Can't find the comments section on his profile. Do you have a screenshot? It does say however that he's visited London, Leeds, Rotherham, York & Bakewell. Now I'm not a UK tourism expert, but surely the odd one out there is Rotherham. Educated guess is saying that he might be moving to Rotherham as a replacement for Will Vaulks. I've called it if it happens! He was also pictured outside of Elland Road..

It's a long season, so I'd imagine he'll provide some depth for both positions. As you say, he's probably been told he'll play a lot of football. I can see him being part of a regular 14 (starting 11 and primary 3 subs), whether he starts or comes off the bench. Properly cracked me up with that last line.

Haha come on now. He might not be what anyone wanted, but I doubt he'll be shite.

One huge positive I'm taking from this is the deal length. We'd have offered him a 2 year deal not that long ago, just to get ahead of any potential rivals for the signature.

I'm open minded towards Downing. It's not particularly an area that needed strengthening, so an experienced head to replace Conway is fine by me as long as his wage is reasonable. I think it's promising that he played as many games as he did for a play off contender. For what it's worth I'd also take James Morrison on a free. Gives Mowbray a couple more players he can trust and pads out our squad with some more quality and experience. It should also, in theory, free up funds to spend on our defence. Our window is going to be judged on our defensive signings. Money needs to be spent there.

Wow, really? That was probably more a reflection of how bloody awful we were at the time though. Not saying things are great now obviously..

Ah fair enough. Suppose it's hard to gauge that interest without being there at the time. In all honesty I'd be beside myself if Mowbray was taking scouting tips from our fans. If he's a good enough option, he should already be on the radar.

Robertson is the captain now isn't he?

Where has this Jake Cooper talk come from? Not seen anything about him being linked, apart from someone mentioning him on here as someone 'we should' be targeting. Don't make him the next Marcus Maddison please. You're only going to get everyone riled up when we inevitably don't sign him.

If we can bring in Hanley (or similar/better), I won't be bothered one jot about us losing out on Bauer. You've just got to hope we've got some good available options at the top of our list!

I remember him playing in the cup game against Carlisle. Completely overshadowed by our other new boy at the time... Tom Cairney.

Think that would be a great signing. Genuine competition for Raya.

Same. Probably an absolute banker as well.

It's hardly inspiring, but we could do worse than Morrison. I'd probably rather him than Downing.

Think they'd both be decent signings. Most likely loans due to previous transfer fees/wages.

Love the sniping, but it's really not necessary. Chill out. It was evident from his performances - however few or short - that he wasn't ready to step into our first team last season. Although he didn't do anything necessarily 'bad' during his appearances, having him play meant that we lost a presence and goal threat up front. It says more about the current gulf in class between him and Graham more than anything. But also that we struggled to adopt a different style of play whenever our target man (Graham) was replaced by a more mobile forward (Brereton). Bennett is average. Brereton was worse than Bennett last season.

The 'bad' would essentially be him taking the place of someone in the team that would've contributed more at the time. I don't think he looks a terrible player, but he does seem to be on a different wavelength to the rest of the team whenever I've seen him play. A full pre season of him and the team getting used to a new style of playing could be just what he needs. He should be better equipped to show what he can do next season.

Some of them will have done and the merits of that have been debated before. You can't expect anyone to walk away from a contract and I'm not saying that. What I was discussing with Tomphil is Mowbray's apparent lack of ruthlessness when it comes to our potentially game time limited players. He's said himself that he'd rather leave a player to decide whether they stay or go, insinuating that he's not actively looking to sell said players. You might not be able to sell everyone you don't want in the squad, but you can't argue that his approach is the best way to improve the squad. I didn't say we did to be fair. It was a comment about players - most of which are indeed in contract - who will likely have been told they will have smaller parts to play next season. Albeit framed in a conversation about Rodwell and whether or not he is likely to stay. Sorry for the confusion. Fair enough, the last line is a punt in the dark. However I don't think it's too far a reach surmising that if we operate a soft stance on potentially unwanted contracted players - as Mowbray has evidenced via numerous interviews - then you aren't going to have the same urgency and potential wriggle room (i.e. freed up wages, on top of any agreed transfer/wage budget) to sign up new players, if you already have players contracted in that position. But what if it isn't? You've essentially just summarised the limitations of a football messageboard there. Assuming the vast majority of us aren't ITK, isn't it all just speculation and opinions. They serve no purpose other than to entertain us, as they more than likely won't ever influence those in charge. We're all presumably here because we enjoy talking rubbish about the team we love, albeit some more coherently than others.

It wouldn't be too bad if it was just one player, but if you evaluate our current crop, there are probably 5-6 players in a similar position. That's a lot of wage taken up by squad players. We lack urgency and wriggle room for negotiations while we wait around.

Think you've hit the nail on the head there. Using Smallwood as an example (assuming he's one of the players that's been told he'll play less next season).. Mowbray is essentially saying that the player has been told that due to us looking to progress, they won't get as much game time anymore and are free to find themselves another club if they wish. That means that if they don't decide to look around, they'll be sitting on their wage with very little game time. In reality we should be doing all we can to flog that player to another club if we've deemed them surplus to requirements. He's just taking up a wage and a spot in the squad, when we should be signing someone else that's better.

I've heard worse suggestions. He was on loan in Australia last season and scored a few goals. Apparently he played a few games on the wing and up front. Very strange.

Keogh isn't the answer. And Mulgrew isn't the only reason we did so poorly at the back last season.

Nowhere in that comment am I being over protective of Mulgrew. Just my opinion that Keogh isn't as good as a player a lot of us now consider to be a liability. Looking at players at other teams with rose tinted glasses and chastising our own, isn't exactly being sensible.

No, in all honesty, he's not. Anyone who thinks he's better than Mulgrew - who the majority of fans feel is a liability - is a sandwich short of a picnic.

He did punch the ball into the net against Newcastle at St James' Park as well. I do agree though that generally he did seem a genuine, honest bloke.