Assuming AA is on the left as Sharpe is saying? If so then good, keep him there where he's actually a threat and leave the forward position to Gallagher/Graham.

Makes a bit more sense at least.

If we were playing a formation with Gallagher/Arma playing off each other up top I'd understand it, but playing Armstrong up top by himself and Gallagher out wide in a 4-2-3-1 seems detrimental. If we win then okay I suppose, but it still confuses me.

Can people who go to the games tell me what Armstrong is doing up top that guarantees selection every week? I don't really understand it.

Having different tactics to employ in certain situations (eg. away to a top team) is fine, but changing tactics regularly for most opposition is not. We should absolutely have a settled, standard formation and team which we use for most games. A tweak here and there is OK, a total change across the pitch not so much. I don't think the 4-2-3-1 really works to our strengths anymore so am in favour of trying other systems, but I kind of wish we'd been doing that in pre-season rather than when the campaign has already started.

I vaguely remember last season conceding two stupid goals early on. Then one of their players gifted us two penalties which rescued a point. Expecting a better performance this time around.

Bauer was a L1 player though. Holtby clearly has significantly more pedigree so I'm just curious if there are injury or attitude problems putting other teams off. If not then okay, great.

Sorry to ask the obvious question - but why do we appear to be the only team in the running if he's as good as everyone is saying? Is there some kind of risk factor involved? I know next to nothing about him.

Think on the Football League show they said Cowley went from something like £100k p/a to £1m+ p/a, so yeah... would be hard to turn that down. Although with that said I'd be kind of surprised if Hudds were paying that much, even if they do have the parachute payments.

Don't we already have Dack and Rothwell who can play the Cairney AMC role though?

I don't want to derail the thread with this so I'll send you a PM to discuss further.

No problem with you expressing your opinion but it's getting a little too confrontational and nasty. Stop the insults and sweeping generalisations.

Once Mulgrew left and Tosin got injured were there literally any other choices except Williams, Grayson and Platt though? It essentially was by default.

Some managers have a fantastic impact. Sam Allardyce is a prime example. Further up the pyramid you can use the likes of Pep and Mourinho as examples of managers who come in and have a strong impact on the teams they take charge of. Imo Mowbray falls into the bloated category of managers who are generally steady but don't get a team punching above their weight. He keeps them right about where they should be given their overall expenditure. If we're happy floating around mid-table for the next couple of seasons (assuming the owners don't pull the plug) then Mowbray's your man. If we want to seriously challenge for promotion I think we'll need someone a lot more innovative and tactically savvy. Those managers are hard to find though, and usually cost more than Venky's are willing to spend on the position.

Well, we have other options. Buckley, Bennett and Tosin are all able to play in that position. If TM chose Evans then that would be on him rather than because of a lack of squad depth. Holtby would seem like a real waste of a wage when we have other positions that need addressing beforehand.

Could also push Travis down the pecking order.

LB is the position now that we need to be looking at. Cunningham is a great player but not ours, and if he got injured then we're back to Bell/Williams as our LB choices which we already know are nowhere near good enough. RB is also a concern but with Nyambe and JRC as competition for Bennett (sigh) I would say that area is better stocked for now.

I see no evidence of the second part being true, so yes, I'd say a lot of our positives are stumbled upon rather than well thought out plans. I've outright stated it many times, I don't need to insinuate. If you think differently then OK, coincidence is a genuine concept too so it's feasible.

I can't remember a single thing Williams did that season without googling first so can't say that award means a great deal to me. I remember Marcus Olsson winning it one year and his highlight package was hilariously underwhelming. Imagine it was similar in 16/17. Not sure what the second point is referencing as I haven't brought it up.

Derrick never evolved into a good left back, if anything he got worse over time. Thank goodness for injuries as otherwise we may never have seen what he really has in his locker.

It's a bit confusing having two threads with the same theme and name running concurrently, so I'm going to lock this one. The other attendences thread can be found here:

Unfortunately for us. Although in this instance Bristol City are to blame as they were the ones who started the experiment - we just took the ball and ran/stumbled with it.

Williams was actually a centre back converted to left back. He's now back in his natural position.

I would say their chances of survival are so remote it isn't really worth debating. The team they have now isn't going to hit playoff form. They'll do well to surpass relegation form. They should however continue with the great escape mentality. It's not like they can really do anything else.

Remember when Jason Lowe was 'the scapegoat'? Now he can't even get into Bolton's starting eleven. When players are regularly criticised it's usually because they are continually failing to contribute. Armstrong's stats prove this so the idea that he's a scapegoat is laughable. He's just not performing and it's rightly being pointed out, particularly because we have other options that aren't being used to try and address that issue. Worth noting that it isn't necessarily Armstrong's fault. It might just be that he can't play effectively in the poisition/role the manager has assigned him. Look at Williams. Poor at LB for most of his tenure here, but suddenly looks like a totally different player at CB in a role he's clearly much more comfortable in. My feeling is that Armstrong would be most effective playing with a target man with two up top, but I can't see that happening in the near future so it's fair to question whether he should be in the starting eleven with our current system.