Point still stands that if Bennett and Bell are full backs, our defence will be one of the poorest in the league no matter who is at CB or in goal.

Whoever comes in as GK, it’s a big call for Mowbray. He can’t hide them on the bench like most of his other signings.

Out of interest, how much is the usual home game ticket discount for 1875 members?

4-4 Vs Bury apparently

Got a horrible feeling it could be Jason Steele. Played under Mowbray at Boro.

I just can’t see Gallagher getting that much game time in the centre forward position. Mowbray will probably judge that he’s not fit enough too having missed part of preseason, so we won’t see him til Christmas.

£5m is a lot to pay for a substitute, but we'll be thankful of the Gallagher signing if Graham gets injured, otherwise we'd be in trouble. I think we'd all feel a lot better if we signed a keeper and a couple of decent defenders to go straight into the first XI.

It’s inevitable that we’re going to have Brereton (£7m) and Gallagher (£5m) sat on the bench for most of this season. Either that or coming on for cameos on the wing.

If we've got a budget similar to last year (+£3m from Raya), there's no reason why we shouldn't have a list of target players and go out and try bringing them in. If the targeted players are too expensive or not available, that's the fault of the scouting team. But unfortunately at this stage it sounds like we're going to be left feeding on unwanted cast-offs and last minute loans. All the signings so far fall into that category.

The doubt with this White kid is that he’s turned down playing first team football to play in the U23s. If he was good enough then you would think a club in L2 would have snapped him up to play first team football. I’d rather see one of the younger lads get promoted rather than backfill the academy with 22 year olds coming in who realistically won’t make it.

I think half the problem is that the club announces these U23 signings as if they are first team signings. Happened last year with Lyons, Davenport, Chapman etc

The 1875 club thing costs £15. So if the Leeds/Sheff W ticket price is discounted to £35 (from £40) for 1875 members, you're still paying the same but just paying it up front! Overall the ticket prices are barmy and will do noting to bring a good atmosphere back to Ewood. God help us if we ever got to the Premier League, it would be more expensive than Arsenal.

Should be starting then against Charlton.

Is Buckley really the best one coming through? What sort of midfielder is he? Looks really lightweight for the championship.

So far only links to ex-Rovers/Boro 30+ year olds from English clubs. Any links with anyone from Europe? On our budget there's no value in buying players from other English clubs. It's not the way that Norwich/Leeds etc have improved.

Thompson? Academy player?

Shame to sell one of the academy players. He was MOTM in a number of games last year, but also had a few poor moments, hence why we can absolutely find someone better than him. I just hope he hasn't taken the blame for the poor defensive record of last season. We need 2 new better defenders in that back 4.

Reed was a useful player for us last season, but I think we're going to be replacing him with a combination of: CM: Davenport and Johnson Wide: Chapman and Downing Also Rothwell only came through late last season to play in place of Reed out wide.

Hopefully he'll get change to play in central midfield rather than being stuck out on the wing.

I saw us linked to Tomasz Kuszczak the other day. Available on a free. I've no idea if he's any good or not these days.

If true, I'm reading that as: - Rovers have enquired about this summer's list of targets. - Clubs have quoted crazy prices/wages. - Tony prepared to sit it out and hope things move so players become available. - Venkys want to avoid another 'Brereton', so want to go for old targets now.

I’m not getting overly worried with the lack of public transfer links just yet. What we MUST do is buy some players who are ready to play straight away and not like most of our other recent signings who weren’t deemed fit enough to play. No point spending £1m or £10m if they aren’t going to be ready to start games for 6-12 months.

Didn't Gallagher get stuck out on the wing last time he was here? Can't remember who the manager was.

100% nailed on defence for Charlton: Bennett-Lennihan-Williams-Bell No lessons learnt. No progress.

Very worrying that we’re wasting 2 years tracking someone who they think wouldn’t even get in the first team. How else can we improve without signing better players than we already have? Why let Downing go if we’re just going to sign another squad CB? I can see it coming already, the team starting against Charlton is going to be the League One team AGAIN.