Mowbray is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't on the players leaving front. If he comes out in the LET talking about those players potentially leaving he will be piloried for being seen to be alerting clubs to their availability, if he says nothing he is accused of not preparing should they leave? I would imagine Mowbray would like both to stay but ultimately it all depends on whether any clubs are interested in them.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Ward as captain next year (if Mulgrew leaves)

To be fair to him a lot of Boro fans hold a long held resentment of Rovers over their game with us when half their team went down ill. I think they went down that season and its one of the excuses they bring up.

There was definitely higher percentage players who made a career from football, and by career I mean league appearances not financial gain. The figures are skewed though as there were a lot fewer players taken on then. There was also less competition then in terms of first team players from abroad, etc. So clubs were effectively picking from a much smaller pool of players.

They do but then have all been in and out of the prem over the last few years, you're always going to get yoyo clubs which is why the old premier reserve league gave you 2 years grace before booting you out should you not gain promotion. We've not yo yo'd anywhere, we're just sliding toward oblivion.

Productivity - All a prem academy has to do is offer a young player 1 minute of game time and they have achieved more than we have since relegation in the eyes of EPPP. EPPP was designed to allow the big clubs to take players from lower league clubs, the blow was softened/clubs held to ransom by the increased solidarity payments by the Premier League. My Dad was at the FL conference in Portugal where pretty much all the FL clubs were in agreement they were being shafted by the PL but were powerless to do anything as the threat of having the solidarity payments withdrawn would have bankrupted most league 1 & 2 clubs. League 1 clubs are not wanted under cat 1. That is fact. Unless we make it back to the championship very quickly our academy will suffer irreparable damage.

Just looking at the list of Cat 1 clubs, there are only 4 (excluding ourselves) outside of the prem; Reading, Fulham, Derby and Norwich. In fact if the old rules still applied we would have been kicked out of the old 'Premier Reserve League' as you were only allowed 2 seasons in it post relegation. Cat 2 wise there is Crewe, Colchester, Coventry and Charlton who ply our trade outside of the top 2 divisions. I am very confident in saying that getting relegated to league 1 will have, in the long term a disastrous impact on our academy. When re-assessed you have to satisfy the 5 criteria of productivity, welfare, education, coaching and facilities. Productivity - we will struggle if the highest level we can offer is league 1. Education - most clubs are now funding their scholars through a private education and/or building on site schools, are we? Will Venky's foot the bill for this? Facilities - Other clubs are constantly investing and developing theirs, are we? Coaching and welfare we should be able to satisfy but realistically its the 3 I've mentioned above that carry the greatest weight.

I'm not disagreeing that EPPP (as with academies in their previous incarnations) are chicken farms for league 1 & 2 players, however my point remains that the point of EPPP and the investment is to find that one diamond amongst the many, many young lads who unfortunately don't make it. My point is this, academies take on between 15 and 30 scholars per year, across the cat 1 clubs who have the pick of the bunch that's around 440 kids, of which around 22 will make a career in the top flight. We are going to be picking from the bottom end of what's on offer to cat 1 clubs as they will pick prem clubs over us regardless of our facilities. So if we are picking from the bottom 50 or so players out of a group with a top flight conversion rate of around 5% our chances of picking a winner are very very slim. I am immensely proud of what our academy has churned out over the years however the simple fact is that being in league 1 is going to have a massively detrimental effect on the clubs ability to attract the top young players. The days of Crewe bringing through players successfully are long gone,Christ Crewe barely have an academy these days. On the Crewe front they didn't actually have any better conversion rate of players to many other clubs, they just happened to have a number at the same time who signed for clubs like Liverpool, etc due to geographical proximity. They also benefited a great deal from taking on players released by those big name clubs and giving them a second chance, the number of kids taken on then was much smaller so the chance of making a career was much greater. The numbers of young players effectively warehoused by premier clubs these days is shocking, with very very few playing at the highest level. In fact the drop off rates of players falling out of the game completely post academy release is staggering.

Yes we have competed, however those players were signed well before we were struggling at the foot of the championship. The likes of Wharton, Lenihan, Tomlinson, etc were taken on as scholars whilst we were in the prem or as a championship side spending money and looking to go back up. We are neither of those now, I think we will be able to tell an awful lot by the quality of the scholars we took on at the start of the season just finished and those we sign this coming season. You're also kind of missing the point of EPPP, the most important detail is the E. EPPP was designed to bring players through at Elite level, league 1 is not elite level, premier league academies are churning out league 1 players for fun. The aim of EPPP is to develop players to play at the very highest level, us offering game time in league 1 is not the purpose of cat 1 academies. If we cannot guarantee an opportunity to play at the highest levels i.e. prem or champ we will be downgraded to Cat 2. I know a few people who work at the academy and the work they do there is excellent, that isn't in question. My point is that the academy will not be exempt from the fall out from falling into league 1. In fact I think in time we will see that the academy is hit hardest should my predicition of losing cat 1 status comes home to roost.

Absolutely, I think they're relying on the average fan knowing very little about how the scholar and academy systems work in the EPPP era.

He may say that the first teams league status is irrelevant but he is lying. Yes, we may keep Cat 1 status (in the short term) however look at the number of clubs outside the prem who are cat 1, speaks volumes. You then have to look at the sort of players you will attract to a league 1 club academy, the players we will get will have realistically been knocked back by every other cat 1 prem club and no doubt a number of prem clubs in cat 2. We've been blessed in recent times of being a prem club with a successful/well run academy, we no longer have the benefit of elite level football and will no longer be seen as an attractive proposition IMO.

My wife will murder me if I'm sulking! Happy birthday to your little lass too.

It's my sons second birthday on Saturday, Rovers better not ruin it

Judging by his one and only signing I don't hold much hope. I still maintain that Joao is utter drivel, good footballers don't perform like he did against Leeds, it was like watching Bambi on ice coupled with a first touch like a baby elephant. His second touch would be a tackle if he wasn't so unbelievably soft.

We are about as dangerous as a eunuch in a brothel. Draw all over it this.

Agreed, they are definitely beatable and have been up and down more than a brides nightie this year however we can barely muster a shot on target against a Wolves team with their sun tan cream on ready for the beach so god help us against a team with a few decent footballers.

Looking at the quality Villa have throughout their team it would take them all having one foot in the pool at Puerta Banus for us to beat them. I really have no hope of us getting points from the next two let alone winning, the way Jota is playing at Brentford he could single handedly beat our team at the moment, he has more creativity in one foot than our midfield has mustered all year.

Forest have been sleepwalking toward relegation, they could well be that team that spends all season outside the relegation places only to drop in on the last day.

We would become the only Category 1 Academy outside the championship and prem, expect a downgrade to category 2. We would also become a reasonably unattractive category 2 club, why would you sign for a team where the first team is in league 1 as opposed to signing for one where the level you're aiming it is championship. I think we would be one of only 3 or 4 league 1 clubs at category 2, I think Colchester, Charlton and Coventry are cat 2, so we would be basically operating in a pretty crappy market. If you think that of the 30 scholars that get taken on by prem clubs each year about 5 make a 'career' in football, so of the kids that get signed at Cat 2 they have been passed over or released from cat 1 clubs, so you'd have to say statistically the writing is on the wall for those kids with regards a career. So if you are one of the only cat 2 clubs in league 1, you are looking at the kids passed over by cat 1 clubs and most likely the cat 2 championship clubs. Real world beaters........ This relegation could absolutely cripple our academy and with it the long term salvation of the club.

Pedigree counts for nowt when you've 120 million of debt, a payday loan and 3 conkers and an out of date bag of seabrook as your transfer kitty. As for facilities expect to see at least 1 additional stand closure next season and I wouldn't be surprised if the senior and development centres are brought back together. On crowds of 5 or 6k we simply don't have the money to service these facilities without adding more and more debt to the already crippling figures we are losing.

I'm still laughing at the notion that some think we will be seen as big fish in league 1, we will struggle to get better crowds than Chesterfield.

When is Wharton's contract up?

The people who tend to believe lower league football is more exciting, etc are the ones who lived a pretty cossetted life whilst in the prem, only seeing championship, L! & L2 games through the odd bit of highlights. As someone who regularly attends Lg 1 & 2 I can tell you (as with the championship) its bloody awful, often played on ploughed fields with little to no quality whatsoever. I remember playing Sheffield Wednesday in a mid week game when we had just come down and it struck me how awful the standard of the championship is, it took roughly 40 minutes for either side to string more than 4 passes together and the ball spent 80% of the game either out of play or in the air. I think some people are in for a real shock/reality check next year.

We can't afford to keep them open.

A mid ranking team with a crippling debt, the cost of enormous ground (by league 1 standards), 2 training grounds and players on big championship wages and needing a full squad rebuild with zero funds. Rochdale will be financially much, much better off than us, just let that sink in.