Because in comparison to Blackburn Rovers they are not a big club. Never have been and never will be. Describing them as such is negative and defeatist and is getting the excuses in early. I'm well aware that they were in the Premier League for a long time. So were we until recently. Bournemouth have been in a while as have Burnley. Would you be comfortable describing them as huge clubs with the inference being that we are inferior? I'm well aware at present they get more fans than us and have more income than us. That doesn't make them a huge club. I'd rather our manager fought our corner and instilled an attitude of us being every bit as big as our rivals rather than providing himself, the owners and players with ready made excuses before a ball is kicked.

Only last week he described Stoke City and Middlesbrough as 'huge clubs' with 'huge support' and that we've to try and compete with them next season. In my opinion an inappropriate and insulting comment to make in his position as manager of Blackburn Rovers. Not only factually incorrect but unneccessary and unhelpful. If he genuinely believes that then I'm not sure he's in the right job. If he's saying it to try and take pressure off his shoulders then I'd rather he stopped talking. It's one thing bigging up bog standard Championship sides for no reason other than to make life easier for himself. It's another when most of his comments are simply incorrect. Like Bristol City filling their ground every week which they don't. The sort of nonsense comments that quickly erode my respect and patience. By all means play it quiet on talking to the press but don't dare try and put the club down in public or describe some garbage down here as huge clubs. We were far superior to all of them before his bosses turned up.

Mowbray likes to exaggerate massively. He reckons Stoke and Middlesbrough are huge clubs and Bristol City get 30,000 full houses every week. If he's telling the owners this sort of stuff and they believe it then we're going nowhere fast. It was always doubtful that Bauer or his agent were asking for that sort of cash. There's wanting a raise and then there's that. He'll have been on about 5k a week Charlton and will be on double that with PNE. Very hard to take Mowbray seriously when claiming he was demanding 50k a week

Yes I tend to agree. Let's face it these owners have previous for leading managers up the garden path only to make them look stupid at the end of it. Lambert was another promised or led to believe by someone that he would get proper backing, gave them time to deliver it and rather than be made a fool of he walked when it became obvious that they were having him on. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the goalposts have been moved or money Mowbray expected to materialise has disappeared on the whim of the owners. They're capable of anything and don't deserve trust.

What unrealistic expectations does anyone on here have? We're discussing our failure to sign Bauer from Charlton who has just joined Preston for free. I haven't seen anyone demand players we cant afford or big money moves.

No problem with that if we go and get a decent alternative at some point soon. If we don't and then we get the gradual lowering of expectations and Mowbray moaning about costs and wages etc. and we end up picking up a loan to fill in on the cheap then it's a big problem.

Correct but their manager knows what he has to work with, can make an offer and get stuff done because he has a proper Chairman with power behind him and an owner that can be contacted when needed.

It isn't that simple. IF he chose Preston over us that sets alarm bells ringing, especially given we've been interested for 12 months now. Sounds like whatever he was hearing from Rovers wasn't good enough whereas Preston have quickly got the job done. Financially I cannot accept players picking PNE ahead of us. Not when we're losing more than double what they are every year.

How can PNE offer him more than us? How can we lose 10 million a year more than them if so?

The first sentence is a fact. Everything else is my opinion.

Waggott was in India, before then he and Mowbray didn't have a budget to work to. Since then Mowbray and possibly also Waggott have been on annual leave which they are perfectly entitled to.

With Mowbray, Waggott, Cheston and Silvestre in India trying to find out what the plan is and what (if any) money was being made available, who will have being doing the negotiations and when will those have been happening? Seems more likely to me that Alex Neil sorted his budget some time ago, had his holiday at the end of the season, and has since returned and got down to the serious business of making signings to bed in as quickly as possible. We are weeks behind as usual. Time people accepted that. Its sometimes the simple things that make the big difference.

No idea. But as his contract at Charlton expires who will have been speaking to him or meeting with him recently to try and get a deal done?

Well we know that we are late with most things. We know that the manager and CEO didn't know what the plan or budget was going to be up until a couple of weeks ago. We know that since then Mowbray, who controls the footballing operation, has been on a well earned family holiday. It is safe to deduce that progress on transfers will have been very limited during that time as Mowbray will have been unable to meet with new signings. Most of that is fact as confirmed by the club. Not guesswork or assumption. The assumption is the above impacts on our ability to recruit quickly and decisively, which I think it does compared to a club with an owner who takes interest and prioritises the club.

Your optimism is admirable. Bauer has picked them over Rovers because he might have played with someone who previously played under Neil who gave Neil a glowing reference so he joins Preston? So nothing to do with financial details, contracts, us chasing him for more than a year, our club being well known as a shambles of an outfit usually at least a month behind rivals in most aspects. I know which version I believe and what I think is the most likely run of events here. Of course we could come out of it ok if we go and get someone better, we could also end up in a mess given the time invested into this failed signing and Mowbray's fussiness over new signings. Telegraph at work protecting Rovers position saying Preston could guarantee him starts. Who apart from the world class players can expect guaranteed starts?

Time will tell what happens next. We land a Hanley etc. soon and most people will quickly forget about Patrick Bauer. I don't expect that will happen though. Bauer clearly a long term target that we've failed to get over the line. Either because PNE are seen as better in some shape or form (manager wise, admin wise, financially), or we've moved on to other targets, or we simply haven't a clue what we're doing as we're 4 weeks behind clubs like Preston thanks to the India trip. Either way it doesn't inspire much confidence. Mowbray spent all last summer preaching patience and the long game talking about high calibre targets. We ended up paying 10 million for Brereton and to bring Armstrong back. Hope he's got a better couple of tricks up his sleeve.

I'd say it's pretty poor all round if we're still after Bauer now into our 3rd window (at least) of trying to get him. After all he's spent all of that time playing for a League One side on poor wages. This the same Charlton that nearly lost their promotion winning manager through a refusal to pay him the going rate.

This seems to be something done by their owner. He heard Marseille were going to be in the area that week as they are training at St Georges Park so he got in touch with Marseille himself and asked if they'd be willing to play Stanley. The fact that Stanley's ground isn't going to be ready isn't a problem as they're hiring Salford's stadium instead. The team Marseille are putting out is immaterial. It's a showpiece fixture for Stanley and a good way to increase their profile. I wonder what attempts our owners or executive staff have made to set friendlies up against high profile opposition in an attempt to expand our profile?

No chance of Hanley at this early stage. IF we bring him in it will be late on in the window once we've haggled and Norwich have weighed up their options. It will be Bunn or Fielding, if its anyone.

Presumably then there will be a compensation mechanism in the contract that covers loss of merchandise sales during June and July. Why should other clubs get a 4 week head start on sales over us when produced by the same company just to enable them to stagger their promotional material. I have to say Rovers seem to have a very relaxed attitude about this particularly for a club and owners so keen to balance their books and boost income. 'We have to do what Umbro tell us' won't help with FFP calculations or reducing Venky spending. Taking control of the situation, getting better kit on sale early rather than last minute and changing providers if Umbro won't play ball is the solution if increasing revenue is the aim.

Mowbray also claims that Middlesbrough and Stoke are huge clubs and that Bristol City sell out their stadium every week. He's got form for grossly exaggerating things. Whether Bauer wants 50k a week or not he isn't going to get it.

How many of those clubs require their manager and executive staff to fly to the other side of the world before they can find out what the ambition is and what, if any, budget there is going to be

He probably will see them as a better option if they are making him a serious concrete offer of a deal right away whilst we prevaricate, delay, await approval and wait for staff to return from India or wherever. Any real deal is better than a hypothetical future deal. Why wait for us to get round to it when others will want answers now?

Charlton have announced that Lee Bowyer is set to leave after failing to agree a new deal. They've also said that whilst they try to complete a sale they won't appoint a new manager. A remarkable statement on their website. At least that's one club in chaos.

Or we are playing catch up. Whilst Mowbray and Waggott are out in Pune waiting for their audience to try and persuade the owners to cough up some money Preston and most other clubs have already got all that sorted and are on with contacting available players and negotiating terms. If he's a 'greedy so and so' then how come it sounds like he's going to Preston? They don't pay big wages and also lose a lot less a year than we do. So if he's going there over than here for financial reasons something is amiss somewhere.