He might get a slot on the right wing.

It's strange that Brentford could have ascertained this considering Raya literally never played like this for us as it has never been our style of play. All evidence points to the opposite being true. You do wonder if they've just linked "spanish keeper" and "play out from the back" and gone from there. They might be in for a bit of a shock when they see his distribution up close.

The Dack one baffles me a bit. Had been League 1 player of the season, clearly has natural talent, scores goals and creates assists. Bizarre that nobody else came in for him before us. I do seem to recall Gillingham turned down a bid the season before we came in for him which was something like £2m? But even so you'd have thought a Championship club would have taken a chance on him. Their loss was our gain though. Rothwell, whilst talented, sat out most of last season due to the manager's paralysing cautiousness, so we'll see if Mowbray can get the best out of him. I'm still sceptical at the moment. I can see it being another Nyambe situation where the smallest mistake sends Rothwell to the bench whilst the old faithful trudge around the pitch. I very much hope I'm wrong on that one though. Mowbray needs to show that he learned from last season and is willing to take more risks with team selection and overall style of play.

Under 30, never played for Boro or Coventry, played a lot last season, not British, defensive player that costs more than a few quid and a packet of hobnobs... basically fits none of our scouting criteria.

Also once played for Coventry so he's certainly qualified as far as Mowbray is concerned.

Remember when Leeds let Villa score a goal in their match towards the end of last season? Jansson was the only player who said "fuck this" and actively tried to stop Villa scoring whilst the rest of his team mates looked on in bemusement.

It was a common concensus at the end of last season that defence was where we needed to strengthen. At the moment with Raya's departure we're technically weaker, so, for me none of our transfer business means much unless we bring in a decent keeper to replace Raya, a good quality CB to partner Lenihan and a left back - our only options on that side are Bell and Williams, neither of whom are particularly good. I'd even go as far as to say right back needs attention as well. I'd be OK with Nyambe playing there but Mowbray doesn't seem to rate him very highly and has dropped him for minor mistakes, so are we really happy with Bennett starting there as first choice? I'm not! So, seeing links to Charlie Adam and Sam Gallagher mean absolutely nothing to me unless we sort the defence out. Signing attacking players will be pointless if we start with Bennett - Mulgrew - Lenihan - Bell as our back four. If we start with three at the back then I guess you can add Williams to that too, but even then I wouldn't be confident in our ability to keep a clean sheet. The best teams build from the back, and it seems like this is a lesson Venky's STILL haven't learned after 9 years of abject failure. Instead all of our budget seems to be earmarked for attacking players. We had a top class strike force in Rhodes/Gestede a few years ago, with the likes of Conway, Cairney and Marshall supplying them. We still achieved sod all in the end because we had a manager who wasn't up to the task and a defence that leaked goals. We conceded 62 in 13/14, more than any of the teams above us. We conceded 59 in 14/15, more than any team above us except Brentford, who also conceded 59. Those who don't learn from history...

Tbf they should all have looked class against Barrow!

I've said it before, but it makes absolutely no sense to attack one of your own players in public. There is literally nothing to gain from it. If you want the player to improve then you can talk to them in private. If you want them to move on then all attacking them in public does is make that player look worse and therefore lower his value and desirability. It is a stupid and pointless endeavour. I really wouldn't have expected it from Mowbray of all people. I can remember with the Raya one especially he sounded really angry, and we were also on a really bad run at the time, so maybe he was feeling the pressure a bit and lost his head. It's the only explanation I can come up with.

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.