JHRover

I don't like the idea of it being in the DE lower. Or if it is I would do it so only the lower tier is open with away fans in one half and home fans in the other. At least that would take us back to the days of 'banter' between home and away fans either side of segregation. That won't work with 500 Millwall lot up in the top corner and similar Rovers out of view downstairs. With all the bottom tier to go at we are going to have to shift at least 1500-2000 to make this worthwhile and even then the lower tier will be sparsely populated. I can see what they are trying to do and fair enough its better to try than do nothing. But I think it is asking a lot to shift a substantial volume in the space of 8-9 days and I worry it will just end up with a small cluster of home fans and not much difference to the atmosphere. If they really wanted to push this they should have announced it weeks ago and promoted it far and wide not slipped it out 9 days before.

Maybe we are just waiting for the 12,000 or so attendees tonight to pass by the club shop, make no announcement or advertisement on tickets and then announce they are on sale tomorrow morning. Then scratch heads in bewilderment in 9 days' time when very few have bought tickets.

Seen a lot of comments online about how great Forest have been and how tough it is going to be so to bring some balance to things: Last 7 away league games they have Won 2 against Swansea and Millwall, Drawn 3 against Reading, West Brom and QPR and lost 2 against Middlesbrough and Cardiff last time out. It won't be easy but with the best home record in the league we have to be going into every game at Ewood expecting to win as this will reduce the pressure on our faltering away form.

Sooner or later Burnley are going to have to put some wins together. All well and good being hard to beat but with 18 games remaining they will have to put some on the board. They can't survive with 1 win. At the start of February with Rovers in the top 2 and fine form and the Dingles bottom with 1 win all season you'd be looking at the very least us playing them next season, potentially overtaking them. But I can't dispel this horrible feeling that over the coming 12 weeks they will claw their way out of it simply through grinding out points and we will blow our opportunity. The signs are starting to appear. I'll feel a lot better with 4 points from these next 2 games.

If the club was serious about the position we find ourselves in and desperate to make full use of it they would have tickets on sale for every home game remaining this season. I never understand this obsession with leaving it until 3 weeks before the match to start selling them. Its not as though they need the time to plan and sort things out - they know there will be ample capacity come what may.

A win in this one is massively important. Not just to keep Forest at a good distance but also to immediately bounce back from defeat as we did with Middlesbrough the other week. Concerning signs creeping in particularly away from home where we seem to be losing our effectiveness and the goals have dried up. We need to get back on track A quick look at the fixtures this week suggests an opportunity. QPR play Middlesbrough and West Brom head to Sheff United. Two tough games for those sides and points being dropped along the way. We need to capitalise.

Bruce is an excellent Championship manager. 2X automatic promotions at Birmingham 2X promotions with Hull 1X play off final with Villa In a few months turned Sheff Wed around from struggling to top half Very sensible appointment for WBA and makes our job that bit harder. With an 8 point cushion it is in our hands though and if we maintain 2 points a game for the final third of the season there's nothing they can do about it.

I'm not sure Rothwell has caused anything here. He can't force Rovers to make a suitable offer, and he can't force Bouremouth to take an interest or approach him in January. He can only respond to events as they unfold. Bournemouth come sniffing - he has to decide whether to hang around here with a club run by clowns or take a 4 year deal and much bigger salary for his family = security for the rest of his career/life. He will be well off of course but having been at Oxford and Rovers he probably won't be set for life. He is out of contract at the end of the season. Uncertainty. Footballers particularly with families don't want that. Now you might blame him for not signing whatever joke numbers corner shop manager Waggott has scribbled down for him, but as seen with the Bournemouth interest Rothwell has been entirely vindicated in his position because it is clear he can get better elsewhere. That's if you believe there has been an offer on the table open for his acceptance, which I have my own doubts about given the lack of one for Mowbray. If the owners are so inert that they are happy to allow Mowbray's deal to run down with no discussions about his future then why would they take players' contracts seriously? It would suggest they are 'on the ball' with players who they have never met but aren't 'on the ball' with their manager who they have met, like, trust and have had running their club for the last 5 years. The Club had the ability to protect its assets by attending to their contracts in a professional and coherent manner and ensuring star players were here for the forseeable, putting the club in the driving seat should any interest come along. The Club has failed to do that using every excuse in the book along the way. Covid, revenues, uncertainty, wage structure, owners struggling in India, greedy players and agents. But in the end it doesn't matter what the cause is of it. All that matters is the result of it. Players haven't signed and the result is that it is inevitable that some will have their heads turned by other clubs and other options. It is also inevitable that unless something changes quickly this Rothwell incident will be replicated with several other players. I have just read Mowbray's comments in the Telegraph and have to say I am baffled. Mowbray appears to be suggesting that he would have sold Rothwell and used the cash to buy 3 players. He appears to suggest that the only way he can rebuild the squad is by doing this as there will be no money in the summer without sales (if we don't go up). He appears to suggest the owners vetoed this plan and insisted Rothwell would remain. I have numerous issues with this; 1) If the manager wants a sale why on earth are the owners acting against his wishes? 2) How does he know there is no money if we don't go up? 3) We've heard this about sell and reinvest several times and it just doesn't happen - they sold Armstrong for far more in the summer with plenty of time to spend some of the money on new players and failed to do so. I have no faith they would have allowed reinvestment of the Rothwell cash. 4) I don't understand how or why the owners would reject millions of pounds for Rothwell when this is probably their last chance to get a fee for him, yet they are unable to offer the wage he wants to keep him here longer term. If they have the capacity to risk millions on turning down a fee for him then why don't they have the capacity to increase the wage bill to pay him?

Watched his interview. I find it hard to harbour any ill feeling towards the lad - he certainly comes across to me as genuine and honest about the situation. As before he has a short career and has a young family. If another club are offering him far more money and a much longer contract then it is easy to see why he might be interested, especially when his deal here ends in a few short months and he won't know what comes next. The bit of his interview that really hurt me was when he admitted that it would have been a big life changing move for him and his family which is why he was interested in it. You might think this is Man City or Real Madrid offering him a deal with that sort of language, or at least a club far above us in the pyramid offering a one in a lifetime move to the PL. But no he is actually referring to Bournemouth. Makes you realise just how far down the pecking order these clowns have dragged us when our star players are seeing Bournemouth mid-season as a life changing move. Cheers Venkys and Maggott. I actually feel sorry for him. I think he and many others have been mucked around by Venkys, Mowbray included. Their approach is going to cost this club big time when all these decent players leave because they're refusing to sanction better terms.

Huddersfield are irritating. Aren't they something like 11 unbeaten now? They never seem to play anyone decent or in form either. I see Sheffield United now have 4 games in hand on them and 3 games in hand on us. They should have been forced to play one of those last night and then they are on Sky on Friday v Birmingham. Instead they only play Friday then again next week. Seems the League are happy to let them fit them in whenever is best for them rather than making them play them asap to catch up.

Bruce would be the perfect appointment for them with their squad and in their position. Promotion expert who will be comfortable with those players.

If WBA take an interest it is a tough one for old Tony. Looking at it financially they will undoubtedly offer him more cash, a longer deal and a better budget to work with than cutback Venkys. Looking at it on paper he would have parachute money to bolster them if they didn't go up to have a crack at it next season. He might not even get an offer beyond this season from us or might have been told he isn't unless he gets us promoted. There's the emotional side having worked there before and seems to be popular still there with the fans. Flip side is that WBA are something of a basket case that have churned through all sorts of managers over the last 4-5 years and have a strange owner. If they don't go up quickly they will have to make substantial cutbacks and as shown with Bilic and Ismael and even Darren Moore before them they won't show patience or hang about if results don't come - Mowbray could well be fired and back on the scrapheap. I don't think he is a manager that handles pressure too well and performs better with lower expectations and demands as we have this season. He'd be straight into the spotlight there. From our point of view he often talks about the long term and loyalty and values so there would be more than a touch of hypocrisy of he dropped us in this position mid season to move to a rival. Could I blame him? Probably not because I think most sane people would want to avoid working with the likes of Waggott and Pasha but it wouldn't exactly stack up with his talk of loyalty. Then there's the travel. We often hear about how tough he has life commuting away from his family on Teesside to Blackburn. If that is a struggle not sure how he would cope with going to the Midlands, especially after his comments when working at Coventry.

Biggest concern with this is our match there in 10 days. If they get a proper manager in before then it suddenly makes that game a hell of a lot tougher. Flip side is if they go with an interim they might struggle. We should have enough of a lead - we need to do our 2 points a game and they'd struggle to overtake us with Guardiola in charge.

Swansea hasn't been a happy hunting ground for us - don't think we have won at that stadium. We need a win Saturday. They are struggling and ineffective, we need a win and a return to goals.

Two major issues I have with the FFP 'obstacle'. 1) Lets look at the income and savings made over the last 6 months. We have sold Adam Armstrong for a fee of between £15 and 20 million, perhaps spent £1 million on Edun, Markandy and signing on fees and the rest has gone. Even with Newcastle's slice we are looking at £10 million. Then there is the massive savings made on the wages since the summer. Getting rid of Armstrong, Williams, Mulgrew, Bell, Bennett, Evans, Holtby and the loans from last season must represent a saving of going £100,000 per week. Stretch that across 7-8 months and we must be looking at savings of £3-4 million. Lumped together there is no way we could not find scope in there to pay these players more whilst still achieving substantial savings. The way it works is that you pay Rothwell, Nyambe, Lenihan, Kaminski, Travis more and then when you sell Brereton in the summer a portion of that fee immediately covers the total cost of those pay rises. 2) It is ridiculous to use FFP as a reason - suggesting the club is willing and able to pay the players what is required but is being prevented from doing so by the rules - when we have seen the best way of quickly dealing with FFP is to have a big player sale from time to time. We are meant to believe that Armstrong was the sale that 'dealt' with FFP last summer and no doubt Brereton will be the next one. The only way that production line continues is by having players under contract. It is a complete contradiction of itself. You can't use FFP as a reason for not keeping your best players, miss out on their value and then complain about FFP rules stopping you doing business. You have to get ahead of the curve - which to be fair is what we did with Armstrong - and ensure the asset is under contract for a sale which addresses FFP. What we have at present is going to ensure we are always playing catch up with it.

How about a different theory on this. What if Steve Waggott is paid or bonused on how much he saves? If he is then why would he make any serious effort to pay these players more? Keep on driving the wage bill down = better figures on his performance. Just a possibility which wouldn't surprise me.

Only just noticed that Swansea host Luton tonight in one of their 'in hand' games. Hopefully this is good news for us as we have a full week recovery and preparation whereas Swansea will be focusing on tonight and only have a couple of days to prepare for us. I hope it is a gruelling match which wears them down and they end up limping to victory.

I don't think there is any money unless certain strict criteria are met. I also believe that Mowbray's power and influence have been reduced over the last 12-18 months in terms of flexibility on players - previously he had the ability to bring in established experienced players, often ones he had encountered previously, whereas recently they have been younger players with seemingly no link to him. We have seen fees paid out in the last few windows on Pickering, Edun, Markandy - but these fees are generally only very small and all are done with high confidence that the outlay will be covered quickly. All in all not a bad way to do business as ideally all transfers would grow in value but it places severe limitations on what can be done. It is clear there has been a shift in policy. I think Mowbray says a lot but a lot of it turns out to be grossly exaggerated or simply doesn't happen. I don't really blame him for that as there are so many components and cogs turning that him saying one thing one week and then a short time later things have changed. The days of him getting multi-millions to invest in a Gallagher, Brereton or Armstrong seem to have gone, replaced by a focus on loans and a few hundred grand deals here and there. In my view that change sits directly with the inability of Mowbray to head off to India and sit around a table with the head honchos, losing his direct line to them and instead having to deal through Pasha who by most accounts is a Balaji man. Mowbray himself has admitted that communications have changed and that they have been difficult at times. No coicidence that the only 3 managers to last under Venkys - Kean, Bowyer and Mowbray - early on in their times jumped on a plane to Pune - it not only secures their position but also is the best, perhaps only, way of getting approval on significant backing. Back in the days of Kean we thought it bizarre that he would put himself through that difficult journey several times a year and wondered why it was so important to keep them sweet in Pune. I think we can see now why he did that.

Look at everything through the lens that Mowbray has lost his link to Mrs Desai by not going to India. That explains everything- the cuts, lack of new contracts, minimal spending, focus on loans, uncertainty on his own future. The only way of getting anywhere with this lot is by getting on a plane to Pune and talking them round. Can't do that then it is very difficult. I keep on banging this drum and the more time that passes by I become more certain that this is the fundamental issue. It therefore matters not what position we are in or how urgent the need for players we are left with a buffoon in Waggott crunching the numbers unable to do very much. I expect the Giles wage contribution is covered by the savings on the 3 departures yesterday which is why it took so long to get done.

I'm not writing them off, far from it, and on paper they should get second. But it is up for grabs and we are in the driving seat. But if strength on paper was anything to go by they would be clear of us after 28 games not behind us. People were raving about their squad in August and we've outperformed them so far. Their business in January is impressive but now they have to do the hard part and get them performing as a team - easier said than done. You don't spend that sort of money in January if you aren't under pressure and if they don't go up their parachute money drops. They won't be in financial trouble because their owner will prop them up but they know this is their best chance.

I actually think the more players Bournemouth sign the better. It shows Parker isn't happy with his side or is under immense pressure. Going to be some ask incorporating them all quickly into a new team under a new manager and there will be a lot of egos around. A lot of those already there might not be happy with replacements being brought in. Can only pick 11 to play and has to keep them all happy.

Yes. The only conclusion to draw from this is that those outgoings were necessary rather than optional. As I say for Butterworth and us I think a loan is a good move, and for me Chapman was finished here last year (still strange he was given another year to spend it all on loan) yet both were on the bench in our most recent game and now they can't be over the rest of the season. Seems quite a gamble.

We're run by Waggott and Pasha - what qualifies either of those two to run an operation of this size and stature? Tells us all we need to know.

For Butterworth himself I think a move to League One and regular games is the right thing for him and his career. No issue with that. I'm just baffled at the logic from Rovers point of view given that is now three attack minded players out the door today and none in. Walking a tightrope to avoid more injuries and suspensions because there are now even less options to fall upon. Of course Dack returning might be a bonus but it seems risky to be expecting him to be a significant contributor given the length of his absence and nature of his injury.

The Armstrong cash dealt with FFP didn't it? Or are we saying that we had to sell Armstrong, pocket all the cash and can't spend anything despite drastically cutting costs? I'm getting lost in the Rothwell circus - are you saying we stopped it? Or was it because Bournemouth moved on to other targets? Lets not end up bickering about it because I'm sure we can agree in the end it doesn't actually matter - FFP or no FFP, cash to spend or no cash to spend - by the looks of things we haven't really added depth which the Luton game shows we need - that's all there is to it. In a normal season of mid table mediocrity that might be fine but in this position they are very brave and confident in what they have or stupid.