Im not sure that can be said with such confidence. Sounds like its a financial issue based on the public comments from Mowbray and Waggott. Maybe they should have been sold by now though.

Agreed, in fact I thought that both were poor and off the pace all game.

Poveda has looked really poor in all 3 games now. Clarkson wasnt as poor as Poveda but didnt do much of note. Not just a loanee thing though or a loanee issue in general as it can be implied.

The loanees are struggling, but the issue is not whether they block the academy players, its whether they are good enough. We have loads of academy players in the team, including at the other end where one was poor and the other a total liability.

I cant fathom how anyone thinks that this squad is promotion material, even allowing for the poor general standard of division.

Really poor performance and the signs of a small squad being exposed. Magloire stood out, he wouldnt be a professional if he wasnt so fast. You know he must be bad when the manager feels the need to change the whole system because he doesnt trust him. A change that didnt work, Buckley had a poor game. Why not bring on Edun, an actual full back, yes its not ideal that hes left footed but it surely causes less disruption than chucking on a no hoper? Shame that Mowbray signed an injured player. Ayala was so exposed today, Carter had a shaky night as did Pickering. Poveda was embarassing when he came on, he looks woeful. Gallagher and Dolan very poor. Brereton at least keeps on scoring, Travis was ok and what a run by Rothwell.

O'Brien and Hogg are both doubts for tonight. Would be a big boost especially if the former misses out.

It is not an unreasonable request. You yourself have liked a post from @MarkBRFC which is a similar point to mine. You regularly put "rumours" that don't come to fruition and have come most likely from social media, which is totally fine but it would make sense just to say "I have seen on x twitter" or "look at this screenshot from facebook" to add meat to the bones. For what its worth, I certainly do not think that 1864roverite is doing anything over than being genuine and honest, it was just a personal initial reaction to someone that I have no doubt is being 100% transparent.

I am well aware and I am also aware that it is not an excuse for everything that Venkys fail to do (taking over from being "badly advised") but thanks for the patronising undertones all the same.

Fair enough, but then if you do that, you have to accept that your argument is likely to be dismissed by quite a few, and even to some come across as carrot dangling. To paraphrase, the argument is "I disagree but I can't tell you why." I never said that he was pretending. I have no reason to suggest that he is being in anyway disingenuous, I just don't consider it constructive personally and all it inevitably does is causes debate about whether that type of post is worthwhile in the absence of actually having anything to talk about!

We all judge what happens on a game by game basis, you included. I didn't say that Pickering was shit, I didn't write him off or anything like that. I said he looked a bit shaky, not Bell/Douglas shaky, but shaky nonetheless and others agreed, in fact I qualified it by saying that it was early days. It was IMO a fair analysis of his performances within those relevant match threads. Since, he has improved and I have praised him. Regarding those players, there is a small element of speculation within all of our own opinions without knowing their current contracts and the offers put to them, of that I would concede. But from everything from Mowbray and Waggott, the issues are financial. All 4 have the right to see themselves towards the top of our wage structure, our captain, our main goalscorer with Dack out, and 2 players who play every week and have accumulated plenty of first team appearances between them. Rothwell signed from Oxford as a squad player, and Nyambe signed after relegation, they wont be at the top of our wage hierarchy, so surely a decent rise is justified. As long as they don't want silly wages beyond our top earner, and it would seem a jump to suggest that they would, it would make sense to give them those deals, maybe even a release clause to, and then they can grow, be sold and then some of that can be banked and some can be reinvested as Mowbray correctly has identified is the way to be run. Financially, new deals in the long run will earn us money, not cost us money. We aren't run like a normal club though. If there was no sign of any of them signing going back to the summer, then yes, sales should perhaps have been seriously considered, although that would imply that a percentage would be reinvested in the way that healthy clubs work, but Venkys are seemingly unwilling at the moment to allow that, which will eventually render us uncompetitive unless that is relaxed.

Was just my personal opinion to be fair. Some might find value in being told that "things are bright" but being given nothing constructive, nothing tangible or nothing specific beyond that to discuss and debate on an internet messageboard, it also sparks this carrot dangling sort of toing and froing. But thats just my opinion, others will differ. I couldn't possibly or agree or disagree with you because you haven't really said anything.

But it adds absolutely nothing when absolutely no details whatsoever can be shared. Surely just update if and when the actual details can be shared, otherwise nothing possibly can be discussed.

Of course we should look to become as self sustainable as possible. The thing you repeatedly fail to grasp is that allowing a series of key assets with financial value to leave on frees rather than for frees flies very much in the face of that. Plus the players would need replacing which would cost money anyway, if we became solely reliant on academy graduates to fill every gap, eventually we will not be competitive and succumb to relegation. Even if 3 contracts were funded by the sale of the 4th player of those running down their deals, that would be fine. Not renewing these contracts is illogical in every way, including financial. Trying to save pennies in the short term is just removing the potential for much bigger fees in the long run. A bit of needless and potentially premature smugness at the bottom, I never said that Pickering wouldn't be a good signing, like you I had never seen him play last season. His first few games, I was far from on my own in thinking that he looked shaky, thankfully he now looks to be settling in nicely. Let's not get too giddy about Ayala's fitness too soon, he was struggling at the end on Saturday, his quality is undoubted but we need more than 9 appearances to suggest that the fitness work has been remarkable, perhaps the key has simply been getting a pre season in. And Brereton in his first 3 seasons couldn't have looked any less of a goalscorer so his 7 goals have been somewhat against any previous evidence. The window was crap, we failed to fill our main vacancy

Is the "speculation bandwagon" helped by posts suggesting that you know lots of things that no one else could possibly understand but that you can't elaborate on it?

The point about player morale is totally seperate to FFP, and I would personally say a more valid and likely one, and something that indeed has been publically mentioned. That being said, I am not suggesting that we should break the wage structure to get any of them. Brereton and Lenihan along with Dack you would suggest should be possibly our highest earners, as our main attacker and our captain respectively. Whilst with Rothwell and Nyambe, I would (this is an assumption) presume are not amongst our highest earners, with the former on the initial deal he signed after leaving League 1 Oxford to join as a squad player, and Nyambe last signing a deal before establishing and massively developing himself. I would suggest that we could give them a decent rise as important first teamers without smashing the wage ceiling. Plus think of the replacement cost.

That to me is the ultimate unfounded comparison, and a totally unsubstantiated one. Offering a miniscule fraction of the proceeds of a major sale to improve contract offers to tie down other valuable assets who can potentially then be sold at some point does not put us at risk of becoming like any of those clubs. We could offer 3 of them new deals and sell one in January. If they all go for free, we will need to replace them all with freebies who will themselves require competitive wages, most likely will not carry comparitive value and will also of course expect signing on fees. FFP my arse.

Weve just sold a 15m player, we can offer 3 or 4 players a few extra grand a week, 2k a week would be 100k a year. Even if it meant sacrificing one in January to keep the other 3. Financially, letting all of them leave for frees would be the most counterproductive option. FFP is a convenient excuse and one of which there has been no public mention even by Steve excuses Waggott of in regards to these new deals.

They just dont have enough quality. They had 3 English starters at the weekend and a couple of Scots. Brentford had 3 Englishmen and they did well, Southampton had 7 and they have yet to win a game. Wont find much correlation. Having heart doesnt have to come from English players, there is no reason to think that foreign players care any less.

Clearly not enough to entice any of these players to actually sign these contracts. Strike whilst the iron is hot and we are doing well, money is and always will be the driving factor behind such issues so there is no excuse. Just a continious spouting of how bad Covid is in India whilst half of our team runs down their contract and leaves us in the sheet. But at least Balaji "wrote" a letter saying that he cares. I dont see how the window can be seen as anything other than a failure, we havent improved the starting 11. We publically announced that we wanted a striker, we didnt get one. We signed 5 players and judging now, Clarkson looks like a little boy lost when he comes on, Van Hecke will be injured until the point when he will be one of 5 centre backs, so what was the point? Poveda has looked really poor in his only 2 starts, Edun is just a squad filler and Khadra looks the most promising of the 5 and he himself is a squad player. I hope at least some of the 5 grow into things and make significant contributions but we have just added to the numbers, it seems at this present moment. The improvement has come through players that were already contracted here. Ayala is (temporarily at least) fit and has improved our defence, as has Pickering who signed in January. Brereton has also matched last seasons goal tally and Travis is back fit and in much better shape. Dolan has also showed flashes in some games. These all have benefitted the team but none of them reflect the transfer window.

I still think that we will not sustain the early start, that the team will likely be broken up due to the owners negligence, and that the summer window was an unsuccessful one, 100%. But the manager deserves praise for the first 9 games, can't just put it down to luck.

Touched on the Norwich situation in my previous post, but they seem very strange. Their team is worse than last season, you wonder if they need to take a step back and perhaps make a change or 2, either in the managerial position, the director of football or indeed both. Compare to Watford, no kids on loan from clubs in the same league, reasonable but not irresponsible transfer fees, no big sales, bits of experience (on cheap/free deals) in Sissoko, King and Rose, and someone in Emmanuel Dennis who has hit the ground running. Or Brentford, a similar story, Ajer from Celtic catching the eye, and both are very competitive in this league. Norwich weren't last time and they aren't this time, and considering that they were the winners of the Championship, something has gone wrong again, 16 losses on the bounce in the Premier League is shocking.

Have there been "so many seasons" with possession based shite? The first 2 full seasons, we were a very direct side, whether that involved an element of pragmatism that moved away from Mowbray's ideals is speculative and indeed irrelevant, we certainly could not be described as a possession based team. Even in the second season in the Championship, although we had Downing, Holtby and Adarabioyo, I wouldn't say that we focused too much on possession, it was only really last season when we tried and totally failed to control games based on flawed logic. The Venus theory seems like a bit of a jump to me. Surely the most logical reason would be a mixture of realising that what he had tried to implement didn't work, and also a natural pragmatism due to the inferior resources and squad available to him?

Agreed, it all is a little muddled up. It is crazy how they can be so good at Championship level yet so poor at Premier League level, to such a degree. Their summer recruitment has been totally bizarre. 4 loans would as we know as Rovers fans be considered a lot in the Championship, but as a Premier League club it seems totally unnecessary, you don't want to be allowing teams from the same leagues to lend you their kids and Williams and Gilmour seem to have struggled, the former made a terrible mistake v Watford. The one aspect that didn't sit right and would have had me fuming if I supported Norwich was the attitude coming from the top that was seemingly allowed to pass down via the manager the last time they went up. A club should always be prudent and financially sensible, but equally it shouldn't publically announce that it expects relegation. You give it a proper go, fighting for survival until its mathematically impossible, and you always have that mindset, whilst those at the top can arrange the finances for a worst case scenario without letting that sort of talk leave the boardroom.

A team with the quality of Man United should be doing more than being in the top 4 and playing good football "at times," with the individual quality they have, you could put you or I as manager and they would score goals and entertain at times purely out of individual quality. I am unsure at what point Solskjaer has proven to you that he has the tactical nous or indeed the competence to have United challenging seriously for the title. You don't sign Ronaldo, Varane and Sancho on top of the players they already had to be in the top 4. I think that Farke is changing formations and players from the outside basically out of desperation to see what sticks. They don't have enough quality, they sold their best player and their recruitment was haphazard, for some reason more loanees than when they were in the Championship along with some cheap gambles. They seem to treat the Premier League as if they don't want to be there.