JHRover

We need to be targeting top 2 as a club and squad. Absolutely pointless aiming to challenge for the top 6. Even if successful it guarantees nothing. If the manager doesn't have his eyes on top 2 and is happy with top half competing with half the division for 4 play off positions then that isnt enough. IF we get these players in it seems to have been a good window. Mowbray can have no complaints at all and it reiterates to me that he actually has one of or even the best job in the Championship with the freedom and backing he gets here.

I wouldn't trust that Morris as far as I could throw him after past antics with McClaren, Clement and Pearson. Probably means Cocu will be gone if they lose their next game.

Yes. Think us, Forest and Newcastle are the 3 most prominent clubs not to have played there. Stanley are another.

The old rule of thumb is to have 2 players for every slot. So Kaminski and Pears for the 1st team, Sergiakis as 3rd choice/u23s along with Eastham, presumably one of the others out on loan somewhere and the u18 lads sort themselves out. Well stocked but not an issue so long as someone goes out on loan. Seems to me the Pears one has been lined up all summer long through Mowbray's Boro connections. The strange one was the Greek lad.

That was the best chance we had and possibly will have for a generation to reach an FA Cup Wembley Semi Final. It was a complete freak smash and grab job over Arsenal - I think the first time Wenger had exited the Cup to a lower division side in 17 years at Arsenal. Dark days only made worse by it being Wigan in the semis who went on to win it.

Before getting carried away we need to understand what sort of additions these mysterious '2 or 3' players are going to be. Obviously if we sign 3 and in doing so strengthen 3 or 4 areas of the pitch with quality then we will all be delighted and optimistic for the rest of the season. I think this is what we need to be doing to have any chance of sustaining our current early position. If we sign 2 or 3 and they comprise another backup goalkeeper and some unheard of kid in midfield who we are getting to try and develop then I'm not sure how much further along we will be. Pears, Douglas and a lad in midfield would be a bit meh, because I think only one of them would immediately improve the side. Douglas and two other established players along with Downing would be very nice indeed, because we could improve 2-3 positions plus add valuable experience and versatility in Downing.

My guess is the Pears one will be done easily (very odd to be bringing in yet another keeper) and hopefully Douglas on loan. I'd be pleasantly surprised if we got anyone else especially anyone with pedigree. Suppose we might get a PL young loan for midfield but Mowbray's comments don't excite me. No money, loans, looking for competition to fill out the squad due to injuries.

Why are Evans and Kaminski an issue? Hundreds of players on international duty this week will need covid testing upon their return. They will do the test then appear for their clubs this weekend. Not sure why our players should be any different unless they test positive but not sure why it is an issue Mowbray needs to bring up. I'm very concerned by our injury record. They are dropping like flies. Something wrong with our fitness or training.

Mowbray hoping for 2 or 3 in hopefully today. I hope he is right but I'll believe that when I see it. When did we last get 2 or 3 done in a day?

As I understand it the financial picture at Bury FC was completely different to that at Rovers. At Bury their former owner Stuart Day spent years piling up millions in external High interest debts secured against club assets and property. With League Two income, crowds and no profile the only chance they had was to bounce into the Championship where the media money would cover it. Predictably Day ran out of time and sold them on to someone dodgy for nothing who had a history of liquidating businesses and with proper governance would never have been allowed to take control. Compare to Rovers where almost all the 'debt' is to our owners, interest free, with repayment requirement and hopefully a realisation in India that the money has gone. If Venkys turn off the taps then we need someone else to bankroll the club. No different to the majority of Championship clubs in that respect. Would we find someone suitable? Nobody knows. But we wouldn't be vulnerable to winding up orders and debt demands like Bury unless Venkys broke the club up to try and recover some funds. I accept and realise that Venkys are funding the club. Without them if nobody else came forward we would be in difficulties. But a stretch to suggest that we'd be Bury without them. Their approach of funding the club with debt is the same as Davies used at Bolton, as did Fayed at Fulham and Abramovich at Chelsea.

Personally if we aren't in the market for anyone else I'd be happy to offer Downing another year. Versatile, vast experience and still in good shape and injury free for his age. The stats don't lie on his key passes and assists last season - he was a big contributor. Could we do better? Yes But bringing him back adds extra options to help what we have already got. I also worry that with him and Graham gone we've of course got a lot of energy and talent in midfield and up front but a shortage of experience and know how. We could do with adding to that.

From a bastion of the local community, representing the town nationwide, the pride of Lancashire, to not moving shite and filth piling up outside the main entrance because 'it isn't our job to sort it'. If such a relatively small and inexpensive task requires outrage on the media and complaints being sent in by fans to sort then it doesn't bode well.

My concern is that if the 'Big 6' clear off elsewhere all that will happen is a different collection of clubs will replace them and come to take control and dominate the game. Expect Everton, Leicester, Wolves, Newcastle, Villa, Leeds to eventually become a new 'Big 6' hoarding all the talent and money. Then we'd be no further along just with different names running the show. It needs a root and branch reform led by the FA who have the legal power to do it. If they want to resign from the League to play elsewhere then fine, someone else will replace them, but make life difficult. e.g. no English player for those clubs would be eligible for England national duty, or refuse to sign off transfers which the FA can do if it wants. All sorts of ways of making them squim.

So predictably now come the threats that the 'big six' will go off and play somewhere else if the other clubs in the country don't agree to their plans.. Call their bluff. Where are they going to play? A 'Super League' would require FIFA and UEFA approval and would decimate leagues across Europe. It won't happen. Play on their own in a division of six or eight? That will be fun playing the same few clubs 4 times a year. I've seen a few reports stating that they need 14 of the 20 Premier League clubs to agree for this to happen. Where do the FA and League fit into all this? Surely they have to have a say rather than just 20 clubs deciding what happens? I wonder if the odious Rick Parry is on commission for this and is set to land himself a pension windfall like Scudamore did a few years ago? What sort of League Chairman would be proposing abolition of the League Cup? Its akin to the FA suggesting the FA Cup should be scrapped or UEFA binning off the Champions League. it shows where his loyalties lie and it isn't with the Football League.

Hope they select the right colour of blue for the bridge. Apparently they will be discussing with Rovers which shade of blue is the correct one. Will anyone at Rovers know the answer to that?

Douglas ticks multiple boxes for me and would be a welcome addition. Experienced at this level, should have at least a couple of years left in the tank, seems to offer threat from set pieces, been successful with Wolves and Leeds in the last couple of years so knows what is needed. Also I can embrace the loan element of things given he is into the final year of his deal at Leeds which should make a permanent deal in the summer easy to do if we want to. This of course was rumoured in mid-September around the same time as the Manning link. Seem to remember that Sharpe rubbished that at the time. Now he's running with it in the paper he must have had the nod from upstairs at Rovers like with Kipre.

THE PUNISHMENT WAS FOR CHEATING NOT FOR OVERSPENDING The deal was agreed to in 2018. The formalities and permanent signing went through in 2019 as we had agreed it during the loan window.

What contracts? Legally those players were out of contract as of the end of June 2020. The club/Mowbray made a decision and committed to extensions of 4 weeks through to the end of July 2020 after the Luton game. That wasn't a commitment they had to honour, it was a choice. You might call it the 'right thing to do' or whatever but if the club is on the cusp of FFP carnage as you suggest then you don't authorise further substantial outlay of that level for no apparent benefit. What do you reckon as an estimated cost of that decision (at a time when the club had no income due to Covid)? Minimum £80,000 per week is my guestimate. Richie Smallwood, Dominic Samuel, Danny Graham, Stewart Downing, Sam Hart and Jayson Leutwiler were all given new deals, and likewise agreements were reached with Man City for Tosin and Brighton for Walton for them to stay on. I expect all were on similar terms to their existing arrangements. Now from a footballing perspective I had no objection to those decisions, except perhaps the Smallwood and Hart ones as it was obvious neither were ever going to feature, but from a financial POV no. Also given where we sat in late June after the Barnsley and Wigan defears we didn't have a promotion push to fight for so there was no immediate need for them to stay.

We have spent money yes. Where did I say we hadn't. I thought the point I was making was that we could bring in additional players and not be deducted points. No they haven't. Try reading the verdicts of the Independent Disciplinary Panels. If Sheffield Wednesday hadn't lied about when they sold Hillsborough and put the sale in the previous season's accounts they would have been fine. If Birmingham hadn't signed Pedersen whilst under a transfer embargo they would have been fine. The league tried, and failed, to dock points from both Derby and Birmingham this year for spending too much (both spent considerably more than us). So why should we spend our lives living in fear of points deductions that rivals have dodged? Thanks for confirming my point. Neither points deduction was for spending too much on players but later attempts by those clubs to cheat their way around it through underhand means. If Sheff Wed had sold their stadium a year earlier, like Derby, Villa and Reading all did, they would have got off with nothing. If Birmingham had obeyed the embargo, like we did, they wouldn't have had any points deducted. Estimated total costs of Gallagher and Kaminski were just over £5 million. Estimated sale of Raya was upwards of £3 million. You can guarantee that a chunk of the Gallagher fee was instalments and add ons that come down the line rather than up front. Raya was a prized asset. He was one of our own, an academy product who we had been patient with and nurtured through into the first time. Not perfect by any stretch but a good young keeper. The manager sold him to Brentford of all clubs. Was that because he wanted rid of Raya or because he wanted £3 million into his transfer kitty to get other players? I think I acknowledged earlier that they had a decent spend the year before on Armstrong and Brereton. The point I made was that since 2018 (so the 2 years of 2019 and 2020) the fees we have paid out on transfers - Kaminski, Gallagher etc - have been majority accounted for through the sale of Raya. The argument being made was that we hadn't sold anyone and that we had spent money over the last couple of years. Dealing purely in transfer fees that isn't correct, because the majority of expenditure has been covered through the Raya sale. Of course the loans and frees will have had associated costs. You will never find a transfer that costs £0. You will never have a departure that doesn't save the club money. You don't label every incoming as an extra burden on finances whilst ignoring the substantial funds going the other way on players out of contract etc.

What are you on about now? Who has ignored injections of cash Venkys make? Yes they put a lot of money in. Welcome to the Championship in 2020. You think we are alone in relying on rich owners to fund the club? The point was and is a simple one. It was claimed that we are on the precipice and face a points deduction/relegation if we spend more money on players. I refute that. I have explained why. No club has been docked points or relegated due to spending too much money on players. They tried to get Birmingham for it this season with a second points deduction but failed, and likewise Derby got away with it too. Previous points deductions for Sheffield Wednesday and Birmingham were not for spending too much but rather actions to avoid sanctions including dishonesty and not following an embargo put in place by the league.

It can't or won't come to anything for as long as FIFA, UEFA and the FA hold firm. The select few can propose whatever they like and threaten whatever they like but without authorisation from the above it can't happen. The above hold all the power. The worry is of course that the above will buckle under pressure. The FA have already demonstrated that they aren't fit to govern our national game and are by and large out of touch with reality. They could and should have kept the Premier League on a tight leash back in the 90s but relinquished too much power.

Strange way for a club to operate then. On the precipice yet quite willing to dish out £400,000 on needless wages through the summer. Something doesn't add up.

I see Bolton are broadly in favour of the proposals. Not long ago their Chairman was advocating a closed shop with them protected from relegation. Now they're in the 4th division they are supporting similar from the opposite end of the stick desperate for hand outs from the glorious self appointed leaders.

Not according to Waggott it isnt. And would a club under such imminent threat allow contract extensions for Smallwood, Hart, Samuel, Graham, Leutwiler and Tosin in the middle of a pandemic with the stadium shut? About £400,000 in wages over more than a month frittered away just there unnecessarily. Hardly the behaviour of a club on the limit.

Well actually we sold Raya which covered the majority of our transfer spending in 2019 and 2020 (Gallagher, Kaminski). The rest of our business has been loans or frees. They had a good spend following promotion in 2018, since then there has been limited expenditure in comparison to incomings. Admittedly some of those frees and loans on good money and it is noted that we haven’t sold any of our prized assets other than Raya. But to do that we would need serious interest and I'm not sure there has been much of that to date. I agree things are better now than in 2012. I wasn't saying they weren't. Just my opinion that getting worked up about FFP and potential issues down the line in the current climate is pointless, because it will certainly be put onto the back-burner and if it isnt then most of the league will be in trouble. Not just us.