THE 2014-15 English football season may only have officially come to a close on Sunday night when the national side moved ever closer to Euro 2016 qualification, but it is now approaching seven long weeks since Rovers’ campaign ended.

Fixtures release day, then, brought a welcome injection of excitement to what, so far at least, has been a very quiet summer at Ewood.

That said, apart from notable exceptions like Derby and, most gallingly, QPR, there has been a lack of serious activity across the Championship.

Yet with pre-season training resuming at the end of this month, and contracts expiring at the start of next, it should soon start to hot up as we count down the days to the big kick-off on August 8.

So what to make of Rovers’ fixtures?

September and February look tricky but, on paper at least, not too bad at all.

Four home games in the first six matches of the campaign – including the Capital One Cup clash with Shrewsbury – give Rovers a real chance of hitting the ground running.

However, it is only after those six matches have been played and, more pertinently, after the transfer window has closed, that we will be able to make a better judgement on whether they have the tools required to make a proper push for the top six.

As by then we will know whether Rudy Gestede and Jordan Rhodes are still at the club.

And by then surely we will also know the outcome of QPR’s challenge to the legality of the Football League’s Financial Fair Play regulations.

The League issued a statement to the Lancashire Telegraph this week explaining why the Rs can sign players for fees and why Rovers cannot, despite both clubs having been found guilty of breaking the same rules.

That’s all well and good, but there is nothing fair in the way QPR are going about their business without restriction.

They overspent on their way to promotion in 2013-14 and are now free to build another team with the intention of going straight back up having come straight back down.

Would they be able to do that if they had been made to pay the multi-million fine they are currently contesting? 

However, having accepted their medicine, Rovers can now only wait and hope the good squad they have developed in the past two years remains largely intact come September 2.

Do that, address the well-documented deficiencies that undermined their hopes of progress last season and, if possible under the embargo, bring in a midfield leader and more pace in attack, then the excitement we all felt at 9am yesterday could be far from fleeting.