JHRover

Who have they sold?

Good news though for Caley and Co. who will be able to work for a fraction of the hassle and aggro, and be home in time for tea. Anyone else explain why we need to pay circa 50 stewards to stand around inside the ground watching the game when there are no fans there? Surely one stationed on each gate outside would suffice and save thousands in unnecessary expenses.

Anyone who watched Reed play for us last season would have seen a real talent and an asset to try and keep. He's the sort to build a team around, guaranteed to increase in value over the next couple of years. For me he should have been priority number one last summer and the £5 million Gallagher fund should have been earmarked for him instead. However, Mowbray mucked the lad around. Expecting him to play out of position whilst Richie Smallwood played there was ridiculous and seemingly based on Mowbray wanting to reward Smallwood for his League One efforts more than anything else. Then towards the back end of the season Mowbray had Reed sat on his backside on the bench whilst he experimented some more. Clearly if Mowbray wanted him back that much he would have had him playing. It seems another cheap loan was the ambition but it backfired when Fulham snatched him at the last minute. Another case of us going round in circles on targets for weeks or months whilst others are decisive and act quickly. We saw similar with Bauer.

I thought Middlesbrough were making cutbacks and were in FFP trouble?

Good cover at CB or up front? Who?

Those of limited means have to make their limited resources go far to get out of this league. It is no coincidence that those with multiple promotions from this division all have reputations for football that is simple, but effective football, that won't win awards for attractiveness but works consistently. Bruce, Allardyce, Hughton, McCarthy, Warnock, Dyche. Those managers work with what they have and build from the back. Not sexy, but they get the job done more often than not. Mowbray is a dreamer. Always has been. Remember his WBA on their way to finishing bottom winning plaudits for 'nice' football and him being unwilling or unable to change it to give them a chance of survival. Plenty of nice ideas and intentions. But this isn't Barcelona and unless the owners make vast sums of money available we aren't going to be able to get the players together to play our way up. By the time we do our prized assets will be picked off and it starts again. Sort the defence out, get fitter, learn how to go direct and be a threat from set pieces and forget airy fairy possession statistics which are utterly meaningless.

IF we have cash to the tune of multi millions to spend on someone like Whiteman then fine. Highly rated, could be a good addition. But here we have the paradox of Rovers these days. What cash we do have should be directed towards the gaping holes in our squad. CB and GK. If the season started tomorrow we could cope without Whiteman. We couldn't cope without at least one new decent CB and at least one GK. Who would be surprised if we went early and spent a bob or two on this lad for a non priority position only to spend zero on the critical positions and end up scrambling around for frees and loans late on? It also wouldn't surprise me to see Stoke come in for Evans at some point. I expect he is high on O'Neill's list. I wouldn't be keen on that one because him and Travis seem to be the perfect partnership.

It comes down to planning and direction. If you want testing friendlies against quality opposition then you need to be lining them up early doors and perhaps even paying them for it. These pre season tournaments require arranging well in advance. I get the impression that we don't do anything proactive on that front and are last to sort anything out. Also cutting costs wherever possible. Hence very few decent standard friendlies and very few foreign games, instead lining up vs Barrow and Bury trialists. Can guarantee a friendly game v Dunny's Barrow.

Given footballers are seemingly limited to Ibiza, Dubai, Mykonos or LA for their summer holidays then a lot are going to struggle with the quarantine rules. You'd hope Rovers had spoken to them about this or the players themselves had the sense to watch the news about this sort of thing but I wouldn't bet on it.

They'll probably make exceptions for footballers anyway.

I think they are in Ibiza. Rothwell has gone out this morning too. Is Ibiza not now exempt from the quarantine rules?

Expect it to be Liverpool. Klopp was impressed that we went to Anfield to play them in June so expect he will be happy to return the favour.

Course not...

Its probably sat in boxes in a storeroom at the club shop waiting for staff to be unfurloughed so they can unpack it.

The referee didn't give the red. He could hardly see from where he was. Either the linesman or fourth official have told him to give a red. During the Brentford players complaints he removed his headset and covered the speaker, I think to tell the Brentford player that it wasn't his call but not wanting to involve his assistants in that admission.

Derby, Forest, Fulham or Brentford will become the Sky golden boys now. I would have preferred Villa down but the three that have been relegated don't provide the usual Mowbray 'huge giant clubs' mantra to hide behind. Bad news for Waggott and wanting to surrender half our stadium to away fans (whenever they will be allowed). Wycombe, Bournemouth and Watford will struggle to pass 500 each.

It wouldn't surprise me if Tony pins his hopes on City loaning Tosin out again and us being in line for another season. Tony's address book isn't a long one and I see him as having a preference for turning to players he knows rather than those he doesn't. Happy days you might think until we get a Harrison Reed scenario where we wait all summer hoping for a cheap deal before he gets snatched away elsewhere at the 11th hour. I'd also be looking at the Liverpool u23s - our willingness to go to Anfield for the warm up game a few weeks ago went down well with Klopp and will probably see us win favour on generous loans and future friendlies.

We've given him a 'run out' in the last 3-4 pre seasons. Then when the real games start he doesn't feature. There can't be much more Mowbray has to learn from watching him. Either he thinks he is ready now, or he doesn't. If it is the latter he probably needs a permanent move somewhere at his age.

That's exactly how this lot operate in a nutshell. They've done this since the day they arrived.

Absolutely, but you could argue those deals were done pre-pandemic under very different circumstances. Deciding to splash another months wages out on those players happened in the middle of the pandemic, after Mowbray had told us all how tough it was for Venkys and how Waggott had told us all to forget about any sort of refund on tickets. So it doesn't stack up. No money one minute but enough to look after a few nice lads for a few weeks more the next.

So we are by some accounts absolutely skint, to the point we are sending Tosin back early to avoid paying him and, again according to some also have to make cutbacks for FFP compliance which may result in us having to sell at least one of our prized assets, possibly putting us in serious relegation danger next year, yet we can find the money to make expensive gestures such as these in the hope we manage to get a reputation as a nice club that will 'look after' players. Madness. Hope that reputation helps when we are fighting relegation and attendances have continued to plummet after refusing to refund fans out of pocket. Hart, Smallwood, are these not the very definition of non contributing players having barely appeared for the last 12 months and have been very well paid in the meantime?

Perhaps Mowbray should then compare Raya's performances at Brentford to those at Rovers and question why he has gone from being such a problem here to arguably the best keeper in this division in less than 12 months. I agree he did make mistakes last season. Now look at him under different coaches. Perhaps that is the issue Mowbray should be addressing. Instead it is shoulder shrug stuff whilst be go shopping in the bargain aisle to find a couple of decent keepers. What a terrible and preventable position to be in.

If we need to save money why did Mowbray allow tens of thousands out on temporary contract extensions for Samuel, Smallwood, Graham and Hart?

We've heard all this before. We know from experience that money generated from sales will not be fully reinvested into the squad. Even if it is Mowbray's record spending money is terrible. We also know from the Raya fiasco that we are likely to source inferior replacements, possibly on temporary terms until next summer, causing a problem to unfold as we have now. No club with serious ambitions should base its transfer 'policy' on first selling prized assets. We aren't very good at it so the policy should be to do everything to keep the quality we have and then if we have no money then put this famous scouting system to some use at last.

It isn't just a poor decision. A poor decision would be to have replaced Raya will an adequate and competent keeper that was contracted to the club and worth value to the club, albeit not as good or valuable as Raya. To take the money, sign a loan and be sat here with no keeper and probably no money whilst Raya wins the golden glove, possibly promotion with Brentford and is attracting Premier League interest? Well I'd describe that as a balls up of epic proportions, unacceptable and at any normal club the manager wouldn't have even been allowed to do it, but having done so he would he hauled into the boardroom and taken to task. But this doesn't happen when you allow the manager control over the club and let him appoint his mate as CEO and assistant as Head of Football or whatever he is.