I'd quibble and say we definitely don't need any more centre mids, so no Reed replacement. Agree with you elsewhere though.

On balance we are at best standing still at the moment. Get 2 quality defenders and a striker and we will have reasons to be optimistic, but at the moment we are looking down the table, not up. Edit - that said Championship is such a mad league I don't really think anyone can have any decent expectation of what will happen until around October.

Both Nyambe and Bell I think can improve a lot. Have the raw materials. Really need a solid central defender though alongside Lenihan to give them the stability to grow. It's a decent midfield and attack but defence still looks poor. Need one top quality centre back and at least one of the full backs needs to be more solid and experienced.

I would be happy with Gallagher if we get two defenders. GK and a centre mid is a nice to have, I think we could do okay with Raya and the centre mids we have although I wouldn't say no to an upgrade obviously. But at least one centre back, at least one full back and and a legitimate alternative to Graham is an absolute requirement. If we don't manage that we've really messed up the window. Frustrating that the one person we have signed, Downing, seems a total luxury.

Is there any suggestion Downing can play centre mid though? It's a totally different skillset to out wide or attacking mid. I can't think of too many wide players who successfully changed to centre mids. Giggs, but obviously he was a different level. After that I'm struggling. Pedersen gave it a go for us with poor results.

Savage was also technically a very good player. Better than most centre mids we've had. Absolutely miles ahead of Smallwood and Evans for example.

Bentley will be absolutely gutted by that. 4 bins! Puts him in the shade.

I have to say back 3 seems to layer risk on for me. All you do is create more space down the sides. Mulgrew and Williams lack of turning speed and pace gets exposed. To some extent I can live with Lenihan and Williams as a CB pair in 442. Lenihan is decent, Williams played well to the end of of the season. But we need a competent RB and LB, and what do we do if one of the CBs get injured? Mulgrew coming back into the side will see us conceding heavily again. I am really hoping Wharton or Magloire can show something and be Travis level successes.

I don't really follow this, loads of our youth players have had a chance over the last 5-10 years. I'd say more than the average for a championship club. It's not really a stick you can beat the club with. Current side has 4 regular starters from the youth squad (Raya, Lenihan, Nyambe, Travis). Only youth player who got bounced by Rovers and went on to have a better career in recent years was O'Connell I think. Mahoney went to Bournemouth but it hasn't worked out. Fascinating web page here, though some data looks incomplete : https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/blackburn-rovers/jugendarbeit/verein/164

I have to agree that with Rothwell, Chapman, Armstrong the one area you wouldn't think we were desperate was out wide. If we're investing in experienced quality I would say CB, GK, CM, FB need it a lot more.

A club like Villa will want to splash big money on big names to show intent. I can't really see them going for Dack. Sheffield Utd or Norwich I could see as being potentially interested, or Bournemouth. But anyone looking at Dack would wonder if he is worth £15-£20M, and will he succeed in the Prem.

If we manage to sign 7 players, let alone 7 good ones, I will be amazed. I anticipate about 3/4 decent players is about where we'll end up, similar to previous windows.

I forgot him yes! He would go in ahead of Brereton - you're right.

For what it's worth if we didn't sign anyone I think we would line up something like this. Maybe Bennett ahead of Davenport. -------------------------Raya Nyambe----Lenihan----Williams----Bell -----------------Travis------Davenport ----Brereton---------Dack------------Rothwell ---------------------Graham Subs : Leut, Mulgrew, youth centre back, Evans, Bennett, Chapman, Nuttall I can't really see Mowbray moving away from 4231. If he was going to do it he would have done by now. On signings he seems to be looking for upgrades at GK, CB, CM, ST. He doesn't seem to be focusing at full back which is weird as we are absolutely terrible there.

Mulgrew in midfield would be terrible for me. Way too slow and lacks intensity. Plus while he can strike a dead ball very well he is not that great at passing. If Mowbray thought he was decent in midfield he would have played him there, instead he left him on the bench towards the end of the season. Tells you everything. Mulgrew is finished I think.

With Norwich going up and that Hanley has played few games this season (9 matches) suggests to me this could happen if we were interested. Likely to be on big wages though as Norwich will probably have matched what he got at Newcastle. Plus it would bring him a lot closer to home/

Its balls. There's no way we could afford his wages. He'll be on 50k a week.

I don't think this really stacks up. Weve bought Rothwell and Dack who both look like great young prospects. They didn't cost £7m each. What you seem to be arguing is that to get good young talent you need to spend £7m but we know that isn't the case from players who are in the squad today. Want him to do well, but he's got major work to do.

Part of the reason Hughes left was that he couldn't get the financial backing to secure players like DIarra, Kompany and Zabaleta. With investment (£20m ish) we could have made the Champion League I think under Mark Hughes. But without the cash Hughes, quite understandably, thought he had done everything he could and moved on. I can't really blame John Williams as he didn't have the cash to fund those sorts of signings, and he was trying to keep the club sustainable. For Hughes I think he genuinely thought it was only a matter of time before he managed the likes of United or Chelsea. Didn't really work out like that though, the top clubs were only going for very well established talent who won trophies. Hughes walking out on Fulham was real hubris.

He signed decent players at City (Kompany, Zabaleta), and he got Shakiri to sign for stoke which was something close to incredible. He signed Arnautovich there as well. To be honest he had a great time at rovers, a decent but unspectacular one at City, did well at Fulham and Stoke (until his last season). He had 2 disasters - QPR and Southampton. He'll come good for someone I'm sure, should his heart still be in it. One thing he does have is a massive ego so whether he wants to step down a division to get a job is the question. After Southampton I can't see a prem side going for him.

Harsh I think Dier is very good. Agree Delph offers little. Lacks technical quality and physicality. I've been a bit confused why Delph has played so much. Midfield three of Dier, Henderson, Barkley is our best setup. Alli, Lingard roam around too much to play that deep, Delph lacks the right quality. Im open to winks getting a shot.

Surely they have to put a time limit on the check. It's stupid how long it takes. 30 seconds should be enough. Sometimes their taking 2 or 3 minutes.

I thought Lingard was pretty good to be honest. Seems to get a lot of unfair stick. Speculative, but I would say if Henderson and Dier had started ahead of Rice and Delph I think we would have won that game. Weve got a really good squad generally but we could do with one real deep playing playmaker coming through to tie things together. A Tugay, Xavi, Carrick type. Winks is probably closest to that but I'm not sure he has the quality.

I agree that walker limits us, Trent Alexander Arnold or Trippier are better players. On the technically gifted side I think we have very good technical players indeed at nearly every position. I don't really see that as a major problem for us. More of an issue is the soft defence I think. We just need to keep chipping away.

This hits the nail on the head really. When we beat Spain using the same formation we had winks and dier in midfield alongside Barkley. Winks particularly is good on the turn with the ball. Dier is decent. Tonight Rice particularly struggled, and Delph was mediocre.