I suspect Waggott is just coming out with the stand redevelopment talk as it is an easy and popular subject to get people on side but one which is likely to take sufficient time and sufficient variables that he will never be under any pressure to deliver it. Building a new stand takes years at the least to plan, fund, design and construct so the chances of it ever happening at Ewood under this regime are non-existent. But in the meantime Waggott can impress a couple of hundred fans in Fans Forums with the talk. I hear what people are saying about Covid 19 and closed grounds at present. The flip side is that the last 12 months have provided an ideal opportunity to crack on with significant works whilst there aren't thousands of people turning up every fortnight. I bring up Accy Stanley again who are now cracking on with renovation works to their main stand including building new changing rooms and bar/hospitality areas. They could just have moaned about Covid and done nothing but Holt has more of a plan and idea and is cracking on knowing there are benefits to doing it now. Infact when that's done they'll have refurbed 3/4 of the Crown Ground in the last few years with new seating, new stand, new shop and car parks and new bars/hospitality. If they can do it and afford it why can't we clean Ewood?

Who the hell do Sheffield Wednesday think they are? Don't they know that Bournemouth were in the PL last season and have an expensive squad?

Not sure how decent QPRs form actually is. Away from home they've put together an impressive run of results to keep their heads above water, but at Loftus Road their results have been poor. Impressive recent wins at Watford, Cardiff, Luton and a draw at Norwich good results. But at home: Lost 1-0 to Derby Lost 2-0 to Fulham (cup) Lost 2-0 to Swansea Drew 0-0 with Stoke Lost 1-0 to Reading Lost 2-1 to Bristol City Their last home win was back in November v Rotherham. Since then 6 games, 5 defeats and only 1 goal. I'm glad they won last night as it should take pressure off them for Saturday. But Loftus Road away is an ideal fixture at this moment in time.

I'd be surprised if the settlement even reached a million, but yeah even if it did we should still be looking at least at £1 million from this deal.

I'm sure Venkys wouldn't agree with your analogy. Once again a window goes by with no significant sales and some cash coughed up for incomings to replace the crock Mowbray gave a 3 year contract in the summer. He's had another window of backing. Most owners would either have fired him or sold a few to recoup losses by now. Assuming £650,000 is an accurate figure for Pickering and assuming we don't sell anyone then that's a reasonable net spend certainly more than most in this division in this climate. Having said that I'll stop short of hailing Venkys as "meaning business" by authorising short term loans of two teenagers likely costing us very little.

It will be a financial decision. Either we get a discount on the fee if we let Crewe keep him until the end of the season or Crewe pay a chunk of his wage until the summer when we get Bell and Douglas off the wage bill.

The other part of it is that with the exception of Trybull all the loans are or will be cornerstones of our team. Heavily dependent on them. First choice and best LB, first choice CB, first choice CB back up when the inevitable injury comes and our most creative talent. All on loan. All the best managers and teams get a settled stable back line and build off that platform. 4 years and 8 transfer windows in and we're still making do until the summer at CB and LB.

I'm afraid when I scrutinise things the only conclusion I am coming round to is that Mowbray isn't the only conductor of our transfer business. Only last week he was again publicly stating in his interviews that he wasn't keen on the loan market as a solution and that he wanted to get permanent transfers in to build on and have as assets. That was off the back of the Branthwaite deal and now fast forward a week or so and here we are doing similar again. I don't believe in coincidences like this. I believe Mowbray uses the press to get messages out to the fans and more importantly to India. Same thing happens when it comes to new contracts- he's sending messages to the owners about how they need to sort contracts out quickly, and also how we cannot as a club rely on the loan market. Unfortunately they seem to enjoy the short termism and high turnover in players. Of course if a couple of decent loans propel us into promotion or bring in quality like Harvey Elliott, who we wouldn't have a cat in hells chance of doing better than on a permanent deal, then its worth doing as a means to an end. But medium to long term we need the defence in particular addressing. A turnover in personnel every 6 months is unnecessary and unhelpful. I also refuse to accept that we can't find a defence of good Championship quality without the loan market.

The same Carter that Mowbray shipped out to Burton Albion rather than give a chance to here and one of the reasons we need new defenders? Not sure he's a solution. I expect a defence to be built on solid foundations and consistency. Familiarity and experience knowing each other inside out and then build from that. Most managers get the defence sorted and build on it. Year 5 of the slow build and still going down the short term borrow a teenager from a PL club route. Then repeat again in the summer.

It isn't going to happen. You know that as well as I do. Even if it did that would mean going into the PL with no defence and having to build a new one virtually from scratch. Complete short termism at odds with everything the manager has said about building assets and growing a squad. Strangely though it fits in well with the 'lease' policy Venkys were keen on when they turned up Low cost, short term, low risk, but medium to long term of little benefit to the club as we have to replace every transfer window and help develop other clubs players. I'm struggling to work out how anyone can suggest this is a great deal for Rovers. We borrow a player for 21 games, are under pressure to get him game time to keep the parent club happy, and come the summer have to find someone else. Its just a make do and mend job.

We ain't going up or down. So why are we borrowing players for 20 games only to face replacing them again in the summer? Mowbray was clear in the week that he doesn't want to do loans and yet that's what he's doing. Can't afford Kipre so borrow someone cheaper is the outcome. Bored with it to be honest. Come May we will be left with Ayala and Lenihan as our defence. Bell, Williams, Douglas, Branthwaite, Nyambe, Bennett and this new lad all down the road. Where's the plan here?

Just hope Mowbray isn't telling Kipre that he'll spend the next 4 months sat on the bench having to watch and learn from Branthwaite and Lenihan. He's not going to come here over Preston if he's going to be third in line here or playing every week there.

Really pleased and relieved with the win today. It's the fine margins that count. A scrappy, hard fought 1-0 against an awkward horrible side who we've failed to beat previously and I go to bed happy and wake up Sunday and Monday with more of a spring in my step. A drab 0-0 or defeat would have been horrendous. Credit that we kept going and ground out the win - a lot of sides have struggled to break Luton down this season and it is easy to see why, that's before you get on to their other antics to grind their way through games. But it wasn't a good display and we didn't create enough to cause them any serious problems. It seems through December and January there has been a shift in our performances because at home especially we have been consistently quite dull and low scoring in the last few months. The results speak for themselves - and they are impressive - but they are tough watching and we've relied on slender margins to scrape past the likes of Millwall, Rotherham, Barnsley and Luton. In the end I find these scrappy 1-0s just as if not more enjoyable in some ways than the hammerings against 10 men earlier in the season. Time will tell if anything has changed but I still fully expect us to now be hitting the glass ceiling again before another 4-5 game poor spell takes us back into mid-table. I desperately hope I am wrong on that because I look around and think we should be first in line ahead of Boro, Stoke, Bristol etc. to take a slot if it opens up. But it comes down to consistency and avoiding the bi-monthly death spirals that we usually have when hitting 7th and 8th and being within a win of the top 6. Saw on the BBC website they described it as 'controversial' that Luton didn't get an equaliser. Strange as I've not seen any serious suggestions that it wasn't a perfectly correct decision by the linesman. The poor TV footage isn't clear but it looks offside. I'm still concerned nonetheless that they had such an opportunity at that late stage and even more concerned by them having 3 players reacting and charging in on goal after the cross without much happening on our end. Fragile and poor - need to be more switched on than that.

And his wailing has worked. Just watching Norwich v Middlesbrough and the gormless commentators are gushing with sympathy for poor Neil and the injustice, the indefensible challenge blah blah blah. He's got them wrapped around his little finger. Not a mention of their performance.

Isn't that how the last 3 managers got their jobs?

Not sure about that. There was no mention by anyone of any options for Nyambe or Rothwell until it slipped out in a story over Xmas and it doesn't seem to have been mentioned since. Either way those don't provide much comfort. We need to work to a longer plan than just relying on clauses to buy us more time.

Well our net spend for January is probably in minus figures having sent quite a few out on loan and only brought in Braithwaite on loan so looking forward to seeing this backing of Venkys in the next 2 days. I see Mowbray is communicating with India and getting himself out of the firing line with his Joe Rothwell comments. Strikes me that there has been little to no progress on that front, with Mowbray basically repeating what he came out with in September, October and November but now adding that Rothwell is a Premier League player in waiting. He knows he's set to leave for nothing soon and what a fiasco that will be for the club. Putting the ball in Venky's court to get it sorted. Expect this will carry on and on and on.

How have Reading gone from relegation battlers to automatic promotion contenders in a matter of a few months during Covid, a short summer and without substantial spending? Answers on a postcard for Mowbray to be delivered next time he starts bleating about budgets or slow builds.

All of what you say is correct. But much easier just to believe Southampton are a far bigger and better club and leave it at that.

The issues affecting Preston are similar to those here - a substantial number of their first team players out of contract soon - and they are taking steps to address part of that now. We can only hope that a decent portion of our out of contract players sign up to new deals because without we are going to have to do a hell of a lot of work in the summer and it will cost a lot of money to do it.

That was supposed to be the case at their place in the summer but once they had the lead all the staff who put the balls out for the players to collect vanished. Suspect we are too nice for such tactics but we need to become nasty. Jones is one of the worst.

I hope Mowbray and the coaching staff are drilling our ball boys to go and hide if we are winning. That's what Luton did at their place which wasted minutes of the game, got them 3 points which kept them up and saw David Lowe lose his rag. If we have a lead and I see balls being thrown on quickly I am going to be very unhappy.

Could, would, should. That's how it has been for 3 years yet we've never actually done it or stayed there for any time. It's not over yet this manager has repeatedly shown he can't do it so unless something radical changes in the next few weeks there's no point getting worked up about it. I predict 4-5 points from the next 3 to keep us ticking over but not making serious headway and then 3-4 defeats through February to take us away again.

Makes you wonder why Cardiff, struggling at the moment and in the bottom half, are allowing Cunningham out to a rival mid-table side, especially having just changed manager. You'd think McCarthy would want a look at him unless he's already made his mind up after a few days on the training ground.

If the plan is to spend £2 million on the pitch, and that's a big if, then that is very impressive indeed. With sort of outlay I would expect to end up with the best pitch in England. A desso pitch, which are standard bearers these days, usually cost in the region of £1 million or so, so almost double that is very significant. Unless the £2 million applies to all the pitches including the academy and training ground in which case it ends up more like £200,000 per pitch if evenly divided. As I say, I'll believe it when I see it.