It's been ten years of decline in terms of fans ebbing away from the club. At some point it has to be understood that the club and the way it is run is the core issue here. If it was an issue with fickle fans it would have levelled out long ago, because it's not like anybody has been following Rovers for fun or glory in the last ten years.

Feels like one that's going to go down to deadline day. We have a set amount we want met, whilst other clubs are low balling in the hope we'll be desperate enough to knock a few mill off our initial asking price. The situation would seem to be in the buying clubs' favour as we seem to need to Arma cash to even bring in loans, and leaving it until deadline day won't do us any good on that front. On the other hand this is Venky's, so anything could happen.

Based on that showing Swansea are in for a long season. We'll be fine until injuries/suspensions and the usual death spirals come into play, but the first eleven we had on the pitch today are good enough to stay in the division.

It wouldn't be a Tony Mowbray team if we didn't concede at least one!

Keep the players away from the manager at HT please.

If Gallagher is on the wing and Dolan through the middle I hope the fans who are there make their voices heard. Mowbray can't be allowed to keep taking the piss out of us like this.

I'm hoping that's just Rich throwing some shade at Mowbray rather than something he knows as a fact.

As I expected. These bare faced lies make it very difficult to have any respect for the manager.

The start of a new season is always something I look forward to on a general level. As far as Rovers are concerned I have no confidence in or respect for the management team, so my only hope for this season is that we somehow scrape enough points to survive. If Mowbray resigns or is sacked that is sadly likely to be the highlight of the season. Not holding my breath on that though.

Are there any financial folks on here who can shed light on whether the sob story about Venky's business revenues being impacted by COVID is genuine or just another TM lie? Looking at their share price I see consistent growth from April 2020 onwards, which I wouldn't expect from a company that is in as bad shape as the manager seems to suggest here.

This is just not the right take at all in my view. They are damned either way if what they provide has no intrinsic value. Just writing a letter with vague promises and baseless assurances means nothing. The suggestion that we should accept and be happy with any form of communication no matter how basic and pointless is just not acceptable to me - and this letter is about as basic and pointless as it gets, so I can't draw any other conclusion from the opinion that "they're damned either way". If the letter personally addressed the various issues the fans have been unhappy with (the training ground, the manager, most of our top staff members leaving, jobs for the boys, our terrible form last season, etc) and committed to ongoing communication to resolve these problems then fair enough - but it doesn't. All it says is that Balaji will make some time in his schedule to pop over at some unspecified point in the future. Wow, thanks. I appreciate the owners have given us practically nothing over the past decade and anything from them at this point is a surprise, but we shouldn't lower our standards to accept hollow communications as something positive.

It's amazing to me that after a decade of consistent neglect beyond the basics of keeping the lights on people think Venky's are going to suddenly change their ways. It's not like we haven't had these kind of letters before. They amount to nothing in the long run. I get wanting to hope against all past evidence for the best, but that's all it is. Most of the fans left who have any ambition for the club whatsoever (and I think this makes up a really small portion of the fanbase these days) want to see ACTION - actual changes to the structure and inner workings of the club that provide short and long-term benefits. All this letter proves is that the owners are seemingly happy bumbling on under a broken structure and a useless manager who is dragging us back into League 1. If that's a cause for happiness then I don't know what to say.

Huge round of applause and a chant of "thank you Venky's", probably.

This letter conveys nothing and could have been written by anyone and be swapped out for practically any club. It's void of anything personal, nor does it address any of the legitimate concerns many fans have. If Venky's cared then Mowbray would be long gone, and we wouldn't be lurching into embargoes every 3 seasons.

The fabled European Scouting Network not exactly a resounding success, then. Wasn't that one of the major policies Mowbray was hanging his hat on?

Speaking of Daniel Bryan, it seems he and CM Punk have both signed with AEW and are expected to debut within the next couple of months. Punk is being heavily teased for AEW Rampage's debut on Friday August 20th in Chicago. I haven't seen anything about a date for Bryan yet.

Agreed, the Japanese would take the in-ring side of things a little more seriously which would be hugely beneficial to the character. I've just realised the entire Wyatt family are now gone from WWE - Bray, Harper, Rowan and Strowman! Even Daniel Bryan if you count him.

1. Don't know 2. Don't know 3. Kaminski 4. 16th-21st if TM is removed before January and replaced by somebody competent, 22nd if not 5. WBA

Bray Wyatt released by WWE. Didn't see that one coming. Fully expecting he'll end up in AEW.

I believe the 92 club feature stopped working during one of the recent forum upgrades. I think @StubbsUK mentioned in the relaunch thread that it will hopefully return in the future though.

I could be wrong but I don't think the idea is to put the site/forum behind a paywall. I think it's just if you want to pay to remove adverts the option is there, otherwise crack on as is.

The only thing Mowbray's slow build has done is slowly put FFP weights around us, which are now dragging us down. If we had somebody intelligent taking care of the bigger picture we would never end up in this situation, let alone for the second time in six years, but alas...

Tbf this is Tony Mowbray we're talking about. "Sam Gallagher on the right wing" Tony Mowbray.

Yep, considering the relative rarity of a major injury I think Armstrong will be comfortable waiting out the year if needed. May well play more conservatively to avoid injury as well, which wouldn't be good for us. He and his agent will be rubbing their hands in glee at the potential increased signing on/agent fees if we don't agree a deal this summer. Dack's situation was just serious bad luck. Add in he's also older than Armstrong so the time available to bounce back post-injury is reduced considerably. With all of that said I think Armstrong will be gone before the window closes. The club won't risk losing him for nothing.

This is typically how it works when it comes to cost cutting. The person who stays on is supposed to feel grateful for still having a job despite now having double the workload.