With regards to current agent affiliations. Under FA rules, agents are not allowed to 1)control or run football clubs 2)have third party player ownership or 3) have formal or informal contractual ties with other agents. You heard Nick Harris describe factually what happened about 1 and 2. Let me suggest it is difficult to find any agent who was in the football business five or more years ago who was independent of Jerome Anderson unless one of the other really big agents.

Nick Harris was out of order in the ambiguity he allowed in that comment. The fans en mass have been very clear in admirably not being racist. There had been some very nasty extremist politically motivated elements involved when other potential Asian/Middle Eastern buyers had emerged much earlier. I don't believe those people had any particular affiliation with Rovers and definitely none with any of the fans' organisations. I have heard rumours although seen no evidence to support them that Anderson had engaged with the far right himself when working to clear other potential suitors for Rovers out of the way. There were other extremely dirty tricks engaged in before Venky's were brought into the picture.

This. Glen and the team were superb in the way they handled it and took a huge amount of unfounded undeserved flak from other supporters.

My take aways: Kentaro having the contract to completely run Rovers on the day of the takeover including transfers is the root of all the problems. Podcast didn't make much of having an agent run the club was completely against PL, FA, UEFA and FIFA rules. Didn't say that Kentaro/SEM/Anderson took a deal fee from both Venky's and the Trust of nearly £5m each side. Confirmed the Venky's wealth from their businesses of £2bn ten years ago even without including their property holdings. The publicly quoted chicken company is a small part of their business empire- less than 10%. Didn't know the FA opened an inquiry during John Williams' time- obviously it didn't go anywhere. The FA were utterly un co-operative with the fans too. Perhaps because Kentaro at the time had the FA Marketing contract for the England team and organised that weird friendly against Brazil played in the Gulf. Didn't mention the Red Star Belgrade angle in the reformulated Formica deal. There were details of the audit in Spring 2011 which I wasn't previously aware of but I did know Anderson/Kentaro became persona non grata about that time. Anderson took to ringing anyone he thought might have influence to try and get himself back in and he did so that Autumn through Balaji who surprisingly gets very little mention in the podcast. Mrs D ran the transfers in the summer of 2012 and made a £20m profit if I remember correctly. The podcast skated around how evil Steve Kean was and ignored the role of Paul Agnew before 2012. It didn't go into the history of Kentaro's involvement nor the other people inside Kentaro nor the Brunei registered company set-up to be the vehicle to acquire Rovers nor the fact the Venky's weren't Anderson's first choice as buyers... I was one of the three fans who went to Westminster- we went on to see the Minister of Sport. Also had a meeting with the Chief Exec of the Premier League. Nick didn't touch any of the extensive material he has he might get sued for if he made public which I wondered if he might have at least alluded to. Not related to Venky's but there is karma because Anderson has now been in a truly horrific situation for the past four years.

And knocked out of the Cup with ease.

Starting at Luton is the phrase he missed off...

Corry Evans has been at Rovers for 7.5 years making 197 appearances and scoring 4 goals. This makes him the longest serving current player does it not? The injuries he has suffered have blighted his career but they have not been all in the same place so it is unfair to describe him as made of glass. A season ending groin tear, broken toe, massive head injury. The guy has put his body on the line for the club. This is why I had a go. As a footballer he is not someone who is going to excite the fan base but as a defensive midfielder he does his job more often than not and relies on others around him to provide the creative flair. If this is a provocative post, it is not me who has the problem.

Any covid/ injury news on the long list of players who should be back for this one?

Very much needed saying. Quite a few posts on this thread are simply disgraceful.

Andy Cole and Adam Armstrong both emerged from Newcastle's youth set up. Their career trajectories to date have been very different. At 23, Cole was easily one of the best and most feared strikers in the Premier League and had been for three or four seasons. At 23, Armstrong has just developed into one of the best and most feared strikers in the Championship and for the past three or four seasons it looked like it might not happen for him. I really hope Arma continues the remarkable development he has enjoyed in 2020. Some strikers do develop relatively late - look at Vardy. Brereton could be a similar case in point.

Will be really interesting to hear how far Nick pulls back the veil on what he knows.

I would go so far as to cancel all sport where mandatory testing is not carried out.

I was remembering the Cup game and going there when we drew against the odds. Also went there for a horrible defeat when they scored against the run of play and went on to thrash us. Ricky Hill got at least one for them. Time to register that win then. We have reversed some horribly long barren runs - notably at Eland Road.

Which Fletcher are we talking about? Paul Fletcher was more than useful for the Dingles.

That alleyway to get to the turnstiles! We have a pretty good record against Luton or did until last season's extreme charity. Game seems an eternity away. Horrible feeling we are going to see the worst Rovers line-up yet. Not because of a Mowbray brain freeze but because of Covid. All four analysts got it- what do they do all day? Sit in little booths with each of our players. Kominsky got it so it is a pretty fair bet the entire Rovers playing squad has been infected.

Never even remotely seen anything like that before!

"I am sick and tired of, IMO, all the 'slow build, evolution, on a journey' cr@p from Mowbray that sadly some, including our owners, seem to buy. IMO, it's merely self preservation stuff from Mowbray." Mowbray has said enough in the past two years for me to understand the slow build up was to delivering a promotion drive this season. He has been given incredible time and support from Pune so he has to deliver starting at Luton - that is assuming we don't wake up a week on Saturday to find 15 players in quarantine.

Likelihood is he caught it at Rovers. The entire squad and staff should be tested.

Rovers games averaging 3.06 goals per game so far.

I am not looking at 2001. I am looking at today. Our season starts at Luton as fingers crossed we will only have 5 absentees as opposed to being without double figures of players in all our most recent games. We don't know whether this squad is good enough when at anything like full strength. All we do know is that with a rotating half a first eleven out we have generated W4 D2 L5 F21 A15 and kept in touch with the leading pack. Based on performances to date, if we play Luton, PNE and Barnsley in the remainder of this month with essentially our first eleven minus only Dack and Travis, we should be looking to collect a minimum of seven points and when those two are back we SHOULD be looking at promotion. Reading Mercer's post above we are pretty well saying the same things. The only difference is I am sitting in my shorts, teeshirt and flipflops.

Glad to have sparked a debate. I said he could- not he would. There are perhaps half a dozen 17/18 year olds in world football you would rate ahead of Harvey today. You will be really struggling to name more.

In business, you have to ignore sunk costs- it is money that is gone.

Brockhall getting a deep clean and the analysis staff all quarantined. I would certainly do a blanket test before anyone is allowed back this week.

I desperately hope we will be turning to making one or two signings capable of keeping us in the Premier League by the time January comes round. The present squad really ought to be in the too good for the Championship category now but I wouldn't put any of our current players today automatically in a top half of the Premier League starting eleven whereas you might select one or two each from Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich. But I think our squad overall is top end of the Championship quality if we get our enforced absences down to five or less per game. Translating that to names, it would mean being without Travis, Dack, Bennett, Butterworth and Evans (apparently it is a bad hamstring injury) for Luton and welcoming back availability of Ayala, Bell, Douglas, Holtby, Vale, Downing - have I missed anybody? Having Travis and Dack back at their very best should put us in too good for the Championship level on the field if not in the dug out... The huge advantage is our players are predominantly young- Saturday's starting eleven averaged 23 years of age and was the youngest in this round of the Championship. Thoughts?