JHRover

Nobody guarantees appearances at this level or any other. Just like PNE were not guaranteeing Patrick Bauer a place in their XI every week. If a player goes to Sunderland or elsewhere rather than here it is either because they are paying more, or because they have been more persuasive, or because the loaning club feel it is better for the player to go there.

I see the 'promotion bonus' thing is still getting a mention. Ludicrous, IMO, to suggest that one of the owners suddenly decided mid-season to offer massive new bonuses to the squad to get us promoted. Even more ludicrous is thinking that this would be permitted or that such an agreement could be arranged without entering into new contracts with the entire squad - bonus provisions need to be set out in players contracts. In this day and age you can't just chuck a load of money on the table and divvy it up between the team. These things have to be covered with contracts, be watertight and above board. The contract has to be sent to the League. There may well have been a substantial bonus pot in the event of promotion, but this will have been what the players all agreed to when they signed their contracts, not some special reward one the of the Venkys suddenly decided to do in January.

I don't think it is difficult to work out what has happened on budgets. Venkys have always moved up and down with their backing and investments, probably depending on how 'up for it' they are or how persuasive the manager/others are. There was a massive cutback period from 2015-17 following a reasonably healthy spell under Bowyer. Those cutbacks decimated the squad and saw us plummet out of the Championship. Then Mowbray came along and went to India in his first summer and got the backing and investment. After 3 years that changed. Maybe due to Covid, maybe due to cutbacks, maybe due to FFP, maybe due to Mowbray failing to deliver what they expected, either way cutbacks came again and have continued up to this summer - very little if any outlay on transfer fees, a few big sales and the money goes into runnings costs, slashing of the wage bill. Thankfully due to the productive academy and more sensible recruitment we've so far managed to avoid the fate of the 2015-17 era by remaining competitive in the Championship. It also seems there is a bit more sense somewhere along the line as to what we need in terms of structure and backroom staff with Broughton and JDT rather than Coyle and Cheston. But fundamentally the key points are that Venkys remain in control, that we are in another lull in their financial input, that there have been no India visits which means no extra cash from Mrs Desai. I'm afraid those thinking that these owners are going to hand Broughton and co. a £10 million warchest after what has happened to date are at the extreme end of the optimism scale. There clearly is some money, but this is limited to specific wage levels and strict criteria.

Bloody hell, I'm sure the Szmodics fee rises by £500k a day! I'd be very surprised if we have paid over £1 million for him at this juncture. Of course it ''might" get higher in years to come if certain things happen. We just don't know on that, just like we don't know on what the true fee is. Brittain came from Barnsley who aren't in the Championship. A good signing on the evidence so far yes but still one from the model - young, developing, mainly experienced in the lower levels.

He's working for Venkys and the shadow man.

Actually reinvesting the proceeds from sales rather than it disappearing towards 'FFP compliance'. What a novel idea.

Actually it's going almost exactly as I predicted it would. I said we would do similar to recent windows which is to sign a few younger end or from League One for a few hundred grand each like with Markandy, Davenport, Pickering and Edun. Looks like we've continued that with Brittain and Szmodics. Also continuing to rely heavily on loans which makes a mockery of the building claim. All this goes hand in hand with continued talk of good budgets, and rumours of big names being targeted, but at the end of the day little to no evidence to back that up with results. This summer it is the lad who went to Sheff Utd and Styles/Van Hecke. Previous years it was Assombalonga, Kipre and co.

Will be delighted with a point here but can't see it. This lot are a pain particularly at Bramall Lane where they have had a very good record over the last 12 months. I'm still not over the defeat there last season or even the one before that when we had them on the rack before Smallwood got sent off and we collapsed. I'm very unhappy at the failure to bring in reinforcements especially in defence following Wharton's injury last week. It leads me to question how seriously the 'powers that be' are taking things when they seem content to risk derailing momentum and a good start through a failure to strengthen.

Well if people carry on inflating the fees we paid for Brittain and Szmodics you might end up right.

Because offering money isn't backing. Come September we will know which way it has gone but it won't count as backing if we've signed a few loans and 'tried' to sign some others and were knocked back. No prizes or credit for trying, failing, talking, offering, struggling etc. Just doing.

It's a crying shame that JDT isn't going to get the backing that Mowbray got for 3 years. Just imagine what he could do with the depth and options Mowbray was able to bring in.

Not a chance, IMHO, of the budget being anywhere near that. If it was signings would already be here. We wouldn't be sending a 17 year old out at CB. We wouldn't be waiting on Liverpool deciding when to send their next loan.

Not interested in hard luck stories. Enquiries and bids don't count as signings. They've had time, and according to those 'in the know' there's a good budget. Time to see action. I'm tired of transfer windows ending in disappointment and then having to read about all the reasons we couldn't get business done even though we tried.

Where's the conspiracy theory? If signings don't get done it will be because those in control of the purse strings fail to make it happen You are referring to signings made 3-4 years ago. A lot has happened since then and taps have been turned down, that is obvious.

We can all see it, and it is safe to assume both Tomasson and Broughton can see it as professionals who have worked in football all their lives. If the business doesn't get done it won't be because Tomasson and Broughton don't want it. We have to look to the owners and their man in the shadows.

No surprises tonight for me. I expected a 'back down to earth' game after the WBA exertions and a long trip to a bogey ground midweek provided just the ingredients. I am disturbed that with the injury to Scott Wharton a week ago that we still haven't done anything about the CB situation. That is unacceptable. If we are going through these shenanigans to wait for a loan from Liverpool then give it up and move on for crying out loud. The League and Sky mafia have done us in here of course - forcing us to play 3 tough games in 6 days including 2 away from home and 2 against promotion favourites. Yet I hear very little complaint or issue with that. It would test any squad and manager to do this but especially our small squad after the mammoth effort on Sunday. Not a lot we can do about that now but just have to hope this is a wake up call to those upstairs that we can't 'make do' with what we have and many more additions are required, as some of us have been saying for weeks. Critical point was their 2nd goal. We'd started to make some progress just before then resulting in the penalty 'shout' but then Pickering with a weak headed clearance and then a pathetic attempt to stop the shot from which they scored finished it. Gallagher for their 3rd - pathetic.

If ever we needed a result to hammer home how short we are this was it. The first time in a long old season we've got a midweek game and we are so short. I'm afraid starting Championship away games with Dolan, Phillips, Vale in the starting XI is asking for trouble. They can try and blag Rich Sharpe with talk about 2 CBs and a couple of others. We need 5 quality additions as a minimum. No excuses, no bs, no trying and failing. We've a good manager on our hands who deserves backing. I am worried that the clowns who own and control Rovers are going to make a mess of this again. They firstly need to decide what they want us to be - a side challenging for promotion to the PL or a club more interested in individual development and making a point/saving money on transfer fees. Sometimes you can't be both. Tick tock.

https://www.lancs.live/sport/football/football-news/blackburn-rovers-phillips-contract-latest-21594468 This was the Lancs Live 'exclusive' on Phillips in September 2021. I'll treat this with extreme caution.

On the contrary if we are waving them off on free transfers like Lenihan and Nyambe after years of development and effort it leads me to question whether it is really all worth it. Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Reading, Norwich, Swansea, West Brom also have Cat 1 academies so we are not unique. None are immune to having youth players poached just like we weren't when Callum Wright was snatched away by Leicester. It's a fact of life whilst we remain at this level. All clubs are vulnerable to it. Not a lot we can do other than try to persuade him to stay. IMO it is a far bigger concern that we have allowed assets to depart on free transfers - established first team squad members not kids - to league rivals and lost millions in the process. Phillips is a work in progress. If he'd rather go an do that at someone's academy than our first team squad that's his choice. I want ready made players for the Championship battle right now. It's about time we got our act together and brought in a couple of external signings. I am getting fed up with waiting.

I'm not going to get in a fluster about a youth prospect. Of course I'd like to keep him but it is what it is. For once I don't think Rovers can be criticised or blamed for the situation if he's getting attention from PL clubs who can obviously offer him a lot more than we can. He's not in indispensible team member - he's a kid who might well turn out to be a good un but is only anywhere near our first team as a result of incompetence and negligent management running up to this summer whereby we haven't recruited properly in that position and are now turning to kids to fill in. I have two far greater concerns - the loss of multi-million assets this summer for nothing, players who had developed and were worth millions, and the lack of signings, which is very alarming.

Since when should the club makes its decisions based on what people on here might think? Of course some people on here would have questioned giving him a big new contract at that stage, but at the end of the day the Club has an investment to protect, so if they had given him a new deal to do that then that's their decision and they have to do what they think is best for the club, not what might keep a few people on a messageboard happy. People who brought him to the club and persevered with him for 3 years obviously saw something in him and fair play to them it was well placed faith. I'm unclear on your views on wages. Simple reality is that we've lost 2 assets to Middlesbrough and Wigan, and have signed 2 lads from Barnsley and Peterborough. We haven't been shopping in the overseas or Championship market for a while. There are rumours we have made offers of substantial value to the bloke from Malmo and to Lenihan but those are meaningless rumours when they don't ultimately come to anything. I don't know where we rank in the Championship on wages. In years past we were quite competitive but in terms of what we have been doing for the last 12 months or so I wouldn't expect it is that high up the division. Who will be on 'big' money? Dack, Gallagher, Ayala - anyone else? The rest of our very small squad are nearly all academy graduates or from the lower divisions - I don't understand how they can be that high on wages.

Again - I'm not really interested in the ins and outs of those situations. Your account might be absolutely correct - maybe Nyambe was 'kippered' by his agent (has he sacked him yet?), maybe the players did lead the club on a merry dance, maybe it is ultimately the players decision on whether to sign. None of it actually matters. My view is that the situation is much more complex simply than poor old Rovers doing their very best but struggling against FFP/richer clubs/greedy agents. I think Rovers are at least partly to blame for those players leaving and much of that comes down to the way Rovers have gone about their business over the last 2-3 years. I'm not going to go through what I mean by that again suffice to say that the fact so many players have all rejected Rovers' terms points to a serious problem on the part of the club. The fact that those players would prefer to go to Middlesbrough or Wigan is alarming. I don't know what you are going on about with the £20k a week wage ceiling. I can assure you that had we offered any of those players - and indeed Brereton - close to £20k a week in the lead up to or during the summer of 2021 all of them would have signed up without a moment's hesitation. The reason the Brereton situation has ended up in the way it has is because having committed big money to him, persevered with him for 3 years, done nothing on his contract and then he's suddenly come good quite rightly he's now in a different stratosphere on his expectations and demands. But had we had one eye on the medium to long term in the summer of 2021 we'd have extended his terms if we were so confident of his ability and the investment. Anyhow I think we are drifting off topic. The point I was trying to make was that we have lost a lot of money already on players that we should have made a lot of profit from. If the Club was serious about protecting its investments and delivering a return on them then that wouldn't have happened. Likewise people online saying we need to sell Brereton to emulate Brentford need to wake up - we don't do what Brentford do - we don't keep our assets under long term contracts and we don't reinvest when we sell. So to my mind it is clear - the chances of reinvestment are slim to zero. Broughton and Tomasson may well have a plan to replace him if sold but Venkys are still in charge here. I'm sure Mowbray had a plan for reinvesting the Armstrong cash but he wasn't allowed. Finally - having failed to keep Lenihan, Nyambe and co. out of the clutches of rival clubs due to not offering acceptable terms to them what are the chances of us both finding and then paying a Brereton replacement? We could have £20 million to spend on transfer fees but if we have a wage ceiling akin to League One clubs we ain't getting better.

You might be right there, but then Rothwell would have been worth a lot more than Bournemouth offered if he was under long term contract. So increase that figure for Rothwell drastically. Then you don't need much for the other two to hit £10 million. Point remains that we aren't 'doing a Brentford', far from it letting assets walk for nothing. It also suggests the chances of replacing Brereton with proven quality is almost zero. Our 'wage structure' has seen those departures and will prevent us offering competitive terms to proven quality.

Well according to reports in January Bournemouth were offering £4.5 million for Rothwell with only 5 months left on his deal. So yeah if all 3 had been under long term contracts I'm pretty sure they'd have been worth over £10 million combined.

Seen a few people saying that we 'have' to sell him and reinvest the money in order to further our replication of the Brentford model People have short memories. It's as though they have completely forgotten the track record of NOT reinvesting transfer funds and also the loss of 3 major assets already this summer for nothing which is NOT remotely like the Brentford model