The last 7 years, barring the freak Brereton stunt which took everyone by surprise.

Quite clear Mowbray never rated Hart nor had any intention of giving him a run in the team. Quite clear to everyone that he isn't good enough for us. Yet he was signed midway through a League One promotion season and given a new deal this season despite spending it out on loan at garbage League One sides. Bizarre. It also makes me feel better about Mowbray if I believe he wasn't responsible for that one. Suspect someone else behind the scenes playing lucky dip with ex-Premier League club academy players hoping one pays off.

Wrong. You set your targets to improve as a club. If you don't have ambition to kick on and improve then go and get involved in another sport. That means getting shut of the deadwood and signing better ones. Merely carrying on with players who aren't up to the job on the basis 'we're a mid-table side' and 'that's our lot' will only do one thing - ensure stagnation and decline.

I don't believe for one second that signing was Mowbray's nor was the decision to give him a new deal.

Unless of course financial restrictions/lack of investment means he knows he's going to be struggling and so it is going to be much easier handing an extra year out to those already here than it is to go out into the market, spend money and tie someone else down to 2-3 years..... I'm afraid anyone expecting these owners to suddenly come up with cold hard cash to invest on Mowbray's promotion plans are in for a rude awakening. I suspect the only chance he has of extracting cash from the top dogs is by selling players to them as potential profit makers like Armstrong and Brereton. Those sort of deals won't be easy or quick to complete and Mowbray may have lost some credit on that front with Brereton's difficult season.....

None of them have clung on, yet, though it is worrying that we're even entertaining ideas of keeping Gladwin and worrying that Leutwiler has got another year at the club's behest. I think/hope this is probably Mowbray playing it safe again. Keep Conway/Rodwell dangling whilst he goes to India and discovers what the owners want to do. If they want to spend (unlikely) then he can get shut of these players, but if (more likely) Venkys say funds are limited then the likes of Conway and Rodwell might be as good as it gets and Leutwiler ticks all his boxes as a back up GK. As ever, bewildering and concerning.

Leutwiler 1 year extension activated....taken up by the club... Talks ongoing with Conway, Gladwin and Rodwell.... Downing on his way....

2 goals and 1 assist over the season. That's the measure I'll be going off. Makes me laugh when people compare him to Dack in importance. Nowhere near at this stage. There's promise there though. In comparison to the rest of our midfielders I suppose that return is good but for a team with ambitions of promotion it isn't. Either he will have to up that return or we will have to do better.

Bit of a gamble to take when the manager is talking about promotion.

In the International Cup you don't have away trips. All games are played in England. I agree though that Rovers will probably try to avoid the 'aggravation' of participating. Too much hard work.

The narrative will be that Chapman, Davenport, Samuel and even Rothwell are effectively new signings going into next season. We don't know that any are good enough for where we want to be and I include Rothwell in that.

You can bet Sky Sports and the League will be rooting for and delighted if it is Villa v Leeds in the final at Wembley. Full house, neutrals will love it, high viewing figures on tv, hours upon hours of talking about what big, fantastic, great football clubs they are and how wonderful their support is, how the Premier League needs them. Football League will use it as evidence of how great things are when we've two traditional big clubs competing in a Wembley final and they can showcase the competition to the world. Really is sickening stuff which I struggle to listen to. Can be sure that Sky/EFL would much sooner have that final than Bristol City/Derby/WBA or most other clubs at this level.

Rumours that their manager is going to Plymouth in the division below.

I'm almost at the stage where I want Leeds to beat them in the play-off final. No time for Dean Smith who seems to take great surprise that some teams turn up at Villa Park and defend. Amazing that. You spend £50 million on players in the 2nd division and have a Premier League wage bill yet teams like Rotherham turn up and defend. Wonder what Smith would be doing in the opposite dugout. Reports today that WBA will interview Hughton for their job next week. Very sensible and will almost guarantee a promotion push next season if it happens.

Yep. Comes back to taking an interest in making the club better. Not the same as writing off losses when due and leaving things as they are.

Its quieter than any other ground I've been to. I can barely hear the announcements at times in the lower tier of the Jack Walker.

Like it or not the club has some responsibility towards trying to improve atmospheres and attendance at Ewood Park. This goes way beyond running some reduced price ticket offers throughout a season. It requires imagination, ambition, determination to try different things. Unfortunately I've seen no evidence of any such thing in the time we've been out of the Premier League aside from a few gimmicks led by Alan Myers such as the Fanzone and singer pre-match. Of course fundamentally an atmosphere at a ground stems from the fans inside it but as shown recently at Middlesbrough, Derby, Reading and Bristol City there are numerous initiatives clubs can come up with if determined enough to do it in an attempt to improve atmospheres at their grounds. Sometimes the club has to make more of an effort. Look at clubs like Norwich, Villa, Wolves and even Ipswich at this level all promoting the 'kop' concept with flags, banners and scarves dished out. Small things make big steps long term. The truth is that unless we magic 10,000 fans from thin air then the atmosphere at Ewood will always struggle to live up to much with so much empty space. Same goes for PNE, Bolton, Wigan, Middlesbrough, Hull who have all got similar numbers of empty seats and similar sized grounds. But I absolutely do not accept the club has made every effort possible to improve things. Infact quite the opposite. Shutting down 2 home stands in 4 years with no consultation or serious efforts to relocate groups elsewhere is frankly shocking and a complete own goal. The pitiful situation in closing the DE and doing nothing to replicate it elsewhere has resulted in a tiny number of people down by the corner flag still miles away from the away fans now shunted upstairs. I'm afraid if the club has the view that 10-12,000 is 'our level' and that's that then they might as well give up. There are a lot of people in this part of the world and the club has to make things more appealing to as many of those as possible. Of course structurally there are issues at Ewood too. 6000 seats are cut off upstairs a long way away from the action. 5000 seats are in the old Riverside which is an outdated structure a long way from the pitch and other stands. It isn't like being at WBA or Forest where the ground is tight and everyone packed close together. That's before we get onto the pre and post match routine. Drab music played at low volume, little to no imagination on trying to whip the fans up for games, no build up, nothing at half time. It really is poor and lacking in imagination. To most people such things are unimportant but small things like turning up the volume and playing some more appropriate music than the dreary version of Wild Rover might encourage people to start some songs going before kick off.

Not sure about Fulham and Huddersfield. The Warnock factor will ensure Cardiff are thereabouts unless he loses his motivation. I expected him to move elsewhere to keep things fresh and have a clean start somewhere. Fulham and Huddersfield both managed now by rookies who have never managed in the Championship before. I wouldn't be comfortable with either of their managers. Huddersfield also being sold as we speak so anything could happen there. Might work wonders like Wagner but will lightening strike twice there?

I was surprised to read on Rovers' website story about away crowds that we were 8th in the Championship for away numbers last season. I expected us to be perhaps mid-way or just below. Goes to show the 'small club' up against the 'big boys' narrative isn't really accurate (if that stat is true). Suspect Villa, Leeds, Sheff Wed, Sheff Utd, Norwich are 5 of the 7 above us. Perhaps WBA/Stoke the others.

Some clubs here have tried it. Cardiff ditching blue and turning red on the whim of their owner and his superstitions being the prime example. Eventually he had to back down and revert to blue. WBA and Southampton both went close to ditching their traditional stripes. WBA had a season wearing almost only white shirts with a small amount of blue and Southampton purely red home shirts but both were ditched. 'Fortunately' for us our owners don't give a stuff about our image or how many shirts we sell abroad so are incapable of making such a cut throat business decision. They're more likely to see us without shirts at all rather than a controversial new design to try and sell more.

If he's after a new spine to the team then that suggests a considerable job ahead and if he wants them to be better than what we've got and experienced at this level or higher he's going to need a lot of cash and freedom to add to the payroll. It also undermines the 4 window building job that Mowbray and others spent all last summer referring to as here we are now seemingly needing to spend heavily down the spine of the team in one window.

The Football League have confirmed that Bolton will be docked 12 points next season after officially entering administration today. I find it interesting to note that on the League's website they say they will be contacting the administrators to try and secure a long term future for the club. Interesting because at Rovers, Charlton, Port Vale, Blackpool, Coventry, Bury etc. the League have said and done very little whilst dodgy people have wrecked clubs and have hidden behind it being private club business that they can do nothing about, yet now they're interested enough to try and help look after Bolton. Interesting because they've proclaimed themselves to be 'competition organisers' and not 'regulators' yet the above suggests they are regulating and getting involved in the private workings of member clubs.

I may be paranoid about the whole thing but I was upset last summer when we didn't get invited into the Checkatrade Trophy despite finishing higher than numerous other academies that did get entered into it. Thanks to the investment made some time ago which put us at the forefront of things we've managed to maintain Category A status and I suppose some credit has to go to these owners for not shutting it down, yet, although I suppose if we churn out more Hanleys, Lenihans and Travis's then it's worth chucking a couple of million a year into it. Then there was the Ladies experience which laid bare the corruption. In theory all clubs with Category A status should be considered equal insofar as academy standards are concerned as each have to maintain a level and investment each year. I've no doubt that they will want United in their International Competition and will try to get them in and likewise won't be keen on a non-Premier League club being so high up the rankings. At the moment with 24 Category A clubs it fits quite neatly into their structure but it will be interesting to see what happens should another club seek admission as Category A and meet the criteria. Will they get rid of one to make room?

Don't get your hopes up too much. As good as it would be to those who watch the u23s and as beneficial as it would probably be to our lads and club profile I'm expecting them to find a way to avoid allowing us in. They won't want Blackburn Rovers as one of their elite 12 clubs.

I'm looking forward to us entering the Premier League International Cup next season and hosting some elite European clubs when our promising youngsters can lock horns with some of the best across Europe. My understanding is that entry is for the 12 highest placed Category A clubs and 12 European clubs by invitation. With us finishing 5th in the upper division we should be getting picked. Small problem for the Premier League - Rovers have just finished 5th whilst Man Utd finished 6th in division 2 so if entry is based on performance then Rovers will be in the competition and United won't be. Time to change the rules and make it all invitation only so the poster boys can be in.