Many clubs - Huddersfield, Hull, Wigan, Birmingham examples - have gone into the market this month and added proven quality Championship players. We won't do that because Venkys won't even back the side to that level. It is viable - they're just opting not to do it.

Well at half time, knowing how things were going, I promised that I would leave the minute Rotherham scored a second goal. And so I did. Straight into the pub for the last half hour of the game. The earliest I have ever left a game but with the way it went I'd say entirely vindicated. I've better things to do with my time than watch that. Simply terrible. Nothing really to add on that front. At HT I'd have brought Dolan and Travis on as a minimum, to start the second half with no changes was ludicrous. Most of us have known for some time that the owners and their dogsbody haven't any intention or plan of getting promoted. Even then I thought they might take some interest and add to the squad in January. Seems it is groundhog day.

In the desert of decent away fixtures of late Rotherham probably by far the most attractive even at an early kick off. Take out the Norwich treks, Sunderland early kick off, Dingle hassle and Coventry midweek you've to go right back to October to find a Saturday away game, reasonably priced and not a complete pain to do.

So there we have it from the man himself. He is only here to hit the owners' financial targets and he's doing his job perfectly well on his figures. He'll be able to trot off to India in the summer with his 'highest revenue take since the club were in the PL' line and the money men out there will be happy. Of course that won't factor in medium to long term factors such as a rapidly diminishing support base, desolate atmosphere and shrinking of our ST numbers every year, nor will it factor in matchday takings for food, drink, merchandise, but he won't want that to come into the equation. We can now see the latest excuse of 'infiltration' of Burnley fans in the home ends as the excuse for giving them a massive allocation in the DE. That's just nonsense as you can easily combat that with database only purchases and severe sanctions for anyone who buys for a Burnley fan. But hey the decision has already been made on that front all the other talk is just keeping up appearances to make people think serious thoughts are going into their allocation. It will be £30 a pop and as many as the police will permit. We'll even open the Legends Lounge and offer them a luxury option.

Fortunately we have a manager in place now who I believe wants promotion asap and will do everything he can to try and get it. I don't think he's here to sit around in mid-table for 4-5 years waxing lyrical about 'next year'. He's here to move up the footballing ladder one way or the other. Of course he's done plenty of talking about 'the project' which you would expect from any manager particularly one in his first season working under a new D of F. But there's no incentive to him to sit around here for the prime of his career. Unlike Waggott and Mowbray who knew they weren't getting a better job than here.

I've no problem with Broughton and JDT needing time before they are judged and the summer was far from ideal given what they walked into. I accept January is a difficult time and I like what I see and hear from Broughton. So who is responsible for the fact they both arrived late and were limited as to their capabilities in the summer? Why, when Mowbray's contract situation was known to everyone months beforehand, did a new manager not arrive until mid-June? Meanwhile those same people are still lurking in the background and I worry undermining any good work JDT and Broughton want to do.

Unforgivable when you look back at it especially that the 'powers that be' sat back and allowed it to happen. Mowbray should have been axed after that Derby game, firstly due to his insane team selection nearly seeing us lose to the bottom club at home, secondly due to a half time player revolt and thirdly due to his appalling behaviour in the dugout in the second half. The writing was on the wall then if not before and they should have cut his time short and got Warnock in for the last 10 games. Might never have a better opportunity.

The way I see it is that in the absence of Mrs Desai or Balaji picking up the phone and throwing 'big' money at it we are crunching the numbers and balancing the books each January. I think they authorise a budget in the summer, which invariably is mostly used up by the end of the summer window, so by January we are left having to generate whatever we can from the existing pot of cash, which isn't very much. The departures of Hirst, Annesley and others soon to follow I don't think are any loss but from a financial point of view put them all together and you might be looking at £10k+ a week off the books for the next 6 months. This gives us something to play with on the wages front, albeit not much in the scheme of things, if we are lucky we might get a couple in for that. When it comes to paying out transfer fees I think there is authority to do something provided it is a 'manageable' figure both in terms of fee and wages. Which is why we get lots of talk about money being available but when it can only be spent if the player in question fits into our wage structure or doesn't get a better offer elsewhere it is difficult or even impossible to get it spent. These owners don't care that we are 3rd or have a shot at promotion. I don't think they will even think about us until their annual summit meeting. People like Waggott are here to keep up pretences and make us think all is well and normal and a big part of that is the FFP line - the perfect cover story - when really even before FFP was introduced they took zero interest outside of the summer meeting and spent very little in January.

I think if he's on £4.5k a week at a PL club he needs to find himself a new agent. I think Waggott is on well over that. If the claims are true and we were offering to make Lenihan the top earner and we are paying Ayala a large whack it makes no sense to anyone that Van Hecke is on that at Brighton and is out of contract soon. How much of Poveda's wage did we pay? I've no idea. Are Blackpool on a similar deal? Unlikely given they don't spend much money.

Khadra confirmed at Birmingham, I wouldn't have minded him back here to be honest. He chipped in with a few goals and assists last year and I think we could do with someone this month who is going to contribute there. He would have been an easy and cheap one to do and knows the team already. Sadly I suspect that even he is out of our price range these days. My belief is we only got him and Van Hecke at the 11th hour because Brighton were happy to send them here to play regularly and were content to subsidise it. The moment other Championship clubs start coming along they will offer more than we will which means we are waiting until the last week to see what happens.

Our record against Wigan is OK at Ewood, it's the games at their place that we don't usually turn up for and crumble. If we can't be confident of beating them at home with our home record and their recent results we might as well give up. I'm most worried about the Bristol City one because we've found wins at Ashton Gate hard to come by and they've had a good run against us recently, but I saw yesterday that they are winless in 8 at home. Again we have to be going there for a win but I'd probably take a draw (we have to have one eventually). Watford away is looming and that will of course be tough, so it would be nice to have a good chunk of points on them going into that one. Rotherham ought to be a different animal to years gone by with a different manager who after a brief honeymoon seems to be struggling. Fundamentally they aren't a good side although they will be battling but we should be disappointed with anything less than 3 points.

And wages? After all, we're supposed to believe we made Lenihan a top earner offer here which they subsequently blew out of the water. He won't be top earner there I wouldn't think so care to calculate how much they are shelling out a year each year on wages. As clubs know all too well having a few thousand extra bums on seats every other week for 25 days a year doesn't pay that much in the scheme of running a football club.

3 questions 1) Why is it that their crowds are so much higher than ours? They weren't before 2) How much per year do you think they make from those extra fans? Enough to spend millions and millions on new signings every window? 3) How much of that extra money is already eaten up by a higher wage bill and bigger spending over the last few years? As I've referenced many times before, there's no evidence Rovers are doing anything to combat FFP - one look in the club shop proves that - which suggests to me it either isn't an issue or is a convenient excuse to hide behind

All I've heard so far are reasons why we can't do things and will struggle. No prizes for excuses and hard luck stories in this game. Tomasson will rightly expect backing in January. If not now then when? Meanwhile at Middlesbrough no worries about FFP they just want promotion and will back their manager to get it.

A pleasing display. Another clean sheet to follow on from Cardiff which was important after conceding a lot against dingles, PNE, Forest. We won't win many admirers or plaudits for it but we certainly know how to get the job done in games when we get our noses in front. Compare to the days gone by where if we held on it seemed more down to luck than anything and often we would let precious points or wins slip by in games. Defensively very disciplined although again some of their most dangerous moments came from us playing ourselves into trouble by going backwards. Happy with the draw in the next round as we have to be confident of progressing at home.

I see Mowbray managed 3 things today that he didn't in 5 years as Rovers manager: 1) Taking the FA Cup seriously and putting out a strong side 2) Turning a game around in the last 5 minutes from a losing position to a winning one 3) Getting past the 3rd round Tosser

Nor is there ever any middle ground with Venkys. Of course they are perfectly entitled to demand whatever they want for a player under contract and if they are willing to run the risk of losing him for nothing that's their choice. If BBD stays, scores the goals to get us in the top 6 and the winner at Wembley it will be a masterstroke. The problem is that they or their finance men have imposed a strict wage structure, which has seen new contracts dry up in recent years and is why we rarely sign proven experienced quality. It doesn't seem to feature in their thinking that rather than let a player leave for £0 and then have to replace quality in the market in the summer with little money and limited wages that they could avoid it all by increasing the wage budget and ensuring the likes of Waggott get these contracts sorted well in advance. Instead they carry on with it and let these situations unfold. Ah yes, its late Saturday and Nicko is along with another 'Rovers exclusive' Regular as clockwork just in time for the Sunday papers. He's so obvious.

Not many non-PL clubs will ever have a commercial opportunity like Brereton-Mania drop into their lap unexpectedly with minimal input. An amazing turn of events that very few would have dreamt of but it happened and all of sudden we have a Chilean International in our ranks with millions around the world taking an interest, following the club and the story. What have Rovers done to capitalise on this unexpected bonus? Anything at all? Idiots.

Deary deary me. I'd almost prefer no effort at all than this. From PL Champions and Pride of Lancashire to a few desolate shelves at the back of a vaping shop. Waggott working wonders dragging the club down to his grubby level.

I agree with this. I have heard from several people the theory that there was money available at various stages in the last few transfer windows, but that Mowbray decided not to spend it. It's a difficult one to interpret. I know Mowbray is an odd one, some of his decisions whilst manager prove that, and we know he kept on about 'trust' with the owners, so I suppose it isn't beyond imagination to think that he chose not to spend in some effort to impress the owners or win credit that he wasn't spending for the sake of it. It also wouldn't surprise me if he had certain 'principles' on bringing people into the club in January that might dislodge his favourite players. On the flip side, particularly looking at last January, it simply doesn't add up that a professional football manager, with promotion to the PL dangling in front of his nose at the mid-way point of the season wouldn't do absolutely everything he could to try and secure that. This lends some weight to the suggestion that there actually wasn't much money available or that blame lies with the owners. Now 'money available' can mean anything to be honest. It can 'flex' on the wage bill to bring a few loans in - like we managed when we brought in Harwood Bellis and Branthwaite that January. It can mean relatively small sums available for cash signings, but obviously those can only complete if the player in question is willing to join on our wage budget and doesn't get a better offer elsewhere. I certainly believe there is a concentrated effort from people employed by the club to shield and protect the owners from any criticism or blame. I think this runs from Pasha and Waggott down, rubs off on lower ranking staff and then permeates through into people who are in contact with people at the club. Before you know it a throwaway comment is repeated and becomes fact. One thing I think we can safely say, based on conduct, is that the owners have little to no interest in what is happening on the pitch at any given time. Go back to Coyle's days and he wouldn't have lasted until February if they did, Mowbray would have been binned much earlier, and even mid-season last year when it was clear he'd lost the plot. With that in mind I find it quite hard to believe that they will respond to events on pitch to make money available to strengthen accordingly. These people react after the event in their own good time. I remember the talk that one of the owners had suddenly decided to offer a massive bonus to the players last year if they got us promoted. Didn't happen. The players might well have very lucrative bonus clauses in their existing contracts in the event we get promoted but those will have been agreed when they joined. Venkys didn't and would find it a very difficult task to offer every player a massive bonus in the middle of last season - it would require new contracts or amended contracts for everyone. So yeah, I hate to say it but think I am inclined to agree with old Coyle - it lies with the owners.

They're busy bracing the fans for another low key window IMO. All the talk in the press about a need to be patient, need to be creative, no major changes etc. It all points to being reactive rather than proactive. Probably waiting and seeing what cheap loans come available or what interest materialises in our players first rather than grabbing the bull by the horns and moving quickly to capitalise on our position. Interesting to see a play-off rival Middlesbrough straight into the market lining up Cameron Archer - a player who could make an immediate difference to them. When have we ever done similar? It all reinforces my long held view that an annual budget is set in the summer, Pasha and Waggott are sent on their way to run the club with it, there's little plan or ambition above or beyond ensuring the club functions on budget. We get to January and the budgets are tight meaning we have to tread carefully on signings and focus on loans. The owners don't know nor care about our position in the table and won't be making funds available to properly strengthen.

A bit weird at Bristol City so would exercise caution. The away end is quite big but for some strange reason they refuse to open the front half of it, even when teams comfortably sell out their initial allocation. WBA went there last week and this happened - all the lower blocks were covered with netting even though WBA had sold the back out easily. So we wouldn't be given the full stand even if demand required it. That won't be a problem for us as we won't sell out the back portion which runs the full width of the pitch but they don't seem to be very flexible with their policies there. I also seem to recall issues with them in terms of not selling tickets on the day. They seem to be a bit funny there.

This is the equivalent of having a car, not taking it for a service, not replacing the tyres when needed, not changing the oil, never cleaning it but then expecting credit for changing the screen wash when it runs out. It is now 2 years since that famous January Sky game at Middlesbrough the week after we had to postpone a Championship game due to the state of our pitch. 2 years since Waggott or a subordinate spoke to Sky who stated during that Middlesbrough game that a multi-million replacement of the pitch was planned for the summer, and 2 years on it hasn't happened, it was just another throwaway 'promise' made when the spotlight and pressure was on but with no serious intention of ever doing it. File it with the made up Brockhall project, new Riverside and just about any other scheme that would require serious effort or capital outlay.

I think anyone expecting cash to be spent on permanent signings, particularly 'proven' calibre players or foreigners, is in for a disappointing window. Someone like Rothwell would require a hefty contribution by Rovers towards his weekly wage which will stand at upwards of £20,000. What I'm expecting is perhaps another investment type signing along the lines of Markandy, Szmodics, Hyam - that being someone who has done well at the lower levels available for a reasonable price - and then perhaps a shuffle around on the loans. If we look at what we did last January I'm expecting similar - small amount of money spent back then on Hedges and Markandy, Giles on loan - that sort of business.

Give me another 10-11 of those this season and I'll be delighted. Give me more of those performances and wins rather than the so called nice football under Mowbray where we let precious points slip in the last 5-10 minutes on countless occasions. Early kick off, low gate, quiet atmosphere, horrendous pitch, playing a defensively solid side struggling at the wrong end - all the ingredients there for a frustrating afternoon. Not many of these Championship games end up comfortable. We got through it. Job done and on we go. We deserved more than 0 points from Sunderland and Middlesbrough. In days gone by we might have let 2-3 slip today. I'm happy. Just hope we can build on it now in the next 4 games which look attractive if you mean business in this league.