I think the 135 / 15 years distinction is a good one. Also because it was only a week or so after our 135th anniversary that these awful people completed their takeover and their regime took the club hostage. So not only is November important as the anniversary of the clubs' founding 150 years ago but also the anniversary of its' darkest day 15 years ago.

The fact that Eustace at Derby is shopping in virtually identical markets to what he was doing here last year is not to be taken as a positive. It shows that Derby are not in any great shape, and financially are hamstrung, so much so that he is having to turn to free agents and people he knows in a bid to solidify them. He hasn't gone there to throw millions around on quality. He's working under tough financial constraints. Yet despite those constraints, despite shopping for free agents and despite gambling his reputation on what appeared to be a probable relegation to League One, he still couldn't get out of the Brockhall exit quickly enough. What does that tell the head in sand brigade about the state of things at Rovers?

The reason we have done 'well' over the last 3-4 years is because we've had good managers and more importantly the left overs of a very good Championship squad. The biggest credit I can give Tony Mowbray, and I believe it came at the expense of immediate results, is that he had a good eye for a player, patience and was able over 3-4 years to build a very good Championship squad. He was of course given time and resources to do that (way beyond the constraints the owners have imposed over the last few years) but he certainly left a legacy of a good Championship side capable of doing well in this league, Despite a reckless and negligent approach to contracts and reinvestment, resulting in the departures of important players like Rothwell, Lenihan, Diaz and others on free transfers, we have managed to keep going with the others that have been left over together with good recruitment under Broughton with Brittain, Tronstad, Hyam and Szmodics, again when they were actually allowing some reinvestment in the club. That is going to come to an end soon as the last of Mowbray's and Broughton's signings are offloaded to rivals on the cheap, leaving us will little remaining in quality or experience. The reason we've done 'well' (is finishing 7th in the second tier doing well?) is because of the legacy of previous staff and players from a bygone era when the owners were of some use to the club by spending some money on it. Now that's all changed.

Yeah but look on the bright side. This guy has reported it on twitter, so it will soon be in the Telegraph, half the fanbase believes overnight that we are going around making bids like this and the best part of it is it doesn't cost us a penny. Free positive publicity. What's not to like.

These are the teams confirmed to be using the Pinatar Arena over the course of this summer: Al Ain (Abu Dhabi), Elche (Spain), Murcia (Spain), NEOM (Saudi), Al Rayyan (Qatar), Melilla (Spain), Albacete (Spain), Bournemouth, Swansea, Bristol Rovers, Cardiff, Millwall, Everton, Hearts, Stevenage, Stockport, Crawley, St Mirren, Southend, Curzon Ashton, Rovers There will probably be more using it but these are the clubs featured on their 2025 poster

Best time to play the likes of Soton, Ipswich and Leicester away is either at the very start or very end of the season IMO. More chance of catching them off guard either before they've got settled down or after there's nothing left to play for. I'd rather play one of them first game than a Charlton, Birmingham or Wrexham bouncing from promotion.

Circa 15 goals walking out the door for nothing in Dolan and Weimann. Who's filling that void?

They're going to do this summer what they planned on doing last summer until Eustace put his foot down and threatened to walk out after only 4 months in the job. After that wobble they backed down and allowed him to bring in McFadzean, Batth, Weimann and Cantwell, some much needed British based experience. He also brought Travis back into centre place and vital importance to the team after the Regime had got him out the door to Ipswich and were looking to sell him. Eustace had correctly identified an issue with inexperience when he arrived at the club, they'd been going hell for leather down the track of untried and inexperienced under JDT, and it was going to catch up with us eventually. They'll be happy that they got Eustace out of the way and got compensation for him and his staff (is that our transfer kitty money for the summer?). Now they've got someone in place who is more likely to tolerate 'the plan' (and I use that term loosely for what this lot are doing) they can resume the operation with gusto. So bye bye to those expecting Championship level wages or contracts longer than 2 years, get shut of Eustace's favourites and it's back to the European bargain aisle.

QPR have confirmed that Cifuentes has left and are expected to appoint Julien Stephan, former Rennes and Strasbourg manager

I see efforts to sell the captain are escalating. Looks like Wrexham and Derby 'interest' not come to anything yet so let's try and get Coventry in on the act Wages and a couple of million fee long ago earmarked for savings and running costs.

Still no news on who we are playing on the weekend of 2nd August? Only 4 friendlies announced to date with no clarity as to the opponents in our two Spanish matches. Waggo was claiming he'd been arranging showpiece fixtures against sides in commemoration of the 150th anniversary so I'm intrigued as to who they have lined up here.

Plus the conveyor belt of boardroom, management and coaching staff - again a direct result of their poor recruitment, negligence, cost cuts, lies and lack of ambition - enables them to continually hide behind a 'new era' as each new manager/CEO/Head of can come along and ask for a clean slate, forget about the past, nothing to do with me, lessons have been learned and the cycle starts all over again.

Indeed. If shadow man was given his accurate job title - CEO - he'd face a lot more scrutiny. He'd also have numerous administrative and legal requirements as 'the boss' to fulfil including with the League/FA. Most importantly within a year he'd either be facing fan revolt or media attention, oh no, that's no good. By bringing in another stooge they can reset the clock - hoodwink the fans into thinking changes are being made, things are going to be different/better, 'just get behind the new CEO FFS' then by the time the new guy realises what he's up against or the fans start to turn on him another year will have gone by. Maybe by then they'll have seen off Gestede and got another 'Head of' in to replace him and another new 'project' to set in motion. All smoke and mirrors with this lot, always has been always will be. Going right back to when they employed a 'Deputy CEO' (who needs one of those?) without even having a 'CEO' for him to be deputy to.

Oh dear, looks like we are sliding back into the bad old days again. Whether it is right or wrong about the wage cap makes no difference. Whether we have a £10k a week self imposed wage cap or don't, makes no practical difference. Either way we are incapable of keeping our best players due to our approach to contracts. I don't care if we are going around offering £50k a week, if players don't sign the damn thing its the same end result - failure and assets leaving to go to rivals. The point is that whatever we are doing isn't working. Hence in the space of 4 years a complete and total exodus of just about every player with value or who could command a deal elsewhere, leaving us with unknowns, academy grads and cheap signings like Forshaw. Truly pathetic. Nobody knows what Derby are offering Batth. Maybe it is 2 years, maybe not. You seem to have acquired inside knowledge that they are giving him 2 years and seem to have decided that it is ridiculous for us to have done the same. Again, doesn't really matter. What matters is that he is a good player, a leader, was outstanding for us last season, we were a better team with him in the side, and ultimately whatever the cause of it he's deciding to walk away from us after less than a year, walk away from regular game time with us and potentially the captaincy once we've offloaded the incumbent, to join another club. That tells me that what we are offering isn't good enough. Our choice. You're rewriting history on Eustace. He left because this club is a shambolic joke, that bungled last summer so much so that he threatened to resign despite only joining in February. A club that trousered almost all of the Adam Wharton and Szmodics cash and left him scratching around for cheap signings to rebuild despite keeping us up. A club that mucked around the easy signings of McFadzean and Batth despite the manager wanting both and from that moment on had his eyes on moving elsewhere. A club that introduced a rookie work experience director of football over the top of Eustace who I'd say has forgotten more about the Championship than Gestede will ever know. A club that changes 'project' every year, not because it is trying to get somewhere but because it can't retain staff because they quickly realise it is a lie and doomed to fail because the owners down aren't fit for purpose. People like you who reset every summer and forget about all the above and invent narratives to make you feel better about the state of play at Ewood play right into the regime's grubby hands. Rovers don't want to explore the overseas market any more than they did 10 years ago. It is just the way we have chosen to go because by choosing to slash costs it is inevitable that we have to go to the bargain basement to find signings. Their choice. If Eustace had been a good boy, shut up and got on with it and stayed put they'd be doing something totally different now. There's no plan. It is just fake and a con job.

Those players got their deals years ago, Cantwell the only recent exception. Reports not long ago suggested Eustace was set to resign last summer and it was only the club relaxing it's ridiculous approach and signing Cantwell, Batth and Weimann that persuaded him to stay. So the wage cap thing makes complete sense, it explains the inability and unwillingness to sort out new contracts for our best players because we are choosing to let them go due to our own wage policies. Our choice. Not FFP, not COVID, not the weather, not a player wanting PL football, not a project, not a player wanting to go and live down South. Just plain old fashioned cost cuts. Eventually that catches up with everyone and will do here very soon. Absolutely ridiculous the reaction from some online to the two foreign signings whilst we see the cornerstones of last season's relative success depart, again due to our failings and policies nothing more. It was these policies and refusal to sort out the contracts that led Eustace to jump ship mid season at the first opportunity, an unprecedented step that the head in sand gang have managed to erase from their consciousness. This is project 4 since 2022. We had Mowbray's project, we had the Broughton and JDT project, we had the Eustace and Park project and now it's the Gestede and Ismael project. This time next year it will be another one. They're winging it from one year to the next masquerading as a professional outfit.

Just waiting for the 'we can't compete' with what Derby can offer from the same people who defended these owners when Derby were going bust a few years ago.

You are the one who will use this signing as 'evidence' of us investing and spending on the squad and relying on the online reported fee for this. It's blatantly obvious that we aren't spending £2 million or anywhere near the that on this guy yet they've already succeeded in convincing some that we are throwing money around.

Costs nothing to get Nixon and Jackson to propagate suggestions that we are paying millions for a player. Doesn't mean we are doing it. Whatever it is will go down as 'undisclosed' and we will never know the truth, but in the meantime the shysters running the club can convince some that we are serious and investing properly.

Travis will be sold and so will any of the others if offers come in that are tempting. The name of the game is doing this under the charade of 'rebuilding' or 'revitalising' the squad - i.e. bringing in a couple of cheaper alternatives whilst ushering the established players out the back door. Most of us with sense can see what the real game is - it's the same they've been playing for 2-3 years now and will continue until there's nothing left.

When the final whistle went at Sheffield United on the last game of the season and we had missed out on a play-off position the commentators on Sky Sports spent a solid 5-10 minutes straight after the game talking about our narrow miss and what we needed to do over the summer to ensure we could go one better next season. I simply sat there shaking my head because whilst the commentators and indeed most supporters and anyone else associated with the club could see what we needed and where we needed to go, the chances of this regime allowing that to happen were zero. Fast forward 6 weeks from there and where have we got to? Signed a cheap foreign lad nobody had ever heard of. Activated Hyam's extension clause. Kept Forshaw. Not addressed a single one of the critical contract situations - Travis, Tronstad, Brittain, Dolan Are making a dogs dinner of even keeping Batth or Weimann on new terms Not signed anyone of any note. Bizarrely sacked/removed/forcibly retired the CEO and have made no announcement about a replacement or who the hell is running the club now. So far everything going exactly as predicted and planned, just the opposite to what was actually needed for us to get anywhere positive.

'Great human being' claxon. Is Mowbray back?

Lowest hanging fruit stuff. Truly tragic but totally expected. If they weren't still trying, and failing, to shift more season tickets it would be funny. They long ago gave up on any pretence of ambition or targeting quality signings so instead they're resorting to trying to exploit family ties/traditions as reasons for why people should hand over more cash to the regime.

The claim that Dolan was offered a new deal months ago simply doesn't tally with everything else that we've seen occur, and with what other senior players have publicly admitted. So unless they've made an exception for Dolan I know my money is on him getting the same treatment as everyone else - no offer worthy of consideration.

Whilst Wrexham's commercial income is likely far better than ours (due to better management, no 'small town small club, We've done all we can' claptrap there) What they haven't done is brought in £40 million through player sales in the last few years, which we have. So that rather significant windfall I'd suggest matches or outstrips whatever advantage they might have had there.

A ludicrous suggestion IMO. Travis is probably our most important player. He has been here for ages, knows the club inside out, runs the dressing room, club captain, can be relied upon to keep fit and play 40+ games every season and rarely needs to come off in games. His importance cannot be underestimated and it is no coincidence that our success in the first half of last season coincided with Eustace maximising him and making him central to what he was doing. Also no coincidence that he's one of the few players we have left capable of attracting cash interest from rival (ambitious) clubs. Also no coindence that he's been earmarked for departure by the rancid regime who are desperate to extract more cash from saleable assets and chop the wage bill down further.