Leutwiler Bell Bennett, Downing Samuel I'd expect will all get new contracts at some point whilst the old boys club rolls on and on.

After all the trimming back and getting it under control it seems to be getting bloated again. Those at the club often flag up the wage bill but the owners never seem that bothered about it they keep adding the shortfall. Which is all well and good but the trouble is the unbalanced squad and most of the wages and fees going on forwards and a few mids. Time and again we are undone at the other end through poor play from players not really up to it yet they never get upgraded. Then we get told we couldn't afford this that or the other defender / keeper ! Not really much of a plan i don't think just the perennial scattergun. Invest in some bloody quality in that back line and between the sticks and free up the space by getting rid of the constant wage drain under achievers who we really don't need to carry anymore. Evans and Samuel for a start, easy 20 grand plus per week there.

This is it, Tony two minds he's continually caught between a rock and a hard place on how he wants the team to play. Said it all along right from when he first arrived and i expected the team to be fighting tooth and nail to fight the drop but it didn't really we sort of plodded to relegation. We were nearly there though and only went down by the odd point so it seemed accepted. He's an old school manager who tries to apply International chess style thinking. Fur coat and no knickers i'm afraid.

Yeah i'd say that was right unless they paid a minimal fee for Clint ? Such a vital area of any football team the no 1 position especially at Rovers where the crowd likes to bond with their keeper. If you start with Leon Best just how much has been spent at the opposite end up top compared to the equally important keeper position ? Absolutely bonkers.

When did we last sign a good keeper ? Something thats been majorly missing for ten years, no coincidence there either i don't think !

Not arsed about Warnock right now i think he'd only be interested in another last payday working a couple of shifts per week. Not what we need although we might need to give him a call in a few months to pull us out the mire. We need a decent name with proven pedigree within the last ten years or an ambitious out of the box type with a set of minerals not another genial uncle type. Forget unproven punts and dinosaurs off the scrapheap.

That's the feeling there's been all along under Venkys it seems the happiness and pockets of players and agents plus some managers etc comes first. Points come second and as long as you follow whims, spend money certain ways, look after certain people and of course constantly blow smoke up the owners then it's fine. They've enough money turnover to pay for it all and not bother, meanwhile the belief keeps slowly ebbing away and the fanbase keeps shrinking. As for lillyliver fans i'm sure they'd be over the moon if their manager spent fees totalling their clubs entire income for a year on the players our lot have. Then again he'd probably have a job in mind for them and get a tune out of them, our owners aren't bothered as long as someone they like tells them they'll get the money back plus profit. Doubt they care if that even happens that's part of their fun i think. Crazy stuff.

I agree but the comparisons were with North End who've been run in a stable manner for years - post that idiot Shaw. Agree on the manager bit and actually we have to credit Mowbray on getting on the plane early and getting over to India to pitch his plans whilst the going was good. It seems that's the absolute only way to get at least some stuff done like other clubs do within an acceptable timeline. Doesn't mean the plans were the right ones of course.

I think they'll be preparing a dossier full of excuses for him by then it's obvious his PR team keep a look out on social media and brief him or he does it himself. It'll be we went for x.y.z defenders but wages, didn't want to move, someone bigger pipped us will be the reasons. There's nothing to back it up either way so loads will swallow it. The real evidence is 12 million spent on BB & SG in 12 months one who'll no doubt be on big wages even if it isn't the number banded about. Then Downing an alleged one year deal probably somewhere near the 30k pwk he was on at Boro, the Johnson who'll be another good earner. Why did he come in and look the part only to turn to shite and maybe be asked to do things he wasn't used to doing and now he's out the running. Why in gods name identify and sign him if you want him to play differently than what his style is at 32/33 yrs old ??? Then the alleged 1 million pound loan fee for a kid from City, why hasn't some of all the above gone into recruiting some experienced centre halves ? Oh and keeper, the things that were promised wholeheartedly by the manager himself and the very things missing for most of his tenure and helped get us relegated last time. Why does he have such a make do and mend approach to defence. And why does he appear to have such a lax attitude now to the whole thing ? He can't just keep trading on 'iv'e been in football a long time iv'e seen it all before'. So have a lot of fans and we know when we are literally going around in circles Tony, you can fool some some of the time but....

Preston are run like a proper football club and have ambition but realistic expectation, at the moment. Rovers are run like a subsidiary of a generous but seriously misguided foreign conglomerate whose main idea for it seems to be a cross between accounting tool, loss leader, investment vehicle / play thing. Depended on who at any given moment is calling the shots or taking an interest. And it comes way down the list behind family, religion, other business interests and whims. That means there's always likely to be delays on major decisions and still a vacuum between the club and India that depended on who's in it gets used to their own ends. Not always crookedly but a closed shop can develop in which everyone is comfortable and nobody is really accountable to fans because the ultimate responsibility lies several thousand miles away. All we have now is a more peaceful version of the same old model.

This Scott Dann myth needs putting to bed once and for all i think. Our favourite scribe who was well in at the time given his connections to the Kean camp laid it out as a deal that could rise to 7 million. Although to be fair it was still a big commitment i don't think the intention was to ever actually stump it all up. We paid about a million up front then there was a load of add ons and clauses in there. Nixon said something along the lines of he'd have to play for England so many times, get promoted with Rovers and be here a number of years before it would ever reach that figure. By the time we'd sold him it was generally thought they'd more or less recouped what he'd cost up to that point c3 millionish i think it was ? That was another of Keans questionable motive signings, nothing more than get him in unfit, get him fit and in the shop window then flog him. Remember Brum were desperate to shift him off the payroll so the figure was dressed up in the press to appease their lot.

All a chairman or CEO should say to that interview is look if you've been in football a long time and know the mechanics of it you'll know full well you get points for results not 10-20 mins of good play per fortnight. Even him saying that though is nonsense anybody watching will know performances have been mostly been poor anyway that's why the results haven't followed. Just because you lose 2-1 doesn't mean it was a close game.

Tony's charm offensive and Steve's promises to 'look into it' cover all bases as far as Pasha is concerned.

So he brought on Evans and basically put a stop to that !

Not sure i buy that either although i could well see their 'advisers' influencing it. Such is TMs stock with them though that i think if he said it was a good idea to shell out a package of 2.5 million on a four year deal for Bauer they'd have signed it off. It's down to him this surely a couple of experienced centre half loans would have helped. Don't tell me if he sourced a couple on the bench of a Prem / big Champ club and we only had to pay half whack for them in wages they wouldn't jump at that.

A turgid 1 - 1 as the players get Dubai and god knows where else out of their systems.

They come in everyday which is nice of them Tony really appreciates that otherwise Eliot and co with dig you out. They train a bit, have a laugh a bit then go off and socialise a bit. Tony rotates them to keep them as happy as he can and keep the app bonuses shared around unless you're one of the younger ones then you've to lump it. Unless of course him and his boys signed you or your with the right agent then you're fine. This club is one giant comfort zone again where doing just enough is enough the void between India and Blackburn and those who attempt to fill a bit of it ensures this.

Pardew ??? Might as well get Steve Coppull his gardening leave has been about as long.

Apart from doting a few i's and crossing a few t's on official documents i doubt Waggot has much to do with the football side unless he's told or asked. Venus doing players contracts ? WTF is all that about, why do we need a Director of Football Operations that works UNDER the manager but over the CEO ? Between them they've got the inside of the club stitched up now by the looks of it. I'm sure that it runs a bit better than it was but is it running in the right way .....

That type of thing probably added weight to the dearer tickets when the firework display was on. A quick glance at last time and an increase in footfall for a random game in the home sections particularly kids. Another fleecing opportunity that will backfire in the long run when people turn their noses up at it next season. Everything is done by spreadsheet though these days including the team i think.

I'd say the pursuit of his mate Downing suddenly became more attractive to Mowbray once he knew he was becoming available.

In the time they've been here Vs have tried spending big money on players presented to them a time or two and they've thrown around astronomical wages. The one thing they've never done nor even contemplated it seems is hire a pedigree manager so surely it's about time in their 'football manager' world they went down that route. That is what this job has needed right from the very start they don't need to listen to a myriad of self interested spivs advising them just look at the history books of BRFC.

We can but hope.

International pending so doesn't want any risk of injury, we've seen it all before time after time with this fella. Again though the manager has other options but can't resist keeping his senior pros in the picture.

O W E N C O Y L E Lambert got promotions with Norwich but it's all about the here and now and the coming seasons.