Then I've misremembered a little, sorry. As he posted a little after, he has rebuffed your offers to bet with him and repeatedly said he won't be doing anything like that. Outcome being the same, it won't be happening. I think I've seen him say he doesn't drink? And that's probably what I mixed it up with.

We're weaker at CB except for the fact that Batth is a year older (who knows when his legs will go) and Eustace's system protected him. He wasn't asked to do many sprints. Ismael's system clearly asks more physically from his players (hence why we're loading up on athletes) - so whilst I still think Batth is a loss, there's no guarantee he'd have thrived in a system that asks its CBs to sprint and cover ground.

Exactly. However the context is always lost on the ‘everything’s shit’ brigade.

We'll see how they get on, but I wouldn't be surprised if DeNeve turns out to be quite a shrewd signing. He's by no means a silky player, but he gets up and down and has pace - something we've lacked for a long time. I wouldn't be surprised if he chips in with his fair share of goals and assists.

Re the Brittain saga. I'm used to the Alice in Wonderland world of Venky Rovers but this leaves me totally stumped. If he was always going to leave why force him into preseason training showing him all the new patterns of play and game management strategy and then sell him to a Championship rival who can leverage that knowledge and even share with others in the game when the time suits to manipulate their league placements. Quite likely I'm a numb nuts but I'm genuinely scratching my head.

They weren't attacking options when they were here.

I do love the usual suspects: During matches - ‘Woodrow, Dennis, ACD are fucking wank’ Pre-season - ‘we are weaker now, we’ve lost Woodrow, Dennis and ACD’ 🤣

I think we overestimate how strong the Championship is. Besides the parachute payment sides it's mostly filled with the best cloggers in the land. If you're organised and determined you can survive in this league.

They barely played and were shite. It’s like moaning about losing ACD, another who was shite. If De Neve has 5 good games he’ll have contributed more than those 3 combined.

I’m sorry I asked you to justify position/by-position where we are weaker. As suspected you hadn’t thought it through. And I’m in a ‘hoop’🤣 And who mentioned the season after next? That’s quite a bizarre deflection from the discussion about if we’re stronger or weaker this season. If you fancy naming the positions we are weaker than last season (outside of the ones I’d already referenced in my original post) I’m all ears?

You also need to factor in the loss of Woodrow and Dennis (as shit as they were) as attacking options we don't have.

It's coming to something when even the LET have no new articles. Perhaps they are waiting for info on Brittain leaving.

1st bold: Yes, and I also said we'd be on a par if we replace them - yet you were going off asking me to tell you where we are weaker. 2nd bold: I just did that. You've got yourself in a bit of a hoop mate and firing replies off before properly reading. I literally said if we replace Dolan/Weimann up top we'll be on a par, which is exactly what you've said here so you could have saved a load of replies. The reality is we need to replace 14 goals there, and we only scored 53 all season. That's over a quarter of our league goals last season gone in 2 players, replaced by only De Neve. Besides, the point I was making with my original post was that Hyam, Travis, Trondstad and Brittain are all out of contract in less than 12 months - how can anyone think we're looking strong!

The Championship is a slog and clog from the outset, and what tends to determine altitude is attitude, and as we know, football players' attitude is determined by confidence and confidence itself comes from results. So, following that logic, we desperately need to get some decent results on the board early on in the season, and build from there. As others have eloquently (and empirically) pointed out above, we are certainly somewhat diminished in terms of personnel (numbers, proven quality, experience etc) and are therefore approaching the new season as something of an unknown. Except, of course, we know that some sides have taken steps to strengthen their playing staff (Derby for one will be an interesting watch this coming campaign). Your attitude determines your altitude. Buckle up, and buckle in. But don't Buckle!! Bottle!! VENKYS OUT

Of course we are weaker than last year - in attacking areas. The loss of Dolan/Weimann and the loanees Dennis and Woodrow (who granted were shit but potentially should have been better than they were) means we are 4 established championship players lighter up top than last May. How is that not weaker? You certainly can't argue that DeNeve is an adequate attacking replacement for any of them.

I think we'll do ok pre-xmas and then the usual post xmas collapse. We'll be no where near the play offs this time around though, 15th - 20th with the club narrative that we are in a "transitional phase" pushed out constantly.

I think most might say we've over achieved and reality will bite at some point it only takes one bad start to a season and it'll be hard to recover. However to be fair to the squads and past 3 gaffers we always seem well prepared to get stuck in from the off before it all catches up with us again. No reason that should be any different this time although a word of caution good pre season results might lead to a bit of dawdling in recruitment.

I agree, the only real push back is that we thought we had a terrible squad last year and ended up having quite a good season. On the whole as a supporter base we have not been very good at judging how competitive our squad is. Its tended to perform abetter than we anticipate. So we live in hope of this trend continuing.

Got a link?

In my watching years and trying for a balanced team: Friedel Berg Hendry Nelsen Le Saux Ripley Dunn Flitcroft Duff Shearer Bellamy Bit worried about the defensive abilities on the left flank - that's one of the reasons Flitty is in there. Almost went for Batty as he was brilliant at covering Le Saux - at least until they started fighting each other 😉 Feel a bit guilty about no pre-92 (other than Big Col) in there. Just think nowadays Duff would probably play on the right!! Maybe another theme is best pre-Walkers team and best post-Walkers team. Although the second of those might makes some of us almost suicidal!!

The JDT version of JRC is a miss - alas we haven't seen that player for a few years. He also couldn't play CM - they tried to play him there a few times and he was poor.

Indeed. They are just very lucky to be situated where they are. As a reminder there’s as many league clubs between a handful of junctions of the M65 as there is in the whole north east of England.

I mentioned we needed to replace Weimann and Dolan in my original post that you quoted. Not sure why you’re repeating that here, that’s already factored in. Wharton and McLoughlin have effectively replaced Batth. We have no idea how that will pan out so to say we’re weaker is wrong as it’s unknowable. In every other position we are at least as strong, but in no way are we obviously weaker. Please list the exact positions we are weaker and explain why?

We're weaker in attack - lost Dolan and Weimann (14 goals and 8 assists in the league between the two of them - do you think we've replaced that?) We're weaker at CB - we lost our best one from last season, we have a replacement granted, but it will be a huge ask to replicate Batth's presence for us. We've lost JRC - perhaps not a first-teamer, but regardless he is a utility player who can fit in RB, CM, RW - crucial in the Championship as we see every year with our relentless injuries Besides, I said at a stretch we could say we're on a par. Try and tell me where we're stronger than last season, CM perhaps is the only answer. Again, we've lost 20+ goal/assists from last season, and not even had a sniff at replacing them.

What you on about? They've always been a bunch of entitled insufferable twats. Just another small club pretending to be something important.