JHRover

I've no idea, why?

I would yes. Selling a product that doesn't yet exist is clever. If people are willing to pay then why not?

Yet despite that it appears Hughton is prepared to go and manage them. Why couldn't we get him then?

If anyone is coming in it will have to fit within the parameters of the structure at Ewood and the wriggle room Mowbray and Waggott have on finances. Having chopped a substantial amount off the wage bill this morning, particularly with Downing, Graham, Smallwood and Samuel out the door there must be nearly £50k per week done there. That lad from Doncaster won't be on 10% of that so adding his wages onto the books will be manageable. In terms of fee perhaps Donny will take anything right now to raise cash. Believe it when I see it. I certainly won't be getting excited. Sounds like another Davenport to me.

I don't know why you are amazed that clubs are selling them. To me it is logical. Clubs are hard up and need money. Not many better ways of doing that than getting fans to hand over hundreds of pounds at no immediate cost to the club. In these unusual times a lot of people are going to come through this with very different habits. They might lose their jobs and income over the coming months and not be able to afford a ticket, whereas if they had been on sale in June they might have paid up whilst sat at home with nothing to do. As the economy and travel begin to open up bored people will be finding things to spend on that they haven't been able to do over the last few months. Book a holiday. Go out for meals. Sign up for another year of Mowbray's Rovers way down the list. People will change habits. It is now 4 months since the last game at Ewood and will be 7 months minimum before people are allowed back in the ground. During that period people will find other things to do. They will be lost, not to return. If they had been enticed into signing up with a discount in April then they would have a reason to come back. Honestly it is basic stuff. Then Waggott wonders why crowds continue to drop.

How when we don't know what money we have?

Imagine if Warnock stayed at Middlesbrough, but then spent all summer telling their fans that they should be grateful for not following Hull into League One, that it is a slow build job and he is looking for small progress and improvement each year, that he would be happy with more points than this season.

Yep. That's one play off spot tied up. Houghton will do similar as he did at Brighton. He won't spend all week talking about player values, kids, possession football or building clubs. Best way to build a club is to get promoted. Painful watching other clubs with less going for them than we do act decisively and ambitiously. Middlesbrough will be next with Warnock. I reckon next season will be wide open. Only Norwich of those coming down will be strong. Lose Fulham or Brentford and the others will struggle with reduced parachute cash. Some quick smart decisions and it could be anyone's year.

Yes, going off his demeanour and body language wouldn't surprise me. I think when Mowbray does decide to depart then Waggott will follow very shortly afterwards. His power base will be gone.

I don't believe it is anything sinister or significant. They just couldn't care less about the needs of the club and rather than tell Mowbray that they are struggling or there's no money they would rather tell him nothing. Must be hard for the ego having guided him around their palace and had him bowing before them to now turn around and backtrack by cutting costs or reducing funding. Much easier just to ignore it and not pick up the phone.

Season tickets? What are they?

They did all that stuff at Ewood when we played them and lost earlier this season. Either Mowbray and his staff failed to remember it or they think they and the team are too good for that sort of stuff. Either way it worked yet again for Luton and cost us a result. One day we will have a team of winners prepared to use the dark arts to win games rather than a team of nice lads who 'do it right' but are also rans every year.

Anyone observing Mowbray's body language tonight would see that as a man who had at best a passing interest in the game, perhaps a pre season friendly attitude, and certainly not a man desperate for a win. Contrast to that cretin Jones who spent the entire evening like a rabid dog on the touchline, whereas Mowbray was slouched over the advertising boards and benches like he was on his holidays. Did he even stand up? Was Venus even there? The most exciting point of the evening was David Lowe's skirmish with Jones at the full time whistle. At last someone showing some passion and anger. Sadly it just isn't good enough. Fair do's to Hayden Carter, a good young prospect, but i find it a mixture of bewildering and embarrassing that we are turning up for Championship fixtures with no option but to chuck him into the side. We aren't playing Tosin because we are saving on his wages and we aren't playing Mulgrew because we are trying to force him out (even though the manager handed him a lucrative contract until 2021). Ridiculous. As for Derrick Williams the 'solution' to our CB issues - where on earth is he and what injury has he had? I don't know where we are going next with this operation which is a shame. I believe we have the ingredients for a play off side - some quality in Dack, Armstrong, yes Gallagher, Trav, Evans, Lenihan, Nyambe - but massive gaping holes in the squad that are here because the manager has failed to fill them. Some canny dealing, organisation and discipline and this group could quite easily be a top 6 side, but that appears to be beyond this outfit, partly due to the owners but also Mowbray living in fairy tale land with his philosophies and beliefs. 'We need to give these young lads games to get them experience' is the cry from the terraces. No we don't. We need to get ourselves a squad good enough for promotion. Either you are good enough or you aren't. We don't sacrifice our objectives to enable individuals to get game time.

If that claim is successful then just about every other club with financial issues this summer would have the green light to go into admin, clear their debts and not be punished. It would actually be daft not to go into administration. It would open the floodgates to carnage in the divisions. Can't be allowed.

For all the 'he's a great bloke' stuff he's actually used clubs to his own advantage with regularity and shown very little loyalty. I suppose some call it ambition and knowing when the time is right but if you look at his decisions - walked out on Stanley, walked out on Chesterfield, walked out on Portsmouth - I'd be amazed if he wasn't testing the water to see if he can jump to a richer Championship club. He doesn't strike me as the sort who will want relegation on his CV nor want a rebuild in League One. He will want to enhance his reputation.

Recent history is relevant history. Man City, Chelsea, United, Arsenal. Leeds and Forest have done nowt for 20, 30, 40 years. Forest haven't even graced the top division this century. Winning stuff 40 years ago given all the changes in football is obviously better than nothing but fairly irrelevant in today's world.

What recent history do Forest have?

Even if they don't relax the rules, no club is going to be able to comply after having no fans for minimum 6 months. So I don't see why we should worry about that when everyone else will be in a similar position. Its not as though the rules are enforced in any event. If we do get charged just slap in an appeal which takes 9 months to resolve like it has with Sheff Wed. I don't see any use to Rovers of making drastic cuts to comply with unenforceable rules and in doing so jeopardise our League status whilst Derby and Forest carry on regardless. Next up are Bournemouth. They should be nailed big style after their spending to get promoted. But we know nothing will happen. Last time we cut to comply we ended up with Wes Brown and League One.

Jason Lowe signed for Salford.

Probably not, but just imagine if our best players were out of contract. Nyambe will need a new deal for starters.

Yes I thought so. I don't expect Mowbray will have his budget in time for the meetings with players. I've also seen on Instagram that one or two players have holidays booked for the end of the week which suggests they will be off straight after tonight's game. In terms of those out of contact I'm not going to lose sleep if they depart but expect Mowbray to basically say: "Sorry lads I can't offer you a deal at the moment, maybe I will in a few weeks but if not you're welcome to come to Brockhall and train until you get a deal elsewhere" is pretty much what I expect. Then Mowbray will offer them new deals if India approves or if we free up some cash to allow it.

I expect that such a plan is at least 6-7 years away from coming to fruition. They haven't even nailed down a location on the university site yet. Then they need to draw up all the plans. Given it is going to be near the countryside they will have to jump through multiple hoops to get permission on it. They want a rail link to it which will add to the timescales then actually getting it built will take years. I suspect this is all strategic. It keeps the League off their back for a while as they show they are working to address the stadium issue. They can't stay at Birmingham long term. It will also apply more pressure on Wasps to do a deal for the Ricoh.

I'm not being funny Chaddy but where have Venkys or anyone said that Mowbray will get his budget after the season ends? All I've seen is an assumption that it will happen because it needs to and because Mowbray will be having appraisals with players including those out of contract. The assumption therefore is that Mowbray needs to be able to go into those appraisals knowing if he is able and willing to offer those players new terms. I think it is just as likely that in the absence of answers from India that Mowbray will simply tell those out of contract that he is unable to offer any of them new terms and as such they are free to look elsewhere. The lower cost ones who will struggle to get deals may hang around at Brockhall and train using our facilities eg. Ben Gladwin in the hope of landing a contract when India finally provides answers or if not a sale or two frees up the cash to offer it without needing Venky approval. Mowbray has already seen off Tosin. I suspect to save a few weeks on his wage and has said that Walton is off. I suspect that is because he cannot discuss a new deal with Brighton without his budget rather than not wanting him back. If I've missed the announcement that Mowbray gets his budget after tomorrow's game then I apologise and feel slightly better about things if true.

I hope we win and in doing so hit 66 points, finish 8th and above PNE. If that happens I will consider it a decent season's finishing position. Normally finishing there you would think a reasonable summer of transfer business would put us in good stead for next season, needing to add 5-10 points to the tally for the top 6 and perhaps 15-20 for automatic promotion. What actually comes next is anyone's guess but its a shame we can't build from a position of relative strength. I'd actually have some confidence provided Mowbray could properly address GK, LB, CB and replace Graham.

He'll want a break until someone comes along and offers him and his brother 3 year deals and another multi million pound deal. Bit like when Allardyce retired for 6 months until Everton offered him huge money to save them.