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.

Well, we did need a back up for Graham so in a sense we have something we needed... I just don't think many of us would have wanted to pay £5m for that. Makes last season's Brereton signing even more confusing to me. He's now assumedly 3rd choice striker at the very least, and he's not likely to be first choice on the right side of midfield either.

Not enough defenders to apply it to yet unfortunately. I think we'll still need Mulgrew and Bell as backups even if we do get in a CB & LB, which right now I only see us getting one of. You get the feeling full backs are way down the priority list, even though I would say we arguably need to be looking at LB as much as CB. I think Bell is as much of a liability as Mulgrew, and if he gets roasted this season it will pull our CB's out of position no matter how good they are.

Unfortunately there's no room for sentiment at this level of the game. There's no way Samuel is going to get ahead of the likes of Graham, Armstrong, Rothwell, Gallagher or Bennett - whether he is looking at playing striker or right wing. He needs to move on for the sake of his own career to a club better suited to his level of ability.

You could ask the same of us with midfielders to be fair.

Add Nuttall & Samuel and it makes six... although even if you assume those two won't play a part this season, I'd still say 4 strikers is definitely overkill if we only play with one striker up front. At most we really need three. Honestly I'd be tempted to throw Brereton out on loan for a season to build up his confidence in preparation for the 20/21 season when Graham is likely not going to be here and our £7m man will really be expected to make an impact. Unlikely this will happen though.

Very unlikely IMV, but who knows. I wouldn't totally rule it out, but if we did get Tuanzebe in then I'd be the first to congratulate Mowbray on an excellent signing. Still can't help but think United will want him playing at a higher level this season though. I think he's good enough to be playing at PL level and you have to imagine there are some clubs there who would have an interest. Throw in a left back to push Bell to back up and I would agree. As it stands I think we're very short at left back with Williams being a much better CB and Bell being a work-in-progress at best. The right side concerns me as well but not as much as the left.

Then I imagine he'll end up at a lower PL club or a top Championship club. I'd be stunned if he turned up here to be honest.

Yeah, I imagine he'll end up back at Villa. Possibly a loan to buy deal depending on whether they survive this season or not. Might be out of our league in terms of loan fee/wage as well to be honest.

I'm fine with Gallagher if the reported £5m in fee is inclusive of add-ons (don't think we should be paying any more than £3m base) and it has no impact on signing goalkeeping and defensive reinforcements. Although granted the second part may be true simply because Venky's aren't willing to put any significant money into those positions anyway. One has to assume Gallagher will come in as one of our higher earners. One has to assume he'll be a starter but at the same time you also have to assume Graham will be first choice unless injured or rested, which probably makes Gallagher's position right wing. Gallagher - Dack - Rothwell across the middle potentially? Although with that said I'd be surprised if Downing came here to be a bench player, and you've also got Armstrong who Mowbray seems to like a lot.

In fairness before we launch into the usual hyperbole there's only been one person talking about Dack handing in a transfer request and I've maybe seen 2 or 3 posters max seriously talking about relegation at this point. I don't see meltdowns, only concern that attention isn't seemingly being focused on the areas we need to focus on the most (GK & defence). We have to hope the club is just keeping its cards close to its chest and we already have deals in the works for these positions. Mowbray's comments on the defence are alarming but it wouldn't be the first time a manager says one thing whilst doing another. I don't see the window as a disaster yet, just underwhelming which is fairly standard in the past 9 seasons or so. If we sign a solid keeper, a good centre back and a useful full back (on either side) then I think that would be a decent window. GK/CB only would be adequete but I think our full backs would become a massive achilles heel for us over the season. No CB would be poor, no new GK would undoubtedly be a disaster but there's no way we're going into the season with Leutwiler and Fisher as no1/no2. That would be incompetence beyond any previous levels imo.

Not to be disrespectful to Wharton or Magloire but if we're seriously expecting either or both of them to step up in place of buying defenders then we are in big trouble. Wharton was playing for Lincoln and Bury last season whilst Magloire doesn't even appear to have been out on loan anywhere despite being 20, which seems weird to me as he's never been near the first team squad until recently? We're falling into the same trap we've seen multiple times over the years under Venky's. Rush kids into the first team without adequate preparation, let the fans witness them making all the mistakes they should have made out on loan elsewhere, leading to an erosion of confidence and the player never fulfilling their potential. At 20 and 21 Magloire and Wharton aren't exactly kids anymore, but one has been playing at League 2 level and the other at u23 level with, as far as I can see, no real experience of proper first team football save for a couple of cameos last season for us. Extremely risky to expect either player to be a significant part of our defence next season imo.

I just can't see Mowbray playing without two midfielders in the centre. Two DM's has been a constant throughout his tenure, along with strikers on the wings. I'd be surprised to see either change at this point.

It all makes sense now.