The Bristol home game for me highlighted the extreme mental fragility of this squad. It was a home game we should have been well up for and confident in, yet were second best. Even then we managed to pull a goal back and from there you would expect any serious team at home to at least put the away side under serious pressure and really make them work to hold on to their lead. In many games you'd see the home team recover for a draw or win. Yet within seconds of getting the goal back they went up the other and and bagged a third with their first effort. Game over and the most comfortable win you could hope for as an away side.

You wonder how long it will be before we try to offload someone for a decent fee, not because we necessarily need to but because positions will need to be justified. The Armstrong sale disappearing in the rear view mirror, fancy new D of F and recruitment team in place under the mantra of increasing values.....a 'big sale' might just do the trick. Not many to go at on that front though.

I always remember that January transfer window when we were doing OK and signed Harwood Bellis and Branthwaite on loan. I think we were going through one of Mowbray's defensive crises at the time. After we signed them two Mowbray and Waggott made a point of going public with their gratitude to Venkys for backing the club to sign them. I thought that was an odd thing to do. We hadn't exactly splashed the cash and bought big, rather shuffled the numbers to get a couple of younsters on loan to alleviate a self-created defensive mess. A portion of their wages contributed to in return for guaranteed Championship games for a couple of lads desperate to play. It seemed at the time that special dispensation had been obtained from the owners to do those deals, without which we would have been stuck. Looking back it all makes perfect sense. The owners have set their budget, the club is stuck come January unless a series of events fall into place at the right time i.e. we can free up space on the budget or sell someone, or agree a deal with cash later in next years' allowance.

From who? I think the only person he'll be under pressure from is JDT who will rightly expect people to arrive this month and will probably be considering his future if he isn't backed. Rather than be under pressure from upstairs the owners, their dogsbody and Waggott will probably congratulate him if he navigates a transfer window without spending and takes the flak from the media and fans - some would say that was the plan from the start. The majority of supporters are fully paid up members of the FFP / its too hard in January / we've done all we can routine.

They used to use Bolton, Wigan, Blackpool and Derby as the benchmark for 'what we could end up like' if Venkys left town. Didn't last too long mind as all have recovered proving there is life after wretched owners.

Sensible appointment for Blackpool. No fancy talk about projects or styles of play, just a pragmatic manager who will organise them and get results quickly. Chaddy will be impressed

People saying that Diaz would never have signed a new contract are wrong. He joined the Club in 2018 as a teenager. By summer 2021 he was entering the final year of his original deal, albeit with the 'safety net' of an extra 12 months option in the Clubs' favour which has kept him here until summer 2023. In the summer of 2021 he was not the world famous Chilean international that he is now. If the club had been proactive it would have dealt with the situation then, as the end of his initial deal was within 12 months. It didn't, there's little evidence the Club did anything at all about new contracts for anyone around that time, which is why we ended up in a mess. The excuse of course will be 'covid'. Great excuse which covers pretty much everything but even if it is a genuine reason it doesn't actually change anything does it? The 12 month extension thing has Waggott's fingerprints all over it, and he probably thought he was the dogs bollocks inserting those clauses into their deals and activating them at the 11th hour, forcing those players to remain for an extra 12 months on the same terms. But as ever what seems clever at the time and saves a few quid in the short term has longer term damaging consequences. You only have to look at his approach to ticketing and attendances to see that. Noses out of joint and quite rightly so for players who would have been happy to talk about staying long term, were shunned by the Club until the last minute, were compelled to stay through the year option and then whatever 'improved' offers came were far too late and at a point when other clubs were taking an interest and letting them know how much more they could make elsewhere. Don't blame Diaz one bit, a move to Spain, 5 year deal, big money, he's sorted and good luck to him. Ultimately I don't blame any of the players - it's happened too often for any one player to be accused of being a problem or rogue element - as I've been saying for months the only logical conclusion to reach is that the problem is on the club's side. So let's banish this suggestion that the Club could never have kept him. They could, if they looked beyond the next 12 months and were proactive in their approach. Of course it is encouraging and positive that quite a few of our current lot have recently signed new deals since Broughton arrived. But this needs to be put into some perspective. With due respect the sort of money going out on the likes of Ash Phillips, Dolan, Adam Wharton, even Travis and Buckley, will be much much less than the figures required for the Diaz, Rothwell, Lenihan deals. So whilst it suggests an element of being proactive and planning long term I'm not particularly confident it heralds a new approach on finances, and we could easily hit a similar issue with these players should rival clubs come a sniffing and we aren't willing or able to pay them the going rate for the Championship.

Brentford had less than 10,000 every week at Griffin Park and next to no corporate or non-matchday income. Yet they had player trading and contracts down to a fine art, ensuring all their assets were under long term deals, enabling them to command big fees when richer clubs came calling, and promptly reinvesting the proceeds to sign replacement quality across their squad and go again. Not necessarily easy but they had a plan and followed it and now look at them. They didn't hide behind excuses about crowds, income and FFP, they just found a way to overcome those disadvantages by trading very very well. The money recouped from selling the likes of Benrahma and Watkins vastly outweighing a few thousand fans more every other week. What we have at Rovers has never been and probably will never be remotely close to what Brentford did, Lenihan, Rothwell, Diaz prove that. You can make up whatever excuses you like on behalf of the owners and their underlings but it would never have happened at a sensible football club. Yet Waggott will be out at the next Forum meeting to deliver his analysis of why we can't spend and why we struggle and why we need to put prices up on season tickets to meet the shortfall. They're having us on and always have done.

Of course nobody rational will blame Broughton or JDT for those departures given when they were brought in and yes they deserve a chance to see what they can do. But fundamentally it is the same owners, the same invisible man and the same CEO in place. It appears from the Rothwell and Diaz situations that the owners' consent is still required before authorising sales, which is fine, but means there is every chance the same thing could happen again with the next batch. I just think there is no real plan or structure. What the Club says and what the Club does remain well apart and will remain so for as long as we have owners on the other side of the world with no interest or understanding but retaining decision making power. Broughton could be a miracle worker for all we know but there's little point to it if the wage structure prevents contract renewals and the owners won't sanction sales. We are a development club that reaps no benefits of the development, as the minute the players become valuable we can't keep them and they walk for nothing. The irony isn't lost on me when Waggott rattles on about needing extra income from ST sales to meet outgoings. He's talking about pennies in the scheme of things when the Club should be awash with cash in return for losing these players.

So in the same week we look likely to lose our established proven goal getter on a free transfer, our solution is to head into the loan market to borrow someone else until the end of the season. For all the talk about projects, losing contracted assets for zilch and bringing in short term loans is the polar opposite of that. It suggests a club that hasn't got the first idea what it is doing so resorts to the tried and tested easy and cheap option of plumping for another clubs' prospects to sort the problem for a few months. Different people running it but not a lot changed.

Hard to do anything when there's no money isn't it? That's what ultimately comes down to.

Wouldn't be surprised then to see claims at the next forum meeting that he wanted to do such a deal but Birmingham refused.

Happy days for Waggott with Birmingham going through. Will probably put an extra 2000 on the gate with no effort at all required. Cheap tickets might see that number even higher. Never mind maximising chances of progression in the competition, all about hitting his targets.

Just noticed Bristol City are at Swansea in their FA Cup replay tonight. Every little helps as they should be preoccupied with that and need to recover Wednesday.

I've no confidence, hope, expectation or enthusiasm for this. After the Cardiff and Norwich wins and clean sheets I had hoped we had something to look forward to over the coming few games against poor struggling sides. The Rotherham experience and conceding 4 goals has quite understandably obliterated any hope. A real shocker by any standard. Prior to last weekend Bristol City had gone 8 without a win at home and were in a real mess. Then they put 4 past Birmingham and will see us as a perfect opportunity to get back to back wins. As ever it will hinge on getting the first goal. Go behind and we are done. I would shake it up. I'd have both Whartons featuring, Scott in for Hyam who had a knock and could do with a break, Adam in preferably starting but if not coming off the bench (although not sure if he'll be fit). Travis and Buckley in and Diaz back. Garrett and Morton out.

No club can ever rely on FFP as an excuse when it has watched £20 million+ worth of players walk for nothing in the space of two transfer windows. Apparently the way around this inconvenient reality is that we should forget everything that happened prior to this season and that now we have Broughton in place this sort of thing won't happen again. Not sure how or why I should believe that when fundamentally it remains the same ownership and board with the same financial approach running things

It's an incredible balls up even by our standards isn't it? - Spend huge money on a teenager from Forest, electing to allocate millions on a project/development signing rather than ready made players - Spend years showing patience and perseverance with the player when many would have given up or signed someone else. Fair play that patience pays off and he comes good. - Fail to address the contract situation (sound familiar?) meaning just as he comes good we are behind the curve on tying him down to the longer term - Fail to sell him for big money in the very narrow window of opportunity we got to do so - He gets to head off somewhere on a free transfer, leaving us about £10 million down on our outlay and at least the same again on a potential fee we could have had - We've had 2 years of Diaz Mania with half of Chile taking an interest in our 2nd division club and done nothing to market or capitalise on it End result? Still in the Championship, out of pocket, an asset not realised and bemoaning our luck. Why did we bother? The signing was never going to fire us to immediate promotion, it was always a medium/long term investment but we then let the contract run down. Senseless. Trouble is that to repeat the trick we would probably have to pay big to get another rising star from somewhere like we did for BBD. Only we won't be spending anywhere near that sort of money and these sort of players don't emerge very often. The only way we can limit the damage is by getting promoted this season. We'd still be out of pocket but with the cash bonanza coming in could cope with it.

We could really do with boosting that turnover part. How about we get some stock in the shop to sell?

I didn't say they weren't spending. I said they don't want to spend more than they need to. I don't want to pay tax and bills each month but I do because I need to. I think they see Rovers as similar - a burden that they have to meet but don't really enjoy doing. Didn't we make a profit last year?

Some clubs treat FFP with the contempt it deserves and do whatever they can to work around the restrictions it imposes, knowing promotion to the PL is the priority and confident that if the League did ever try to impose a sanction they could either sell a player or two to get out of it or fight it. Other clubs treat FFP as a welcome excuse to justify cost cutting and budget reductions. An ideal 'boogeyman' to convince supporters and local media they would love to chuck more money in but can't because of nasty rules. Best of both worlds - don't have to spend and the blame for it lands elsewhere. It's a shame many have been suckered in by it but as I keep on pointing out - the state of the Club and stadium - neither of which are constrained in any way by FFP - stand as clear evidence that the owners don't want to spend. If they did we would divert some funds into making sure the ground was cleaned or the pitch looked after properly.

Without wanting to get stuck into JDT we only have to look at the way the Club approached the summer managerial appointment to see what a sh1t show it still is down there. Now Waggott, as CEO of the organisation, should take responsibility and the blame for that, but doesn't. Waggott has been here for over 5 years now. He knew Mowbray's contract was up in the summer, he had months to prepare for his departure, in the end we got another joke recruitment process, which lasted far longer than it should, apparently saw us wanting a D of F AFTER the head coach, then saw JDT appointed 2 weeks before pre-season only once Broughton had got the job. Fiasco. I also believe that the criteria for the head coach were not suitable. It seems we wanted someone to focus on the academy, someone who would work with the existing coaching staff, someone who would be happy to embark on a 'project'. Would have been better to identify a manager we felt could get us promoted and allowed him to do what he felt was necessary to deliver that. I've no issue or problem at all with a D of F structure and the noises coming from the Club as to appointments to recruitment departments etc. all sound good and positive. But the D of F should be tasked with first and foremost getting us promoted, not values into individual players.

I personally doubt that Venkys themselves - the Desai couple or the two brothers - have any plan or strategy. I doubt they'll have ever heard of a Director of Football, probably haven't even met or spoken to Broughton or JDT. What we have now is 'layering' - in the past Kean, Bowyer, Mowbray were able to jump on a plane to Pune, go to the top table, talk them into releasing funds for players and on they went for another year. As the budget has been cut (nowt to do with FFP they just get bored of putting more than they need to into the club) they have become more distant. I also think as time has gone by they have either learned or become more willing to allow others to run the club for them e.g. Pasha within certain parameters. I think the current structure is a brainchild of Pasha, probably due in some part to realisation that he and Waggott aren't up to the job but also to further muddy the waters and distance himself from any serious scrutiny. 'Don't look at me, ask Gregg' who can now handle all media issues. I think Pasha has just been told to get on with it and do the best he can with the relative crumbs they are prepared to release when a decent business case can be put forward to do so i.e. Hyam and Szmodics. The telltale giveaway on this front is the way they have handled the Rothwell and Brereton sagas. Both situations arose because of the owners failing to ensure their contract situations were dealt with in good time, as a result it makes sense to sell before they go for nothing, but authority for such sales still rests in India, which cannot be secured. So for all the talk of sustainability, reinvestment, assets you have the ridiculous scenario where major assets wander off for nothing completely at odds with that.

I like what I have heard from Broughton and I strongly believe having someone upstairs between ownership and the dugout to oversee things is essential to provide some sort of a plan and direction, otherwise we just end up with another Kean/Mowbray scenario with the manager the only one who knows what is happening and essentially unsackable. Now whether Broughton is good at his job or not only time will tell, but for me he deserves this season and the summer. But if he isn't given a proper budget to work with or doesn't have the power to make changes it's a waste of time.

JDT doesn't escape criticism from me, but I think he is merely a cog in the Venky machine. He might not be a great manager, he might be a bad manager. But get rid of him and nothing really changes, we will try to find another 'head coach' who is going to 'play the game'. Right now he's probably wondering where the backing and funds are to address the issues we face. The answer, once again, is there is no money. They can pretend that the lack of action is due to January being 'difficult' or because we are following a grand plan of development but we aren't. There just isn't enough money to sign the players we need which is why we will sit around through January waiting for generous PL clubs to agree to send their players here for little cost, in return for which we 'agree' to play them regularly and develop their players for them. The game doesn't involve promotion. It involves working for owners on the other side of the world who have no interest in anything, an assortment of unqualified suits beneath them tasked with cutting costs and managing things on a budget, dollopers like Steve Waggott only interested in hitting their personal targets come what may and this fundamentally flawed policy of a 'project' relying on youth which is just a fancy way of saying 'cost cutting'. Rivals must be laughing at us as for the second year running we watch the chance of promotion slip not because this is a really tough league that we can't compete in but because we fail to be proactive and address deficiencies in our squad at a key time. It is worrying for me how many of our players seem to be hitting poor spells of form. If we go back to August, September, October there were times when we played poorly or struggled but there are numerous senior players who seem to be going backwards and quickly. Scott Wharton has struggled having been an integral team member, Travis the same. BBD has hit a barren spell, the defence looks shakey. Adam Wharton a breath of fresh air, now not getting a look in. Too many changes and chopping around. The only one to go against that trend seems to be Dack who has gone from the forgotten man to a regular. Until these owners feck off or at least start investing and taking more of an interest it will continue like this. JDT or someone else, they will be hamstrung by invisible owners, cost cutting priority and instructions to work with the academy lads and loans every year.

I think JDT has overachieved with his results so far. But he seems further away than ever from a settled side or solutions to conceding first or stopping these atrocious away performances. We are that bad at times and that short on options I think we are a bad managerial appointment away from a serious relegation battle. You look at the ease with which dross like Rotherham, Wigan, Cardiff have overcome us and the business being done by some clubs down there it is worrying. All hail the project, which now appears to involve more loaning