and lost 2, and they were to Spurs and Man United. But it seems that this was enough to put Big Sam’s job in jeopardy. As on the 11th of august Blackburn lost 2-1 to Bolton and this was the final straw, as only two days later Sam Allardyce was sacked and was replaced by ‘He who shall not be named’. Now keep this in mind, we won 3 and lost 3 with only 1 loss actually being significant and were sitting relatively comfortably in the league with a manager who had never been relegated.
Kean was put on a temporary contact “to show the club what he’s got’, but after only one month was given a full 2 year contract? So he must have got some amazing results to completely halt the search for a new manager? Well no. On the 4th of January when it was announced that that he had signed a 2 year deal Blackburn had only played 4 games winning one! Big Sam was sacked having lost 8 drawn 3 and won 6 games by December. On May 30th 2011 after our 3 - 2 at Wolves, 5 months into Kean’s reign he had won…5 games in the league. On the 17th of September 2011 Blackburn beat Arsenal 4 -3 in a memorable match this was Kean’s 6th win. It took Steve Kean 9 months to do what it took Sam Allardyce 3 months and 4 days. So why wasn’t Kean sacked?...*Cough* Jerome *Cough* Anderson. It took until the 28th of September 2012 for Kean to resign. Suggesting the position was untenable. Honestly if he had stayed much longer he probably would have been killed. People were pretty angry.
The point is that if Kean hadn’t resigned who knows how long he would have stayed. It seemed that Jerome Anderson had the Venkys wrapped round his finger and Kean may have been at Rovers for much longer.
Now it’s well known that Jerome Anderson was an ‘adviser’ to the Venkys (Sir Alex highlighted this issue in his book) whilst also being Kean’s Agent. So when Kean resigned he took Jerome with him, this left the Venkys clueless. They didn’t know where to turn or who to hire. The following months were hell for Blackburn, picking off manager after manager and failure after failure and in the end settling for a man who had been at the club the whole time Gary Bowyer, who did incredible considering the conditions. This really exposed the Venkys for the owners that we already knew they were. They didn’t know a thing about football or anything about the club.
Now onto the Money and this is what really gets me. In the 3 years before the Venkys Blackburn spent £27 million on players including the likes of Santa Cruz, Paul Robinson, Nikola Kalinic, Gael Givet and Steven Nzonzi. Players who were great servants to the club. Since then, in 6 years! And a transfer embargo as a result of £100mil debts. The Venkys who bought the club for £23 million and promised the only two football players they knew the names of (Ronaldiniho and Beckham) and even quoted that they would spend over £50mil if they need to (In the first season). Have spent a whopping £30 million on players like Leon Best ( £3million) Goodwillie (£1.5million) Chris Brown, Jordan Slew, Vukcevic, Bradley Orr so on and so on! Now there have been some good buys, Rhodes, Cairney, Gestede, Marshall and Conway but 3 of them are gone and Marshall and Conway are remaining assets. Fun fact one of the signings that Blackburn bought was Myles Anderson, names sound familiar? Yep their related.
Actually speaking of selling players, do you know how much Rovers have received over the last 6 years from transfers? It’s around a steady £75million. Now you can talk all you want about embargos and debt. But the fact is, getting to the premier league offers over £125 million and more! So spending a bit of money on players who can play and win games should eventually pay off! So why not push for it? Why not have a big push using the transfer funds we have? Reinvest in players and go for it. If it doesn’t pay off then it’s not like we’d be in a worse situation than we are now! Bottom of the league with one point, players who don’t want to play and the most unhappy fans in the world! So to me and the majority of fans, if not all, there’s only one thing that can be done…
#VenkysOut
Let’s go back firstly to when the Venkys took over, and talk about managers. On November 2010 the Venkys bought Blackburn for around £23million, at the time then manager Sam Allardyce had guided Blackburn to around mid-table and 6 points from Europe place, pretty reasonable for a ‘Small club’ in the league. The Venkys (should) had seen that in November Blackburn won 3 and lost 2, and they were to Spurs and Man United. But it seems that this was enough to put Big Sam’s job in jeopardy. As on the 11th of august Blackburn lost 2-1 to Bolton and this was the final straw, as only two days later Sam Allardyce was sacked and was replaced by ‘He who shall not be named’. Now keep this in mind, we won 3 and lost 3 with only 1 loss actually being significant and were sitting relatively comfortably in the league with a manager who had never been relegated.
Kean was put on a temporary contact “to show the club what he’s got’, but after only one month was given a full 2 year contract? So he must have got some amazing results to completely halt the search for a new manager? Well no. On the 4th of January when it was announced that that he had signed a 2 year deal Blackburn had only played 4 games winning one! Big Sam was sacked having lost 8 drawn 3 and won 6 games by December. On May 30th 2011 after our 3 - 2 at Wolves, 5 months into Kean’s reign he had won…5 games in the league. On the 17th of September 2011 Blackburn beat Arsenal 4 -3 in a memorable match this was Kean’s 6th win. It took Steve Kean 9 months to do what it took Sam Allardyce 3 months and 4 days. So why wasn’t Kean sacked?...*Cough* Jerome *Cough* Anderson. It took until the 28th of September 2012 for Kean to resign. Suggesting the position was untenable. Honestly if he had stayed much longer he probably would have been killed. People were pretty angry.
The point is that if Kean hadn’t resigned who knows how long he would have stayed. It seemed that Jerome Anderson had the Venkys wrapped round his finger and Kean may have been at Rovers for much longer.
Now it’s well known that Jerome Anderson was an ‘adviser’ to the Venkys (Sir Alex highlighted this issue in his book) whilst also being Kean’s Agent. So when Kean resigned he took Jerome with him, this left the Venkys clueless. They didn’t know where to turn or who to hire. The following months were hell for Blackburn, picking off manager after manager and failure after failure and in the end settling for a man who had been at the club the whole time Gary Bowyer, who did incredible considering the conditions. This really exposed the Venkys for the owners that we already knew they were. They didn’t know a thing about football or anything about the club.
Now onto the Money and this is what really gets me. In the 3 years before the Venkys Blackburn spent £27 million on players including the likes of Santa Cruz, Paul Robinson, Nikola Kalinic, Gael Givet and Steven Nzonzi. Players who were great servants to the club. Since then, in 6 years! And a transfer embargo as a result of £100mil debts. The Venkys who bought the club for £23 million and promised the only two football players they knew the names of (Ronaldiniho and Beckham) and even quoted that they would spend over £50mil if they need to (In the first season). Have spent a whopping £30 million on players like Leon Best ( £3million) Goodwillie (£1.5million) Chris Brown, Jordan Slew, Vukcevic, Bradley Orr so on and so on! Now there have been some good buys, Rhodes, Cairney, Gestede, Marshall and Conway but 3 of them are gone and Marshall and Conway are remaining assets. Fun fact one of the signings that Blackburn bought was Myles Anderson, names sound familiar? Yep their related.
Actually speaking of selling players, do you know how much Rovers have received over the last 6 years from transfers? It’s around a steady £75million. Now you can talk all you want about embargos and debt. But the fact is, getting to the premier league offers over £125 million and more! So spending a bit of money on players who can play and win games should eventually pay off! So why not push for it? Why not have a big push using the transfer funds we have? Reinvest in players and go for it. If it doesn’t pay off then it’s not like we’d be in a worse situation than we are now! Bottom of the league with one point, players who don’t want to play and the most unhappy fans in the world! So to me and the majority of fans, if not all, there’s only one thing that can be done…
#VenkysOut