JHRover

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.

With the size of the squad, seeming lack of budget and other issues to deal with including a short time frame to get business done the likes of Holtby and Rothwell need to stay. In an ideal world we'd look to upgrade but I don't see that as being possible this summer. Both have an awful lot to prove given the fanfare around them. Letting more go now with gaps we already have would be suicidal.

Fulham signed him on deadline day. On loan. We had oodles of time to sort a deal out before that.

Neither have done anything above League One level or at a club remotely near the size of Rovers. Impressive work at small clubs in the lower leagues with no pressure. I'd rather we got someone proven and capable of getting a club into the Premier League. Plenty of obvious candidates all of which will be employed somewhere in the coming weeks and months.

I think it is quite obvious that the club won't even have started talking to him about a new deal. New contracts seem to be off the agenda at the moment and Mowbray can't even get a budget. Expect some fictitious reports of Nyambe rejecting a new improved deal to emerge during August. All to prepare fans for his sale.

If I was getting paid tens of thousands of pounds a week to play football with a career of 15 years max then yeah. I'd move to Timbuktu if it was the right thing for me and my career. The life of a footballer is a nomadic one. You know that each year you might have to uproot and move across the country. If a 2-3 hour drive or train ride upsets his girlfriend so much then he'll be glad he isn't good enough for Real Madrid or Man City. He isn't going to have much of a career if he is only able to go to clubs within a certain distance of the South Coast under his girlfriend's orders. The Everton point remains. We all know if they or City offered him a chance to earn more and develop a career and progress in football he would snap their arm off and his girlfriend's domestic preferences wouldn't enter the conversation. Its only appeared as an excuse here because we either weren't able to entice him to stay for financial or football reasons or because we dropped another clanger but they won't admit it.

So Everton offer him a deal this summer after being impressed with his performances. He's going to reject going there because his girlfriend doesn't fancy living up here? Not a chance. A convenient excuse.