Spending money NOW before we (likely) sell Brereton is absolutely the competent thing to be doing. If Barnsley, Blackpool, Oxford, Brighton Malmo etc think we're "skint" then we're in a better negotiating position. If we'd already gain £20m from Diaz, Callam Brittian would not have been so cheap. Van Hecke would be outrageous. But we've sold Duffy to them and signed 2 players on loan (both played a ton), so it's feasible there is a good link there.

Him and Butterworth are the same age and went to rival schools in Rochdale. So they're pretty close (as both were obviously the outstanding player). As for his position, all I know is his coach in Yr11 played him as the #10 🤣 Fun comment: Does anyone know the quiz question which has Callum Styles as the answer?

Has anyone ever seen Chaddy and Waggo in the same place at the same time? Also, can't recall who mentioned (a few days back) that we were definitely signing 5 players... sneak preview of the sticker album perhaps? 🤣

Should he have been whipping them balls in to (the false 9 of) Dolan and Buckley all season as he overlapped Gallagher on the right wing?

Somewhere in League 1.

I thought very highly of Szmodics a few years back, can't say I've thought of him since, but once upon a time he was far and away their best player. Now for the 3 foreigners.

Flashscore has him listed as a "Forward" - which is interesting. 78 Champ games and 11 assists. Nyambe has 5 assists in 154 Championship games (according to the same source).

Axel Witsel, Pablo Piatti and Luca Toni? £50m war chest?

Nyambe comes across as a nice introverted lad (for a footballer). Maybe he simply wants to stay in the house he's currently living in instead of moving to France or Middlesbrough, stay in the Championship getting regular football, whilst improving his wage 4x over, and to go to a team that values him... as Mowbray/Rovers clearly never did. Quite the opposite with some of the scapegoat BS Mowbray used to place on him (and Raya). And also, I wouldn't be placing a wager on us finishing above Wigan. Anything above 20th will be a success this year for Rovers. I wish Nyambe the best wherever he goes, why would you stay here?

Found the game just in time to see Celtic score the 1st on 15mins and had to leave just after 55 mins... The 40 minutes I saw were utter shite from us, but I'm pleased the other 50minutes sounded better. Like the look of Vale, but the back 4 looked very poor, obvious to mention the full backs, but Ayala looked like he was playing on sand (Celtic are great yada yada). Without a proper CB and RB replacement and more quality in other places, best we can hope for is a boring ass mid table, safe/eliminated from playoffs by March.

This squad wouldn't make the L1 playoffs.

JDT currently at Ewood... crisis talks already?

Just caught this programme called "Transfer Centre" on Sky Sports News, anyone got any idea what that's about?

Hate to break it to those hoping for Reda Khadra to come back... had it on very good authority that there is a mutual disinterest in a reunion. He was apparently a bit of a moaner, didnt like the cold. Also there is belief he was fit way before the end of season but downed tools and refused to accept to play a part in the run in well before out season ran its course.

Rovers must have some wiggle room in the finances. Just seem to lack conviction, ability and balls. (One of the best ITK people at Rovers comfirmed to me that) they offered Lenihan £18k and Nyambe £12k. Had a multi million pound option on Zeefuik. All the departed wages gone (Johnson, Rothwell, Davenport). Plus whatever the contract on the table for BBD is. That all implies (to me) that there would easily be £3m+ to spend, and up to about £50kpw saved/available for wages. You can't win them all, we've missed out on big targets for years - go as far back as Roy Keane to Sven Goran Eriksson to Eider Gudjohnsson to Antonio Valancia to Robert Lewandowski. Nowadays we're just missing out on lesser players like Bauer, Obafemi, Dembele and Anel to "lesser teams" than ever before because we've shit our own bed for 13 years and external players can smell it.

Odds that the first signing is pictured (holding the shirt) wearing ripped jeans?

Over 15% of the season gone before deadline day... 7 games where we're likely severely lacking many starting calibre players - including presumed inactivity in the loan market which is usually a close to deadline day thing for Rovers. Unless Broughton has some actual power (+ knowledge) and can sanction deals, we could be well under 10 points by September 2nd without at least 4 new quality starters. God help us if Brereton does go right around deadline day and the money from his sale is our only means of a budget. Planning to sell him but buying NOW when teams assume we're skint is far more logical - Brereton does have a market. Wage budget should be healthy after all these departures from last season and before - we have probably 8 players on "Championship" wages, and another 8 squad players on youth/cheap deals. Rovers need to be looking at the free agents as a source of urgency or could be screwed (regardless of how we feel about JDT and Broughton). Must have been 100 decent names of soon to be free agents mentioned on this forum already from domestic and abroad... I mean shit, we've let 3 players go ourselves that would/could/should walk into 20 other Championship teams XI. Waggott just won't pay up.

He's a new generation Jason Roberts. For comparison, Dolan has 7 goals in 71 appearances and Buckley has a staggering 1 in 17.5 ratio (7 goals in 123 games, or 4.5 years as a starter). Buckley has played about as much as Gallagher and many more minutes as the 9. This isn't a bash on Buckley or Dolan, or even Gallgher hype. But I'd be pretty damn confident wagering Gallgher scores 15+ IF played consistently as a CF.

Gallagher has (officially) been a 1 in 5 goalscorer under Mowbray DESPITE him playing 80% of games on the right wing. (That's 23 goals in 118 league games with Mowbray's tactical nonsense). Those saying that he can't make a jump from basically a guaranteed 9 a season to almost double that (15 to 20 range) if played at CF, are probably just fundamentally negative towards Gallagher. Dolan and Buckley scored (best guess) 4 goals in 40 games combined as the "False 9" last season, Gallagher would walk into triple that number -That's obvious. Gallagher could easily be a 1 in 3 scorer as a 9 in a top half team. 15 goals should be his minimum target. 20+ if BBD leaves and Gally becomes the Penalty taker.

For all this talk of Dolan (who I personally have been high and low on). Would anyone complain if Dolan was to leave and be replaced with Todd Cantwell (permanently?). I sure as shit wouldn't.

As sad as it may be that Brereton is likely to leave, you just wonder if anyone of the clowns in charge (Mowbray, Venus or Waggo) has even ever tried to tie him down. Apologies if this is too Football Manager: 1 Year extension that makes him the joint highest earner and a £25m release fee or a £15m non promotion release fee. If we were to get promotion, an automatic extension triggers, removing the release fee, increasing his wages. If that type of offer gets turned down, he must be sold now. Cannot repeat Lenihan, Rothwell and Nyambe. Or as we like to call it = £10m+.

I wanted Mowbray out the door for over 3 years before his eventual departure... most of us knew Benson and Lowe never deserved to be in the door in the first place. Both would look out of depth coaching at an English Schools 1st Round fixture between Darwen Vale and St Bedes. Shambles keeping them on roll.

There's something I can't grasp about this pre-season. Anyone help. All players are under contract until June 30th 2022, yet can agree deals with other teams - Lenihan to 'boro - to commence on July 1st. Players are back in on the 13th June, so shouldn't all outgoing players (Nymabe specifically) be expected at Brockhall on Monday? Is Lenihan even allowed to train with Middlesbrough before his Rovers deal expires - since we're still paying him?

On William Hill - just search "Blackburn". Have us at 7/1 straight up for Relegation.

Rothwell (£0), Lenihan (£0), Nyambe (£0), Van Hecke (£0), Khadra (£0). So we're now needing to replace FIVE starters from last season with a grand total of... fuck all money incoming. We don't have a starting quality RB, CB2 or CM to go with Travis, Brereton is nailed on to leave, pre season starts in days, oh, and we have no manager. Anybody got a quid?