Lenihan, Nyambe, Travis, Buckley, Rankin Costello, probably Wharton - all academy products, all likely to be used with regularity this season. So no, I wouldn't say closing the academy is the right thing to do. By the same token you don't just get shut of everyone else and throw in academy products across the pitch because that will only end one way. I don't know what is going on behind the scenes. I do know that as of 26th August just over 2 weeks before our first league game we haven't yet signed a player and have let 7 go. Unless that changes significantly and quickly we will be in a weaker position than we were last season.

I'm struggling with the logic that letting 7 senior players leave and to date signing 0 cannot impact on our ability to perform. I wholeheartedly agree that of those released the majority were not good enough for anything more than a bottom half season but the fact remains that these were senior experienced pros who were in the squad as options for use. This probably applies more to the likes of Graham and Downing than Hart and Smallwood. But the point remains - if we are away from home at a hostile ground and need a goal or need to defend a 1-0 lead I would have absolute faith in Graham coming off the bench to do his thing or likewise Downing using his experience to guide us through than the alternative which is currently making do with what we have. The alternative being chucking one of the young lads on. Are they really going to be able to do what Graham does on a rough night at Millwall or Barnsley? The problem with your plan for the defence is we will have to get shut of those players before being allowed to sign the replacements. There is unlikely to be much interest. Once we are rid we are upon the new season under immense pressure to quickly sign people having offloaded yet more. I expect two players for every position. Therefore 2 people who can play LB, RB and 4 who can play CB. Lose Mulgrew or Williams or both and whilst we might not be bothered the fact remains they need replacing and quickly. Including Wharton we would still then need 2 x CB, 1x LB, 1 x GK and ideally 1x RB I'm not expecting us to go out and blow teams over with offers. Clever clubs don't need to - they identify bargains and get them quickly before others. But I would have expected a lot more progress than we've had. One incoming not yet confirmed and not available for a fortnight. We need a lot more and i am worried about getting the time we have, our manager's track record and what I am hearing to be totally honest.

Karanka has only been in the job a couple of weeks and they've already signed Jon Toral and George Friend this week.

Just looking at his history his last club was Beijing Renhe, pretty sure they are owned by the same people as Reading are.

So lets believe that we have £3 million to cover everything this summer including wages. Bear in mind that we have in Downing, Graham, Samuel, Smallwood, Leutwiler, Hart, Walton and Tosin shed probably possibly in excess of £100,000 a month off the wage bill before bonuses, appearance money and signing on fees. That's probably a saving of £1.5 million straight away. Not really much of a budget after you take the above into account. If Mowbray is really now having to offload either Mulgrew or Williams to raise the cash for a Kipre to come in then we are in really dire straits. Having lowered the wage bill substantially even with a well paid goalkeeper we should be well below what we were last season. We have next to no options in defence and yet the plan to bring a defender in is to offload what experience we do have left at the back? Scary. A proper experienced keeper and a proper experienced CB should have been done and dusted by now. We've known about those positions for 6 months or more. We should now be putting the finishing touches by getting in a back up CB and GK, and another option up top.

Millwall after Scott Hogan. Him and Ryan Woods on loan - now that's putting the loan market to proper use - not borrowing untried kids from academies.

I never get any excitement at all when the inevitable links appear to United, City or Liverpool lads on loan. It happens every summer. Tosin was an exception because he was signed as a starter and had proper first team experience before coming, but our current chaotic state exists because we made that short term decision and now dont have our own player. Maybe its our record with such loans that end up contributing little to the team. Maybe it's the fact that even if they do well they won't be here beyond May at the latest. Maybe it is because our academy is better than United's yet there seems to be the belief that anyone from them will be great 'because it's United'. I feel Downing would be a better start in midfield but I'm not the one balancing the numbers and looking at a heavily subsidised loan for a kid rather than a hefty salary for a 36 year old.

You won't get promoted going down this road though. It is extremely rare that a goalscorer will emerge from an academy and start performing and scoring immediately. In the meantime the other assets in our squad, such as Dack, Armstrong, Travis and Lenihan, get another year nearer the end of their contract and another season of mid table when eventually they will decide to move on to have a better shot at the top division. Then we are having the same conversation again next summer and the summer after looking to fill gaps in the squad.

You only use it if the players are good enough and are ready for the Championship. You don't use it regardless to prove some sort of point and in the process hinder the first team. My only interest is getting a team out that can get promoted. I am not interested in individuals, projects or development. I don't care if they are from the academy or Burkina Faso. All about ensuring the team is properly equipped for the challenges ahead. You make it sound as though we need more from the academy than we have been getting. Last time i looked we have Nyambe, Lenihan, Travis all academy products playing regularly along with Buckley and Rankin Costello more recently. That's a big return, I'm not aware of any other club with such numbers so we have already used it heavily. Thats good of course. But I dont get this attitude of 'we need to use the academy more moving forward'. We don't. We need promotion moving forward.

Last season we had Graham and Samuel as options from the bench. When in need of a goal or in Graham's case some expert ball retention we could chuck him on the pitch and we knew what we would get. We can debate until the cows come home as to how good they were/are but they were there and were options to use that we dont have and seemingly have no intention of replacing with incomings. Those are the facts. If you are confident or comfortable with a plan of hoping and praying one of the young lads can fill that void that's fine. Just don't moan in December if Dack hasn't got his mojo back and we are completely dependent upon Armstrong for all our goals. I am not against Downing re-signing. Where did I say that? I think losing half a dozen midfielders and forwards and not replacing any of them is a gamble.

Aren't we going for promotion this season? Sounds a bit of a gamble to me. Give them a chance to prove they are good enough. I'd rather ensure we have a side that we KNOW is good enough. You do know that Butterworth has been injured for the last year?

When Mowbray didn't offer Danny Graham a new contract he said that he thought it was the best move for all parties, difficult to let almost guaranteed goals go, and that he wouldn't want to be a bit-part player for us. I'm therefore slightly concerned to hear that there are no plans to attempt to replace him. What are the alternatives if we need goals or experience on the pitch in the last 20 minutes?

Strange goings on at Reading. Mark Bowen reverting back to being Director of Football and stepping down as manager. Strange because he did a pretty decent job. Also yesterday their Chief Executive resigned and was replaced by one of the owners friends.

It will be astonishing and shameful if 4th division recently bankrupt Bolton shift anywhere near the number of season tickets we do. But the way it is going they are going to be close, assuming we ever bother to put any on sale. The bonus here for Bolton is that the cash in the bank is enabling them to recruit ahead of an expected promotion season, whilst we wail about lack of income and money. The other bonus is that those 5000 people will be invested in the club. Even if they aren't allowed into games for the next few months they have put their hard earned money in, the club has them tied in. For the last 3 months we have had a season ticket base of 0 and £0 revenue from ticket sales. With every passing month the 'drifters' e.g. those who aren't that fussed about going and who often do so purely out of habit will take more and more persuading to part with their £350 when we get around to asking them.

I think we need new personnel to address the defence, but I suspect that signing better players is only half the story. I agree we need to offload the deadwood in order to improve the squad. But I don't think getting shut of midfielders and forwards to sign replacements for Tosin and Walton is necessarily the way to do it. I don't rate either of them but if injuries come, which they will, then we do need options and experience to come off the bench. With no Downing back, Samuel gone, Graham gone, I do wonder what the plan is. It seems to me right now Mowbray's grand plan is to save a bomb on wages from Smallwood, Hart, Walton, Tosin, Downing, Samuel and Graham, an estimated £80,000 per week minimum, so we can sign a keeper on perhaps 10% of that amount and then borrow a couple of others to fill the gaps. Lets wait and see who actually arrives before anything else. I've been adamant for some time that we've adopted a policy of not investing in defence and GK. Maybe that policy has changed, or maybe offloading so many players has freed up the necessary cash internally to enable a signing without the need for Venky approval. We certainly need more than one though so I'll hang fire on the party poppers and balloons until we've signed the defenders and end up with a squad as good as last season, never mind better.

I don't think we will sell 5000 overall the way it is going. I'm just looking forward to the excuses and attempts to shift responsibility elsewhere. That's assuming Waggott is still here by then or is ever heard of again.

The trouble is that I don't believe our defensive issues are solely down to personnel. I think a large part of it is poor tactics and coaching. I don't think Mowbray is capable of stopping us conceding. His teams have always struggled at the back. Reading Mowbray's comments on Downing I think it is clear that he hasn't been made a serious offer and I expect someone else will snap him up. It seems Mowbray's plan is to further slash the wage bill by releasing him, try to address the gaping holes at the back and then if there's some cash left over see if he's still available. Whilst I agree that defence and goalkeeper require urgent priority on funds and efforts i do worry that releasing Downing, Graham, Samuel and Smallwood without bringing anyone in is a gamble.

It is one rule for some and one rule for others. If you are the mighty Liverpool and Klopp wants to take his players away he can do so with exemptions being allowed. You can also bet that if he wants to sign someone from a quarantine country that will be allowed without quarantine too. Hard not to get the impression that the plebs have to obey one set of rules and the elites another. Government, media, sportsmen all ok, average joes on the street not. I wouldn't get worked up about it.

Its interesting because if they liked the player so much and had so much confidence in their judgment of him they would be confident of him increasing from that price very quickly. A real project signing likely to pay off. They appeared to be very keen on splashing multi millions out on Brereton to grow in value yet struggle to get to that figure for someone who would be a regular CB and probably represent a bargain and a likely increase in value. Someone else will snaffle him for that sort of price. No prizes for being interested if you can't back it up with the cash.

Again it comes down to a complete lack of interest from India. No way would people like Waggott get away with the ground being in the state it is at any other club. You look at Andy Holt at Accy he has spent countless hours of his own free time up at the Crown Ground, resurfacing car parks, cleaning the place up, making small incremental improvements but putting time and effort in and the place is now clean and a tidy little ground. Either Waggott can't get the funds approved to spend tidying the place up (from the owners who care and who never refuse a cheque) or he simply isn't bothered and neither are his employers because they sit on the other side of the world and have no pride or respect for this club. I'm afraid harking back to the 80s and how the ground used to be just isn't right. It isn't the 80s anymore. We have a modern top class stadium and it is being run into the ground by incompetence and negligence. A decade has gone and other than the essential pitch maintenance nothing ever gets done to the ground. Waggott comes to fan consultation meetings and starts talking about rebuilding the Riverside - a project that would cost millions and take years to get off the ground and yet under his watch the place is overrun with weeds, rubbish and grime all avoidable with regular maintenance. He probably thinks he is clever by saving a few quid on the annual upkeep bills and isn't bothered that our historic home is rapidly becoming a sh!thole with his name responsible for it. He won't get credit in India for making the ground look nice if it costs them more money. We're run by a bunch of corner cutters. Try to scrimp and save a few grand a year by letting the shop front of the club fall into decay and filth and yet happily write off £15 million losses and extra unnecessary wages for Smallwood and Hart to not play. Someone in the office is on £300,000 per year. I'd be asking why that person couldn't be paid £250,000 per year with the difference going into stadium improvements every summer.

I'd like someone else up front with goals in the locker. In theory with Armstrong, Dack, Gallagher and Brereton we should be well stocked with a bit of everything up there and could relax with an impressive 4 there and focus on defence but unless the latter two pull their fingers out I'm worried of over reliance on Armstrong and an unfit Dack.

I dont think I'm being miserable. IF we signed him i think he would be a good and much needed addition. I just think it is a shame that people seem to be of the view such a signing would be beyond our capabilities. I don’t think so. I'd rather we went into the season with a couple of proven proper CBs so I'll be relieved with anyone just now. ?

Ah the old 'linking' stuff again. Bit like when Dack was 'linked' with them but nowt happened. He's playing for Wigan who have just gone down to the Championship. They are skint. We are a mid table club. This is the sort of deal we should be looking to pick up. Like I say from the limited information I've had it sounds like he would be a good addition and we certainly need one but I don't believe it is some sort of sensation for us to be interested in him.

Why is Kipre so implausible? Standards really have fallen here so far that being linked with a now League One player at bankrupt Wigan is enough to get people hysterical. From what I've heard would be a decent addition but given our refusal to spend on that position I'll take all links with cynicism.

Thanks for adding those. I expect the club will say that some of those photos are nothing to do with the club as they are beyond the club's boundaries in the alley behind Bolton Road and not their responsibility to maintain. That doesn't excuse the grime on the BBE and JW stands. You would also expect the club to take an interest in the mould and filth gathering right outside their gates rather than just leaving it. With players, officials, sponsors, fans and visitors coming to the ground you would expect them to want to project a positive image of the area. What sort of impressions would a new signing get having to drive through weeds, moss and litter gathering outside the main entrance?