I think we need to exclude last season with Covid, with the delay to the end of the season, there was virtually no holidays before start of pre-season and the start of the normal season. Getting Kaminski in early was probably the real benefit there. But in a normal season getting players in early and settled normally results in a good showing.

Successful clubs normally try to get the players in before pre-season, so everyone gels and understands how to play in our system. It's one of the reasons why we have not been anywhere in the Championship, we never have a settled side going into the season, we do most of our signings in the last week of the Window. We then write off the first 6-8 games while everyone settles in.

It makes giving players an additional 4 week contracts for not playing look even more foolish as all of that would have been in the qualifying accounts. Sort of makes you think that the club or directors need us to go into an embargo. I can see in the next 12 weeks, we'll need the sale of AA, JR and another plus the sale of the Brockhall land for us to come out of an Embargo and will all be blamed on FFP instead of the incompetence of those in charge.

The Walker Family I do blame as well.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but at the time the trust didn't have the funds to continue to invest the £5m a season. Also The remaining Walker family were suing them for mismanagement of the trust and that included continuing to fund Rovers which the family considered a financial mismanagement. I think if the Walker family had not launched the lawsuit at the time the Trust may well have kept the club but at a much lower continued investment of say £2m a season but we will never know. Also to continue to compete at the time the Premier League was becoming a Billionaires playground and the Trust didn't have the funds so found Billionaires who wanted to have a football club. The sad thing is if they had waited 12 months for the new TV deals to kick in we would have been a self funding operation. It's just incredibly depressing looking back on what might have been and how we are run now.

It's a difficult situation with them. They didn't really have the available cash to continue investing with Flybe etc consuming more of their investment capital as well as other issues following the financial crash. Also at the time the Walker family were suing the trust for financial mismanagement. The trust found a billionaire family to take on the club and unfortunately assumed they were competent business people who would continue the running of the club in a similar way to they way they had. They should probably have done more to explain the situation to them about agents running the club, how that would be illegal, double standard two face liars of agents, explained if you are relegated from the Premier League, you're are screwed so important to keep in it etc. At the end of the day, once it is sold and it up to the new owners to run the business as they see fit and there is not a lot you can do to stop them doing so.

I must admit the cash injections seem to be lower than i would have expected this year. Looking at it they have injected £1m more than last season despite not having nearly as much match day income etc plus investing more in player wages etc this term. I would have expected at least another £5-7m in share allocations this year to cover that shortfall. So really i wonder where the cash has come from to pay everything?

I understand and they should use the data both ways. To be honest all the data shows we do not have the players to play a possession based game but do have the players to play a highly direct, quick passing counter attacking side. So no matter what the issues for the season have always been Mowbray playing the wrong system and formation to match the players he has at his disposal. We can argue about data all the time but until a new manager is appointed who understands how to play to get the best out of the players at his disposal its a pointless exercise.

It doesn't show that at all though. it was a table to show that buckley had started more games that we had won than started more games we lost. That is all. Also we were under Hugh's and Big Sam pioneers of the use of the data systems we are now trying to catch up with before the system was dismantled after Venky's took over and implemented an agency lead approach.. Samba being an example of a demo Hugh's had of the system in the first few weeks he was here and then invited for a trial to see if the predictions of the stats matched with reality. As its a transfer thread and with most clubs now using these systems extensively especially with getting to games for the last 18 months, how do you think most clubs will be doing transfer business this year? Which would you prefer we go down the data approach or ring up our friendly agent and ask him to bring in 5 new player for us?

I am not sure JRC or Chapman will be here either. There has been a pause put on all expenditure and commitiing to any new contracts by Venky's The rumours presently in India are that Venky's are in discussions with a fellow IPL owning billionaire to come in as an investor into Rovers. If these rumours are true, Venky's won't be making any financial decisions concerning Us.

I think most Sheffield United fans were thinking the same when they appointed Wilder as manager, apart from being a Sheffield United Fan, he had not done that much to be appointed their boss. Also we did try to appoint him as manager at the same time as Mowbray, but got turned down, so we did seem to be looking at lower league managers at that point. I am not saying we should appoint Ainsworth, but he has something about him, and what he has done with Wycombe, especially this season on a £4m total player budget is pretty impressive. It just took him a touch too long for their players to get up to speed with the demands of the Championship. Wilder, sadly I don't see us being able to appoint, despite the fact he is perfect for the role, i think his relationship with the Sheffield United owner for the past season means he is unlikely to accept another basket case club.

As soon as he said he wasn't worried about trying to overhaul Wigan and win League 1, I was getting concerned. What ambitious successful manager says they don't care about winning the league they are in? Also to then say he had to convince Venky's to cool it when we were promoted. Sheffield United and Norwich had both proven you go for it once promoted and if you don't get promoted the first season, you will be set up nicely for promotion in the second season.

Are we all sure our current transfer embargo is as straight forward for us to get out of? I must say there does seem to be an awful lot of good out of contract players at other clubs this year, so even with a very small transfer budget, some clubs are going to be able to put a very good side together on virtually nothing.

It might be they want a replacement lined up similar to Bowyer and Coyle dismissals before they move.

You have written off the summer transfer window as the new manager will need time to assess the squad before deciding on players he needs. Also the pre season schedule will be what Mowbray had set up and could be completely different to what the new manager requires etc.

Good point. I am not sure which ones are living in the UK so avoided. If Wagner is living in the UK i would add him to my list as well.

I think with Brexit getting an obscure European manager will be much more difficult in obtaining a work permit, so it will therefore have to be a British manager. Also in regard to this recruiting unearthed gems from Europe through our new European scouting network is also going to be a challenge. I think really we need someone who knows lower leagues and can unearth gems from there as well as developing young talent through our youth system. I think I would go for one of either Cowley's, Gareth Ainsworth or Mark Robins.

I was speaking to a developer during the week who claims it is a lot further along than we anticipate. He indicated that the STC has already been sold to a developer pending approval of the planning application. I am hopeful he was just pulling my leg but I am not so sure these days. Why billionaires require this small amount of cash i have no idea. Also as investments in training grounds and youth developments are excluded from FFP calculations they could build a world class facility at any time they want. I could understand moving to one facility if we were moving to a 200 acre purpose built facility but this just makes no sense at all as Brockhall is already in the top 15 facilities in the UK and certainly the best in the Championship.

They could always, swallow their pride and ask Tom Finn to come back and sort the mess out.

I hope you are right, as I don't think we have the players to roll their sleaves up for a relegation battle, the two young lads from Everton and City will crack under the pressure of a relegation battle. I think your comments would have been echoed last season by Hull who had 39 points after 26 games. To only get 3 draws and a win in the last 20 games was horrifying for them. Looking at our next 9 games, we are likely to get a few draws so the last 8 games will be tight. Having said that when the pressure is on, TM always seems to conjure up a few wins so we should be ok.

I fear we maybe this seasons Hull with how we are playing at the moment. Our next set of fixtures look horrible, will he be able to sort it out or will he go down as our first manager to take us to League 1 twice in their tenure. He just doesn't seem to know what to do anymore and it looks like he is desperate to be put out of his misery and sacked.

You do realize that Brentfords budget is lower than ours, also they have to develop and sell one star per year to cover their losses each season. So why are they able to be top so far this season and have been able to mount multiple top 6 campaigns?

Apart from the overdraft, we do not have any external debt at the moment. It seems they are having to inject nearly £7m every 3 months to keep the lights on, so around £28-30m for this season (nearly double their normal yearly contribution). For that amount of cash I would be expecting a promotion challenge at the minimum. Also in 3 months we will break the magical £200m barrier, at a certain point they must reach an enough is enough moment.

Limited spending has been allowed following relaxation of the FFP rules for the season as well as TM going for the playoffs. Up until then we had a leeway of £15k. Venky's have guaranteed an injection into the club this year of £32m to cover this years running costs.

It appears TM over ruled the data team who were suggesting Goode and Pickering in the summer and instead went for Kipre and another left back. When these fell through they were then left desperately trying to find replacements in Douglas and Ayala who the data team were vehemently opposed to. Venky's now believe what was the point in investing in scouting and data if you are going to over rule them and make silly decisions. They have seen the success of Brentford and want a more scientific approach with rovers recruitment, which they understand, instead of how it has been in the past few seasons..