By the same token nor should we be choosing him

I noticed that Simon Ireland who has been appointed Forest caretaker manager and was assistant to Karanka made 1 appearance for Rovers in 1993. Anyone remember him?

Surely the Bolton owner would have known that there was going to be little to no chance of them affording £1 million+ on a single player given their troubles. Makes me wonder if the whole thing was a deliberate stunt.

I expect Millwall will have even greater matchday costs. Paying staff in London is likely to be much higher than in Blackburn, and given Millwall's reputation I suspect they've to contribute quite heavily to police and stewarding. Goes to show there isn't really any need for the surcharge.

Looks dodgy to me with all the various people there behind the scenes. Marinakis from Olimpiakos owning the club, an assortment of foreign directors, some hot-shot QC there as Chairman. Hope they crash and burn as they've done exactly what FFP rules are supposed to prevent and clearly think it is as simple as chucking huge money at it and going up like Wolves did. Never liked Karanka from when he was at Middlesbrough. Very much in the Mourinho mold of being hard to beat, defensively based and could fall out in an empty phone box but without Mourinho's track record to fall back on.

Downing is one of the first on the list of people we need to upgrade if we want to progress. No doubt a top bloke and a good pro but we really need to be aiming higher as a club. File into the same category as Smallwood and Williams. Not in a rush to get rid of him as he likely won't kick up a stink but at the same time if he wants to go and there is an opportunity to strengthen the squad then make it happen. The trouble is I don't get the impression that a new, quality, proven, natural CB is on Mowbray's radar, and I suspect we're more likely to let him go and then cart on for the remainder of the season with what we have, which is trying to convert Rodwell and Williams into CBs and putting Grayson on the bench. Square pegs into round holes and experimenting with positions. Downing wants to go somewhere he can play regularly then fair enough, make it happen, but bring in a replacement who is a CB who is going to IMPROVE the team.

More than I expected with almost 6 days of sales to go to be honest. The season ticket holder window may have spurred some into buying earlier than usual to keep hold of their usual seats.

Karanka who has a track record of falling out with people, working for an owner who goes through managers for fun, at a club that should be under immense pressure to get promoted this season given their outlay. Not exactly surprising but given their position just outside the play-offs I'd expect them to wait a bit before making a change. Absolutely no time or sympathy for them if it all goes pear-shaped.

I'd be a bit 'meh' about Marshall returning. He's clearly a very capable and versatile player for this level and at Rovers we love our players who can play 2 or 3 positions so he'd fit in well. He's still a decent age and was earning rave reviews not long ago at Millwall which prompted Norwich to come calling. He also seems to be a bit of a head case which has always held him back. I heard he was 'homesick' when at Leicester so god knows how he is managing at Norwich, but suspect he'd love the chance to return to the North West. If we got his head right, which I'd like to think Mowbray would be good at doing, then we could have a good player on our hands, but if we didn't he could easily sit around doing very little wasting a wage. I'm afraid I don't buy the narrative that he was a disruptive influence who got too big for his boots and wanted out at Rovers. He was the last in the succession of assets the owners and their friends were cashing in on. He could see what was happening after Rhodes, Gestede, Cairney, Hanley and Duffy had all been flogged and knew he was going to be next. Don't believe for one minute he was offered a reasonable contract extension given the way this club was behaving back then.

Reed had already done the business over a full season with Norwich in this league, playing most games.

Loaning a kid from Liverpool who isn't getting game time at Sheffield for the remainder of the season doesn't exactly look like a long term grand plan, more just picking up a promising youngster, probably on the cheap, and hoping he has an impact. Kane, Barrow, Grimes, Samuelsen, Byrne, Hendrie, Palmer - all highly rated kids coming in from Premier League academies (most actually no better or inferior to ours) yet had little to no impact upon the first team. We need to be much smarter in our recruitment than going down the old route of dipping into the kids on loan from academies at Premier League clubs. There are some good uns like Mason and Wilson at Derby but we seem to operate at a level below that.

Seems Chelsea have done similar with Baker also from their academy. He was at Leeds until yesterday but barely featured for them so they recalled him before he was swiftly sent out to Reading, presumably where they expect him to get more game time. To be honest the whole loan thing from Chelsea and to a lesser extent City and Liverpool disturbs me and in future I think I'd prefer it if we just steered clear of that area in our recruitment. On very few occasions has it actually worked out well for us and as Tomphil says it seems to me to just be a way to fill up squad places on the cheap without much risk. Chelsea happy to absorb most of the cost because they can afford to in exchange for one of their 'assets' getting regular Championship football and we don't have to committ to a contract or salary. Not for me thankyou. If we're looking at loans I'd prefer them to be with a view to a permanent or with a deal arranged in advance to exercise should we wish.

To be honest Palmer is one of those who I've forgotten was actually a Rovers player and an option on more than one occasion over the last few months. Underwhelming but then again we all know deep down he's likely to go to Bristol City and become a hero there in the next few months, probably score a few vital goals and be very popular. I'd sooner have him on the bench than someone else like Ben Gladwin so lets hope someone else of reasonable quality is being brought in to replace him.

If Waggott has been told they only expect 1,500 to turn up then lets see if we allocate them upstairs in the Darwen End rather than downstairs. Bet we don't. Good job Newcastle aren't expecting 6,000+ or kick off would have to take place at noon on Tuesday. Bad news for those working and BT Sports but safety comes first!

I think he wants to win every game, but at times that is impeded by him worrying about losing and being overly cautious. Our first half performances this season at home have in the main been awful affairs, with a few exceptions such as Leeds when we managed to get that first goal early doors. But more often than not they have been dull and uneventful with us creating next to nothing. I don't think that is because Mowbray is playing for a draw, but because his mentality is to keep it tight and try not to make any errors or let the opposition get ahead, and that comes at the price of creating much ourselves. All our games bar the odd few like PNE have been closely fought tight affairs where we've either just got over the line or just fallen short.

Palmer confirmed at Bristol City.

Just had a look at his stats. Impressive goalscoring record wherever he's been. 1 in 5 at Cardiff, 1 in 5 at Norwich, better than 1 in 5 at Huddersfield and Stockport. 70 goals in 300 games or so.

I was long a supporter of putting away fans upstairs away from the pitch. That was less to do with the atmosphere or perceived advantage to the opposition and more to do with being able to charge away fans higher prices than home fans. As a regular away traveller I feel aggrieved that other clubs hit us with high ticket prices and home fans get admission for less and yet we do nothing to those coming to Ewood. There isn't really much point if we only move the small supports upstairs whilst allowing those with more than 2,000 to remain downstairs. The way it should be done is, for example, when we play Bolton at home, they should be upstairs purely so we can charge them £30 each to get in, whilst allowing admission to Rovers fans for £20 or less in the lower tiers. It starts getting silly when for example we played Norwich and there must have been 100 Norwich fans downstairs. Some will have been disabled supporters but there seemed to be quite a few who clearly weren't disabled as they were sat further back and were jumping up and down when they scored.

Wigan signing Anthony Pilkington from Cardiff, not a bad shout.

Would be very pleasantly surprised if that is true. Very decent whenever I have seen him. Can't believe Bristol City would let him come to us without a fight and certainly not on the cheap given his role in their team. He's chipped in with quite a few goals for them. Think he's from Manchester way so suppose that could work in our favour. Right calibre of player we need to look at to push on medium term and likely to have resale value.

They've won 4 on the bounce. 3 in the League and 1 in the Cup. When did we last do that at this level?

Millwall have turned a corner over Christmas, won something like 4 on the bounce and turned it around to knock Hull out of the Cup last week. Prior to that they were looking like relegation was likely. A limited side without much quality but they'll be direct, physical and fight for everything. The Den is never an easy place to go, I recall when we were there under Bowyer's management on a Tuesday night and were 2-0 up against 10 men, their supporters were wound up with the red card and they ended up getting it back to 2-2. An intimidating atmosphere and their players rose to it whilst we crumbled to it. Not a place for shrinking violets or weak characters, need to be able to dig in and deal with the atmosphere. We really need something from this, our record against the lesser lights is unimpressive and I don't yet subscribe to the theory that we're safe with nothing to play for. Another 10 points asap and i'll look at relaxing. A defeat and it is 4 in 5 league games. We're still Smallwood-less with his last match of his ban to come so I'd expect more or less the same team as WBA, though I was concerned by Mowbray's comments on Mulgrew following Newcastle and hope there's nothing to worry about there. I see we've sold over 600 tickets so far with a few days of sales to come, which is quite decent considering its on TV and the away games we've had recently.

I was looking it up the other day about this reliance we have on the 'Fab 3' for putting the ball in the net. We've scored 33 goals in the league this season - Mulgrew 8, Dack 9, Graham 8, Armstrong 2, Reed 2, Lenihan 1, Palmer 1, OG1. 0 goals for Brereton, Evans, Smallwood, Conway, Rothwell or Bennett. All of Mulgrew's goals have come directly from set-pieces - 4 penalties, 2 direct corners and 2 free kicks. Whilst those 3 are here, fit and firing we can cope, but I do worry about the alternatives.

Not that many good candidates available for Stoke to pick from. Seems Moyes is the favourite, could be good but he hasn't managed at this level for a long time and like Rowett won't get much time. They're moaning about Rowett's style of play yet Moyes is hardly known for being pleasing on the eye. Jokanovic would be a good option but would he be interested and again it would take him time to get them playing the way he likes to. It took him a couple of years at Fulham. Can't believe Allardyce would be interested in dropping to the Championship but you never know if they make him a mega offer.

Gary Rowett sacked at Stoke.