I know, it's odd. The fear has slipped into my mind that we are anticipating Dack leaving and switching to two up front. What we have done makes a lot of sense when you think of it that way. Edit - to be fair to Mowbray we all know it's highly likely Dack will leave by the 2020/21 season unless somehow miraculously we get promoted - and indeed he could get a long term injury - so it could be argued it's good planning for that eventuality.

I agree with what your saying but by the same token would you need Chapman, Brereton, Gallagher and Armstrong all on the bench. Not really necessary either, and I can't see Mulgrew being dropped entirely from the squad as much as he should be. Big loser is Davenport. Really hard to see how he gets in the squad unless we have injuries which is annoying as he has a lot of promise. Smallwood needs to be let go of as he has no chance, and Evans only retained to cover a major injury crisis.

Could do that, would probably end up as more of a diamond with Johnson at the base. But would you really want to drop Dack deeper into the midfield, lose all our width and drop Graham entirely? To me it would seem mega weird. For what it's worth I would say we are likely to line up : -------------------------New GK Nyambe----Lenihan (c)----new CB----Bell ------------------Travis----------Johnson ---------Downing-------Dack-------Rothwell -----------------------------Graham Subs : Leut, Williams, Mulgrew, Bennett, Armstrong, Gallagher, Chapman/Brereton If I was Brereton I would be thinking getting on the pitch is going to be very tricky.

Don't really watch or like cricket, but tuned in for the last two hours as it was the final and it was absolutely unbelievable. Hands down one of the most intense things I've ever watched. Crazy. Delighted for England, gutted for NZ, will undoubtedly watch more one day cricket in future.

I like him as a player. I am however confused why we bought him when we clearly need defenders and in Ben Brereton we have a very similar player. If we play 4231 as we surely will, with Dack guaranteed the 10, and Graham the 9 it means we have Rothwell, Chapman, Downing, Brereton, Armstrong and Gallagher chasing the other two attacking spots, and the odd covering role when Graham or Dack are injured. And that's not to even to mention Nuttall, Samuel and Butterworth. Seems a case of over supply to me.

Don't really think so, we give general statements on priority all the time.

Only thing I can think with the defence is maybe TM did a review and decided Lenihan, Williams, Mulgrew along with Nyambe and Magloire as cover is sufficient. However if he did come to that conclusion he should be sacked. Our only good enough CB is Lenihan and he is injury prone. All the rest are not good enough, with Mulgrew being an absolute liability of the highest order and also injury prone. I have to pray despite the lack of surface level evidence the management team are working furiously on CB deals behind the scenes. If I was them I would release a press statement that defence is a priority just to give clarity.

Would be odd as we've signed Chapman and Downing to play wide, plus got Armstrong kicking around.

Yup Id rather survive with Brereton, Armstrong and Nuttall as back ups and have a decent defence, than have Gallagher who will struggle to start regularly and a mess of a defence.

Yes - 4231 really suits him. I really want to see us to consistently start Graham up front, Dack at 10, Rothwell on the left and Chapman/Downing on the right. Will be our best attacking line in years. Johnson and Travis have the workrate and quality to build a strong platform for that attacking line to prosper. All for naught though if the defence and GK isn't radically overhauled.

Main issue for me is that it pushes Dack further away from goal. He has had a lot of success playing very far forward, pretty much as a second striker, and scores a lot of goals as a result. Putting two ahead of him would make him less effective imo.

To be honest Travis has looked twice the player Evans has in every regard including passing. Evans is the sort of player good in theory - ticks things over, moves the ball around, doesn't give it away too much. But his impact on the game is so minimal. He had runs of half a dozen games or so where he was okay, decent even, but then slipped back. Mowbray has prioritised bringing in a midfielder (and finally got Johnson) and clearly Travis is starting, so I would say both Evans and Smallwood are looking at significant bench time

I would say Rothwell and Travis will definitely start. They were absolutely cemented by the end of the season. I think Bennett (annoyingly) will return RB unless we sign someone. The one that really worries me is Mulgrew. I can see Mowbray deciding to retain him in the starting XI as he's club captain. That would be absolutely mental given his atrocious performances last season But sadly possible. If we go into the season expecting to regularly play Mulgrew first choice Mowbray will be sacked by October guaranteed.

I wager we won't see any of him for a year or two. 22 years old is pretty late for a development player though... must have something about him?

I'll reserve judgement till I see how they play for us. Danny Murphy was a quality Premier League player but signed for us and was terrible.

If we sign Gallagher that would be striker and midfield fully addressed (perhaps not perfectly but we have the right numbers and okay quality). Then we still need to sign three defenders and a GK which are woeful. Achieve all of that and we could aim for top half. But we're not going to be in amongst the favourites for top six. We would need radically better signings than the kind we are linked to. Here's a fun game : Automatic Promotion Quality Players = None Top six players = Dack, Lenihan, Travis, Rothwell, Graham, Top half players = Armstrong Bottom Half Players = Evans, Nyambe, Bennett, Bell, Williams, Samuel Relegation Players = Smallwood, Mulgrew, Leutweiler, Nuttall, Unknown Quantities = Johnson, Downing, Chapman, Brereton (I'm being generous here....), Davenport, Butterworth etc. As it stands we need the unknown quantities to turn out to be top six / top half players if we are to have a good season.

Don't follow what you mean here. Dack has always played best behind Graham as a lone striker. I can't recall him ever playing particularly well behind a front two.

I really don't get where BB fits in in any formation. Number 10/ second striker I guess. But Dack and even Rothwell look miles ahead of him.

What I don't like about all those teams is Mulgrew starts in all of them! Surely Williams is ahead of him, plus we should sign one more CB. Also Johnson Travis will be the starting partnership in midfield. And I'll be gobsmacked if we don't start the season 4231. It suits all of our players, most importantly Dack. Move away from that and Dack becomes much less effective.

If he doesn't sign a goalkeeper and a centre back in July I'll happily borrow one of your pitchforks and get a lend of a nice big flaming torch Rev. But for now we do need to give it a few weeks to see who else comes through the door. And goes out of it.

I think Raya and Mowbray fell out, simple as that really. He dropped him last few games of the season after some pretty big errors, and then Raya wanted to go. He's a great shot stopper, but his kicking is a atrocious, he's weak on crosses and always has a mistake in him. Would have preferred him to stay, but it's no big blow to lose him I think. We should be able to find someone adequate. Who needs not to be sold under any circumstances (because it is highly unlikely we will find better replacements, and they are out best players) - Dack, Graham, Travis, Lenihan, Rothwell. Anyone else in the squad I think is not only replaceable but also improvable. I include Raya in that, there's a decent chance we will bring in someone better.

Where's your view of Adam being a go getter from? Was great for Blackpool but since then a bit part player who has never made that much of an impression. Only played 13 games last season in an average stoke side that finished below us. Can't really see how anyone can expect him to do well. He's got quality but he's had that for a long time and done little with it. At least Johnson and Downing played a lot of games last season and performed well by a lot of accounts.

Charlie Adam to me is very reminiscent of Murphy. I sincerely doubt he will be coming to the Championship keen to put a shift in.

I'm pretty sure Souness said a few things about Dunn. This at the end of his time at Rovers https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.skysports.com/amp/football/news/11676/2254743/souness-dunn-can-go Also macateer here : https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11676/2218469/souness-unhappy-with-mcateer-attitude Souness, a bit like Roy Keane and Mourinho, loves a bit of negative public feedback. Can't see the sense in it myself.