Yup. The general assumption/speculation is they kept Grealish on and willing breached FFP this year. Probably just gamesmanship that they won't admit major sales would be needed next year. Have to assume selling Grealish is a must if they don't go up, but then will be interesting to see how (and if) they are punished for their FFP transgressions this year! However, suppose they are given a one-year transfer embargo. If they can demonstrate they are FFP compliant going forward, with gradual wage cuts, other sales, and past transfer payments fading away, that may mean they do everything they can to keep the likes of Grealish on board knowing they have no hope of replacing him. (After the second half he's had, have to assume Grealish is even more keen on a PL move now). Parachute payments evaporating will hurt but they do have a much higher revenue base than most Championship clubs, so they can certainly keep a few very high earners on board. So may depend on how punitive the EFL is in their sanctions.

I'd be curious if you have a link on that... Both Swiss Ramble (https://twitter.com/swissramble/status/1105375506868957184?lang=en) and Price of Football (http://priceoffootball.com/aston-villa-2017-18-finances-and-ffp-doctoring-the-tardis/) recently wrote on AV's 17-18 finances, neither mention anything about fresh investment 'restarting the cycle', other than commenting that the new owners could boost commercial revenue. SR projects them to miss the FFP target by £25m, so... the new owners prevented them from falling into administration, but I don't see how it impacts FFP. This was the last year of AV's parachute payments too, so hard to imagine they won't have to make some significant cuts in some capacity if they don't get promoted regardless. Their CEO's certainly consistently made noises about their confidence in meeting FFP, so could get interesting if they lose the final. If they get promoted, probably will descend into protracted negotiations with the EFL that will end in one of those relatively paltry fines, like Bournemouth. (I'll be cheering for Derby )

Haha, it certainly would be laughable if Waggott and Mowbray cite Charlton as getting massive home support these days... Sunderland will actually still be getting £14m in parachute payments next year haha (although likely still to be a bit of a financial basket case. Their 2018-19 accounts should prove interesting reading...). Certainly an oddly low Sunderland-Portsmouth attendance result yesterday. Lowest attendance of Sunderland's campaign, 6k less than the season average, and 14.5k less than when the same sides played only a month ago... Fans on the Sunderland forum seem confused about it too (though apparently was a great atmosphere).

It is a mildly interesting negotiation given that that we hold an option on a player we don't really want, yet may be wanted elsewhere. Could negotiate that we will pick up the option unless they send us £100k, or whatever. Doncaster may have a few quid to spend if they squeak through the playoffs and he seemed to be an automatic pick for them as they battled to the playoff spot. Probably ultimately depends on if there's any other prospective buyers for Downing to give us any sort of leverage over Doncaster, which may be doubtful (at least at any sort of price that would make picking up his option worthwhile as Downing appears to be a Championship/L1 tweener). May depend on his current wages too, as Downing may then want us to pick up the option to give him leverage on Doncaster wages-wise. Hardly a game changer for the budget, but a lower-revenue Championship club like ours should be looking to squeeze every asset of their worth. ...I did say it's only 'mildly' interesting.

It was only a brief quote, but I liked reading Graham a couple months back saying how he makes a point of roughing up the young CBs a bit in training to give them an idea of what they'll be up against in League play. The Championship is one hell of a trial by fire! We've got a decent CB pipeline at the moment in Magloire, Wharton, Platt, and Grayson. Have to think/hope one of them will come through. Although I suppose questions can be asked of all of them... perhaps Platt can be written off as playing National League North at 21 isn't too promising (I admittedly haven't seen him play though!). Next year may be make or break for Wharton. Seems to be getting mixed reviews at Bury. Had some bad luck with Lincoln bringing in Shackell after his loan was completed. Perhaps you'd hope he'd be on loan in League One or pushing for a place here, but I suppose he should be given some credit for battling for a spot with top League Two sides.

I assume you meant Bradford City (who also have Rovers Academy grad Anthony O'Connor! And Kilgallon only left them in late August), but the number of former Rovers at Blackpool is pretty funny: John O'Sullivan, Liam Feeney, Chris Taylor, Jay Spearing, Nathan Delfouneso, plus Terry McPhillips as manager. (They've also got Ben Heneghan who we apparently almost signed last year, I suspect this is a NW England agents thing!).

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2018/may/rovers-to-receive-fee-for-mahoney/ £425k initial fee, £100k for every 10 first-team appearances up to 50 (£500k), £250k if he makes an England appearance, and 20% of any profit on future sales. So up to about £1m if he becomes a Bournemouth regular, and a share of any future sale. Hard to really evaluate that fee right now. Seems he's been doing okay at Birmingham on loan, but he hasn't been an automatic starter there, and he didn't do much at a relegated Barnsley the year before. Would be interesting to hear the thoughts of Birmingham fans... We also sold Callum Wright to Leicester last year. Probably best to try and tie these assets down to long-term contracts (seems we've learned our lesson there with all the recent contracts), but I suppose our hands are tied in cases like Mahoney and Wright where they're keen on a Premier League move. (Taking a look, randomly Ben Williams, who we let go in 2017, has managed 14 appearances for Barnsley in League One this year... Good for him! Rare that a youngster who is outright released manages to recover like that!) I was a bit surprised at the start of the year when Mowbray seemed to cast doubt on continuing with the Academy, or at least brought up the question of whether that money could be better spent. Considering academy expenditure is largely exempt from FFP, it's somewhere our owners can still throw their financial muscle behind (and a sign of their commitment). The Academy did seem to have a pretty poorly timed dip in production a few years ago, but the emergence of the likes of Travis, Nyambe, and Lenihan, plus Fisher, Magloire, Wharton, Grayson, Buckley, Platt, Butterworth, and Rankin-Costello as promising prospects now all on the fringes, probably shifts the net value of the Academy back to positive, and Mowbray appears to be recognizing that. Picking up PL Academy castoffs is looking like a decent strategy too, as we'll have a much clearer path to first team football than the likes of Man U, Liverpool, Man City, etc. Includes Butterworth, Rankin-Costello, and Travis, Hart may be a miss there, and Davenport is still TBD (the latter of which I think has occasionally gotten some odd stick when he's been dealing with unfortunate injuries...). Nuttall sort of counts in this category too as a Man City castoff years ago...

? Championship clubs tend to lose money because of how much they spend on players... you may be thinking of how most post profits on player sales, but that's the money they are recouping on a depreciated asset (and hence have incurred the cost of that depreciation already, so those profits can be a bit illusory). Compared to 17/18, our £7.6m net outlay is more in the bottom half of the Championship... We're probably spending a decent chunk on wages, particularly relative to our turnover, but we are certainly not financial heavy hitters by any measure this year. Even if we've returned to wages of £35m (which I highly doubt!), which is what we were at back in 13/14 when we still had significant parachute payments, that would only place us maybe 8th-9th in the Championship.

We had losses of £1.5m in 15/16, £3.8m in 16/17, and £16.8m last year. So £22.1m, which was well within the £39m limit. We can incur £19m in losses this year without breaking FFP (although that would make keeping in line in 19/20 difficult!). Add that we can exclude maybe £3m of academy/community-related expenditures from the FFP calculation, and we're probably fine for FFP in the short-run, and a Dack sale is our 'ace in the hole' if need be. (Also not sure how League One and the Championship interact with FFP as League One has different rules...?) Will be interesting to see what our financial situation is this year. No real sales recently to top up losses... My guess/hunch is Venky's have begrudgingly accepted treating Rovers as a £13m/year punt on maybe getting Premier League football again someday. Obviously questions can be asked as to how committed/competent they are at doing so, but excluding this recent poor run, Mowbray and co. have had us running fairly competently for a couple years now.

Seems the lower other operating expenses charge in 16/17 was a one-off, as it was £10.7m in 15/16, £11.6m in 14/15, and £19.8m in 13/14. £8.9m last year was more 'back to normal' as part of a long-term downward trend (still rather high for a 2nd-3rd tier club, but that probably reflects the academy and the standard of our facilities). The 16-17 decline was already identified in last year's accounts as 'one-off charges to Venky's London Limited'. Seems just to be how they shuffled expenses between the two companies, for whatever reason. I suppose it would be half interesting to find out why.

Ah, picking up on PriceOfFootball's tweet here: https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/status/1108621602051289089?s=20, we've "entered transfer agreements amounting to net transfer fees payable of £7.6m" since these accounts. Hard to say whether that includes performance-based add-ons (apparently we potentially owe another £2.1m on purchases based on performance add-ons, but that may be for 17-18, so for the likes of Dack, Samuel, Bell, etc. but not including this years' additions) Let's say Armstrong was £1.75m, Rothwell and Davenport £400k. Maybe another £200k on Chapman, Lyons, Annesley, and Durrant (maybe the former three are too recent to be included), plus loan fees...? Doubt we've received much for outgoing loans. That suggests Brereton's initial cost was about £5.25m. edit: PriceOfFootball also highlights director pay went up from £166k to £282k, but worth keeping in mind that's largely from adding a director... Per director compensation rose from £83k/year to £94k/year.

Ah, good recall. His quote was we're probably about "10th to 16th". Based on 17/18 wages, that would be a range of £19m-£31m. May be slightly higher this year with more parachute payments floating around. I'd be surprised if we're spending £30m, which we haven't seen since we were a parachute payment-receiving club. We were at £22m in 16/17, good for 14th in the Championship. So, comfortably 'bottom of mid-table', like the on-field product

Haha, so my estimates from awhile back were only about £10m off in terms of our losses... Wages didn't drop as much as I thought (although there appears to be an odd £450k jump in pension costs in 17/18, which may be a one-off?) and matchday fell further than I thought, even though average attendance actually went up (I think the latter may be due to not having a lucrative FA Cup game with Man U). A couple other kinks are our operating expenses were quite suppressed in 16/17 due to 'one-off charges to Venkys London'. So they rose from £5.9m to £8.9m, but this is still a decline from £10.7m two years ago, so trending downward. Also, we stopped selling players. We made £9.8m in player trading profits last year. Only £300k last year. Ignoring 'intangible fixed asset (player) trading' and adjusting other expenses, our operating losses were more like £16.9m in 16/17 versus £16.7m last year. £17.5m in 16/17 vs £17.1m in 17/18 if you include interest payments. So, Venky's essentially 'sanctioned' the same level of operating losses last year to secure promotion. We were the heavy hitters of League One obviously... but now we're back to being relatively small minnows. Probably back up to ~£16m turnover this year. Wages maybe up to £20m? Both of which would put us in the bottom third of the Championship... Fair points, but something to keep in mind is I think Venky's have been pumping about £4m of turnover into the club themselves via commercial sponsorship. Commercial turnover dropped from £4.9m to £4.3m last year, not surprising, but ~£5m in commercial revenue actually had us hitting above our weight at 'mid table' in the Championship. Perhaps knowing we had an 'automatic' decent commercial revenue stream bred complacency, but also need to consider Venky's' sponsorship crowds out a lot of other potential sponsorship. As you say, seems to be some improvement in that regard this year...

There have been some rumblings from the club about youngsters pushing for loan moves rather than the club shunting them out, relative to Travis, Nyambe, Nuttall, Magloire, etc. sticking around and eventually getting appearances. Probably more in reference to Platt and Hardcastle who went out and hardly played, but Wharton may be pushing for these loans himself too. He's at least played a decent amount with Cambridge, Lincoln, and Bury these past few years, although it was odd he didn't move up to League One this year. I vaguely recall Mowbray saying a L1 loan deal fell through, so he returned to Lincoln as he was well-liked there, but then Lincoln added Shackell a few weeks after Wharton re-signed, who pushed Wharton out of their regular lineup. I also recall he had a poorly timed injury, accompanied by a poor run of form with the u23s (it was suggested Platt and Grayson had moved ahead of him...), when a spot may have opened up for him at the start of our horrid 16-17 year. (There were also rumours about preventing him from earning an appearance-based raise, but he did sign a new contract last September...) Probably would be nice to have him around as depth right now, but I don't think his development has necessarily been stunted this year. Still one for the future. Let him compete for a spot in camp next year and then re-evaluate.

Thing to remember with Chapman is he's never even played a minute of Championship football. Still young and hardly proven. If the medical team determines it's too big of a risk with his hamstring, definitely no need to rush him. I'd guess he'll be given a 20-minute cameo at some point (it'll be fun to see him skipping past tired fullbacks again!) Actually, just checking now, Chapman never actually started a league game with Sheffield United in the season before his loan with us. Had a few starts with Barnsley the year before that, but a reminder of how raw he still is. --- https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/rovers/news/17502502.how-graham-helped-tyler-magloire-prepare-for-rovers-debut/ Just a little tidbit, but I thought this was a nice insight into how a player like Graham can help the youngsters. They've got to be ready for blistering speed and players like Graham who will bully them physically if they're not ready for it. I was wondering about Hardcastle... sounds like he wasn't really given a proper chance at Port Vale, but if he has any prospect of Championship football in him, you'd think at 20 (turning 21 in the summer) he'd be able to bully his way into a League 2 squad. And then seemingly couldn't secure a better loan than the National League after that. Sounds like he's doing well with Barrow anyway, (and I'll admit I've barely seen him play!), but wouldn't be surprised if he leaves given I think he's out of contract in the summer.

Current odds on getting relegated are being given at about 350-500 to 1. Guess you should put a fiver down?

Is Hardcastle still looking like a prospect? Or is he more being loaned out to help him find a club after his contract expires (which I think it does in May)? Had a quick gander at a Port Vale forum and sounds like he was never really given a chance there and may have been brought in more as injury cover than being near the first team. Now off to the National League, which isn't too promising... His name comes up occasionally, yet he's never actually made our bench.

Not sure I can bear to read through the thread, so apologies if I'm repeating or going over trodden ground. Well... it was at least an interesting game. I'd say the first 15 minutes was more Brentford playing awful than us being particularly good and everything from about 40min on was more Brentford playing some incredible football than us being particularly crap... Have to tip your cap to that Mapauy-Benrahma combination. They were immense. I noticed beforehand Brentford's oddly low in the table for having a positive goal difference. Forget the exact numbers, but it was something like 8 of their 10 wins (9 of 11 now?) are by 2+ goals, while pretty much all of their losses have been by 1 goal. Perhaps they've been having moments of madness like the first 15mins too often. Nevertheless, obviously a disheartening game. Bennett's showing he can handle RB against less technically skilled squads, but he got lit up today. His enthusiastic tackles looked amateurish rather than brave/aggressive. Hope Nyambe's fully fit soon. Evans had his first poor game in awhile. Travis showed his usual enthusiasm and was alright overall, but (in a soft voice not upset anyone too much) he's starting to show that he's not the most technically gifted of footballers... Armstrong had a few bright spots, but seemed to tire by the end. Shame about the forced subs. It was hard to see clearly from the away end, but I thought Brereton was our only real bright light when he came on. Promising, I thought. Conway was a pretty poor sub given the game was obviously starting to pass us by at the time. He may add veteran 'nous', but we needed someone who could run... I'm guessing many were calling for Rothwell instead, but dare I suggest Smallwood would've been a better bet at holding the fort? Nuttall... threw himself about a bit, but his play with the ball at his feet can be downright pathetic...

Ehh, I'd guess it's simply BA's unhappy at Middlesbrough (and Pulis doesn't like him much), so his agent tried to make the rounds. Rovers showed some interest (as you would with BA's name bandied about). Let's say we've got a spare £10k/wk lying around with Palmer gone and we indicated we were willing to go up to £15k/wk to bring BA in on loan. Then when the agent relays this to Middlesbrough, they went 'what?! **** that, they need to pay his full £40k/wk!' (or whatever he's one). End of story. Probably similar with Austin, if he was ever in the cards. Meh, it happens. Could probably only happen if Middlesbrough is desperate to get any portion of his wages off the books, but I doubt they're in dire financial straits... And looks like Gallagher's back in contention at Southampton and his wages/asking fee was always going to be a stumbling block for a player who's not necessarily a sure thing (or at least a player that's not worth the wage he's currently on and has no incentive to drop his wage down now). Oh well. (Oliver Byrne... *sniff*... we hardly knew ya Surely that frees up enough wages to bring in BA?!)

From the BBC Live Reporting feed: "First blood to St Mirren, on their first real attack. Brad Lyons is too quick for Darren McGregor on the left and thumps and inviting cross in for Simeon Jackson to ram in from the edge of the six yard box." Encouraging that he's apparently faster than Darren McGregor.

Smallwood had a hell of a game. Maybe shouldn't be an automatic starter, but he's certainly a good body to have around.

Haha, yeah, pretty miserable game of football, but it was a decent time in the away end. Personally, I'd attribute that more to Millwall "successfully" suffocating the game than Rovers playing particularly badly. The pitch seemed in bad shape too. First half was very ugly on both sides, but we actually managed a few decent build ups in the second half - you could feel the goal coming. Hard to believe Millwall almost made the playoffs last year. My friend and I thought Shane Ferguson was their only bright light. Cooper's an effective CB too. I don't think I've ever seen a team's fans freak out so much about a questionable, midfield throw in. Best bit was seeing one fan had to put his arm around his mate's shoulders as if to console him after haha... Rodwell was my MOTM. Did quite well in the air (which was a surprise as that seemed to be his weakness at CB so far) and seemed to be the only one on the pitch who could successfully pass the ball around. Showed his silky skill with the ball at his feet a couple times too. He'll be a tough decision in the summer. He could develop into an excellent CB if he manages to put it all together... I think we've really missed Nyambe. Bennett was more assured there than previous outings, but Bennett's definitely better further up field and Nyambe's an absolute beast back there. Lenihan was pretty good too. Thought Travis was pretty good, but not quite as good as previous outings. I'll have to see the replay for his contributions on the goals. Definitely still holding his spot. Just wasn't the night for a player with Dack's talents. He was understandably frustrated with the lack of service he was getting, but made sense to sub him and try and change up the attack. Great to see Armstrong finally show some decent finish. He's had a frustrating year, but the potential is still definitely there. The players did seem a bit confused about our shape when he went on though. Awful game from Bell. I suppose he ultimately held his own defensively, but he's just so frustrating to watch out there. Nuttall... really liked his effort, especially in the first 20mins. Funny how different his approach to headers compared to Graham. Graham of course uses his back on the defender and often is able to trap the ball down. Nuttall kind of jumps from the side, and managed to flick it on a few times doing so, but the problem was there was nobody up there to get that ball. However, his abilities with the ball at his feet... it's often pathetic really. Almost strikes me as a very poor Jordan Rhodes type in the way he's randomly able to get goals despite his obvious limitations. I think that's the 2nd or 3rd time he's gotten such an ugly, scrappy goal for us. Good on him for forcing the issue, although I also thought he was often poorly placed in the box for a lot of our crosses before that one... Anyway, did enough to show he deserves to be around the first team, but probably best to loan him out and add a striker for the rest of this year.

Not necessarily. His transfer fee, whatever it is in the end, will be amortised. So the year-on-year accounting cost isn't all that large. Looks like Brereton's on a 3-year deal, so if the fee is £7m, that's an accounting cost of £2.3m/year (which is what applies for FFP). If Brereton's value appreciates and he's sold, that would be a major profit that would be booked in one year, which would potentially single-handedly offset any FFP-breaching concerns. (Dack is our current 'ace in the hole' at the moment if we're ever at risk of seriously breaching FFP, as he was signed for only £750k, which will be fully amortised soon, so any fee for him would be pure profit. I don't think we have much to worry about FFP-wise over the next 3-5 years) Frankly, our owners probably do have the financial wherewithal to 'stockpile' an 'intangible asset' like Brereton, which we hope is an appreciating asset. The owners also appear ready and willing to stomach £10-15m losses every year (my suspicion is they lost their patience/nerve/liquidity when we had £30m+ losses). Taking a punt on highly touted 19-year-old (who are rarely 'available') may be how we try to take advantage of our owner's deep pockets while also being a low-revenue Championship side. (I'm purposefully setting aside the question of whether a £7m signing should be immediately ready to be in the starting lineup, or if that £7m could be better spent on veterans. Certainly a discussion to be had there! But Brereton's signing does have a financial logic to it)

Liked the Evans-Travis pairing. Evans was a bit clumsy on the penalty (as was Bennett), but a pretty soft and unlucky pen. Dove in for a couple excellently timed tackles otherwise... Travis gave it away a couple times, but he's showing a lot of poise out there. Didn't quite have the touch on some of his forward passes, but really liked that he was looking for them. Great stuff from Dack. Graham was solid enough (as always), but his occasional scuffs can be frustrating at times. Nothing really to report for Brereton. Too bad that his legs are so obviously going on him, but I liked Conway's composure on the ball. Bennett was much better in the 2nd half, but demonstrated again he's really not a RB with a horrid 1st half... glad to see Nyambe's on the mend. Newcastle generally looked pretty poor. I guess they mostly had a rotated squad, but that looked like a relegation-bound team lacking confidence. Shelvey was the only one who had any PL quality. Sole reason Newcastle was able to turn it on ever so slightly in the final 20 mins or so. Thought we played quite well really. Too bad an iffy pen took it away from us.

Yeah, wasn't the rumour something like he and Mowbray had a blow up when his August loan move didn't go through because Mowbray wanted him around as depth and then he left the team without notice? If true (apologies if that rumour turned out to be bollocks!), good player or not, any young player will need to have his head straightened a bit after that. Anyway, you would hope/think that that would be water under the bridge now. I wouldn't be surprised if he does go out on loan. A half-season of starting for a League One side would certainly be good for his development but not necessarily optimal for the 1st team if he can elbow his way into starting... After his strong performance yesterday, maybe the best option is to keep any outstanding loan offers on ice for now and see how he does through January, and then loan him out at the end of the window if he's not getting starting time here (perhaps unjustly!)