Hurst has really got his work cut out at Ipswich. I think people underestimate what a brilliant job McCarthy did there to have them mid-table and play-off pushing for 5 years. Sadly some people prefer to focus on the negatives and label McCarthy as negative, dour, boring etc. Don't think anyone can really blame Hurst for taking the Ipswich job as its a decent club in the Championship but I think anyone finishing below Ipswich this season is going to be in serious relegation trouble.

Karanka and the media-fuelled Forest love in has already reached nauseating levels this season and we're only 2 games in. Only Leeds and the Lampard obsession at Derby can compete with it. I wouldn't trust Karanka in the slightest after his conduct during the Rhodes pursuit when he was at Middlesbrough. Whatever dealings we have to have with him I'd sooner were all done and dusted as quickly and smoothly as possible. They seem to think they're something special and no doubt believe that other clubs should gratefully accept their fringe players for a few months of game time but I don't. They are a rival so having to borrow one of their players who isn't in their immediate plans and then see him go back to them in a few months to his and their advantage is not what I want to see.

At 7 million I'd much sooner go and get someone like Gallagher who I'm certain Southampton would let go for less than £5 million plus someone like Maddison for a couple of million.

Yes, but if they are demanding 3 or 4 million more than what we have offered then a permanent deal will not be on the cards. If they are asking for at least 9 million then we would be silly bidding 5 million on deadline day for him, unless we expected them to agree to let him go for half their valuation. You said it would be exciting, would you be as excited if we were borrowing him to give him game time until January before he disappeared again and we had to replace him? A Forest fan reckoned that he isn't up to match fitness yet and that is why he wasn't in their squad last night, he played in the U19 Championships in Finland over the summer so hasn't had the same pre-season as the others.

So Forest are in a position to demand £12 million for a 19 year old who isn't going to be getting in their team? If Forest were asking for that amount we wouldn't still be negotiating with them. You don't offer £5 million if the asking price is £12 million and then go back for more if you can't reach the required level. Clearly the asking price is significantly less.

Stark contrast to what he was pushing last week which was that the cash was there to make such a purchase should Rovers want to do it. So either he's back in non-committal mode after getting ahead of himself last week or he's being fed something else by Mowbray/Rovers. A loan with an option to buy is not likely to happen. I'd be very surprised if Forest would agree to such a thing unless they were desperate to get rid of him. Surely it suits them to either have it as a guaranteed buy in January or alternatively as a loan with no option to buy? A guaranteed buy now ensures they will get a decent fee whatever happens, a short term loan enables them to sell him for more should he do well, whereas a loan with an option to buy for Rovers means that we're in the driving seat on what happens and if he fails miserably or gets a bad injury they are left to pick up the pieces.

Brereton on a permanent deal is the sort of thing we need to be doing as a club - owning assets that will be worth something in the long run, players who will develop alongside the club with the Dacks, Lenihans, Armstrongs. Like how Nixon is still pushing his theory that Venkys have suddenly come into some extra money and have decided to spend it on Rovers. Also can't resist a sly dig in his headline with 'chicken business'. On loan until January with no agreement to buy is not impressive and if that is the case doesn't show any serious investment from the owners, and no doubt Forest would be perfectly happy for him to come here for 6 months and play regularly before returning to them probably increasing in value if he scores a few. Not the answer.

Girona. Something strange going on there. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/aug/29/girona-manchester-city-pep-guardiola-brother-questions

I don't think there will be many deals that can be structured as a loan with an option to make it permanent in January if we fancy it. It is likely to either be a straight loan until January or a loan with an agreement to make permanent set in stone now. The loaning clubs will either want a permanent deal/sale to be guaranteed or will want to leave it as a loan, see how the player goes on and then make a decision down the line. Letting a player out on loan and then giving us an option to buy but not committing to buy is too heavily stacked in favour of the club receiving the player.

I think Southgate is a very lucky man indeed. First off in getting the job in special circumstances following the Allardyce debacle when normally he wouldn't have got close to the England job, then because there was an obvious lack of proven English alternatives that would be accepted by the media and fans, and then because of how things unfolded at the World Cup in terms of a good draw he is now rumoured to be getting a new long term contract and being hailed as brilliant. We beat Tunisia, Panama and Sweden, lost to Belgium and Croatia and scraped past Colombia on penalties yet he's hailed as a messiah by some whilst Allardyce has, in my opinion, achieved far more in his club jobs, as has Hodgson, yet they get all the negative press. As far as I'm concerned the jobs Allardyce did at Bolton, Rovers, West Ham, Sunderland, Palace and Everton and the jobs Hodgson has done at Fulham, WBA and Palace vastly outweigh leading England to the SF of a World Cup.

Ironic that with all the furore over a lack of concession tickets that this is likely to be the cheapest and one of the easiest away games of the season. As an adult the days of £18 tickets are rare when up the road Leeds are likely to be charging double that to visit their tip of a ground later this season. With that in mind I would have expected a good uptake on the £18 tickets as those adults with limited disposable cash are unlikely to find much cheaper this year. Fair enough those who take their kids are likely to be stung on the ticketing but the majority of fans don't take their kids. In fact our first 3 away games are all quite reasonable for away adult supporters - Ipswich were charging £25 I think which is more than it should be but still less than it has been in the past when they've charged £30+. Carlisle tickets available for £7.50 and Hull for £18.

Chris Martin, George Thorne and Jacob Butterfield starting for them tonight

1-0 up after 1 minute Stefan Mols

Yeah, we've not managed to beat either Ipswich or Millwall and now we have Hull and Reading. 4 clubs there that we really need to be beating or finishing above come May. Before we know it we'll be up against Brentford who folk will then say are a strong side and on it rolls. Need to beat the poorer sides and Hull are one of them. Mind you they'll be thinking exactly the same of us.

BBC reporting that Cardiff are prepared to listen to offers for Tomlin and Pilkington on loan.

I'm sorry but I really don't get the Chapman one. Mowbray made his views on him quite clear last season when he refused to give him any more than 30 minutes at the end of games, since then he's had a couple of major injuries. He'd offer something different and some much needed pace and would be a better option than we currently have, but I think I'd rather be looking at someone the manager wants to start games if necessary and someone with a bit more experience at Championship level. Not opposed to the signing but find some of the love-in a bit over the top given what happened last season.

I notice that both the club website and Saturday's match programme make reference to terracing being available for away supporters. Whilst there is terracing behind the goals this is usually only made available once the seating is sold out. My friend went to the club shop to buy a ticket and was told that there were no terracing tickets, only seating. Has anyone successfully purchased a terracing ticket for this game or is it just another case of left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?

The decision from the club to slap a 17% price hike probably played a part. Anyone mulling over whether to get one or not but ultimately decided not to may have been put off by such a significant increase all at once. If we were going up to the Premier League it probably wouldn't matter at all because people will pay to watch it but going up to the Championship isn't going to get folk flocking down. As strange as it might be there are other clubs where attendances at the bottom half of the Championship are barely any higher than those in League One at the top end. I notice Bolton had 14,000 or so including 1,000+ from Bristol so their crowd was no better than they were getting in League One. Wigan had less than 10,000 home fans on for their game v Sheffield Wed. Preston's crowds hover between 10-13,000 even when pushing for the play-offs. Once again I don't get why the club leave it so late to announce prices and get tickets on sale. Other clubs, even those in promotion contention, have them on sale as early as February in some cases, whilst we heard nothing on the subject until what? June? It might not matter to the vast majority when tickets go on sale but I would ask why other clubs do it so much earlier and would suggest that the earlier the better and the wider the window the better. It certainly wouldn't put people off buying one, whereas leaving it until the summer when people have other things to do with their time and money than think about Rovers may resist buying. If tickets had been on sale since March we would have had 2 months of regular winning football and people in the habit of going to Ewood where they could be bombarded with information about season tickets. The Oxford one was the big opportunity. An extremely rare, almost once a decade level of home support there to tap into, those flags they were handing out should have had a season ticket leaflet attached to them.

That would require a commitment to spend at least £7-8 million on transfer fees alone, never mind wages. As I said last week on this subject, I'll believe that when I see it. I wouldn't be surprised to see Brereton turn up before the end of the month on a loan until January.

Its very odd and something simply doesn't add up. In some ways it would make more sense for Nixon's theory to be correct - that there was originally a more limited budget and then suddenly Venkys decided to throw a lot more at it - that would explain the late 'big' bids and ultimately ending up running out of time as the whole thing was suddenly thrown up into the air with a few weeks to go. However Mowbray has said that wasn't the case and that the money was there all the way from his trip to India. If that is indeed the case, and I certainly would like to believe Mowbray over Nixon, then it is baffling as to how with such a competitive sum of money we failed to get any serious deals done other than the Armstrong one (which would have been a straightforward deal to complete in the scheme of things). It just doesn't seem right to me. Something has gone wrong somewhere for so little by way of additions when supposedly the cash was there to do it. Then the talk of short term loans and January window deals seem at odds with what was being said last week when there was talk about loans with permanents agreed being as good as permanent signings, Mowbray now suggesting that having to settle for some loans is not what he wants and is not ideal but is the best we can expect.

My interpretation of Mowbray's comments over the weekend was that the boat has been missed in terms of getting big expensive signings over the line. It seems there was some money there to pay out on relatively large fees but that perhaps the wage budget wasn't sufficient to get them done. He's giving the impression that there might be a short term loan or two to provide cover until January and then IF we're doing ok he HOPES that the funds will still be available to make some decent buys. Of course before then there is a huge amount of football to be played in a tough league and every chance the cash won't be available as the promotion hysteria will have died down. Even if the money is available we'll hear all the usual stories of how January is a difficult or expensive time to make signings and better waiting until the summer window when there's so much time.

I noticed that Bolton had an empty bottom tier yesterday with Bristol City supporters upstairs in one corner. No doubt they were paying a high price for their tickets too. Why we don't do that I find odd. Surely it is much easier to steward/police with away fans upstairs and the club could also charge them more for tickets, another way to raise revenues which would probably bring in more than the 1875 club would.

And I get called negative. Pay the money you get the decent players. Nothing else matters. Try and avoid spending and do things on the cheap you end up with the rubbish.

Yes but those clubs are 3 good examples - Stoke, WBA and Swansea - none are traditionally well supported clubs, particularly not Swansea - all 3 will get decent gates this season because there's some excitement or anticipation around those places. After many years in the Premier League as small clubs fighting relegation most seasons people will be up for a year where they are favourites and expecting to win every week and fans will be expecting entertainment. If they get stuck in this league and end up floating around in mid-table or bottom half their gates will plummet. Middlesbrough have had 2-3 near misses under Karanka, then promotion, then a Premier League season, then another play-off campaign and following that have spent massive amounts again under Pulis and are favourites to go up, no wonder their fans are turning up at 20000+ a week. Swap our last 5 years for theirs and they'd be down at 14,000 I'm sure.

The tent is the control point for the digital advertising boards. The ones in front of the JW stand are temporary ones until we get our own permanent ones which will run behind both goals and the JW stand.