Presumably their pitch work was planned some.time ago and people on here were raising it as a major concern a few weeks ago. Therefore there was time to call it off or arrange an alternative. Also known some.time ago were the rugby fixtures that seem to take priority judging by Rovers' website.

Chapman, Rothwell and Brereton in their cumulative 3 years at the club have contributed next to nothing. Cant really go any further than that at this point. How much do you reckon Brereton is getting paid? Bearing in mind his contract at Forest, England youth appearances and substantial transfer fee. Reckon he'll be cheap? He needs a new agent if he isn't one of our bigger earners. Anyways, we aren't going to agree. You seem to think everything is hunky dory and all going to plan and I think it's a shambles.

Not falling for that one again. We had this talk all last summer of Mowbray sticking to his guns, not budging, not gambling, waiting for his preferred targets to come rather than going elsewhere and risking things. What happened? We started throwing silly bids around as deadline day approached, ended up paying £7 million on Brereton, spent 12 months pursuing Patrick Bauer only to see him join Preston and failed to strengthen in January. This noble 'sticking to our guns' approach isn't so good if we end up empty handed, overpaying or picking up dross (which has happened in the last two windows). I thought things were meant to be better planned these days?

Goalkeeper and defence are the priority. Even if Venkys aren't putting money in this summer there's the Raya cash plus what was left over from January. No excuses. Sick of hearing it.

As ever under these owners and those they employ to hold the fort in Blackburn the approach is a short sighted and ultimately damaging one in the long term. When you're passing through on a 2-3 year contract judged on numbers on a balance sheet or completely deranged and based on the other side of the world the damage of these policies won't really concern them. It concerns me and I expect a large number of Rovers fans but we should be used to this sort of thing by now. We'll be the ones dealing with the ramifications down the line.

I suspect they'll play it at Brockhall but we won't find out until after it has happened. Neither side will want to lose a friendly at this stage as 6 is the magic number. Not many teams play less than that. But as you say, playing a side Bury have dragged in off the street, non league Barrow, possibly a knockabout on Brockhall with Rochale, Mansfield of division 4 and Rangers 2nd string isn't exactly impressive or likely to be very testing ahead of an important season.

All part of the plan. Then the Telegraph will be adding them as new signings to try and give the impression of more activity than there is. New signings for the u23s were previously announced as such whereas nowadays it is all about 'initially' with the u23s.

Looks like it's going to be another one of those windows. Defence and midfield 'addressed' with free agents or loans whilst we collect forwards eating up the vast majority of our budget. Dont mind Gallagher provided we use him properly and provided money also finds it's way into the problem areas. I dont expect it will do. It didn't last summer and didn't when Coyle was here either.

Even if it does go ahead is it going to be of any material benefit to Rovers? Other than a few hundred fans helping to fill the Bury coffers I cant see much use to our team of playing a side cobbled together through trialists. Would have been nice to have had a pre season with testing games against decent opposition rather than this shambles. We knew Bury were knackered and Rochdale's pitch was being relaid weeks ago. Could have played other teams but risked it to make life easier and now its mucking up our pre season.

Expect it to be moved to Brockhall or behind closed doors somewhere. Shambles.

Absolutely. Whilst Johnson is working wonders with the u23s and has relative autonomy running them and managing them on matchday he can be judged on results and performances, and boy have they been impressive over the last couple of years. By 'promoting' Johnson to the first team he's no longer demonstrating his managerial credentials in the public eye and is no longer delivering results in games. He's behind the scenes on the training ground. In creating this position is Mowbray effectively admitting that there was a gap in the coaching team that needed occupying.

Not been on enough Scottish grounds. Been on Celtic, Kilmarnock, Hearts, Hibs and Annan and soon to be Rangers with Rovers, wish we'd arranged more games up there over the last few years but as with everything else we've kept it more local.

To be fair to Rodwell I suspect that he was on a very low wage last year given what happened at Sunderland. We might now be offering some sort of increase but it won't be a lot of money relatively speaking. Suspect we're just happy to box off cover and would be quite happy if he accepted whatever we are offering so will leave that offer on the table. Doubt we're offering him much at all.

Apparently the grey away shirt will make its debut in the Rangers match.

He can make up figures which the Telegraph will regurgitate but suspect his employers in India won't be conned as easily.

So he's never going to play for anyone away from the South coast of England. Can't see his career going so far.

Waggott has shown zero lateral thinking in his time at Rovers. It's a simple approach of up and up the prices and squeeze what you can from the regulars. With woeful season ticket sales to date this can be interpreted as a last gasp attempt to try and drive up some sales. At the last count 2500 behind last seasons summer total sales and 3000 behind sales in the Bowyer days. Quite clearly unless there's a significant take up over the coming few weeks that he's succeeded in diminishing ticket sales from 5-6 years ago despite all the on the pitch progress. Some achievement that. Suppose we need to pay Gladwin's new contract somehow. Completely out of touch and frankly I'm sick of it. Effectively guaranteeing that walk on numbers will never get above a few hundred.

I'm not having that. If Man City put an offer on the table he'd move up north. He's a professional footballer with a short career. You go where the money and best opportunities are.

Of course we should. If we are seriously talking about 5 million for Gallagher then the same for Reed is a no brainer. He would be a ready made asset and deal with our CM issues. Sadly the manager prefers Smallwood over him so doubt he'll be coming. He'll end up somewhere else in the Championship playing CM every week.

Behold a club that reinvests following sales. What happened when we brought in 30 million from sales?

I was being sarcastic. The narrative now seems to be that the very idea of criticism or not being guaranteed number one has led to Raya wanting to move, as though Brentford will promise him such things. It's all nonsense. We're skint and have decided to take the money.

Luckily for Raya he's gone to a club where he is guaranteed to play every game and there are no other goalkeepers who can challenge for a place. He's also been given a promise by their manager that he won't ever be criticised or dropped if he plays poorly.

I reckon Barnsley will surprise a few and build themselves up to be a force in the Championship. A bit like Brentford they'll lose a couple of quality players every year but recruit very well and through a combination of good scouting and good coaching will overachieve.

All the indications to date are of no money or extremely limited funds unless money is brought in through sale(s) first. Not only in the business done to date but also reading between the lines of Mowbray's comments post-India trip. The about turn in his comments from the bold ambitions of May to the backtracking and down-scaling of expectations is concerning. We haven't spent a penny as yet, there's no serious evidence of bids even being made, most of the players we've been linked with are free agents. The only contracted player that we've seemingly been after is Sam Gallagher and Nixon now appears to be suggesting that we're still undecided on whether to compete with Wigan for his signature. That might or might not happen but we're talking a similar cost to what we've received for Raya. The rest are cases of Mowbray looking at trialists and no doubt waiting until the deadline approaches for prices to drop and for the Premier League loans to come up for grabs. A proactive, well planned and organised club and recruitment department would not be going through the window as we have done so far. A proactive club has a list of targets within a budget and works through those. See Brentford for an example. What we are doing is very much reactive. Having a look at over the hill trialists to see if they can 'do a job' for 12 months without incurring a transfer fee. Waiting to see which prices drop or which players are allowed out on loan. Hoping and waiting to see what happens. All this talk last summer of a 2-3 year building plan, recruitment being organised, multi-window building - doesn't stack up with what we've seen and heard in the last few weeks. It's following a similar pattern to all previous summer windows to be honest, and the only hope is that like in previous years as the weeks tick by India then drops extra cash into the mixer as has happened closer to deadline day in the past. I certainly can't believe Mowbray would want things to be like this.

And got relegated to League Two with Bradford last season.