The money is absolute madness in the game, the dominos have started to fall and there is little to no way of stopping them. The next problem to come is non league teams with wealthy owners pushing community clubs out of the EFL, I have no problem with competition but that is simply financial doping.

Agree with this, we have to be so careful with contracts for senior players on our budget. Giving them too much money ends up actually costing us money when they move on for closing the gap between their new contract and Rovers one.

For me Adam was too much of a gamble on anything other than a basic salary with appearance top up, I simply cannot accept him taking up places ahead of young up and coming players. This clubs future revenue stream looks to be producing, building then selling young players. I’m loathed to criticise Mowbray for this summers transfer window without knowing any facts, did we simply get gazumped for players or not having enough players scoped. I went to an evening with Gary Bowyer when he was Blackpool manager (long story!) but he said something very interesting which I think could apply here. Bowyer said he could do lots of work finding a player and negotiating with his club only for the players agent to ring around other clubs saying “player X is available for Y what would you be willing to offer him” then losing the player. We may well have been victims of this a few times at the 11th hour, we will never know.

I always liked Gallagher last time he was here. He does owe me 20 goals this season for how much he upset me against Preston in the relegation season too!

Plus £3 if you want it after 12!

wrong thread.

Agree with your point re: Raya, most people wanted a more experienced keeper bringing in and Raya benching. Raya would get peeved and seek a move when his value would be less, if Mowbray has lost faith surely its best to get rid when his value is highest.

I have no issues with Mowbrays logic, Brentford bid and he made Raya aware. Raya fancies the move so he gets the best deal possible. My issue comes from not letting the deal go through until we have our first choice replacement in place.

Agree with all of this post. Time will tell who gets the best side of this deal, good luck to the lad. Could never question his commitment, he even smashed his mush for us!

Can only think that time will tell with Raya, he pulled off some worldies last season but also at times looked just as shot as what Jake Kean did before he was shipped out. I think we may have let him go one season too soon, if it is for 2-3 million.

I think we should be looking at Jake Bidwell for our left back problems, released reluctantly by QPR due to their financial problems and being tracked by around 10 Championship clubs. Wants to move back north, he’s originally from Southport.

Really thought it would be the end of the lad at the professional level after being deemed not at the good enough for the second tier of the MLS. I think Bowyer has done him a huge favour. Henley always just seemed a bit too soft for me, I’m shocked he played the amount of games that he actually did for us.

This! We see in the papers and on social media Dack’s private life and to be brutally honest it probably isn’t half as bad as plenty of footballers. At this very club we have more than likely had plenty of incidents of “injuries” when players have been in trouble or had private matters that didn’t reach the papers. Dack will simply be one of many players we will miss more once he is gone than appreciate whilst he is here. Could he adjust his life to be a better player, probably ... would he be here if he was a better player, no.

Always liked Spurr and came across as a very good pro. The lad hasn’t seemed to have had any luck with injuries in the last few years, I’ve seen him in Clitheroe a few times over the last year or so and he always seemed to be walking really badly. Hope he isn’t damaged too badly long term!

I would absolutely love something like this. It is actually something that would tempt me back to Ewood after missing the last two seasons (having had a season ticket for 20+ years before hand). I work shifts and the thought of missing a game but getting a ticket back to use for my Dad for a game I could attend would really appeal. Even a 15 game season ticket would be great (at a slightly higher % rate than a full season ticket) would probably appeal too. Obviously the 15 game ticket would probably be business suicide as the majority may go for that, but I simply do not get value from a season ticket from a personal point of view and popping down to Ewood for a single game here and there has led me to attend 3 times in 2 seasons as I’ve simply got out of the habit.

Danny Murphy has ruined any faith I’ll ever have in signing older players. I hope Downing (if it happens) restores some faith but the Murphy signing absolutely stank.

Agree with this, also think Rudy Gestede must owe him a few beers for all the assists he got for him when here, leading to the wages Rudy must have earned since leaving here!

The anger shown by Rovers fans today is the same as what was shown by Bury fans the other day when Holt spouted off. Dangerous game this man of the people twitter lark!

I have to admit I’ve followed Holt on twitter for ages and have always loved the insight into the game warts and all but lately his posts are bordering on embarrassing for wanting back slaps and “sticking it to the man”. Holt has not grasped yet that football clubs follow the same unwritten rules as family they may drive you mad and cause you all sorts of woe but nobody else is allowed to tell you they have done wrong!!!

Stanley like to get the ball down and play football, Smallwood would genuinely struggle in that set up. A huge reason they are spending circa of £400k on the pitch this summer is to curb the cancellations but as much so they can play their game.

I often toy with the idea of the club literally going for broke with pricing to answer any doubts about attendances. For the ease of maths 10k @ £200 is the exact same amount as 20k @ £100. The club could be transparent and say we are doing this to tempt back fans, encourage new fans and reward existing fans. If it doesn’t work and the club is worse off the pricing strategy will revert to original pricing the following season. A problem does obviously arise when a tiered season on season price rise comes in, but the hope obviously has to be the experience has made fans want to come back season after season and pay a little more. More footfall will surely bring in higher revenue, as the vast majority of matchday items for sale have huge mark ups and also more footfall encourages bigger advertisement revenue in the ground etc.

I think he made a few appearances for Stanley in the Checkatrade Trophy, I seem to remember they had a few wallopings in the games he played in.

Thanks for the detailed info, much appreciated ... I still don’t want to buy a football club!

I suppose when times fall very grim (now!) you start to look back and pick holes in the considered "successful" past of a managers record. Was last season as good as it could have been? We didn't completely take the league by storm with the biggest financial clout and certainly didn't destroy every team in our way. A lot of last season was mirrored by actually winning games against some awful competition and a magnificent social media campaign that had fans feeling we had our club back. This run doesn't look like ending because we keep trying the same things that don't work, you just don't feel like the manager feels any pressure due to distant owners and his mate being the Chief Exec.

It’s complete and utter madness. I always say if I had £100m and Venkys gave me the club debt free, my cash would run out before the club could self sustain, how as fans can we ask people to spend that money. Some long hard questions need to asked of how much is being taken out of the game by players, managers and agents.