I'm sure I can remember TM have a pop at Travis as well. Then there was the infamous one where Reed was told he needs to be more like Evans and Smallwood. Really hard for anyone to defend that ridiculous comment tbf.

I assume it comes from Raya not appearing to improve on his weaknesses at all since he first came into the squad. Could be that Raya is the problem, but then it was exactly the same with our defence - same mistakes over and over again - so I'm inclined to think the quality of coaching at the club in general is not very good. Hopefully Johnson can help with that as he's been promoted to the first team.

Sounds like Brentford might be going for it next season if they sign Raya and Janssen. Disappointing that we aren't in for him considering we are absolutely desperate for a CB. Seems that Venky's will only sanction decent money being spent on attacking players, then end up "confused" when we don't get anywhere because we can't bloody defend.

No, we need an experienced keeper, especially with our pathetically poor defence which is unlikely to be much improved on if at all. Get Fisher out on loan so he can make his learning mistakes elsewhere and come back to us stronger.

In fairness even Mowbray is surely not stubborn enough to think Leutwiler is a capable No1. If he starts the season in nets then the manager should be rightly lambasted for it. I'm absolutely sure we'll bring someone in though, whether it's Hart (god forbid) or Darlow.

Not sure, I read he was injured but if it's illness then I'm relieved.

Chapman is already injured? I thought we'd at least get a couple of matches out of him before he broke down.

True, although Kean had been coaching for years beforehand so arguably had more experience on the non-playing side of the game. Also far less known than Monk, who you'd think would want to keep his reputation in tact.

Strange to see such a young and relatively inexperienced manager involved in something like this. You might expect it from an older head who has built up various contacts and a track record in the game, but not so much from somebody who started managing five years ago. You have to think it's going to be difficult for him to get back in the game in England for a while.

Unprotected chair shots to the head just aren't necessary. Most of the time they look stupid anyway as the guy has ample time to get his hands up but just stands there like a lemon and takes the hit. You don't need chair shots to the head to be edgy or successful. Moxley Vs Janela at Fyter Fest didn't have a single chair shot to the head. WCW at its peak didn't have anything like that either. It's crass shit that appeals to the lowest common denominator. A shock stunt to get a surprised pop. If you want to be successful and edgy do it by having cutting edge storylines and wrestling, not hardcore bullshit.

Considering how quickly this seems to have moved in the past few days you have to assume we're confident of getting somebody in pretty quickly. We absolutely do not want to be starting the season with Leutwiler between the sticks, as we don't exactly have an easy start to the season. We need somebody who is going to be able to come in and hit the ground running.

Raya was fortunate to come into the team at a time when we were at our lowest ebb in terms of GK quality. We'd just come off the back of Jake Kean, Simon Eastwood and Jason Steele. He didn't exactly have big shoes to fill. He has some decent attributes and some poor attributes, about what you'd expect for a lower-mid table Championship goalkeeper. I agree that he came into the first team too early in his development and it may have hurt him a little bit. He's not the first young player who has suffered from being thrust into the first team without enough development time elsewhere - Henley and Lowe immediately spring to mind - but genuine top players thrive in adversity and become better through making mistakes and learning from them. I'm not sure Raya ever has. That may say something about Rovers' coaching though, and it'll be interesting to see if Raya improves on his weaknesses at a different club with different coaches. I think Raya was treated harshly by Mowbray at the end of last season with some unnecessarily blunt public comments which may have reduced his value. If Raya plays to the end of last season and Mowbray continues to back him as a top young prospect in the press maybe we get more for him than the reported £3m he's been sold for. I imagine TM was aware by that point that he wanted to replace Raya, so there was no need to attack him publicly and shine such a bright light on his weaknesses. Anyway, one assumes TM already has a replacement lined up and we can move on. It shouldn't be difficult to find a keeper that is at least on par with Raya, although I'm hoping for better.

I haven't watched Impact in years. I watched TNA fairly regularly from about 2006 - 2012ish, but once Bischoff and Hogan got there it started going downhill pretty fast. Then when AJ, Joe, etc started leaving that was the end for me. I've followed TNA/Impact insofar as reading about what's going on with the company as a whole, but that's about it. I think they will always struggle to overcome the stigma they created for themselves, especially between 2010-2014. Best period of TNA was the early days (2005-2007), although I did enjoy the Main Event Mafia stuff too. I still remember the excitement of the "new monday night wars" and that first night, Jan 4 2010, when TNA got a 1.5 rating. A shame it all went to shit very quickly afterwards. Raw and Smackdown are definitely better quality-wise in the last few weeks. A stable with AJ, Finn, Anderson and Gallows would be awesome. They could have Finn come back and feud with AJ over being the "real leader" of the club (as both were at different times leaders of the Bullet Club) then have Finn turn on whoever was helping him out and turn heel. He's a solid babyface for sure, but he's so bland and boring, just like pretty much all of WWE's babyfaces. Whilst turning Balor heel and having the club as a proper stable would be awesome, they'd run into the same problem they always have of the heels being far cooler than the faces and therefore getting cheered as a result. WWE can't create a cool babyface to save their life. It's almost always a cool heel who turns face and then loses all his momentum as he becomes a bland character with no real motivation beyond "I'm a good guy and I do good guy things". It's something that Heyman and Bischoff desperately need to change, if they can.

If we were paying £2-3m then it wouldn't be so bad, but for £5m we could surely get better value elsewhere if the scouting was up to par. I'm not going to pin the blame on Mowbray for this as it shouldn't be his job to set up and oversee the scouting department - there should be somebody at the club in charge of that - but I'll be disappointed if he agrees to spend £5m on Gallagher. I'd rather just loan him again tbh, although I'm guessing either the player or Southampton want a permanent deal instead.

I agree, but it just shows we're shopping in the wrong market. Look at the top goalscorers (20+ goals) from last season in the Championship: Pukki - free from the Danish Superliga Abraham - loan from the PL Maupay - £1.6m from French Ligue 1 Gayle - loan from the PL Sharp - circa £700k from the Championship Rodriguez - £12m from the PL McBurnie - £350k from either League 1 or League 2, can't be bothered to check Adams - £2m from League 1 Bowen - £0, youth product The only one who cost any significant money was Rodriguez, who was bought when WBA were in the Premier League so is an outlier. £5m for Sam Gallagher is lazy and bad scouting imo. If you want players from the PL it seems clear that loaning is generally the way to go, rather than paying silly amounts just because the selling club is in a different financial universe.

I don't think Gallagher has really achieved more than Adam Armstrong did before joining us, and we got him for something like £2m potentially rising to £3m. I'd say that is about right, maybe slightly more for Gallagher but not much more. I'd be disappointed if we signed him for £5m up front as I think that's too much - if our budget is the same as last year then that would be essentially half of our entire budget on Gallagher, which seems unnecessary.

In fairness I don't think it's that season people are worried about, just the rest of his career so far. If it is a £5m fee then I'd hope it's at most £2m up front with everything else in instalments based on targets to be hit.

As it stands Bennett, Evans, Mulgrew, Johnson and DG would push our first 11 up into the late 20's in terms of average age, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as you are ideally looking for a mixture of youth and experience. It's also possible Evans won't be starting although I don't think that's as sure of a thing as others seem to. Mowbray has always been a cautious manager so IMO we're more likely to see Johnson/Evans than we are Johnson/Travis.

Johnson seems like a good signing, if he's to replace where Reed would have been alongside Travis. I think it's more like to be Johnson/Evans personally, which wouldn't be so good, but we will see. Evans will still be one of the highest earners at the club and only got given a new contract a few months ago so I don't see him being used as a bench option. It seems clear that Mowbray doesn't rate Raya. He made some very harsh comments at the end of last season and benched Raya for the final few games. Can't imagine that did much to help when it came to trying to negotiate a fee mind. I have a feeling based on last season he doesn't rate Nyambe too highly either, although I don't anticipate him leaving the club this summer. Either way if Raya goes it will add to a growing list of desperately needed defensive reinforcements. Hopefully we're ahead of the game on that one as we certainly don't want to be starting next season with Leuts in nets.

Even if he did, who's buying? Nobody wanted Evans even when we were relegated. Then we go and give him a new contract.

Our only successful summer window was one where we did business unusually early. Granted we were the big fish in a lower division, but even so, to spend £750k on Dack in mid-June means we had a budget and plans in place well ahead of time. Seems it's now all back to normal, making no significant signings until the window is practically shut. The obvious drawback to waiting late and hoping for "better market value" (how's that working out with BB by the way?) is that the player will not have a pre-season with his team mates and be expected to hit the ground running. Should they fail to do so they get stuck behind the favourites until we hit a particularly bad run of form and get thrown in out of desperation. That's basically how Rothwell got his shot last season despite calls for him to play much, much earlier.

If it is true than Mowbray and the owners are on different wavelengths regarding transfers than it is just proof that our operating model is dangerously out of sync and needs adjustment. In my view the manager should have no say in the budget he receives - he certainly shouldn't be advising the owners to spend more or less. That conversation should go on between the owners and the board. Consulting the manager on expectations is fine but that's as far as it should go. The board should then tell the manager what his budget is and what the targets are based on that budget. This should all happen very shortly after the season ends - although in truth if the club isn't in danger of relegation or in contention for promotion it could easily be done before the season is over. It isn't that difficult. At this point depending on the model employed you either have a DoF or equivilent working with the manager on transfers, or the manager and his staff create targets and work with the club to make the deals happen. Why is it after 9 years we still appear to be operating under such an incomplete model which requires the owner to go out to India post-season and have a chinwag with the owners about issues that shouldn't even be a part of his job specification?

He's at Boro tbf, which does seem to be a major part of our scouting network.

Just watched through Fyter Fest - overall really enjoyable. Didn't watch the Buy In, just went straight to the main show. Daniels Vs Cima - decent enough opening match. Sakazaki Vs Riho Vs Rose - another good women's match, the women's division is shaping up to be really solid in AEW. Page Vs Jungle Boy Vs Havok Vs MJF - another solid match. MJF is a really good heel - not playing for cheers, just a straight up heel. Cody Rhodes Vs Darby Allin - I had no idea who Allin was before this match, but I really enjoyed this one... until the match ended. The post-match chairshot to the head was total bullshit. I don't believe for a second that the chair was gimmicked. They did this on purpose to create buzz and put eyes on the product. I guess it worked in the sense that everybody was talking about it afterwards, but this left a really sour taste in my mouth. I won't support a company that does shit like this, and it had better be a one off. Omega & The Jacksons Vs Fenix/Pentagon/Kid - a great match, as expected. Everybody got time to shine and the finish made sense. Moxley Vs Janela - OK, first thing's first, the whole idea of "unsanctioned" matches is really dumb to me. So it's "unsanctioned", but you're showing it on your PPV, letting the wrestlers use your referees and having your announcers call the match. Exactly what part of that is "unsanctioned" ? That nonsense aside, this was just a brutal, ECW style death match. Both of these guys took some severe punishment. Moxley's back was a mess after being slammed into the barbed wire chair/tables and Janela walking on the thumb tacks in bare feet made me cringe. Insane stuff. The Omega attack at the end set up the match between him and Moxley at All Out nicely. So overall it was a solid event and a good watch, but I really do take issue with that chairshot to the head. Really disgusting stuff and if they continue on that path I'm definitely "all out". Other than that the match quality across the show was very good and the crowd was totally into it. Production looks good, commentary was spot on (good call on removing Marvez) and there wasn't any part of the show that dragged. A good effort tainted by the unnecessary chairshot.