joey_big_nose

Aren't those the rules? To loan now you need to include an option to buy?

I'm confused by Travis going on loan as he has looked decent and provides cover at RB too. Otherwise totally agree with what you say on cm, but just in the list of priorities other positions seem far more pressing.

Also when was the last time a premier league veteran was a good signing for us? Only Graham I think since we went down. List of failures is long.

I really don't understand the link with Rodwell. We've got Evans, Smallwood, Bennett, Rothwell, Davenport, Travis, Whittingham and even Dack who all can play there. Fair enough you should always look to improve but central midfield seems the one position we are well stocked. Out wide we only have Conway, alongside Armstrong and Palmer who can give it a go at a push. We have no decent backup centrebacks, only one right back , and lack quality up front. All of these are high priorities to address. Seems a very odd one to go after Rodwell.

Rumoured Rodwell signing suggest Rothwell is seen by Tony as a wide player.

Have to agree on this. Big money signings in the championship are a very mixed bag. Many of them really don't work out.

A five man midfield with Evans and Rothwell holding, while Dack, Palmer and Armstrong fill the more advanced roles has the promise of being pretty bloody good at this level. Also presumably Davenport comes in somewhere when fit too. And Bennett is a hard man to drop.

Lol'd hard

I agree. I don't think we had a poor first half. We dominated it. But the two chances Reading got (through our appalling defending) they scored.

I get a feeling Mowbray may drop Smallwood on the weekend and play Rothwell central. He didn't seem happy with Smallwood at all today.

It's criminal that we were 2 goals behind. We've been the better side throughout by a big distance. That said we were two goals down to appalling defending from Mulgrew and Lenihan. So we only have ourselves to blame. Rothwell looks a real find. He's clearly going to be a big player for us. Lots of allround quality. Nyambe, Evans and Bennett all very good. Think Nuttall has done really well also since on too. Personally I'm not convinced by Bell. His final ball seems very poor. Maybe just caught him on a bad day. Another should have won, but great performance in second half to get back level. Shame two spots of terrible defending killed us.

It's odd we are offering so much for him. Mowbray must think he's an absolute certainty as a top player. Guess it's one of those where you have to ask do we trust the manager, and the answer has to be yes. All of his main additions have looked the part. I wonder if the fee is highly contingent on appearences, a sell on fee and paid in installments over 3 or 4 years. That could explain why it is taking so long and why we can afford the fee.

If he continues in the same vein the only way we will keep him is through promotion. So that's what we need to do!

What sort of player is Davenport? Is he earmarked for this role?

What about Davenport. Not seen him yet? Does he have any bite?

It will be very interesting to see if Travis, Bell and Rothwell all get a shot. Also as others have said Armstrong is an option through the middle too. Maybe the squad isn't as threadbare as thought. Need to see if they really can step up though.

What if he registered 10 shots per game but we were well beaten by Colombia in the second round? Is that better? You can't have a go at someone on tactics of they got a generational best outcome using those tactics.

----------------------------Raya Bennett----Lenihan----Mulgrew----Bell -----------------Dack-----------Evans Armstrong---------Palmer-------Rothwell -------------------------Graham I'd give that a go if we are sticking with 451. Still think we would be better with 343/352. Too many square pegs in midfield in 4231.

Don't know how anyone who got us to only our third world cup semi in history can be described as awful. Lucky with the draw obviously, but still we had a great tournament. He did very well with one of our worst squads ever. No pleasing some people.

This sounds more likely to me than Wickham. There's no way we could afford Wickhams wages, probably could only manage around a third at most.

If we do go into the season with this squad I think it's incredibly hard to predict how things will go. We've got maybe five top half championship players (Mulgrew, Dack, Lenihan, Graham, Palmer). One or two others who have quality but have struggled in the Championship when they've played (Raya, Armstrong). Rest of the squad is bottom half Championship or relegation standard. A few injuries and a bad run of form and we will be struggling. But then again with little cash it's hard to see how we could have done much better. What we can hold onto is the Championship has shown repeatedly even with mediocre players you can make the playoffs if the team spirit is right and you have luck with injuries. So we can always dream.

Fair point. We had Chapman but he was mostly injured. I guess we could go 4231, but it seems daft when we don't have the personnel. We can go ultra narrow with Palmer, Samuel and Armstrong filling in, but it's square pegs. Just think if we were serious about 4231 we would have signed at least one wide player.

Why do you think that? We've got loads of number 10s and no wide players beside Conway. Plus we've got a signing sitting on the bench in Bell

Nothing personal but don't get this at all. How can we play 4231 when we have only one wide player in Conway and he is really struggling. We'd need to sign 2/3 wide players to persist.

Why?