Ash Phillips has gone to Plymouth on loan.

Exactly. That or I'm going to complain to HR cos I don't get 30-40% of my colleagues wage when he leaves and I pick up his slack. They'll be incremental wage boosts and we don't have Bennett/ Mulgrew / Cairney / Rhodes knocking around the place now. It's mostly kids and a few senior pros.

It is, but I imagine it's like how we tried to start a bidding war for Phillips. Teams are just going to fall back on the release clause in the contract and wait it out.

If Football Manager is anything to go by, you have to pay the release clause in full - if triggering it is the only reason the team will sell him, obviously.

Better shot stopper, better positionally. At the moment he's weak on crosses and is getting no help from his back 4. Hopefully he'll learn to just come and get the ball, regardless of who he clears out on the way.

The apple fell far from the tree then.

If Broughton manages to shift Gallagher off the wage bill this January (with any sort of transfer fee to boot) then he's a miracle worker. I just don't see it happening.

But Pears is literally a worse GK than Wahlstedt...

Not really. He is a good Championship CM, but he's limited to certain systems. He's clearly not good enough for someone to outright pay our asking price, but a loan is an enticing option for many clubs in this league.

I'm convinced we don't need £20m a year just to sustain. That figure hasn't changed for years, yet all we've done for the past 3+ years is slash the wage bill.

I'm not saying he'll be a world beater cos Brighton spent £4m on him as a teenager, nor am I saying he'll fail 'cos he didn't hit the ground running at Coventry. I'll literally wait to see what he does in a Rovers shirt before passing judgement.

I'm not saying the defence is good, but we pile pressure on them by fluffing chances. The plan is clearly to come out of the blocks quickly and put the game to bed in the first 20 minutes. We're often completely shattered from 70 mins onwards and regress into a siege mentality, inviting teams onto us. If we're 2-0 at that point, cos a CF scores the myriad of chances we create, then we easily see the game out rather than hanging on for a draw / letting them bully us for a loss (i.e. Watford).

You win games by putting teams to the sword when you're on top.

If you don't see a PL CB there then I can't help you.

I wish Gallagher was a lump. He's soft.

It's exactly what Brentford did - sans the Academy. Bought players low, sold them high and eventually accrued a strong enough squad to get promoted.

It still has to be a CF.

JDT is a funny one - Telalovic clearly has a very short leash. I thought he was good last week and was ok today. I've certainly seen players play much worse for 45 minutes under JDT and not be hooked at half time.

He didn't have anything to do besides pick the ball out of the back of his net. All of their other shots were speculative long range efforts.

What's he meant to do when the LB gets bullied and loses a header?

I think it's more about not letting Lenihan, Rothwell, Brereton-Diaz, Ayala, Dack, Nyambe etc walk away for free. We have to be realistic - the plan is to build a solid financial footing to operate from. We clearly can't rely on these dodgy owners to foot the bill every season, and even then we get into trouble with FFP 'cos our crowds are naff and we've historically let players walk at the end of their contracts. We complain about Boro / Hull etc spending loads of cash - well they've generated said cash through player sales. If, for example, Carter is sold for £8m in January and O'Riordan is brought in as his replacement for £500k, that's exactly the way the model should work. You've then got £7.5m to pay wages / pay for the Academy / invest in other player transfers.

We have two very experienced, talented, 6'2"+ CBs and yet every cross is a bomb scare. One of them needs to step up and take command. We conceded two goals today and neither were the fault of the GK.

About to set off to Ewood. I'd rather not watch Markanday, please and thank you.

Might want to take a look around the first team squad before complaining that we don't develop our own...

He's already been weighed, measured and found wanting by the Ewood jury without even kicking a ball.