The point of course is that rival clubs will have only taken serious interest this season as he has been integral to the side storming to the top of the division. Prior to that he wasn't getting serious interest from elsewhere so will have been much easier to tie down to a new deal. Everything you say is a product of us not either selling him at a more convenient time or resolving his contractual situation. Not doing either has put us into this vulnerable position where we have few choices and no time. Could we have offered more money? Almost certainly yes - and I come back to the central issue here - it isn't just Rothwell in this position. He has come to the fore this window because of his performances this season and interest from elsewhere - but there are many others in the same/similar positions - all because the club hasn't offered enough to keep them under contract. Don't pay the money = be left wide open to predatory clubs. I think with billionaire owners funding 8 figure annual losses we should be well protected from that sort of thing but instead we seem to want to operate as an academy to develop players for others to poach when ready. No problem if that is like Armstrong - off to a PL club for substantial money - but to Bournemouth? Embarrassing is the word I'd use. I thought after trying to knock our training ground down this lot could sink no lower but flogging our best player to a Championship rival on deadline day during a promotion push I think takes it to a whole new level.

This is the crux of the issue in a couple of sentences. The shenanigans of the last 48 hours are just the outcome or product of us not having our house in order. Get our house in order = this doesn't happen. Its another 'told you so' moment from me - I've been banging the drum about contracts and the dangers of allowing them to run down for many many months - this is why - it has put the club in a vulnerable position where we exposed to predators. A player - whether that is Joe Rothwell or anyone else - wants security. If clubs are offering him good money and a long term contract and are professional in their dealings whilst we have mucked him around with derisory offers then it is obvious which way he is going to go. The club has had time and opportunity to avoid this situation - and has done nothing. And if anyone really expects Mowbray/Rovers/Venkys/Waggott to have already lined up a couple of proven quality permanent signings to replace him tomorrow I think you are going to end up disappointed. My expectation is a couple of loans and the usual spiel from Waggott about why things were all lined up but fell through.

Ok maybe - so how does that explain Nyambe, Lenihan, Travis and Kaminski who are all going the same way?

'Going towards FFP' doesn't make the money disappear. It doesn't just vanish into a hole somewhere. Presumably when people say it has gone towards FFP what they mean is that we are using that cash to run the club for a while avoiding the need for the owners to do it. therefore the money will still be there - perhaps in instalments or drips coming into the accounts - but we know it is coming and can use it for accounting for FFP on the income/expenditure sheet. But the money is there - it is real - and could be used towards new signings now if we really wanted given the position we find ourselves in.

We are supposed to forget about Armstrong and the massive fee we received for him. Gone. Forgotten. Anyone explain to me how we are going to be paying these experienced quality players to replace Rothwell when the reason Rothwell is leaving is that we can't or won't pay him more?

That's all fantastic if you measure success on a balance sheet. He's a football manager not a director and he now needs to work very hard just to keep the squad as strong as it was last week - let alone strengthen it. We've a threadbare squad and are losing one of our biggest contributors and most dangerous attacking players to the side directly below us - there is nothing fantastic about that. It is a massive blow not just to the playing squad but also the message it sends out to rival clubs, the media, our players and fans that we are open for business and there are no limits to that. I don't think Mowbray or the staff have the ability to bring in 4 players tomorrow including some permanent additions and at least one of equal quality to Rothwell. I'll hold my hands up if they do but if they don't then there is going to be carnage.

Dack and Poveda have been injured for months and we cannot plan on either contributing over the remainder of the season. Poveda should have gone back to Leeds. We've always been told that Venkys will do what is needed if we are in with a sniff of promotion. So far not much evidence of that and the clock is ticking. We can do what we like - the wage budget is self imposed. My view? Since last summer the club has had to wash its own face on contracts and transfer spending and Venkys have turned the taps off. This is why no contracts have been extended - because Waggott can't increase wages - and why spending has been at an absolute minimum - a couple of cheap deals, frees and loans - whilst selling another couple of substantial assets. I'm not saying that big spending is a guarantee of anything or that turning a profit whilst strengthening the squad is bad - far from it - just that if the owners were so interested in their 'baby' and knew it was 17 games from the PL I'd perhaps expect more than we've seen culminating in a sale of our most creative player to the side directly behind us. I just find it interesting that we've had a decade of being told Venkys will spend to get us up and yet here we are - no sign of it and incomings set to be covered by outgoings, as I predicted they would be. And I don't understand how Mowbray plans on paying these 23 and 24 year old proven quality players the wages they will want when we have been unable to pay our existing players the wages they want. Probably means it is nonsense and we will end up with another couple of kids or loans to replace him.

So it looks to be another window with a net transfer profit not requiring the owners to sanction additional funds - all our business will be covered with interest by the Rothwell fee This is relevant because I had wondered at the start of the month if we would see evidence of the owners 'going for it' this month with the prize of promotion within reach and unless something drastic happens in the next 24 hours we can safely say that hasn't happened. 3 incomings so far - a loan and two cheap deals for players out of contract at the end of the season, soon to be another multi-million sale. Whatever business is now done will be covered by the outgoings. Without trawling through Mowbray's interviews again how many incomings do we need now? I seem to remember Sharpe saying he expected 2-3 to be done and that was before the Rothwell development and then Mowbray seemed to be saying he wanted a couple of proven signings to replace him. He said last week that "permanent and loan deals are being looked at and should Rovers get deals over the line following positive talks this week, the squad would be looking strong for the final 18 games" OK so Hedges is one of those. Other lesson is to not take what Mowbray says seriously. Only this week he declared in the Telegraph that Rothwell wouldn't be leaving and that Hedges wouldn't be joining this window. Yesterday he said that the owners were adamant he wasn't being sold implying the only way he would be was if we could add two talented players in his place. Looks to me like on those numbers we should be expecting 4 to arrive yet I have no confidence it will happen. Hope I am wrong but this has 'monumental f*ck up' written all over it and could torpedo our season. I don't trust them to reinvest because they didn't reinvest after selling Rhodes, Gestede, Cairney, Armstrong, Raya. But even ignoring the Rothwell situation I don't think the business we have done so far is sufficient in view of the absences and lack of depth we have - the bench yesterday was the weakest I can remember and this is at the back end of a transfer window sitting in a position of strength.

So this would have happened had Rothwell signed a new deal and been under contract for the next 3 years?

It will be Rothwell out for a few million and then a couple of loans and if lucky another cheap buy in. Successful January for the bean counters delivering on the Venky cutbacks. Prove me wrong but anyone expecting serious business done at this late stage costing substantial cash clearly hasn't been paying attention. Also find it interesting how quickly they can get Venky approval to sell someone - almost instantaneous if the Bournemouth deal is to be believed - yet when it comes to getting things done the other way the manager can't speak to them and it takes an age to get done.

If decisions are being made for footballing reasons that would be the case. Trouble is I am not sure decisions here are made for footballing reasons, certainly not since last summer.

I'm not sure that he will. Of course Rovers fans won't be impressed but that's about all there will be to it. A few nasty social media posts or jeers when he comes to Ewood. Doubt there will be any repercussions among the players. This Venkys 'promotion bonus' will have been in his deal since the day he joined Rovers - contractually unless the players have signed new deals since the start of the season incorporating increased bonuses then they will only be due what they were entitled to when they signed their original deals. All clubs and all contracts will have promotion bonuses. Lets look at it another way. Maybe on £6,000-7,000 a week at Rovers and due to expire in the summer. Waggott probably offering him 'improved' terms of an extra £500 a week to sign a 3 year deal with an option of an extra year in the club's favour. Bournemouth offering him £16,000 a week, signing on fee and 4 year deal. £10,000 a week extra, £2 million over the life of the contract. Obviously those are just rough estimates of what we might be dealing with here but the point remains that had we gone to him with a £10,000 a week offer some time ago before this season's progress then there's a good chance it would have been signed and sealed and none of this happening. Looking beyond the finances of course there may be other issues in play - he or his partner may fancy moving to a different part of the country but more importantly here I suspect is an element of unhappiness at how Rovers have conducted themselves and behaved during the contract saga. I think something happened later last season and bridges were burned. Since then I think he has been counting down the days and playing for a move.

For what its worth I have no gripe with Rothwell. Can't really blame the lad if a Club is coming along offering him a game changing deal for him and his family. No for me the responsibility lies with Rovers who have had time and opportunity to avoid a scenario like this unfolding but either due to poor management, idiotic owners or both have allowed the clock to tick by and then have made insufficient offers too late in the day. Get used to it because the same is going to happen with the others. We signed him on a free from Oxford fresh out of League One. He isn't going to be on big money by Championship standards. Clearly whatever we have offered him isn't enough and we can see from the standoff with other players that we as a club are falling well short of the figures needed to get these deals done. In 5 months he is out of contract and unemployed. He probably only has one big move and deal left in him before he is in his 30s and thinking of a life after playing. Suitors might well be offering him 3x his current wage, a signing on fee and a 4 year deal. Imagine not being interested and then come the summer he has no contract, a serious injury and the best he can get is a shorter deal on a fraction of the money. Despite Waggott's claims of making 'improved' offers to these players I simply don't believe that they are even worth the time of day and are probably insulting to those players. The proof is in the pudding there - nobody is signing them and haven't been for months - now they will start looking elsewhere and other clubs will come a sniffing. Get your house in order and that doesn't happen. We saw with Connor Mahoney - another one criticised for leaving this Club after we had offered him a derisory deal and others were offering him much better terms - if you don't like it then make better offers. If a club is offering him substantially more than Rovers are and Rovers have mucked him around over the last 2 years (and with Waggott and Venkys at the helm who haven't they mucked around?) I can't blame him at all. The timing isn't good but that isn't his fault but the other clubs. Again if we had resolved the contract situation in good time this could be dealt with simply with a rejection. In the unique circumstances we find ourselves in a move to Bournemouth this month is simply unacceptable for so many reasons. We would be better forgoing the cash and dropping him into the reserves for 5 months than selling him to the side right behind us in the table.

I can't help but feel we supporters are being played somewhat in this unfolding situation. Mowbray's comments earlier in the week - that we had supposedly rejected bids of double what Bournemouth were offering and that we wouldn't be selling - I thought were quite strange at the time. Unusually clear and robust from Mowbray when in times gone by he will say that players won't leave unless their valuation is met and won't deal with specifics. Then a couple of days later for this to happen suggests to me that Mowbray knew what was coming and was getting his/the clubs position out there in public first before things kicked off. So then when Rothwell is left at home it seems the manager and club have had no choice, the responsibility lies entirely with the player, the club and manager have seemingly done all they can by rejecting the bids but the player/agent are causing the issues by wanting to talk to clubs. And it is working - a quick scroll through twitter this morning and most of the talk is about sell and replace, get rid, don't need a bad apple in the camp etc. etc. This is I think exactly what the club want - anger of the supporters directed away from them and towards the player/agent who will soon be off elsewhere one way or the other. That might be fine with the majority but for me I see the bigger picture. I see a club that has allowed this situation to develop by neglecting contracts for so long and squandering funds on wasteful deals and is now in a weak position with valuable players - not just Rothwell - and remember we've probably been quite lucky this window that the only serious interest seems to be in Rothwell and not the 4-5 others who will be off soon. And I'm not falling for the talk of reinvesting the money and replacing Rothwell this window - I have no faith that will happen both because we didn't reinvest any of the Armstrong cash in the summer and because I don't think they are capable of rushing deals through in 48 hours. Expect more talk of players lined up ready to sign but not enough time to get them done and we go with what we have.

Can't help but think we are in for a repeat of Januarys past. Lots of talk about multiple deals being worked on, expecting 2-3-4 arrivals, no plans to let anyone important leave and then come deadline day we get the usual Rich Sharpe tweet about tea time 'that will be it, not expecting anything else' I would hope with the rewards on offer and position we are in would change things and see us get stuff done but I'll believe it when I see it. Remember a transfer window is only a success if you actually strengthen and get better. Trying but failing to get better is not the same.

Disagree. If he has asked to leave then the manager needs to assess his state of mind. If he is able to contribute then he plays to the end of the season. If not he rots in the reserves until the summer. At least we deprive Bournemouth of a good player. Worst case us we lose him and he joins our direct rivals.

Maybe with Hedges both Mowbray and his brother will be happy. Tony is getting his target in early and his brother is getting Aberdeen some cash for a player that was set to leave for nothing in the summer.

Surprised there are still tickets in the home ends at Luton a day before a game. I was under the impression it was a sell out or close to almost every week there with a meagre <10,000 capacity of which over 1,000 is away fans and segregation.

The ones who should get tickets are those who have been to the most games this season whether they shout and sing or not. Plenty of loud folk only turn up when things are good. Rovers should have restricted ticket sales to season ticket holders with minimum 2 or 3 away tickets on their database to prioritise those most committed instead of opening it up to all season ticket holders from the start.

Travis signed his deal before Venkys embarked on another cost cutting era. Even then he will have been on a low cost deal in keeping with his status as an u23s player breaking through to the first team. Dack's deal was by many accounts lined up and agreed prior to his first major injury and was sealed after he returned to fitness. Buckley again see Travis - a kid coming through from the U23s signing a senior deal - easy for the club to manage Gallagher- many people have suggested he is on the same money as before just for longer which probably explains how they got that done. Nobody established in the first team has been offered and signed new improved terms since 2019 (unless Gallagher has had a raise which if so raises serious questions) All those players and not one has decided to accept the club's valuation of them. That tells me the club is doing something wrong. Personally I'm not convinced there are improved terms worthy of consideration on the table. Quite simply Venkys won't agree to pay them more. The wage bill is being cut. And with a moron like Waggott delivering on that it is a recipe for disaster. As I say I hope they feel good about the thousands a week they are saving (whilst still losing tens of millions a year) and allowing good players to leave to rivals for nothing depriving the club of millions in value Short sightedness in action but then again there has never been much of a plan.

If there isn't a decent budget from the owners this window then they might as well sell up because if they aren't going to move heaven and earth to back the club and manager in this position they never will. If there is a decent budget available and Mowbray/Waggott decide not to use it or fail to get deals over the line then I would hope the owners would be furious if it cost us promotion through shortage of numbers. I'm still expecting more talk of multiple signings only to get one in and expect more talk of people down at Brockhall with suitcases packed ready to join only for it to fall through due to unforeseen issues or demands etc.

That might be all well and good if 2 or 3 had signed up and 2 or 3 were hanging off signing. That might suggest that reasonable offers were being made but some were following advice not to sign because they might get better elsewhere. (Where on earth they are expecting to get those better deals I am not sure as there aren't many Championship clubs able to burn through £20 million a year like we can) Fact of the matter is that all of them are refusing to sign, which tells me there is something very wrong with our approach. This isn't one or two players it is 5 or 6 and these offers have been on the table for many months. I am also convinced that had he been given the freedom to do so Mowbray would have given new deals to at least a few of those who left last summer. It is abundantly clear that there have been considerable cuts to spending and Mowbray has admitted that in interviews whilst leaping to the owners defence blaming the pandemic and refusing them to criticise them for it. Whether it be due to FFP or the pandemic or the owners cutting their overheads it is a fact that outgoings have been cut. In view of that it baffles me why so many are happy to go with the belief that good sensible offers have been made and are on the table when all other steps by the club have been to cut costs yet apparently they are making improved offers to players?. Seems to me far more likely that the club smells an opportunity to make further cuts or that Venkys have refused wage increases. When you look at things from that standpoint everything we have seen makes perfect sense. Of course the elephant in the room is the loss of assets that have taken years and cost fortunes to develop on free transfers to rival clubs but that seems to be a risk they are happy to take, or in the case of Venkys simply don't care about.

I am desperate for us to win this one regardless of our league position. We are really due a win against this lot. I cannot stand Jones - truly vile and probably comes out on top ahead of Paul Cook and Lee Johnson as most unpleasant opposition manager. We have fallen victim to their nonsense already several times - a nasty dirty team that will try every trick in the book - and I just hope we can apply equal amounts of it and we have a referee who is strong. I dread us falling behind in this one because they are good at holding on to leads. I am not confident, but at the same time there should be no reason why we cannot win it. Nobody is telling me they are better than us. I disagree we should be happy with a point here, we need 2 wins from 3 and after Hull and Huddersfield don't want any dropped points here. Save that for the WBA/Fulham/Sheff Utd away games if it is going to happen.

The form of Forest and Middlesbrough has to be a concern as they have been relentless over the last couple of months. But we have a cushion and our form is also very good so if they manage to overturn that gap in the coming 18 games that will take some going. For example Forest would effectively need a 4-5 game swing of wins for them and defeats for us to overtake us. Of course it can be done but there isn't much scope in 18 games remaining to do that if we sustain our good form. It soon gets to a point where they can't have many slip ups. QPR have been in good form and their run of late winners this season is impressive and indicative of a side with a strong mentality and never say die attitude, but it is also indicative of a side that relies on fine margins and isn't putting teams to bed in games and you can't rely on late goals forever. I am worried that WBA will make a managerial change soon. I hope they stick with Ismael at least until we play them as watching them last night they were absolutely abysmal.

Not sure I believe that - who on earth is out there bidding £4 million for him with 6 months of his deal left? Nobody. Which suggests either the £2 million figure from Bournemouth is nonsense or Mowbray is just rubbishing Bournemouth's attempts by telling them how far off it they are with their bids.