That’d be a phenomenal window! I live in hope rather than expectation though. Noticed the Schmidt talk is picking up a bit of traction. Don’t know a great deal, but is he another attacking midfielder? That’s the last area I think we need bodies, out and out wingers are another matter though.

I know you can’t really read too much into a friendly like today, but if Chapman, or even Dolan who looked a real prospect on the back of that 45, can be more involved this season, we might start to see more from Gallagher. They look like they could provide decent service and I’ve a lot more confidence in Gallagher being able to convert than Brereton.

And to think one of our former heroes funeral procession went right through there two days ago. You’d think someone would have been ashamed and embarrassed enough to make it look a bit respectable for such an occasion.

I think they are clinging on to the hope that they can recoup their outlay. Get promoted and they can. That and pigheadedness.

Yep, that is the one exit strategy. You’d think there would be a bit more urgency

But if they stop throwing money at it, it ceases to be worth anything on a balance sheet as we cease to function. I think they are in too deep to cut their losses, but not deep enough to have to!

Venky’s continuing to put the money in makes perfect sense! They run a conglomerate worth upwards of 2 billion. Part of that conglomerate, and that value is their £200 odd million shareholding in BRFC. They liquidate Rovers tomorrow, that wipes £200 million plus off the value of VH group. We need a £10 million signing, they move some money around, send it over to Rovers account, and in a month or two convert it to an extra 10 million shares. They lose nothing. Obviously in real terms the club is not worth north of £200 million, but it has that value to them. This isn’t food off their plates, rollers out of their garages or the chains of Balaji’s neck. It’s certainly not altruism either. It’s common sense for billionaires. That said, it can’t carry on indefinitely... and then being able to find an exit strategy that doesn’t cost them seems impossibly far away. God knows when, why or how breaking point will arrive.

First sentence nails it really! Trying to apply any sort of logic is pretty futile. I’m guessing, but I think their interest, and level of direct involvement, comes in peaks and troughs. No doubt Mowbray has a lot of credit in the bank with them. He’s been far and away their most successful appointment. The backing seems inconsistent though. I bang on about it all the time, but fees, particularly significant ones, do only seem to be Made available for certain players. Everyone with anything resembling a semi functioning brain knows where we need to strengthen this summer... but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we took the usual borrow, make do and mend approach to the back line and chucked a few million on a striker.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have as strong inside connections as you, but what I do hear suggests that it’s not as simple as a manager being given a budget. I’ve heard some bizarre things about certain signings over the years, and it’s all quite inconsistent. One example I can share from a few years ago, we were after a youth level keeper... would’ve been an outlay of about 30k. Phone calls had to be made to Pune to get this expenditure signed off. Long story short, there was a lot of messing about and it didn’t happen. So I suppose really I’m asking if you have any inside track on the degree of autonomy Mowbray, Waggott et al have when it comes to transfers? Are Venky’s having to rubber stamp signings on a deal by deal basis? I don’t know what would be more concerning, One of them passing judgement on a player, or them taking advice from a trusted partner!

If Mowbray came out and said “We don’t need a dedicated goalie. We can have rush keepers. Everyone will have a turn, and we will change after every goal” every right thinking person would be up in arms. You’d say “Well we don’t play with a keeper” and dismiss out of hand anyone suggesting we Should sign one. You have completely proven my point with your reply.

Nobody has disputed that we don’t play with wingers and that our full backs provide width. You haven’t pointed out anything to anybody they didn’t already know, you have used this point as an argument as to why signing a winger would be a bad idea. Whenever anyone mentions a winger you regurgitate that line again and again as if it is and must be completely set in stone that we can’t possibly have a wide midfielder. Other people question the fact. You are so eager to form all your opinions based on what Mowbray will most likely do, he’s become infallible in your mind. What it really highlights is that we go into games with no balance whatsoever. Nyambe is often expected to do the work of three players (see below). I know you are going to go on about his lack of goals and assists (how many corners has he ever gone up for by the way), completely ignoring the fact that he is probably the best player we have for getting us up the pitch, or the fact that he often runs the length of the pitch, overtaking whichever striker is playing in front of him while they stand around dawdling on the edge of the box.

One of the things that stood out to me was this... Too often he is literally the only player anywhere near the right hand side of the pitch.

Nice bit of analysis that @JoeH Im not generally a statto, but there’s some really interesting stuff in there. The heat maps and formations support my theory that we expect a hell of a lot of Nyambe. Brereton’s are damning as you’d expect. I genuinely wonder if the analysis done by the recruitment team is as good as this. I have my doubts. The goalkeeper situation last summer was ludicrous, but looks like it could be even worse this year! When Mowbray talks about players falling into our laps, has a tendency to sign players he has worked with before, and we make complete head scratchers like Brereton, the entire process needs a serious overhaul.

We have 5 players who would command any sort of transfer fee. Lenihan - we have a tendency to think he is better than he actually is, but the prospect of a defence without him is frightening. Nyambe - no talk of a new deal, and I imagine his agent telling him not to sign if one was forthcoming. Lose him and we all know who plays right back. Travis - lose him and our midfield looks woefully short. Dack - won’t be going anywhere til he’s fit. Would likely command the biggest fee. Up until his injury was far and away out most important player... although we coped better than expected without him. Armstrong - really stepped up to the plate and proved to be our only regular source of goals. Stock will continue to rise. While losing one or more of these looks inevitable, it’s not going to be pleasant. We lack quality replacements for any of them. In fact only Dack has anything approaching an adequate replacement within our current squad. Lose a couple and we are fucked. We don’t need to break the bank, but we need to sign a goalkeeper. We could muddle through in other areas, providing we don’t lose any of the above, and we’d have to keep our fingers crossed for no injuries. Mowbray is going to have to put a lot of faith in the academy graduates with those who broke through last season becoming key members of the squad. This last minute approach is standard. Look how long it took to get Adarabioyo over the line last year. He was “on the verge” for months and in the end we started with Mulgrew against Charlton because of how long we dithered. Walton, by Mowbray’s own admission, “fell into our lap” after we missed out on our real targets. When we wasted money on Brereton we did so after the window had shut. I remember in the Kean days N’Zonzi started at centre half against Wolves before we signed Scott Dann... there’s never a rush with Venky’s.

Tap up Gaz Aspden, see if he can swing it for us to have the adidas Spezial logo. Do a really cheap deal, sponsorship revenue wouldn’t matter so much... we’d sell shirts at the level we did in 95. Obviously this can’t happen cos we are saddled with Umbro for another 12 months, but this would be the exact sort of out of the box thinking we are completely lacking in, but desperately need.

Absolutely! We need a couple or three key players to really challenge for promotion. If we lose a couple from Nyambe, Lenihan, Travis, Dack or Armstrong it’ll be the bottom end we will need to focus on. If I had to call it now I’d say we will end up somewhere similar to the last couple of years.

Cheers. They have handled this appallingly.

Was this a response to asking directly for a refund, or a wider conversation?

Good window - we can make the playoffs Bad window - we may well get relegated Mediocre window - another year of mediocrity

Might not be totally within the spirit of the rules, but conversations like this happen all the time throughout the game.

Can’t argue with much of that... although I did say SOME players, not all. You make a very good point, I’m probably giving far too much credence to what I see on here and Twitter at the moment... I had a big break while the season was halted, since I’ve come back I’ve had far less real world football interaction than I normally would have!

I haven’t mentioned bias or agenda, just pointing out that our fans are historically quick to write off some players, and have unlimited patience with others. Hill and Wilcox show it’s been going on as long as I’ve been watching Rovers! Of course everyone’s entitled to their opinion and to voice it (pretty much as freely as they like on the internet as far as I’m concerned... booing your own players at a game is obviously a different matter). To be honest I see more of what I consider to be flimsy defence of Brereton than grief. Opinions and perspectives again I suppose. It’s a funny one with him... as much as the price tag might increase the pressure on him, it also means he’s afforded far more chances than an academy player would be. If we hadn’t paid so much he wouldn’t still be here. Personally I’d give academy products leeway before an expensive signing who’s been in and around the first team for two years. Can’t (or can’t be arsed to) dig out the comments or tweets about Buckley or any of the others, but I’ve seen plenty of “he’s not good enough” and “get rids”.

Absolutely not black and white! Not specifically talking about Rankin-Costello, more generally that our youth players seem to quickly fall into one of two categories in the eyes of fans. Nyambe was routinely slated before this season (Chaddy still wants him replacing). As someone touched on earlier Lenihan gets a lot of leeway. I’ve heard Buckley get far more vocal criticism in Ewood than Brereton (who if he’d have come through the academy would have rightly been at Barrow this season). I’ve seen Buckley make several peoples ‘deadwood’ lists on here and elsewhere too. Wilcox v Duff, Lowe v Travis, Nyambe v Lenihan, Hill v Hanley... extreme examples, but some were heralded as saviours immediately, while others were deemed not good enough by a large section of the fanbase pretty much as soon as they’d kicked a ball.

It’s really disheartening to see so many fans writing off so many of our academy products, and as @JoeH picked up on its also bizarre in its inconsistency. They seem to be able to do no wrong, or they are shit in the eyes of many. They get it badly wrong at times too... the one homegrown player to win the league with us got crucified throughout the decade he played in the first team. As a vocal detractor of the current regime, seeing a really talented crop of youngsters coming through is something I could really get behind, and really excites me. I’d love to see the likes of Buckley, Rankin-Costello and Vale become mainstays of our team, and I’d much rather them get ample game time to be given the opportunity to flourish. I really hope we use all available finance to strengthen in the areas we really need to, ie. Goalkeeper, and not waste wages on loaning players who’ve come through from premier league teams with no hope of breaking in their first teams, or ageing pros who’s best days are long behind them. We have a lot of depth with these young lads. None of them are mugs, and they will only realise their potential by playing.

Chaddy, do you really want/hope/expect us to replace Nyambe with a better option? Where would this fall on your list of priorities? Do you genuinely feel that Nyambe being replaced with better is either realistIc or important... or are you reading into the fact he is going into his last year of his contract and is the most frequent victim of scapegoating by Mowbray, and is therefore the most likely of our saleable assets to be cashed in on? Are you preparing your defence of this sale before it’s even happened?