If we sold the 5 players we would get around £20m. Their wages and the out of contract players would probably save around £8m for the next season, which is probably what is required. Allow 1 or 2 free transfers on low wages and a couple of loan signings as replacements and that would probably be it for us

If history is any indicator, he won't have a say.

I would agree we should be building around them. A building strategy is always a silly idea, as things change. If you have a chance for promotion you go for it whenever it arises as you may never get another chance.

The overdraft is a Rovers debt. In 2008, the company i worked for had our £5m overdraft called in by Lloyds during the financial crisis with just 10 working days notice to settle it. It was a horrifying experience.

There are going to be more and more of these stories over the summer. For 2 main reasons, agents want their players out of Rovers and we are looking like we have to sell. If we look at what is happening in India, Bank of India is having liquidity issues and calling in debt. For Rovers, the issue with that is they are more than likely to call in our £15m over draft to be paid pretty quickly (and this is a Rovers debt). For, Venkys the issue is they are unlikely to be able to raise funding for Rovers in their normal way. So pretty quickly if the worst comes to it we may need to raise £30m this summer in player sales and reduced wages, to keep us afloat for the next season. With potentially £15-20m being needed in the next 6 weeks.

I think all 5 will be gone as well as a few more at probably pretty low prices.

It pains me to say but I think if someone offers between £3-5m for him this summer he will be gone.

We'll find a lot out in the next few days. Under normal circumstances and with how generous Tony is with contracts, you would expect all of our out of contract players to be offered new deals. If all of them leave without being offered any type of deal, it would indicate that Venky's have turned the taps off and we will most likely be selling most of our star players. The interview yesterday about 6+ loan players is also a worry.

Wasn't that sale to pay a HMRC tax bill who were threatening to launch administration proceedings. The summer will be very difficult for us and I expect more player sales than arrivals. The good news is a lot of the academy lads are coming through so we should have a reasonably competitive side when all of the sellable assets are sold. Also if Coventry have the funds and Venky's accept the offer, he will be gone.

The difference being they are fans and will find ways round FFP. Also the Coates family are true verifiable multi Billionaires where as Venky's are not necessarily as rich. Stoke is fully funded through Bet365 and so will not be that hard for them to absorb the costs etc especially is FFP is relaxed for the next season.

Stoke can easily afford it

As far as i know Venky's have never put a penny of their own cash into us. It has been loans and mortgages from the Bank of India using the 1000's of acres of prime land and real estate they own as collateral for these loans. This is all well and good so long as the land assets continue to increase, to enable them to remortgage every couple of years and they pay the interest payments. Issue arise such as 4 years ago and our relegation from premier league when they can't remortgage quickly or land prices have not gone up sufficiently. This is when, such as during the last summer of Gary Bowyer and the Coyle summer, when we had difficulty paying our wage bill on a number of occasions in those 2 seasons. So long as the loans stay with Venky's everything is ok, if the loans are transferred to the UK holding company then that is when we will be put into administration and quickly. This summer i expect it to be very tight again, as land prices have fallen and the Bank of India is calling in loans and not lending at present.

That could be the best thing for them. They have very little Football debt and are in a much better recovery position than ourselves from a financial sense. If we go into admin now, ours will be a lot trickier to recover from. We are still playing managers, players etc off from years ago. All our transfers have been payments over a number of years and these for new owners have to be paid in full as per the agreement. Football debt is not like normal debt where the new owner offers 10p in the £ to clear the debt etc. It will be a horror story looking at our books, probably why the haven't put us into Administration thus far.

I think Rothwell was a good buy at the price but he is used very poorly. He needs a better manager, he'll probably leave in the summer, go to a new club, have a blinder of a season and we will sadly regret it.

I am not sure how he keeps up with his claptrap about not knowing his budget. It's simple and pretty much all of us know the budget for next season already, to comply with FFP we need to reduce our budget for next season by £13m. So he will need to generate £8-10m in player sales and reduce the wage bill by £3-5m. To do that he needs to immediately get rid of all out of contract players, which should reduce the wage bill by £2-3m. He then needs to player trade like he has never done before to get a competitive squad together quickly. I would have much more confidence in a Warnock or Allardyce to do this or even Gareth Ainsworth and Karl Robinson who can bring through good quality lower league players and there will be an abundance of those being released by clubs. If FFP are relaxed for a season he will get the same budget as this year. It is that simple but you would plan and budget based on the rules staying the same.

What was Wycombe's wage budget for the year, around £2m to 2.5m tops?

A very impressive promotion considering the squad reduction and sell off he had to do last summer.

They have Invested based on mortgages on the land they own increasing in value 15 fold since they purchased us and being able to remortgage etc at higher amounts. As land prices are now reducing and the Indian banking system having liquidity issues due to Covid, i would say they may not have the available cash to invest that much at the moment even if they want to.

To stay within FFP guidelines, the above is the minimum we will have to do, i would probably say £12m in trading surplus plus £7m wage bill reduction would be more likely requirment.. If FFP are relaxed for next season then spending a bit this summer would be the best course of action. All depends what happens with FFP rules for next season in the next couple of weeks.

For ourselves a rule like that would be pretty harsh and rule out a lot of owner investment in sides and players. If you think at present we have a £10m turnover, so to run the club properly and on a sustainable footing, we would be looking at the following: 1. Total Wages For all Employees (Players, Staff, Directors, Groundsmen, security) including Pensions, NI contributions - £5m 2. Youth Setup - £1.5m 3. Transfer Budget - £1m 4. Operating Costs, Police, Ground Maintenance - £2m 5. Contingency - £0.5m Total - £10m

Other option is for the next 12 months to reduce the amount they will put in down to £3m for the season, meaning we need to generate or reduce costs by £12m. If they do want to do that, there will be no contract extensions and all sellable players will be gone. So we'll need someone better than Tony at developing youth players and much more experienced at player trading to put a team out for next season. I am not sure which is worse administration or death by a 1000 cuts.

I am more worried about this being the perfect time and excuse for Venky's to put us into administration without losing any face. You can easily spin it and get lots of positive press in India by saying they have put us into administration to invest the £15m a year on Indian healthcare projects during this extremely difficult time.

It is the Brentford approach, head coach looks after team, training, day to day etc, DOF looks after the strategic areas. Do Bristol City have a DOF? I also see that Brentford have now brought in specific coaches for the defence, set pieces (both attack and defending) and link up play etc.

I think i would go for Gareth Ainsworth for what he has achieved at Wycombe on a shoe string budget bringing through lots of kids etc. If he gets them promoted we may find out just how good he is next season when Wycombe probably take 6 points of us.

I have heard there are presently 30 clubs in League 1 and 2 who are looking into administration as well as 7 Championship clubs.