Which is why I'd heavily lean on the Academy if I was the manager. I'd have as strong as a starting XI as finances allowed and have the bench filled with Academy players. It's a great sales pitch for people on the fence about which Academy to sign for - if you're any good you're going to get playing time in the Championship with Rovers. Obviously we already have several Academy graduates in said starting XI, which helps.

Bearing in mind that we could almost field an entire Academy XI and stay in this league, that's pretty impressive. We haven't produced a great player for a while - but I think that's mostly down to the competition we face for signatures in the North West.

I'd counter that with Brad Friedel (however much he likes to gloss over the fact he played for us in interviews...).

Two of the players on that thumbnail were doggers.

Brilliant, it gets better and better at Ewood(!)

As I said previously, whoever is in charge of scouting / signing the released players from other Academies can stay. They're doing a brilliant job. Everyone else on our coaching staff can go though. Sadly that's where we find ourselves - even with a Cat 1 Academy we're low down the totem pole on resources / attraction for any NW players. Why sign for Rovers if City / Utd / Liverpool / Everton offer you a contract? We just have to continue to polish up their discarded gems to promote to our first XI (I think Mowbray has been incredibly conservative with the Academy prospects, I'd have more of them playing for the first team) while we remain in the Championship.

Come off it. We've clearly been stuck in the mud for too long. Literally nobody in our current side would get a sniff in our PL sides. Dolan might have quick feet down here (his only one real 'super strength' tbh), but he's not a patch on a while host of ex-players I could mention. I'm glad we got him for free and that he's making a go of his opportunity, but he'll never play in the Prem.

Surely Holtby has been told he's not going to get a new contract. He'll be on a fair whack and he's absolutely not deserved it. Clear some of this deadwood off the books now to give the new manager a chance.

They were loaded - albeit not as loaded as they are now. Funnily enough I was lamenting that today with a friend. We get lumbered with awful Indian owners who won't bugger off despite a decade of incompetence. Citeh get back-to-back rich owners when the first one was arrested for money laundering. Doesn't seem fair, really.

I would honestly sack whoever said that on the spot. I don't care if it was Tony Parkes. Unbelievable. Brentford.

Well it begs the question, who's making the decision on these transfers?

Neil is a significantly better manager than Mowbray, but you do wonder whether he'd want to come here. He won't get the same financial backing Mowbray got - in actuality he'd probably find himself in a similar situation to PNE, having to get buy on freebies and loans as his more desirable players are sold off. Obviously here it would be due to FFP rather than the owners trying to claw their money back. That's the problem any new manager is going to face after Mowbray's 4 years on Easy Street.

Unbelievably unambitious move by Wilder - I thought he was better than that.

He's like a sulky teenager - it's all someone else's fault.

No disrespect, but the PNE job is an awful one. Neil has had his team sold from under him and the fans are delusional with their expectations.

Not a surprise - it's not part of the narrative. When we were on SKY a few weeks ago - besides it being the Brentford show [despite us being at home] - there wasn't a sniff of talk about perhaps Mowbray's job was in jeopardy. This was deep into another death spiral. He's got it stitched up somehow.

Don't watch he highlights to the end - they we're literally queuing up to score in the dying minutes. Mowbray can't set a team up to defend at all. It's embarrassing at this point.

Earns them a boatload of money.

That's a red card for their #23. Two footed lunge. Also Harwood-Bellis is bloody brilliant.

I've stopped bothering looking at our xG.

He hasn't been with it since his wife gave birth.

And a LB.

Douglas just jogging after his man there. Worst loan signing in a while.

It's criminal. You can tell they don't practice set pieces in training by the number of players putting their hand up for a go when it's a direct set piece. We had 4 queuing up against Bristol City.

Breaking news! Brereton is playing centrally!