JHRover

So if Marriott transfers to Forest or Bristol City and notches 20 goals next season will you maintain the view that his 'all round game' isn't good enough or accept that perhaps he is good enough for Rovers? Strikers deal in a currency of goals, everything else is a sideshow.

Nobody has been in an embargo for years now. Nobody who has stayed in the Championship has been fined. Leicester were fined loose change for a Premier League club and QPR were fined yet haven't paid a penny of it. It's a sham. Either the rules are so slack that clubs can dance round them at will or the people responsible for enforcing them aren't doing their jobs. Lots of rumours, suggestions and speculation about various clubs being in trouble at some non-specified point in the future if something doesn't change and yet right here right now none of them have been punished. Wolves, Derby, Wednesday, QPR, Birmingham - just a few examples of clubs frequently spending beyond their natural means who have dodged any punishment. Then there's Villa who last time I checked haven't been punished either despite lots of rumours of it. Facilities/academy nothing to do with FFP rules so they could be funded to a limitless amount if desired. If Venkys wanted to spend £50 million on Ewood Park and Brockhall they could do and it would be exempt from FFP calculations.

If it is Mowbray's decision to do it that way then fair enough, I suspect it's partly that but also significantly what the owners want to do. But to make out as though any sort of serious spending or increasing of wages is going to be automatically detrimental to team spirit I think is wrong. A balance can be struck between recruiting quality whilst keeping a good spirit around the camp.

Think we are way past that point. If they weren't going to get rid at 50 or 100 million I doubt they ever will.

But going back to the part about Wolves. Last season they used several players who were there before the takeover who had been brought through in League One when Kenny Jackett was their manager. They were retained and played a part in promotion yet at the same time they splashed out fortunes on big name Portuguese players who were almost certainly on much bigger wages than their colleagues. Yet no disruption, no jealousy or falling out about how much people got paid, they got on with it. I'm not suggesting paying those sort of figures out but this suggestion that we couldn't or shouldn't ever spend big money or pay big wages again out of some theoretical potential damage to squad harmony I find hard to believe. If it were the case no club would ever invest significant money or spend big because the disruptive effect would be too great. Forest are on with it too, spending a lot of money on new players who won't come cheap and Karanka wouldn't be there if there wasn't cash to spend, yet they will have other players and young lads on less money who will crack on and play next season.

This talk about disrupting dressing room harmony by paying bigger wages and transfer fees is silly in my opinion. Every club in the country has some players on a lot more than others and they do perfectly well. The only way to avoid it is to implement a communist style recruitment system where everyone gets paid exactly the same to ensure equality. I would guess last season Dack would have been on significantly less than Corry Evans and Craig Conway yet that didn't do him or us any harm. Likewise were we to now put Dack among the top earners I doubt anyone would or could have any complaints as he's earned it. Cristiano Ronaldo will be top earner at Real Madrid and cost more than the others and he's the centre of attention and star of the show and yet the rest of the team get on with it and are successful with a good atmosphere around the place. A more realistic comparison would be Wolves - following their takeover they signed numerous Portuguese players on mega money who were brought in through a friendly agent. Yet they retained a British core from pre-takeover who continued to perform and they got promoted with that mixture. Suddenly splashing fortunes out on big players didn't suddenly mean their existing players got fed up. There's a difference between paying good money out in wages and fees whilst maintaining a good spirit and atmosphere around the place and returning to the dark days of before when Myles Anderson was being brought in on 5 figure a week multi-year deals whilst proven pros were being shown the door.

The matchday programme has been substandard for as long as I can remember. I think we're now at a stage where only the ardent programme collectors bother with it because nobody would buy it to read or browse such is the dreadful standard and poor value for money. I understand that Waggott is talking to fans at the moment about how to rectify this but I think he would be better getting on the phone to Bristol Rovers or Rochdale and asking how it is they manage to produce a quality product every other week on gates of a fraction of ours. No club is ever going to make a massive profit on programmes. I don't think that is the idea. But we're never going to sell many as they are. If they're so disinterested in it then they should knock it down to £1 and approach it that way. Continuing at £3 is an insult. The talk about falling sales and breaking even is all well and good but if I were Waggott I'd be asking myself why it is that a club of this size is incapable of making a do on programmes whilst clubs in the Conference can come up with better for the same price. In terms of the surcharge I can safely say that one thing it will not achieve is more people turning up. It may not actively dissuade people from going, but it won't make people get up on a Saturday in greater numbers and go down to Ewood. As I've suggested above whatever additional cash the club rakes in through doing it is so utterly insignificant when compared against lost revenues through moving Leeds/PNE unnecessarily that it makes the whole thing pointless. I've no idea where the £3 goes but there were ticket office staff getting paid before it was introduced and tickets are still £20 odd even without the surcharge so their wages should come out of that.

We don't actually know what the financial situation is. It is an assumption we don't have enough money to pursue Championship experienced players. That's why I said IF Armstrong is going to cost Championship level money, e.g. a substantial fee and wages, then I might prefer we looked elsewhere. He's not going to make a do at Newcastle in the Premier League, certainly not with Benitez as manager. I accept we have to take risks but don't think that has anything to do with 'financial limitations'. Every club has to take risks on bringing in players and spending money on them. I've said already that I'd like him here permanently but if he's going to cost £1 million and £10k a week I might exercise caution with it.

I'd like Armstrong but there's no evidence at this stage he can hack it in the Championship. If he's going to cost a Championship sized fee then it might be worth looking at alternatives who have shown they can do it.

Get shirts on sale early so people buy them during a heatwave before they go away on holiday, rather than waiting until late July when everyone will be back. Produce a matchday programme worth buying/reading. Have a greater range and quality of merchandise available in the shop. Encourage people to attend games at the last minute by removing a needless £3 surcharge for tickets bought on the day. Make it easier to attend matches on a game by game basis by installing a cash turnstile to avoid the need to queue in the rain for 20 minutes for tickets. Don't move kick off times to noon to accommodate large away followings (guaranteed to diminish the number of home fans in attendance). Don't close 2 stands in 3 years in the process upsetting numerous groups of people. If they did any of those things there wouldn't be uproar, yet they won't do any of them, and instead spend their time coming up with schemes to try and lever a few quid more out of those who go. If 1000 people buy 1875 membership then that's an extra £10,000 for the club. I reckon the impact of moving PNE alone to a noon kick off will cost the club more than £10,000 in lost ticket receipts. If we get 5,000 less people turning up e.g. 16,000 on instead of 21,000 and those people are paying £10 a head on average then straight away the club is missing out on £50,000, before corporate, food, drink etc. Fair enough stewarding would be more expensive at 21,000 but it does highlight just how ultimately insignificant these schemes are when on the other hand they're needlessly moving kick off times around. Even if it doesn't affect the home crowd but knocks 2000 away fans off, say because Leeds fans can't get a train over for noon or whatever, that's still £40,000 in lost ticket sales through moving the kick off, way more than they get back through pointless schemes like £3 extra for a ticket on matchday.

So if we were to sign either of them this summer you'd be unhappy?

No it doesn't. If the owners want to invest more money then they tell the manager that he can spend more, and if the manager wishes to do so then he does. It doesn't have to be a promotion or bust model. If we don't go up we don't have to make massive cuts or sell players to make up the shortfall. We could just do what we're doing at present and did last season but on a bigger scale. E.g. what most Championship clubs do - spend multi millions on new players every year. Do you really think that every club that spends money has to slash costs if they don't get promoted? Notice I didn't say I supported blowing the wage bill right open again, but investing in transfer fees can be done if the desire to do it is there. We need to move away from this ludicrous FFP concern. Cutting the cloth accordingly is a myth unless we sell a player for big money every couple of years. Not many clubs in the Championship do that. Debts are spiralling and will continue to do so each and every year we're out of the Premier League.

Marriott's CV reads similar to Rhodes' when he came here. Early 20s, off the back of an incredible season in League One, done the business for the last couple of years scoring every other game on average, came through at Ipswich but sent out on multiple loans to a variety of lower league clubs, then let go by Ipswich and goes from strength to strength since leaving them. I'd expect he'd cost multi-millions which shouldn't be a problem if the owners wanted to do it but I don't think they really do want to do it so likely won't happen. It would be nice to bring in at least one 'big' signing - a statement - icing on the the cake etc. I'm not suggesting going silly or spending silly wages but someone like Marriott would be the sort - goalscorer, interest from numerous clubs, sought after etc.

I think we need 2 centre forwards. Question marks on Samuel and Nuttall and it isn't realistic to rely entirely on Graham. We need options and the ability to change things up front.

He made the point about loyalty and I'd like to think that was what swayed it. He's come on leaps and bounds in recent years so much so he's starting to force into contention on the international stage so he's clearly doing something right. Add in that he's been at Rovers since he was a kid and that he's had his fair share of injuries in that time which Rovers have helped him through I'd certainly hope that those things were in his mind. He probably wasn't keen on playing in League One as 3-4 others at the club weren't but Mowbray managed to convince them to knuckle down and correct the disaster of 16-17 by winning promotion. Sheffield United's ace card of being in a higher league than us has now disappeared so I don't see what on earth he'd gain by going to a club like that or indeed most other Championship clubs, at this point when he's settled and established at Rovers. He's not ready for the Premier League yet but a couple of good Championship seasons and he might be. Thankfully we've safeguarded ourselves against that possibility.

For me there's a world of difference between a loan and a 4 year permanent cash buy. As we've seen multiple times in the past loans, particularly of youngsters with minimal experience, are often short term low risk punts with minimal commitment from Rovers and no harm done if it doesn't work as the player can quickly return to his parent club in January or next summer having played a handful of games. If the player works out successfully then it can often be very difficult to then obtain him permanently. When committing to a 4 year cash buy the club and manager has to be confident that the player will be right - that he will fit in, have a role to play, will be here for a number of years and the consequences of committing to a significant outlay are that we have to be sure of a good chance of a return. It's more to do with the club's intentions. To me dealing in loans like we were under Coyle in 2016 is a worrying sign and one that doesn't fill me with optimism. To see the club going further than that and paying money and giving 4 year deals to such players is a much more positive and ambitious step. It could turn out to be a masterstoke or it could be a failure but its a question of intent and trying to sign players for the medium to long term who will be here and take us on over time, not just for 6 months to get some experience before clearing off again.

Excellent news with Lenihan. Now just need to do the same with Dack, who in theory should be easier to do than Lenihan.

Reassured by the permanent nature of the deal. Firstly because it is more of a committment from Rovers and so we have to be more sure than were it a loan and secondly because if he does well he will be an asset to the club.

Who is Kent

When I see us being linked with a highly rated teenage Man City midfielder on loan I immediately think of Jack Byrne. Not fair on the player to have that view but it's hard not to see similarities and be wary as the policy failed last time round in the Championship. I've made my views on loans clear many a time but for the avoidance of doubt I don't like them. Hope I'm proved wrong but I think we need to be getting proven experience in at this stage rather than taking promising kids from other clubs' academies.

Yuck. Blue away shirt = need a 3rd shirt so expect last season's to be worn at Ipswich, Birmingham, Wigan and Millwall. Sheffield Wednesday will probably be a hybrid kit to avoid a clash. Stupidity but honestly wouldn't surprise me as it fits with the training gear they've released.

Don't think these new owners have any money. They've taken the club on by paying in instalments with the parachute cash as security. Can't see them being heavy spenders by Championship standards unless some money comes on board. Probably still outspend us either way though.

That Alex Rodman who was at Shrewsbury last season has joined Bristol Rovers on a free transfer. Shrewsbury seem to be losing a lot of players but interesting to note that as yet none of them have been picked up by Championship clubs, despite a clamour from some for us to sign one or two.

My club cash balance currently reads at £17 or so, which I presume is 5% of my £349 season ticket. Last season my season ticket was £299 and I received almost £15 in club cash (5%) so in return for my £50 (17% increase) I'm getting about £2.50 more club cash back. So pay an extra £55 for a season ticket and membership and get an extra £2.50 back for club cash in return.

That Adelakun has joined Bristol City from Scunthorpe today. Sounds like they're also getting Weimann from Derby.