I think you’re right. Venkys have seen the 200M on offer for promotion to the Premier League and instead prioritised selling Ash Phillips for 15M in 2 years.

They’re trying my patience

Or the Twitter logo top right.

I also suggested we sold our current back up player (JRC), to be fair. I’m suggesting we buy a better player than JRC so it isn’t as much as a weak spot if our first choice (Brittain) is out. As much as I’d like to only improve the first team, I don’t think that’s viable with our budget.

Jesus, he’s only 5 ft 6? It felt like he was 6 ft 3 when he dominated our midfield.

Well yes, but I also spend about 40 hours a month working unpaid on a football forum that turns a profit every month. So if anyone’s good at wasting their time, it’s me.

You didn’t read the first sentence Matty!

Well, I’d go something like… RWB: Back up player, less than 1M LWB: Back up player, less than 1M CM: What’s that big angry central midfielder called at Coventry? What does he cost? 5M? Forward: Would have to be a loan.

Well then, it’s that time again…let’s pretend it’s football manager. GOOD ENOUGH Kaminski Brittain Pickering Ayala Hyam Wharton Carter Dolan Hedges A. Wharton Gallagher BBD CAN ACCEPT Pears Eastham Phillips Morton Szmodics Buckley Travis MUST LEAVE LOAN Hilton Garratt Markanday MUST LEAVE Edun - has been terrible since he signed JRC - two good games doesn’t do enough to forget the years of crap Mola - his Rovers career was over after Burnley Dack - I still think he has something but if the manager doesn’t he’s an expensive waste Hirst - one of the worst strikers I’ve seen here Vale - for me, as bad as Hirst That means, if life was simple, we need as a minimum: 1X CM 1x LWB 1x RWB 2X Forward

I thought we should have gone 532 during the second half to see it out too, Chaddy.

Jesus what a way to ruin Christmas that would be.

Superb from Dack there. One of very few capable of that.

I was just about to post - what a good player he looks. 5 months left on his contract.

It helps that he’s not playing right back to be fair.

I’ve got Sunderland to win at 13/10. Hate to sound all Mercer, but based on that first half… buying money.

We can’t win a single challenge in midfield, that’s the problem here. Dack hasn’t - even before the ACLs - been capable of magic out of nowhere. If he isn’t getting service (because we can’t keep the ball) then it’s almost useless playing him.

Stupid little John. The absolute worst moment to do that. Naive. Thinks he can just saunter around the pitch and pick passes like Pirlo.

The big question needs answering @Mercer

Merry Christmas to everyone apart from Steve Kean and Jerome Anderson.

Leeds by quite a distance for me. West Ham fans in second.

They’re only geography-lucky in footballing terms. In every other way… give me Blackburn/Lancashire.

I was once asked to quote on some work for Rovers. I was told it couldn’t cost more than £4,999. I asked why not £5,000 and was told that any expenditure over £4,999 needed approval from Venkys and they didn’t want to bother them. I assume that when Venkys have been asked to sign off on selling Rothwell/Brereton they’ve replied “no thanks”. Why? I’m not sure. But there must be a reason. Go back to Phil Jones, they somehow got Man United to pay more than his buyout figure in his contract. The rumour at the time was they didn’t want to sell their best players. If I was speculating I would say 16M for Phil Jones, or 15M for Armstrong, or 8M for Brereton, or 3M for Rothwell really is peanuts for them. Their eyes don’t light up at it.

Poor leadership/decision making/planning from the CEO if you ask me. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m convinced - based on numerous interactions with people claiming to be ITK/Rovers staff/Venkys staff - that Venkys have been given a financial document which basically says “if you put X into the club each year, we will run the club so it doesn’t need any further investment.” I’m not sure they’ve any idea what the plan is, or why we’re doing it, or the rationale for why. They just know it won’t cost more than X and that is an amount they’re willing the lose each year.

We couldn’t spend any money because of FFP despite selling Armstrong, as the latest accounts show. We also had to sell our training ground to our owners.

You’d hope the new team running the footballing side of the business are much better than their previous. Obviously the previous situation is totally unsustainable in anything other than the short term. If they’ve any sense they have made a decision on BBD this summer based around any combination of: can’t replace him for ~8M, don’t have time to sign anyone, don’t have any recruitment plans lined up to replace him, have to build a new footballing side of the business, don’t want to put JDT on the back foot by selling his best player… and in future it wouldn’t happen the way it has. I suspect we’ll find out in the next 18 months!