Football is baffling, isn't it? After pulling our pants down with the Phillips transfer (ably assisted by Phillips and his agent) we're lead to believe they're going to come waltzing back with a smile on their faces for Wharton? I wouldn't even answer the phone.

Quarter Finals in the Champions League against Real Madrid? Not good enough to play against Plymouth and Millwall for mine. Panic loan.

Mainly because it's a 4th division side that's getting far, far too much coverage due to their owners. I'd love for us to show out (both on and off the field) and give them a bloody nose - but sadly this is a zombie club so that's not going to happen.

Waggot was trying to appoint a Manager and DoF at the same time. He was badly floundering at appointing a manager. Things only started moving when Broughton arrived.

JDT was a Broughton appointment. We were floundering for weeks without a Manager when Waggot was leading the hiring process.

Yep, it's worth £120k to the winners. You're then hoping for either another win in the 5th round (£225k) or an away tie at a Newcastle et al where they split the gate receipts with you. Sadly we're at that point as a club where a good cup funds transfers.

Which is why he's a #10. We have 3 (sometimes 4) of them starting games for us - Moran, Sigurdsson, Szmodics and Dolan. We're crying out for pace out wide.

Fans commit far more to a club than players do - supporting Rovers the last 13 years has been recognised as torture by the Hague. They get paid handsomely to kick a ball about for 90 minutes once (sometimes twice!) a week and know if it fails there they can always latch on elsewhere for a game. We're stuck allowing absolute cloggers to influence our Saturday night mood every week. Leisure fans indeed.

Put him upfront, better finisher than Gallagher already.

Yes. Whilst I'd love to upgrade on Pickering, he's a solid Championship LB.

Wasn't he highly rated just last season?

£15m isn't enough if he's not pushing to leave. It needs to be enough money to be invested back into the team - £15m would just pay bills with these owners.

Surely you mean Arsenal. They did buy Rice for £100m this summer after all.

I can't understand this attitude - he downed tools for 6 months when his contract in Spain was signed. He's up there with Dann for me.

What a sickener the last decade has been. I remember when PNE were minnows that we never bothered about - now we have a similar sized fan base. Thanks Venkys.

Good lord.

It's news to me that Hughes didn't get any backing... I must have imagined Bellamy, Bentley, Santa-Cruz et al.

I think they cancelled the loan.

It's 2024, there are no hard men in football anymore. It's all about diving (or 'simulation' as the professionals call it) now. Souness, Batty, Keane et al would get sent off every game these days.

If they don't get on during the game they have to do a training session after the match anyway - so it's not like he was just going to jump straight in his car after the full time whistle had blown.

He literally has no money to work with. I'm not sure what people expect him to do. We clearly have nothing in the transfer budget as we can't even stretch to paying £500k upfront for a player and we clearly have nothing in the wage budget as we've loaned out Buckley and then Travis to balance the books. He had to sell to keep the lights on in the summer and undoubtedly A. Wharton will leave in 6 months to balance the books (with no money going to the playing side of the club, again).

Of course he's here for the money, he's a professional football manager. He's held a light to the shady ongoings in the Board Room at Ewood Park - neither he or Broughton have been backed. He'll leave in the summer to a non-basket case club on the Continent. He obviously thought he could either take Rovers up or convert this stint into a bigger job in England, but he's been cut off at the knees and isn't a miracle worker.

JDT wasn't allowed to bring his own staff in with him - Benson and Lowe came with the club. It's part of why we weren't able to attract a more experienced manager. Carvalhal walked away when we insisted he'd have to keep Lowe and Benson.

We're playing bonkers football. I can't work out if he's playing 3 at the back with JRC as a CB (who wanders into CM) and Sigurdsson as a LWB (who is getting roasted every time by Thomas) or if we're just not playing without a LB in a back 4.

Give over, he's run his blood to water today.