Shouldn't even be entertaining letting anyone go at this point until we have new people in the building or signed and secured to come in. Selling players now or getting them off the wage bill is just another "jam tomorrow" stunt - cost cutting dressed up and justified under the false pretence of the money being reinvested when it never is.

They just need to get the lot on sale at one flat price now No categories and no waiting until 2-3 weeks before the game to start selling. Everyone knows there will be a surplus of seats no matter what and away clubs can have as many as they want in the Darwen End.

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2022/july/12/save-with-an-1875-membership--/ Anyone hoping that their £399 (if lucky) or £429 for your season ticket has earned you priority on away tickets this season think again, as at the 11th hour (why leave it until mid July?) the Club has decided to complicate matters. You now have to pay an extra £10-15 on top of top end ticket prices to ensure you can have first dibs on away tickets. Just as I think it can't get any more ludicrous we now have a premium to pay on top of premium prices just to get priority on tickets.

Why's that then? They overspent and were sanctioned, yet despite that have survived, still have a decent looking squad, haven't slashed costs right back and are signing players. Speaking of 'only frees and cheap loans' what are you expecting us to do? Spend money? Think you'll be disappointed if so. For what its worth we might as well be under a transfer embargo. Could still sign cheap loans / nobody which is what we are going to do without an embargo.

They're just disproving the FFP myth No major sales Still got Lucas Joao, Puscas, Hoillett and others there Difference is that their owners want to invest, ours don't. Quite simple really.

Anyone who went to Accy Stanley on Saturday would have seen what a bit of pride and effort can achieve at a Club that should probably be non league on crowds and finances. Nothing to do with FFP there, just plain old effort and wanting to improve, grow and do better against the odds. No washed up Waggott bleating on about how impossible it is and how he's done all he can. At Rovers there has been no pride, plan or ambition for over a decade. Just a succession of excuse makers and Venky apologists taking the coin whilst the club rots.

If it was black, orange, yellow then it would be perfect, but I'll never understand the logic behind us repeatedly going for a blue away shirt. Can pick any colour in the world other than blue or white. We won't be able to wear it at Millwall, Birmingham, Reading, Cardiff, Huddersfield, Wigan so is there really much point?

They just work on a complete whim IMO. Year to year or even window to window the plan shifts and changes depending on who is taking the most interest in India (if anyone). If the manager wants clarity or assurance on funds the only hope he has is to wait for a flight to Pune and go and sit in their mansion for a week waiting to tell them about how great they are and how good it would be to invest some money. After those meetings the manager tends to get a decent chunk of cash to spend. There's no plan or strategy and what we have now is the top owners - Desai and hubby - backing off and delegating to lower rank people. These people might have more idea (might not) but cannot sanction funds close to the level required, which is why we get what we have seen over the last 2 years - inertia, very limited transfer business, reliance on loans which require no capital commitment. I don't believe for one minute that the 'top' owners have appointed Tomasson or Broughton, have met them and probably haven't even spoken to them. The sad thing is that the structure we now have - a head coach who can focus his energies on the team - and a D of F who can handle the recruitment - is probably the most sensible and logical setup we've had in their 12 years of horror. It is sad because no matter how good these two guys might be unless things have changed and the top owners have delegated then it can't succeed.

Won't we be a sixth of the way through the season by the time the transfer window ends? A bit late in the day to be getting worried or upset about things.

Why would you imagine that? We spent next to none of the Rhodes and Armstrong windfalls. Nor Gestede, Cairney or Raya cash. It all went into the "running costs" pot whilst the first team was left to rebuild on a shoestring. Absolutely no reason to think any Brereton cash would end up in the transfer pot and even if it did the timescales would probably prevent us spending it wisely. As for "FFP side of things" within the last 12 months we've: A) Sold Armstrong for a £10 million+ profit Sold the training ground out of Club ownership C) Demolished the squad and wage bill Despite all that still spending nothing, relying on loans and unable to secure key players to new deals. Doubt a Brereton sale will make an ounce of difference on that front. They'll just wheel Waggott out with some fancy terminology for the local press to tell us how it will help in next years figures and how we've a good budget (that will never be spent). Meanwhile the key point is we lose another senior player and his goals and replace with cheaper and inferior. It's operation downscale in full flow just like 2016 all over again.

Given our limited income (at least partly self inflicted) what would be very useful is to be able to sell a couple of players for big money, then use that money to our advantage over rivals. The cash we got for Armstrong immediately wipes out any advantage the likes of Middlesbrough or other non-parachute clubs have over us. But the money disappears. Fortunately we've another asset who will have to be sold for the same again this summer. Perfect. But we know those funds won't see the light of day either. Point being that we can feel sorry for ourselves about income and FFP all day long - the Armstrong, Brereton, Lenihan, Nyambe and Rothwell situations prove that the Club won't reinvest and won't protect its assets, so what should have been a huge financial advantage over rivals has achieved nothing - not even willing to pay players the going rate so they leave for nothing.

There's nothing that Blackpool, Preston, Wigan, Dingles, Huddersfield, Hull, Birmingham, Rotherham, Coventry, Luton, Watford, Reading, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea, QPR, Millwall have that we don't or can't have. So that's 75% of the league we should be as strong if not stronger than. Of the rest we have Norwich, Sunderland, Sheff U, Middlesbrough, West Brom and Stoke. Of which Norwich have zero external investment, West Brom relying on parachute money to stem losses and think Sheff U will be in financial trouble soon if they don't go up. Stoke's crowds have plummeted.

Football League clubs voted to introduce FFP. They could vote next week to scrap it. They won't so they need to start looking at themselves if they don't like it.

Predictably the talk is turning away from multi-million CBs and towards the inevitable loans. Never any intention or plan to invest or build anything, its just rely on the academy wherever possible and plug gaps with some cheap heavily subsidised loans. Can't build a side on that. All this talk about copying Brentford or of a multi-year plan is just window dressing.

It's all a game of confuse the masses. Who is responsible? Is it Venkys? Is it Pasha? Is it Waggott? Is it Broughton? Is it Mowbray? Is it Tomasson? Nobody knows and yet again we are on the cusp of a season well off where we should be and nobody takes responsibility. They know what they are doing. Keep shifting the focus and avoids anyone taking the blame.

Precisely. The contrast couldn't be more stark between us and them. We've now reached a point due to budget cuts and neglectful / incompetent recruitment that we are trying to convince ourselves we will be OK because our starting XI looks ok when we've no injuries or suspensions. Of course the astute clubs and managers know this isn't a competition where a good XI wins the day, it is a squad game and you really need cover in all positions. That gets overlooked here presumably because having depth represents too much of a cost. One club wants promotion and will do all it can to get there, the other is just content to make up the numbers whilst the middle men cut budgets and impress their bosses.

Anyone else reckon we might have shifted a few more season tickets had we got some serious transfer business done and showed proper backing to the new manager? I suspect this was never on the agenda. What we are seeing is "the plan" - no spending, no substantial deals, cutbacks. Usually ends one way.

Lets remember that Wilder only joined Middlesbrough in November last year. So the problem of course is that Lenihan should have been sorted well before then, last summer at the latest, and if so no amount of talking from Wilder would have weakened our position.

I think it became clear quite a long time ago that wage increases and as a result contract extensions were 'off the table' for a significant duration, running through the pandemic and it seems efforts and intentions on that only really changed during last season when 'normality' had resumed. Thankfully they managed to sort out the Kaminski and Travis situations in good time but I firmly believe that the Lenihan, Nyambe and Rothwell situations could all have been avoided had Rovers dealt with them promptly. Instead they were left to reach the last year of their deals and probably treated shoddily (who hasn't been?). Then you get a rival Championship club offering at least as much if not more, making them feel wanted, getting back to them quickly, and showing ambition rather than making excuses every transfer window, and I don't blame them one jot. I wouldn't believe a word that comes out of Waggott's mouth and certainly not on the subject of finances and contract extensions. Perhaps the most surprising thing to me is that so many Rovers fans are seemingly happy to accept what he has to say.

Sounds about right. More fool us. 3k a week increase for 4 years is an extra cost to the club of what, about £600k cost if he sees it through? Pats on the back for sticking to the 'wage structure' though. Bet Wilder and Middlesbrough couldn't believe their luck

Takes some doing to have been 2nd in February, top 6 until April and now be sat here in early July debating whether we are going to be stronger than Wigan, a side in League One last season and close to bankruptcy less than 2 years ago and Blackpool similar. I'm old enough to remember the days we were 10 points clear of Forest and battling Bournemouth for a top 2 slot. Well done to all concerned for such a rapid and drastic revision to our expectations. Sabotage couldn't have done it better.

Huddersfield changing manager and appointing a rookie 3 weeks before the start of the season plays right into dingle hands

Believing Waggott is the problem is just what the Venky stooge in the shadows wants. A patsy who takes the blame and ire from the fans whilst the real culprits hide. Don't fall for it. Waggott isn't fit for purpose and will take the wage to protect his bosses, but they are responsible.

I quoted you on Middlesbrough, Bristol City and Stoke. None of them have ever been sanctioned. All lost a lot more than we did.

The only important thing to take home is that none of those clubs, despite losing well over the maximum allowed under the rules, have been sanctioned in any shape or form. Not interested in "something must happen" that sort of talk will caryr on until people forget about it or they get promoted and don't have an issue. We are told that what we have seen at Rovers is something forced on us by the rules, and if we didn't act quickly we would face a terrible fate of sanctions. Doesn't happen elsewhere so why would it here?