What we know is that Dembele didn't sign for us. That's all that matters. We won't get bonus points in May for bidding and talking to a player (even if it is true). This isn't Sunday league stuff where if a prospective player turns you down you just shrug your shoulders and "at least we tried". This is a billion pound industry where a place in the richest league in the world was within reach, so I'm not really interested in trying and failing. Each and every window there is a list of decent looking players that we supposedly tried to get but failed. It is also in the public domain that we can't score goals and it was blatantly obvious to anyone watching that we needed to add to the goalscoring ranks in January. Failure to do so either lies with the owners for failing to provide the cash or with Mowbray and Waggott for not getting deals done. You seem to want to blame neither.

This is the problem. Those stats are horrific for any team or club. Yet because we had a fantastic run in November and December and we aren't in relegation trouble nobody seems to be batting an eyelid. Mowbray has the cushiest number in football. Nowhere else would such a run be ignored or accepted.

All sorts of ways they can get word out on the grapevine. Rich Sharpe and co. the usual. Costs nothing to make bids especially when you know they are likely to fail.

Red herring IMO If a bid was made it was done too late or knowing that he was heading elsewhere. We were just trying to get the free positive publicity that comes with it. A quick look at our transfer business over the last 4-5 windows shows we don't part with significant cash for sought after players from rival clubs. If by some miracle a bid was made and accepted the move would have broken down due to wage or agent demands. We are played by Waggott and co. every window.

No. They came for a draw or a smash and grab and got what they wanted. We had some chances. We were at home against a side happy to sit back. Having a few chances at home isn't an achievement, it is the bare minimum to expect in 90 minutes. Would have, could have, should have - but we didn't.

All very predictable. Rowett dealt with whatever we had to muster without any great problems and will go home happy with a point. For all the complaints about how they performed I wish we had shaped like that at Fulham and Sheff Utd and kept clean sheets. We had a few decent chances particularly in the usual first half purple patch but really any side at any level will get a few good chances during a 90 minute match at home. The fact it is another blank to go with many blanks over recent weeks suggests there is a bigger issue here and it would be negligent for anyone, particularly the manager, to go to bed tonight thinking all is well with the world and that everything is fine other than sticking the ball in the net. We've got a chronic scoring problem and it is continuing. I said in the days following the end of the January transfer window that I was disappointed with the business done and felt we might live to regret not doing more business. I think most of us felt that I think January will be the point that goes down in our recent history as the turning point - at which we had 2nd in our hands and top 6 well within our grasp yet blew the chance to do it. I'm perplexed by Mowbray's ramblings about his January signings, about not needing a centre forward and now saying Hedges and Giles aren't ready for his team. My belief is that Venkys would not sanction expenditure on the players we needed, because the main owners don't know nor care about promotion and will only agree to funds at their summer summit. I'll debate this with anyone who has the time and patience to go through it. I think the talk about money being on the table for good players is little more than a red herring thrown out by Mowbray/Waggott to maintain an illusion with little intention of actually parting with cash. But I suppose there is a chance I am wrong on that and maybe there was money, which we didn't manage to spend. So which is worse? Our imbecilic owners costing us the big time and Mowbray/Waggott covering for them or the owners providing money and Mowbray/Waggott either not being able to get business done or genuinely believing we didn't need a striker in January? Because if it is the latter and we miss the top 6 it should be an automatic sacking. I think our plight was summed up by the introduction of Jack Vale. Nothing at all against the lad but it shows what a failure January was if with 10 minutes to go at home desperate for a goal and he is the one Mowbray has to throw on. Remember he offloaded others out on loan in January too.

My prediction is a 1-1 draw. I think we will fall behind in the first half, then spend ages dominating possession and eventually get back level but too late to go on and win the game. In the end it will be hailed by some as a good point having rescued it from the jaws of defeat and not letting Millwall close the gap and the damage in terms of league position likely to be minimal given the other games tonight, but most sensible people know only a win will do here.

An opportunity to make up valuable points on teams around us. We need to win to keep Millwall at arms length after their good run. We also see Luton have a tough game at Coventry and Sheff Utd play Middlesbrough so points to be dropped there for the teams around us. Also on Friday Huddersfield have a tricky game at West Brom.

Everton showing the pitfalls of appointing a manager based on what the fans and media want rather than getting the best man for the job. The relentless clamour for Frank to get every job going and the protests when they were going to appoint Pereira could come back to cost them big time. Clueless owner caving in to fan and media pressure. Still think/hope they will have enough to survive. We need them to as can't rely on Norwich or Watford to get safe. Can't imagine Everton in the Championship but at least it would sort Sky's selections out.

The fact that Bournemouth have 4 games in hand on Huddersfield and 3 games in hand on us tells us all we need to know about re-arranged fixtures. I find it inexplicable that Rovers would agree to play the Millwall game at this point with the injury list we have, sandwiched by home games either side. We then have almost a month without a home game leading up to Blackpool. Kicking it down the road to April/May would have likely seen Brereton and Dack back available, Nyambe now too.

Maybe this is the explanation https://www.afc.co.uk/2021/07/27/dons-appoint-head-of-recruitment/

The club is at least in part responsible for all the issues though. You seem incapable of apportioning any responsibility on Venkys, Rovers or Waggott. I'm not interested in retrospective claims of big money being thrown around. I think you are falling for the same old trap Waggott and Mowbray have laid every transfer window. Could have, should have, would have. Didn't. There is a long old queue of names of players and supposed bids that have been made or contract offers made that ultimately fail to come to anything. Another reminder that you don't get points, prizes or results for trying and failing. You get it for doing. You don't get credit for trying to sign someone from bottom club Barnsley. You get credit by signing them and them making a difference to the team. We didn't sign him, end of story. Might as well have bid for Messi because the outcome is the same. It costs nothing to be interested in a player. Yes we can be blamed for it - if we were so keen on Dembele we would have made an acceptable offer and got him, or moved on and got another target. Not waited until the last day of the window when there's no time to do anything else and Bournemouth's interest was probably already known.

I find it incredible the lengths some will go to try and find a narrative, excuse or explanation they can settle on that will absolve the owners, club or staff of any responsibility or wrongdoing At least 3 good players are set to leave the Club in a couple of months for £0. 3 players we have invested a lot of time, money and patience in improving and getting to a stage where other Championship clubs would love to have them in their ranks. I personally believe this is just the latest stage in a monumental cock up overseen by neglectful, disinterested, unfit owners and cowboys installed to run the club on their behalf. I could almost accept the shambles that is coming our way this summer - most of the squad out of contract/loan - if: a) The people responsible for it also left b) It was going to get the club to a break even or profitable level c) Lessons were learned and new contracts resolved very quickly for the others who will follow next year I don't think any of those 3 things will happen and come the end of the year it will still be Waggott here, still telling people talks are ongoing with players, some people still swallowing his crap and somehow the club still losing bucket loads of cash. Its like in January. They want us to believe that any significant expenditure on fees or loans would have compromised our FFP position. Yet I simply don't accept that when we sold Armstrong last summer for £15 million and will sell Brereton this summer for at least the same amount. They could have invested in proven players to get us over the line. Chose not to and now we are seeing the results of it. The only shame is the ease with which they have hoodwinked people into believing 'we did all we could'. They didn't. Just like they didn't on the contracts, just like they haven't on tickets and attendances.

How many times do I have to repeat this. No I don't want us to be under a transfer embargo. The point I am making is that we wouldn't be put under one if we spent some money or gave improved deals to our best players - the clubs I mentioned previously are evidence of that. I don't care what their local media speculates about. If it is anything like the Telegraph they will be wrong. When or if we secure these players to new deals then I might feel differently about things but talking about new deals has supposedly been going on for 18 months with 3 important players who are now set to leave the club for nothing so I'll wait and see what happens on the others rather than believing what Waggott says is happening. The wage budget we have means we pay Gallagher and Ayala substantial wages whilst we can't pay Nyambe an increase a fraction of that.

We are losing £20 million a year. On no planet is that financially sensible. Just because some clubs have recently lost more doesn't mean we are sustainably run. Don't get me wrong - very few clubs in this league are or can be financially sustainable and I'm not suggesting we should try. But please don't make out like our model is clever or sustainable because it isn't. You seem to miss the point on wages - whether or not it is 'sensible' if it causes us to lose all our assets on free transfers as they head off to rival clubs it isn't good. Not sure what current league positions have to do with anything here. My original point was that 3 clubs in this division have recently posted astronomical losses way above the magical £39 million over 3 years that is seen on here as the dividing line between manageable and apocalypse embargo/points deduction. Stoke, Middlesbrough and Bristol City showing that the £39 million thing was a load of codswallop and that if you have clued up owners - Coates, Gibson, Lansdown - they'll find a way to navigate around the rules without sanction. Meanwhile you seem to prefer that we lose our assets for nothing and spend nothing when 2nd in the league and in with a shot of automatic promotion because it is 'sensible' and avoids these punishments that don't materialise for rivals spending and losing a lot more than us. Personally I'd have preferred we kept our best players under solid contracts, built a squad capable of challenging and going again next year if we miss out this or seizing the opportunity before us in January. I'm sure those owners above would.

It's definitely happened before at Reading - I remember it the last time I went. I'm not sure what their logic is in doing it but maybe they offer cheaper tickets to their own season ticket holders so have to do the same for away ones. I'm not sure. I've not come across it elsewhere - Cardiff offer cheaper tickets for the 'family' area.

I'd have just released tickets for every remaining home game at £20 a head. No strings, no packages, no deals, all on sale from January. I think Reading have been up to this sort of thing for a few years. Nothing to do with Rovers.

I suspect an earlier poster was correct when suggesting that Waggott doesn't really want substantial growth or increases in attendances. He will be more than happy if an increase is minimal or small/manageable for him but at the same time he can turn around to supporters and to his bosses and show that he personally has done "all he can" to address falling crowds. Come the summer he will have portfolio of evidence of steps he has taken to try and increase attendances. Half season tickets, the London Double Decker, the Final Five, the Bristol City deal. "We've done all we can" is his motto. Every one of these deals has strings attached. Joe Bloggs on the morning of a game cannot wander down to Ewood and get a cheap ticket for one game. Joe Bloggs has to either commit to more than one game, including televised/evening fixtures, at considerable expense, or has to get one in conjunction with an existing season ticket holder (the other issue is that most season ticket holders will already sit next to friends and there won't be spare seats around them, meaning extra people will have to sit on their own or relocate with season ticket holders to where there is space for them both). No strings attached would introduce an element of the unknown, and especially risk 'undesirables' attending Ewood and causing aggravation. The absolute last thing the people down there want is droves of people turning up on matchday to take advantage of cheap tickets and then having to accommodate them. These deals ensure that most people will buy in advance, enabling the club to 'plan' on numbers attending and then if anyone buys they can be very quickly traced or tracked down in the event of any trouble. It will also deter spur of the moment or last minute decision makers which they don't really want.

The Club is run 'financially sound'? Since when?

What infrastructure spending have Stoke incurred in the last few years that would account for losses of nearly £150 million in 2 years? Parachute income will be factored into those losses, which would have been much higher without that income. Doesn't change anything. Awkward for you who likes to believe that we are one cash signing away from a points deduction but Stoke, Bristol City and Middlesbrough proving that when you have astute owners and management mega losses don't result in punishments.

All this is just so Waggott can turn around at the end of the season and claim to have done "all he can" to increase numbers. Of course we all know that these schemes won't work, I would hope by now even he knows. He's building his dossier to take to India to show them his 'efforts' to grow support at Ewood.

So when he joins a non-Premier League club and not Fulham or Bournemouth what will the excuse be then? Presumably Preston will be offering him £40,000 a week like Patrick Bauer?

Stoke lost £55 million last year, on top of £87 million the year before. No points deductions or transfer embargoes to be seen.

Who said anything about the league above? I'm talking about Championship rivals.

I'm sure it will come up in their discussions - particularly when Mowbray asks for permission/money to go and sign replacements and we've brought in no money from their departures. As I've pointed out before the situation with Buckley, Wharton, Carter vastly different to that for Nyambe, Lenihan, Travis. Those players who signed within the last year were on their first contracts which they signed as u23 players and it will have been very easy to upgrade their deals to something more representative of a first team/squad player. They will still be on relative peanuts by the standards of the league and Club. The latter few will also be on relative peanuts in the scheme of things but have now reached senior player age/standard and therefore quite rightly expect an increase on that basis. They are no longer 19/20 years old hoping to break through - they are captains, vice captains and mainstays of the team. The club seems unwilling to reflect that new status in their pay.