Yeah, I remember noting last season that there was some significant differences in our home and away stats. If Mowbray could crack setting us up away from home then we would legitimately be in with a shout of the playoffs. We seem to struggle when teams come at us, as opposed to playing at home where we are under less pressure and find it easier to settle.

Actually somehow Coyle was the one who signed DG on a permanent. Maybe the only good thing he did for the club, along with signing Mulgrew. DG was originally a Lambert loanee.

Loans are fine as long as the bulk of the team isn't made up of them. You don't want to be over-reliant on loan players as they won't have the same motivation to succeed for the club as players who are signed permanently (usually, there are exceptions, see D. Murphy, B. Orr, D. Etuhu, etc). Ideally if you're bringing in a loan it's either a player you hope to be able to buy at a later date (Josh King and Tom Cairney are good examples of this) or players that you realistically aren't able to sign permanently, but are significantly better than what you already have. I think we'll sign a permanent GK, but if we got in a really good loan CB and LB I'd be happy with that.

I think he was officially announced as "ill" in the friendly he missed, although my first thought was that the word was being substituted for injured so people didn't get upset. I've said before we simply cannot rely on Chapman being a regular starter for our team. We'll do well to get 20 appearances out of him in a season imo, and that includes coming on as a substitute.

With these owners you never know. History suggests that long-term plans don't necessarily appeal to them though, so the European Global Network Scouting Initiative will need to produce results fairly quickly in order to survive, assuming it is implemented at all.

Yes, except the ground he's planting these seeds on is owned by a group of idiots who like to come around every so often and nuke it into oblivion.

Quite a strange thing for a manager to be in charge of though, don't you think? I mean, if it was coming from the top of the club then OK, great, but this seems to be entirely pushed by TM... an employee whose job is by nature relatively short-term. He may legitimately have left the club before the European Scouting Global Network Initiative gets off the ground - then what? New manager comes in to take advantage, or just dismantles the whole thing and goes in a different direction?

So no compensation for Sheffield Wednesday either then?

I'd let him go for free if it got his wages off the books.

Nice idea in theory but the reality is more likely to be that certain favourites like Bennett keep their places no matter what, whilst the more vulnerable players like Rothwell, Nyambe, Travis and Brereton are bombed out as soon as they make a mistake and find it practically impossible to get back into the first team. If we're being honest this is what we've seen from Mowbray so far. I hope he changes his behaviour in this regard.

Agreed, the only positive is that if only one of them goes and it is Evans, his wage is almost certainly significantly higher than Smallwood's. At least Smallwood is on a backup player's wage, whereas Evans is on a first team/first pick kind of wage. If he's going to be on the bench then that is a criminal waste of resources.

Don't think Rodwell would count and nobody is paying anything for Gladwin. Hope it's Evans.

I haven't watched Fight for the Fallen yet, but I heard they put Alex Marvez back on commentary. Wtf. The guy is legit one of the worst commentators I have ever heard and it sounds like he was terrible again at this show. I know he's friends with the Elite but as owner Tony Khan needs to step in and say "no, not working". Do what WWE did with Otunga and Coach and let him do pre-shows or backstage segments or whatever. Just keep him away from the announce booth, Apparently JR didn't have a very good night either.

Yeah, definitely the same thing.

If he's willing to play for free then he probably could have stayed here tbh.

I assume the X axis is season years.

I think it has to be acknowledged that signing Gallagher will have an impact on Brereton. They play in the same position. It remains to be seen what that impact is, but if it's going to seriously eat into Brereton's game time we'd be better loaning the lad out to play first team football rather than sending him on for 15 minute cameos. Personally I think we'll still be playing one up front, so even if Gallagher and Brereton were playing in the same team (assuming Graham is injured/rested) one of them will likely be playing out of position. Even if we did play two up front it's possible Armstrong would be ahead of Brereton in the pecking order anyway. Gallagher's signing raises a lot of questions which will only be answered when the season kicks off.

Good to see everyone getting along as usual. Our UKIP/Brexit Party transfer strategy doesn't necessarily bother me in that we still have a fair few decent players coming through, but I'd be surprised if the auditors made the suggestion to buy British. You may sell Brits for a premium but you also buy them for a premium so it essentially evens itself out. There's enough evidence to suggest you can get similar quality abroad for significantly cheaper, so I'd imagine we'd have put a lot more effort into foreign signings if the auditors had anything to say about it. Venky's are too clueless to understand anything, so my guess is that it is just Mowbray and his team's preference. Not convinced the fabled European scouting network will ever amount to much.

I fear our fans are expecting too much of him, but on the other hand if we've spent £4-5m on him then we are entitled to expect a decent return in front of goal. Might be difficult if he's playing on right wing but maybe Mowbray will surprise us. I'll withold judgement on this signing overall until I see who we bring in at the back.

An ex-Rover as well. Still under 30 though, so, hopefully not.

It certainly is a joke!

I think it's more likely to be Gallagher. In theory Mowbray could rotate both of them in that position, I suppose, but... imagine we just signed a right sided midfielder to play there?

Absolute madlad is Keano.

Gallagher has scored 18 goals in his entire career, so nobody should be expecting 20 goals out of him. If he matches the 11 he managed in his first spell here then that will be good going in all honesty. Most of those goals were scored in Coyle's 'what's a defence?' system, not Mowbray's 'what's a defence?' system so it remains to be seen if he can reproduce that form. Particularly if he's playing right wing.

I wouldn't be against bringing Martin Olsson back as we are desperately short of quality at LB.