DE.

Papers here have said that Evans didn't think Lampard's coaching ideas were up to scratch. Who knows what the truth is, although if Lampard was asking for silly amounts that would be a good reason to turn him down too. Yet to do anything to earn such demands.

Ipswich turned Lampard down, so I'd be very worried as a Derby fan if that one goes through.

Look at Sheffield Wednesday. Spent big, but they've been getting worse rather than better. In our one season where we spent really big on Rhodes, Murphy, Etuhu, Nuno Gomes, etc we ended up battling relegation. It's not necessarily about spending a lot of money, it's about bringing in the right players to suit the manager's style of football (and having a manager who actually knows what they're doing). Ipswich got into the playoffs in significant net profit paying no more than £10k p/w wages. A healthy budget is important, but a smart and calculated transfer policy is far more beneficial than splashing the cash. Obviously I'm discounting extreme examples like Wolves and Newcastle, as realistically we aren't going to be spending that kind of money.

Well done Fulham. Totally deserved. Showed guts to hang on for the last 20 with ten men.

Actually most of the money "blown" was on Jordan Rhodes - which has been well established as not a Kean signing - and the ridiculous influx of Portuguese players which was done at the behest of Venky's "global advisor" Shebby Singh. So, nice try, but as much as I love to criticise Steve Kean I'm pretty sure we ended up in net profit as far as his transfers are concerned. For every signing we sold somebody to at the very least cover the excess, either in transfer fee or wages. We also ended up with a @#/?ing shit squad but that was an inevitability.

Time catches up with all players and it was pretty obvious last season that Conway's race has mostly been run. He's been a really solid performer for us in the past, but we don't live in the past and time isn't going backwards. A good lad to have in the dressing room, I'm sure, but he'd have to take quite a wage drop for me to consider a contract extension on that basis alone worthwhile. Still, if TM thinks he's worth the extension I suppose we have to put our faith in that and see what happens. If he can justify that portion of his wage budget being taken up by Conway then so be it.

There must be a reason Otzumer has never played above L1 level at age 26? Not saying he can't make the step up but there's a lot of hype on here for someone who's never even played at championship level...

It was indeed. Crazy decision. Speaking of crazy decisions, I think Moyes still technically has a year left to run on his Man Utd contract!

In January during Stoke's initial interest. As we all know by now they aren't worth the paper they're written on (for the club, anyway, usually works out pretty well for the manager).

Part of the reason people are tetchy about budgets so early on is probably because in the past we've literally gone into August with the Venky light still stuck on red and with no indication of what, if anything, we had to spend. Bowyer's final summer and Coyle's only window immediately spring to mind. I'm not overly concerned at the moment (and my expectations are also very, very low) but I wouldn't be critical of anybody feeling that way considering the club's recent past.

A shame he didn't have that attitude in 2008, probably would have gotten at least a few more decent years out of his career at Rovers before Venky's came in and bulldozed everything.

Truth be told the only time he really had a period of sustained form was his first spell with us. Before that he already had gambling problems and injury issues. He didn't make many appearances for Arsenal before coming to Rovers. Obviously goes without saying he was brilliant for us for a couple of years, then it all went downhill again when he moved back down south with Spurs and never recovered. As we saw when he briefly came back here a few years ago he had become a shell of the player he was. Long term I don't think his mentality would ever have let him get far in football. We were lucky to catch him during a very brief two year period when his head was right, but inevitably it got turned again before too long.

They've had, what, two or three seasons now where their campaign has collapsed down the home straight? Something is not right there. It's probably not going to get any better on a lesser budget but who knows? If they bring in a solid manager who knows how to work within a budget and build a strong mentality throughout the squad then they could still get somewhere. Not many of those about these days though.

Big test for Rowett now. He was never going to get anywhere on Birmingham's budget and there's obviously a lingering mentality issue at Derby which probably requires a fairly large clearout of existing players to fix. On cut budgets that would have been a difficult one to take forward. Stoke should be going up in the top two next season.

Probably just means Tony didn't come back with his knees caved in.

Tbf Sunderland are a much bigger club with far greater potential than Ipswich. If they have a season like we did in L1 they will be back into the Championship with renewed energy and momentum. Ipswich have been slowly sinking for the past few seasons, have no real transfer or wage budget and a fanbase who blames the manager as opposed to the owner for the poor quality of players on the pitch. I'd probably choose Sunderland.

Derby are about to slash budgets across the club so it makes sense that he'd want to jump to Stoke, who will likely have far more spending power. Rowett did very well at Birmingham and had a great start to his career at Derby, but they've badly stalled in the last few months. I think he was linked to the Stoke job before Lambert got it in January, so it sounds like he's already been on Stoke's radar for a while.

I thought Sanches was a hell of a coup for Swansea. In retrospect there's probably a reason he ended up there.

If Stoke do get Rowett then I could see Mick McCarthy ending up at Derby. Might be the type of manager they need after the last few failed promotion attempts.

Just saw that. Alright for some indeed. Not sure why the BBC have it on the rugby union section of their website, mind.

If Bowyer genuinely thought Lowe was good enough to play in every possible game for us, sometimes shunting around or dropping other players to fit him in, I don't know why he wouldn't be interested.

No, the truth is that Venky's have built up a debt of £250m over the last 7 years and helped relegate us to a league we hadn't been in since 1980. We're now at a point where the manager has to go with a begging bowl to India every summer, hoping to get a budget to compete with bottom end Championship clubs. They took us over as a stable, mid-table PL club with only £20m debt. We had an experienced, respected manager and board room. The squad needed a little work but there wasn't that much to do. To suggest we should in any way be grateful to Venky's for paying for this mess they themselves have caused is frankly insulting, although coming from a Burnley fan it doesn't really mean that much. Unfortunately there are Rovers fans with your abhorrent viewpoint too, and that hurts more.

At this rate we might as well sign every Scottish free agent available. There's no doubt Mulgrew would be great for us in CM, for about 2 games before he gets injured and doesn't play until some time after Christmas.

Who cares? He's overweight now and not able to get ahead of Nyambe and Bennett at RB. That's all that matters. Get rid and move on.

Pretty telling that we're all almost entirely talking about players on free transfers or loans. We're a long way from the days of Ronaldinho and Raul. Probably more likely to pick either up now than we were 7 years ago tbf. Those distant pipe dreams aside, we will hopefully be able to attract a few decent PL youngsters on loan. We can't do much worse than we did during the 16/17 season - although Joao, Emnes and Gallagher all had their moments.