Maybe true. And brings £0 financial return to the club. Which begs the question why we keep on doing it rather than investing in players on permanent deals that will deliver us a financial return

And yet despite being in the top 2 in January they spent a couple of hundred grand and let Mowbray take us on another death spiral before stinking the place out with his behaviour in the last 10 games. Could have fooled me.

So we have to miss out on quality players, gamble the season away and 'guarantee' a 17 year old first team football to try to persuade him to stay? Get rid if that's the case.

Because they've made him a proper competitive Championship standard offer and we haven't?

Hold on a minute. The original point was that another club could offer a CB an immediate place in the team. So no we can't factor Wharton in, nor can we factor in Carter, or Barnes, because they aren't available to play. The very same reason another club might want a player we are after - they get injuries which escalate the need and urgency. It would be lunacy to persist with the current situation. Absolute lunacy. We have a young kid who has never played first team football before and has a lot to learn, and a class player but one with an appalling injury record in the latter days of his career. To try and get through the next few weeks, let alone months, with these options is nothing other than negligence. We have an immediate, urgent need for defensive reinforcements. Any prospective signing would know they are immediately in the team if they sign. I'm not aware of any other club with only 2 CBs to call upon.

But Wharton isn't fit now, and we've at least 3-4 games to go before he might be, so pointless discussing that. If he's not as good as Phillips then we are looking in the wrong place. And as I said, we know Ayala is going to be getting injured soon, so then there's no choice in the matter.

In what circumstances would a new signing not walk straight into our first team? We've only 2 CBs available, one of which is a 17 year old from the academy and the other is going to get injured very soon. If we can't offer a potential player first team football nobody can.

Nobody guarantees appearances at this level or any other. Just like PNE were not guaranteeing Patrick Bauer a place in their XI every week. If a player goes to Sunderland or elsewhere rather than here it is either because they are paying more, or because they have been more persuasive, or because the loaning club feel it is better for the player to go there.

I see the 'promotion bonus' thing is still getting a mention. Ludicrous, IMO, to suggest that one of the owners suddenly decided mid-season to offer massive new bonuses to the squad to get us promoted. Even more ludicrous is thinking that this would be permitted or that such an agreement could be arranged without entering into new contracts with the entire squad - bonus provisions need to be set out in players contracts. In this day and age you can't just chuck a load of money on the table and divvy it up between the team. These things have to be covered with contracts, be watertight and above board. The contract has to be sent to the League. There may well have been a substantial bonus pot in the event of promotion, but this will have been what the players all agreed to when they signed their contracts, not some special reward one the of the Venkys suddenly decided to do in January.

I don't think it is difficult to work out what has happened on budgets. Venkys have always moved up and down with their backing and investments, probably depending on how 'up for it' they are or how persuasive the manager/others are. There was a massive cutback period from 2015-17 following a reasonably healthy spell under Bowyer. Those cutbacks decimated the squad and saw us plummet out of the Championship. Then Mowbray came along and went to India in his first summer and got the backing and investment. After 3 years that changed. Maybe due to Covid, maybe due to cutbacks, maybe due to FFP, maybe due to Mowbray failing to deliver what they expected, either way cutbacks came again and have continued up to this summer - very little if any outlay on transfer fees, a few big sales and the money goes into runnings costs, slashing of the wage bill. Thankfully due to the productive academy and more sensible recruitment we've so far managed to avoid the fate of the 2015-17 era by remaining competitive in the Championship. It also seems there is a bit more sense somewhere along the line as to what we need in terms of structure and backroom staff with Broughton and JDT rather than Coyle and Cheston. But fundamentally the key points are that Venkys remain in control, that we are in another lull in their financial input, that there have been no India visits which means no extra cash from Mrs Desai. I'm afraid those thinking that these owners are going to hand Broughton and co. a £10 million warchest after what has happened to date are at the extreme end of the optimism scale. There clearly is some money, but this is limited to specific wage levels and strict criteria.

Bloody hell, I'm sure the Szmodics fee rises by £500k a day! I'd be very surprised if we have paid over £1 million for him at this juncture. Of course it ''might" get higher in years to come if certain things happen. We just don't know on that, just like we don't know on what the true fee is. Brittain came from Barnsley who aren't in the Championship. A good signing on the evidence so far yes but still one from the model - young, developing, mainly experienced in the lower levels.

He's working for Venkys and the shadow man.

Actually reinvesting the proceeds from sales rather than it disappearing towards 'FFP compliance'. What a novel idea.

Actually it's going almost exactly as I predicted it would. I said we would do similar to recent windows which is to sign a few younger end or from League One for a few hundred grand each like with Markandy, Davenport, Pickering and Edun. Looks like we've continued that with Brittain and Szmodics. Also continuing to rely heavily on loans which makes a mockery of the building claim. All this goes hand in hand with continued talk of good budgets, and rumours of big names being targeted, but at the end of the day little to no evidence to back that up with results. This summer it is the lad who went to Sheff Utd and Styles/Van Hecke. Previous years it was Assombalonga, Kipre and co.

Will be delighted with a point here but can't see it. This lot are a pain particularly at Bramall Lane where they have had a very good record over the last 12 months. I'm still not over the defeat there last season or even the one before that when we had them on the rack before Smallwood got sent off and we collapsed. I'm very unhappy at the failure to bring in reinforcements especially in defence following Wharton's injury last week. It leads me to question how seriously the 'powers that be' are taking things when they seem content to risk derailing momentum and a good start through a failure to strengthen.

Well if people carry on inflating the fees we paid for Brittain and Szmodics you might end up right.

Because offering money isn't backing. Come September we will know which way it has gone but it won't count as backing if we've signed a few loans and 'tried' to sign some others and were knocked back. No prizes or credit for trying, failing, talking, offering, struggling etc. Just doing.

It's a crying shame that JDT isn't going to get the backing that Mowbray got for 3 years. Just imagine what he could do with the depth and options Mowbray was able to bring in.

Not a chance, IMHO, of the budget being anywhere near that. If it was signings would already be here. We wouldn't be sending a 17 year old out at CB. We wouldn't be waiting on Liverpool deciding when to send their next loan.

Not interested in hard luck stories. Enquiries and bids don't count as signings. They've had time, and according to those 'in the know' there's a good budget. Time to see action. I'm tired of transfer windows ending in disappointment and then having to read about all the reasons we couldn't get business done even though we tried.

Where's the conspiracy theory? If signings don't get done it will be because those in control of the purse strings fail to make it happen You are referring to signings made 3-4 years ago. A lot has happened since then and taps have been turned down, that is obvious.

We can all see it, and it is safe to assume both Tomasson and Broughton can see it as professionals who have worked in football all their lives. If the business doesn't get done it won't be because Tomasson and Broughton don't want it. We have to look to the owners and their man in the shadows.

No surprises tonight for me. I expected a 'back down to earth' game after the WBA exertions and a long trip to a bogey ground midweek provided just the ingredients. I am disturbed that with the injury to Scott Wharton a week ago that we still haven't done anything about the CB situation. That is unacceptable. If we are going through these shenanigans to wait for a loan from Liverpool then give it up and move on for crying out loud. The League and Sky mafia have done us in here of course - forcing us to play 3 tough games in 6 days including 2 away from home and 2 against promotion favourites. Yet I hear very little complaint or issue with that. It would test any squad and manager to do this but especially our small squad after the mammoth effort on Sunday. Not a lot we can do about that now but just have to hope this is a wake up call to those upstairs that we can't 'make do' with what we have and many more additions are required, as some of us have been saying for weeks. Critical point was their 2nd goal. We'd started to make some progress just before then resulting in the penalty 'shout' but then Pickering with a weak headed clearance and then a pathetic attempt to stop the shot from which they scored finished it. Gallagher for their 3rd - pathetic.

If ever we needed a result to hammer home how short we are this was it. The first time in a long old season we've got a midweek game and we are so short. I'm afraid starting Championship away games with Dolan, Phillips, Vale in the starting XI is asking for trouble. They can try and blag Rich Sharpe with talk about 2 CBs and a couple of others. We need 5 quality additions as a minimum. No excuses, no bs, no trying and failing. We've a good manager on our hands who deserves backing. I am worried that the clowns who own and control Rovers are going to make a mess of this again. They firstly need to decide what they want us to be - a side challenging for promotion to the PL or a club more interested in individual development and making a point/saving money on transfer fees. Sometimes you can't be both. Tick tock.

https://www.lancs.live/sport/football/football-news/blackburn-rovers-phillips-contract-latest-21594468 This was the Lancs Live 'exclusive' on Phillips in September 2021. I'll treat this with extreme caution.