Its amazing after the shenanigans that have gone on here over the years that you think it is farfetched. Wouldn't be the first time.

There's interest? Says who? I thought the whole point in the story was to speculate that there might be interest. Armstrong is away on holiday whilst almost everyone at Rovers are also away on leave or furloughed. Sharpe must have his fingers in some pies to know of this interest barely a week into the window. Alternatively he's just making it up. They've spent the last couple of summers doing it with Dack and now he's out of the frame it is on to plan B. I give it a fortnight before the Mirror, Mail and Sun are linking him with clubs and this will have been caused by stories like this. Some local papers still have an inside track to their clubs and stories are taken seriously by national papers. That's not the case here, where the Telegraph are spoon-fed info from the club. As I say I'm not sure the Telegraph are capable of orchestrating it on their own but they are never afraid to wind it up a notch. Note how no vultures circling for Pope or Wood up the road.

Never seems to happen up the road at Burnley though. Perhaps because they employ Burnley fans to do their writing whereas not for Rovers.

I've long believed that this is the intention. To stir up rumour, wind up the fans and prime them for a departure whilst also perhaps also unsettling the player himself. All sounds a bit far fetched perhaps but what appears in local media quickly spreads to the gossip columns of the nationals. Before you know it this 'could happen' becomes definite interest in the eyes of some I dont think the telegraph have the intellect to do this themselves, but are put up to it by certain other individuals who stand to gain from it, perhaps even people at Rovers.

That's his business. Nothing to stop him demolishing their stadium if that's what he wants to do. He owns them so it is his business. Only the same as why Venkys continue their reign of terror here.

For some reason they are allowing Barnsley to make submissions at the appeal hearing today. Seems strange to me as whilst Barnsley are impacted by this surely the decision with Wigan should purely be on the basis of what has or hasn't happened there.

Yep. Today Kean is about as relevant in football as Les Reed or Brian Laws are yet only one is getting airtime on leading national radio. I wonder how that can be. Everyone knows by now what Kean is and his activities here are the reason he's spent 8 years in the (tax free) backwaters of Brunei and then some bizarre job in Crete. Must be on the lookout for another gig yet is unemployable in England and probably Europe as a manager. Amazing for such a great coach. You'd think with such great mates like Moyes and Fergie he'd have no problems there. But once again the true colours of Jim White and the Talksport/Sky mob are seen. Always happy to get an old friend on the airwaves. Boy they did a real number on us. And with Merse, Charlie and Co. also there we never had any chance.

The reason we might not give him a chance is because the manager might not think he is good enough. I dont know because I haven't seen enough of him the last couple of seasons. It is a big step from League Two to the Championship. What I do know is that it is make or break time. Either he is good enough, in which case he contributes here, or not, in which case he needs a move. But what we don't do is just chuck him in for the sake of it and hope it works out just because he's already on the books and it is cheaper/easier than bringing someone else in or because we are making some sort of point about giving academy lads a chance. Now that would be daft and dangerous.

Lets hope we ain't in Sasha Petshi or Bengali Fode Koita territory

We could try selling some tickets to boost the budget. Here we will see the nonsense of Waggott and Venkys. For years it has been 'poor Rovers' unable to compete because we don't have a huge fanbase buying tickets. Now here we are not even putting them on sale. It shows that they were never really that bothered about the fans money. Just a useful excuse to blame the fans for not buying instead of our wonderful kind owners.

I'm not even sure there's that much thought goes into it. I've no doubt Mowbray has ideas of what he wants from a keeper and one look at those names linked last summer suggested he was looking at decent quality. But in the end for whatever reason we end up yet again going down the loan route from another clubs academy/reserves. I believe this is because the owners insist upon loans and low cost ones at that. So we end up going cap in hand to Premier League sides asking for a favour. What a positive start to the window it would be for us to go out and sign a permanent proven established keeper who knew the division

That is the sort of logical, sensible, obvious move to make. Take advantage of their chaos and get a ready made experienced keeper for a low fee who should be OK for a season or two. He won't need to get up to speed or develop. Sadly it seems the primary function or focus of Blackburn Rovers these days isn't to get the best players possible but to act as a glorified academy to develop younger end players often for other clubs benefit. So we end up with a short term solution but also have to nurture the player and suffer the drawbacks of inexperience.

We all know the keeper will be on loan. Its Venky policy that we dont spend money on that position.

We can be as 'busy' we like. No rewards for trying in this game. All about doing. We've seen all this before and it usually ends in disappointment and excuses.

There we go then. Forget about deals being done or anything of importance happening

Whilst I agree it would be a nice positive start I'm afraid you are being extremely optimistic with this. When does Mowbray go on his holidays? Because I very much doubt deals will be done if he is off. By the sounds of things Waggott hasn't been seen for weeks so I doubt he's going to be doing the deals No, we all know how this one works. Its happened every year. We do diddly squat except perhaps a low cost squad filler looking for a new club. The weeks go by with key areas lacking. Pre season rolls around and Mowbray 'has a look' at some of the reserves. Then we go running around for loans to fill the gaps but this can only happen late on in the window. I wish it were different but its a well trodden path here.

Couple of problems. The money is unlikely to be of any immediate benefit to the club. It is likely to be a small amount, probably will get swallowed up on running costs and even if reinvested we have a manager with a poor record of spending. Secondly there's no evidence that we have even discussed a new deal with Nyambe. Given Mowbray can't even get simple answers from India he probably isn't in a position to offer him an extension. So if we lose him and have no money or approval to sign anyone then there's another hole in the squad to negotiate. Before you know it we've got Williams, Bell and Bennett as our defence, if Lenihan gets flogged to Sheff Utd. Relegation time.

I don't like speculation about selling our best players. I don't like clowns like Nixon doing it and I don't like how all the talk going into the summer is about who we can sell and how much we can get. We should be looking upwards as a club. We should be adding better players to replace those departed whilst fighting tooth and nail to keep our best players. Of course if a Premier League club decides to bid for one then it might become difficult to keep them. That's life. But I don't like this attitude of almost as though it is a foregone conclusion, necessary etc. It isn't. Nor have I seen anything other than made up rumours on here of anyone taking interest in our players. What happens here though is Rovers show themselves open for business, players become unsettled or feel unwanted or feel the club isn't ambitious and then other Championship clubs come along with cheeky bids. We need to strengthen, not weaken. The league is there for the taking.

Example?

on what basis are you suggesting these things? All I have ever seen was a 'link' in some tabloid about WBA being 'interested' in Dack. That was more than a year ago, before they got promoted. There's no evidence it even went anywhere. Are you just plucking clubs out of thin air like Bournemouth, West Ham and Palace? Or have you seen something somewhere that suggests they might be interested in our players? Why would we be selling anyone to AFC Bournemouth? Would they even have a transfer policy yet with Howe possibly leaving? Are we ambitious as a club because selling players to Bournemouth isn't. Its no wonder made up rumours spread like wildfire.

Unless of course in an effort to overcome the Venky syndrome Mowbray is doing things back to front. E.g. he still doesn't have any confirmed budget, nor has he even spoken to the owners. He knows this is a potentially disastrous situation to be in as far as summer recruitment is concerned. So he attempts to work within that situation by speaking to players first, doing his homework on them, in the hope or expectation that at some stage in the near future he is given some sort of budget and then he can give the green light to sigings. In a case like Whiteman he will already know that having chopped significant wages off the books that adding a young lad from League One is likely to be doable.

Sounds like Karanka to Birmingham might be happening. Pretty decent appointment for them. Don't really like the bloke but his record is decent. Another one we wouldn't even consider here because he's 'too expensive' or 'negative football yet I expect he will have them above us next season.

Don't worry, he won't join Burnley. His girlfriend doesn't want to live up north.

My sarcasm must not have been obvious enough

No it wasn't. I said it was a nonsense excuse to try and explain why he didn't come back. The point isn't moot. If we were an attractive prospect and put together an appropriate financial package he would have joined like he would Everton if they did the same. Fact is we didn't make a good enough offer. Nothing to do with where his bird wants to live.