Hedges on for Gallagher

Vale is doing a lot right today, I don’t think he will be out of place in our first team this season.

You are talking about without the ball right?

Not a great half for rovers, but we won’t be up against this quality in the championship. Ayala, Buckley probably our best so far. Neither flank doing well and not much service for the attackers to work with.

2-1 celtic free kick just outside the box

Hardly fair to blame it all on Pickering, how’s any full back going to stop those triangles on hos own?

Jota 1-1. Their ability to move the ball around is far superior to ours, they look a PL team

Immense high press from rovers led to that early goal. Assist by Vale I think who looks bigger than I remember.

1-0 Gally

I’m nervous

Celtic game now sold out.

I still think Berget will sign. - He's almost 32 so this is his last chance for a big move - He probably wants another shot at English football, which is pretty much the dream of any Norwegian footballer - We can pay him more than Malmö where he is probably on around £3000 to £6000 a week - Although not an "investment" for us we can afford his transfer fee and we need someone with experience - He could potentially be seen as a replacement for Rothwell?

Yes, that's why I pointed it out.

Jo Inge Berget seems the likely one after reading this. BTW good job on the Swedish currency, "Koroma", lol.

Hedges again? At wing-back? Looks wrong to me, maybe Brown will play RWB. Vale on the bench then probably but I expect him to get minutes.

Left attacking midfield, according to FM

Vale’s not playing, so if he has the ball then good job him

LET live match article

JDT to give an update on signings after today's game according to the LET

70% of 14.5m (2021 turnover) is 10.15m. Even so that is less than half of our current wage budget, so not good obviously. Not sure if those 70% are supposed to be just the first team or all wages at the club incl. staff. It doesn't really matter though as that rule doesn't exist and the entire championship would fall apart if it did. Edit: If such a rule were to be implemented the EFL would have to increase the clubs' income somehow, possibly by doing away with the parachute payments and distributing that money more evenly.

This is UEFA though, not the EFL.

My bad, you are correct of course.

Not true. Reading had a points deduction just last season.

I don't know exactly much leeway clubs are given as regards to covid, I think it is 5+5+2.5m for the three years. Some sources claim that the EFL are looking at a 4-year cycle for years affected by the pandemic instead of the usual 3. Also remember that not all losses "count" (academy etc), so a few million over 45 should be ok. I took a look at the three clubs, and as far as I can tell here's the deal: Middlesbrough - borderline. Must improve in 2022. Season ended 2021 2020 2019 Losses 25m 30.5m 2m profit 3Y FFP losses 53.5m Bristol City - ok for now but something must happen in 2022 (2019 profit wiped) Season ended 2021 2020 2019 Losses 38m 10m 11m profit 3Y FFP losses 37m Stoke City - different numbers floating around, have sold training ground AND stadium. Bad situation. Season ended 2021 2020 2019 Losses 5m 70m 15m 3Y FFP losses 90m Note that selling stadiums is no longer allowed, so that is not an option for rovers.

Long post warning.. I feel that many posters are not aware of the actual financial reality of the club. The club must survive first and foremost, hence the focus on being a sustainable operation. In the short term, as long as Venkys are willing to fund the club's losses, being sustainable means to comply with the championship's profitability and sustainability rules, often called FFP. To comply with said rules, clubs must run at a loss of no more than £45 million over any 3-year period. As an aside, be aware that a season or two in the PL during this period will dramatically increase this figure, giving clubs relegated from the PL another huge advantage ON TOP OF their parachute payments (which are counted as income) if they have owners with big wallets. Looking at Rovers' accounts from the 20/21 season we had at the time a loss of approx £46.750.000 over 3 years, which is over the FFP limit. We can deduct spending for the academy, ladies team etc from this figure, which means we were within our £45m limit by some margin. There was also probably a significant covid-related deduction for which I don't know the details, maybe enough to make us compliant for 2020 but seemingly not for 2021. Hence we sold the training centre, which raised a £13m profit which is included in the losses mentioned. Obviously we can only sell the training centre once, so it's not really sustainable. Season ended 2021 2020 2019 Losses 6.6m 22m 18.2m 3Y FFP losses 46.75m 57m 38.8m When the 2022 accounts are filed the 2019 numbers are no longer relevant for FFP, so those 18.2m losses are wiped clean and replaced with whatever loss we have for 2022. The maximum loss for 2022 we can live with within FFP would be (45-22-6.6) = 16.4m. The Armstrong sale, the return of matchday crowds, and the siginficant cull of senior players on big wages last summer should all help the 2022 accounts so I don't expect any problems there. Now this is where it gets interesting. 2022 accounting is done (although not published), so we have to focus on 2023 where we can wipe the terrible 2020 loss of 22m away, to be replaced with the 2023 accounts. What we know is that we have cleared around 70k/week off the wage budget with the players that have left this summer. We also expect a big sale with Brereton going. Unless we sign a lot of expensive players we could potentially be looking at actually turning a profit this year (we won't, because we'll sign players). Keep in mind that one good financial year helps the club comply with FFP for 3 years, not just one, and that money paid towards transfers are spread out over the length of the signed player's contract. As long as Venkys are happy to provide the maximum amount of financial backing that they can (and they have until now, make no mistake about it), we should indeed be looking at, in GB's words, "a healthy budget". This is surely one reason to be optimistic. But the signings need to be right, we can not afford to take big losses on players. So I'd rather the club takes its sweet time getting recruitment right. We might not have an Armstrong or a Brereton to sell next year and we could easily be in the brown stuff again in a couple of years since our baseline operations are far from sustainable. Note that if Venkys should withdraw their funding entirely, FFP requirements would go from a £45mill loss to a £15mill loss, and we would have to make drastic cuts across the board and probably not be able to sustain a championship level operation. I can't see this happening though as they would need to achieve PL status to have any hope of recouping their expenses.