There will be several who don’t believe that we are. Certainly in terms of attacking options we are weaker. We could be back to the Bowyer days of trying to get a goal and sitting back. Could be a very long season.

Rovers being skint is a matter of public record. The inflation in the transfer market too. Very average players are moving for a couple of million. We’ve not spent £2m since the parachute payments ran out and last Summer’s spending spree was preceded by the Dann and Hanley departures the previous year. We aren’t selling - we’ve no one to sell - so the maths says we aren’t buying either.

Thing is, with the sell-on clauses these clubs can demand, even when offloading their scraps, the chances are we won’t make any money on them anyway. I’m actually surprised that no-one has yet tried to get the lawyers in to argue that sell-on clauses are an unfair practice akin to third party ownership. Although I suspect it can work both ways, the cards are stacked in favour of the bigger club - no matter which side of the transaction.

We are a decent League One side now. It’s going to be interesting watching us try to compete in the Championship. Just look at Wigan and Bolton. Even Wigan are better than us and pay-day-loan merchants Bolton just bought Oztumer!

Just so I understand what you are saying... We should trust the loan system because 2 out of 30-plus loans out of the club have given us two players? We should loan out our homegrown CB cover, our CM cover and our ST cover so that we can buy or loan replacements? I’ve no problem in principle with Wharton going to L1 but not L2. I do have a problem with our manager’s poor treatment of Nuttall and his disparaging comments. He will probably need to go on loan now to get his confidence back - and he only signed a new deal last season as well. Such mixed messages from the club. I wonder what Travis et al must think.

Are you related to Dominic Samuel in some way?

I bet Nuttall is buzzing after such high praise from the gaffer. First a match winning goal and now this. Stop!

It’s a good question. When we loan young players out we tend to sell them not long after - usually for relative peanuts. We don’t generally have a great record with loans out of the club. Normally it’s to move on players we don’t want but can’t sell. Only Raya and Lenihan have made it to the first through that route in recent times but neither was on loan for long. In 2014 Raya went to Southport and Lenihan was loaned to Burton Albion but at the same time O’Connor O’Sullivan and O’Connell were loaned out and never came back. Maybe it’s an ‘O’ thing. Jake Kean and Josh Morris were loaned and eventually sold. In 2013 Antony Forrester - that year’s next big thing was loaned to Bury and disappeared. In 2012 Edwards went to Rochdale and ultimately left. Before that we haven’t really had much success in loaning out players ahead of induction to the first team. Mark Bunn went to Sheff United; Paul Gallagher to various (Gally was loaned out a lot); Jay McEverly at Ipswich. Looks like either make it straight away or they’re out and forgotten pretty fast. I expect most clubs have a similar record though.

Rochdale are a bit more established so he’d be playing with better quality players than at Stanley so he may not be under the cosh as much. Geographically sound though. Very strange this one.

Surely if we rate him (a three year deal suggests we do) and we want him to get experience as part of his development, surely he should have been going out to a L1 club at this point? He’d have got a better test at Stanley even and we could have followed his progress closely.

Really disappointing news but, even stranger, why - when we are skint and light of options - are we signing players and then 5 minutes later loaning then out? We’re not flipping Chelsea. With all the tales of woe about playing the waiting game on other clubs, why isn’t this a deadline day announcement - once our business is done. Hope we have a short notice agreement to bring him back if needed.

WTAF??

It’s what he has done every other time he hasn’t had to get a result. And failed.

Here’s one for debate: I’m not convinced Dack is as good a footballer as Dunn.

But at 21 I’d be investing more in Nuttall than Samuel (24) at this point.

I make no comment about the Championship. Like many in our team he hasn’t played there. But he scored 4 goals in 5 games (5 in 7 If we include the FL Trophy) before being dropped for a very poor Samuel.

Strongly disagree. He got off to a great start in the first team then was dropped as soon as Samuel was fit. Picking Samuel over Nuttall was one of the handful of things Mowbray got wrong last season. Funny that they signed up Joe to a new contract right before he was dropped.

High praise indeed. For that to happen though, we would probably be looking at promotion or a mega money sale next Summer. I’m more concerned about Dack being his own potential worst enemy. This is the highest level he’s played at so he’s very much untested. He needs to learn to manage his off the field distractions and take his game to the next level; to be a little more Duff and a little less Dunn.

We have a successful, buoyant, tight knit group of players who have bonded really well on the back of a promotion season. This is largely down to the set up that Mowbray has created down at Ewood and Brockhall. We had some stand out players at the core of last season’s side in goalkeeper Raya, Smallwood, Dack, Mulgrew, Lenihan (once fit), Elliott Bennett and Danny Graham. This was supplemented by a couple of youngsters with potential and loan signings, both mainly from the bench (although Ryan Nyambe did break into the side and was improving before getting injured); plus we had a few experienced ‘steady eddies’ in Williams, Conway and the recently vilified Corry Evans. Our squad (once we settled our defensive formation) was easily in the top three in the division and our fitness took us over the line when Shrewsbury (last season’s surprise package) eventually ran out of steam, meaning we avoided the lottery of the play-offs. Our main issue now is that this squad is thin on the ground in terms of Championship experience, and even thinner on Championship standard quality. Thanks to Venkys ‘living legacy’ (“We got money but not for Rovers”) we are unable to compete in the current transfer market in order to challenge for a play-off place - although some believe Mowbray has under estimated his budget needs - so we are going to have to rely on this team spirit (with 7 of the Class Of 2018 being given improved deals) augmented by some further young signings in Davenport and Rothwell. If Graham is injured, or can no longer cope with the rigours of the second tier then we will be relying on Dack for any threat in the final third. After that, it will be down to Charlie Mulgrew’s free kicks. At least the goal posts are the same size in all divisions and he is good enough to beat a higher standard of goalkeeper! Last year’s other attacking options relied on loanees and it is likely that we will have to settle for the loan market once again to bring in the kind of player we need to compete against far higher quality opposition that we faced last year. Worst case, without further reinforcements - particularly a proven and confident goal scorer - we may well have to rely on set-pieces to score and set up like England did this World Cup. Just without the top four finish. We do have a very healthy development squad who will also be playing at a higher level next season following their own promotion. This will hopefully see them step up as well and strengthen our options from the bench; although Mowbray is not a manager who puts much stock in promoting youth players. Tomlinson, Nuttall and Travis have all been given very little time before being banished back to the U23s. Only Nyambe - who was already in the team - can really be happy with his career development so far. Local lad Scott Wharton has just been given a three year deal having been out on loan and has barely kicked a ball for us. Maybe he will get his chance as understudy with us being light on depth at centre half. Off the field, our fractured fan base - a legacy of the Kean era - has started to put its differences behind it. Largely because (well organised) protests have run out of steam, mainly due to them being undermined by apathy, undersubscribed, and therefore easy to ignore - oh and winning games of football and mounting a promotion charge “helped”. No doubt Venkys will be well rehearsed in dealing with uprisings and quashing mutinies in their core business anyway. Wounds haven’t so much healed as temporarily scabbed over. When Venkys eventually leave we will all be able to stop picking at it and our only reminder will be the scar that it, that they, leave behind. Meanwhile the club has been family club of the year two seasons running which is a testament to the hard work that has been put into engaging with youngsters - mainly due to the mascot, games console room (I know, right?!) and the family stand moving to pitch side right by the dugout - making the players much more accessible. Winning football matches also helps (although that couldn’t be said of 2016/17 so credit where it is due). Another chapter begins this August. Who knows what it will bring. A Blackpool 2009/10 effect or a Wigan 2016/17 one is probably 50/50. Prediction Aspiration: 16th. (12th would be a very good season).

How very professional. Won’t be the first young lad to piss his talent up a wall though.

You really are utterly shameless.

Very interested to hear how we can move on while they are still here. For me it’s an uneasy truce and I want nothing more than to see the back of them. The problem is that we have regular reminders of how shackled we are and how much we are being superficially and artificially run as a club: transfer windows. Especially while ‘that lot’ down the road get stronger and stronger and our peers in the Championship spend bigger and bigger. All we can realistically do is to ignore them and hope that they don’t “pull a Coyle” every couple of years - something they have done alarmingly regularly. Their shadow will remain over everything until they leave. It isn’t possible to move on while they are still here. People don’t like analogies but it’s like a loved on life support. Things need to either get better or get fatally worse before any progress or grieving can take place.

And that was when the Champions League domination was in their sights. Sadly, that budget also includes wages for every member of staff, running costs for Ewood and Brockhall and transfer and agents fees. After agents fees that means Venkys budgeting 50p for everything else. No wonder shirts are £50. You could well be right about Mowbray and Waggott misjudging our budget range. The Championship is now PL-lite and transfer fees have exploded there too. Our 10-bob won’t buy us as much as it might have done two seasons ago.

You honestly think Venkys have a plan? Of course they don’t. We are just the cousin nobody talks about any more. Mowbray is having to plan based on the artificial budget he has to work in. Nothing to do with the loons. Obviously you only posted it for provocative reasons but your question is idiotic and obtuse for a number of reasons... 1) Venkys are still here, it’s not the past, it’s the present. 2) Their “mistakes” see us in the situation we are in. 3) History is a huge part of what makes a football club so will be part of discussion. Should we never speak of our historical successes? 4) So, no, I expect I won’t. Presumably you have “moved on”? “Got real”? Do you think you’ll ever stop posting ad hominem and actually contribute some debate-worthy content?

Plan? Pretty sure at this point that there is no plan. Things at this club have been Stable™️ on two occasions under the Raos: Once when the Agnew/Shaw/Singh axis was broken up (incorrectly attributed to Bowyer, who in reality got a massive lucky break), and once more when Mowbray arrived in the wake of Coyle/Senior/Pasha departing (another lucky break really for an experienced manager whose stock was low at the time). In reality this faux stability is akin to the quiet (or even disquiet) experienced after a small town has been flattened a tornado. This illusion of normalcy has taken the heat off Venkys but in reality we are only one mistake away from another disaster. Lest we forget, somebody employed Coyle only two short years ago...