"Then the penny dropped, it clicked, what was actually said, and the context behind it." Followed by Yasir not saying what was actually said or the context behind it.

I actually agree with your original number of needing 9 players (8 with Ribiero extending). We've seen that we run out of steam as always towards the final 3rd of the campaign and we've less academy prospects able to adequately step up for an extended period with the necessary quality imo.

Out of interest, for those who have now reluctantly renewed over the past week or so. Is there a future line in the sand you won't pass with regards to renewing next season?

You have to pay £20 to go and get it yourself? Scandalous.

I don't follow the academy very much but I noticed a lot of the younger lads getting short term deals across the leagues this season, has there been more than previous seasons? None of them have seemingly turned up many trees and look capable of making the step up next year at present.

It would be very Rovers of us to let Dolan go on a free, spend a decent fee on a replacement - only to let them leave 3 years later for nothing.

Doesn't that worry you Chaddy? If your wage was the same now as it was back in 2019, would you be happy with that? Looking at it wider, if we have the same wage bill now as 2019 then that indicates one of 2 things to me: 1. We've replaced senior players from the 2019 era with players who will be happy to take very similar terms to what the previous players were on. Which considering a 6 year difference likely means the new players are of inferior quality. 2. Senior players have had wage rises, but we've reduced the overall number of "senior players" and increased the number of academy players in the first team, who are naturally on less money and thus the cost balances out when taking the whole squad into consideration. Either way, if they're cutting costs or keeping costs the same, we will only go backwards.

Glad to see it's not just myself being bombarded with emails from Rovers. It got that tiresome earlier this week that I unsubscribed.

With Windings as the font used.

From the article: Danny Batth, Adam Forshaw and Andi Weimann are the three senior players out of contract this summer, as well as Tyrhys Dolan, though his situation differs. Genuine question here, can anyone explain why his situation in particular, differs to the other 3? Is it that he's got a contract offer?

Is his agent the one that hosts the "I Had Trials Once" podcast? Used to play for Salford in the very early days when Neville and co bought it?

I think we will leave our communication there.

You can see the problem here right? You use rumour as a statement and it's fine. Someone else does the same, but with a different viewpoint to your own, and all of a sudden "no-one knows for sure".

He also wanted a new contract with some spending guarantees (rightly earned I think) and contracts for the players who had got him 6th, both denied.

You have mentioned this a few times now. That £4.5m does not include the Raya sell-on fee we received, which is anywhere between £4.5m and £6m. We only spent £4.5m after selling upwards of £11m in the summer alone. Who do we have that makes £11m so we can spend £4-5m?