Dreams of 1995

We missed out on Maher roughly a month ago. Him and Baeur are the players we have missed out on. If we really went after Baeur that hard anyway. Signed 3. Missed out on 2. I'll live.

Yeah, the squad balance right now is way off. You can definitely sense that players are outgoing, hopefully one of either Evans or Smallwood in the middle, if not both. God forbid it's Travis. I don't understand the issue with signing defenders. Surely Mowbray realises it, he has spoke about defenders coming, is it a case of us losing our targets or is there no longer a genuine appetite amongst the club staff for new players in that area? Do they see Wharton/Magloire stepping up? We can't judge until the end of the window, but as it currently stands our squad is top heavy.

Well done pal, the home screen, banner and badge are brilliant. Modernised the forum - it looks very professional.

I wouldn't be ecstatic to see the back of them but I'd say Travis and Johnson are a better partnership, and if Davenport and Buckley are due a step up this year it's not the end of the world. Maybe a replacement squad player would have to be brought in for if the young lads don't cut the grade

Jack Rodwell can take the road for me. I don't know how he operates but I wouldn't be in the business of sunning myself on holiday whilst clubs waited for my answer. He's clearly hanging on for something better but it won't be forthcoming. We gave the lad a chance after his character got well and truly torn apart at Sunderland and he repays us by behaving in the way he has. Besides, part of me feels like if he signs Mowbray will think we have depth in defence, and Rodwell is a pretty average defender. He's far better in midfield and as back up to Johnson and Travis would be a decent player. I can't shake off the way he's acted though and think we can get players who actually want to be here, want to be part of the squad and better the club for just as cheap as we can get him

The only thing I'd say about Hart is that when a poor defence is in front of him he has never really done well. See West Ham and Burnley for that. He isn't one to really take a big grip of the players, talk them through the game. By all accounts Heaton saved Burnley's season last year and had Hart continued they'd have been in real trouble. Great shot stopper though. If we bring in the calibre of Joe Hart then I would suggest we'd be a more attractive proposition to defenders, especially young up and coming players. For the sake of my sanity I hope we sign a centre back. How many more windows do we need to go through before fixing our back 4? This is a story way older than Mowbray, it's been seen the takeover.

I’d say if we replace Raya with better and buy a centre half, yes. We are getting better and it’s evident we have plans in place to bring in a number of players permanently. It’s not been a bad window so far

We should start a scoreboard for the "always right" lads. That way they can just mark their own manhood boosting tallys and save us the fucking eye watering pain of reading their bullshit.

What more do you want man? Blue and white halves has been our kit since time immemorial. They can't really get much creative juices flowing. Quite frankly it's only the modern day world why a new kit is brought about every season anyway. It is also the modern world why we end up with the weird blue we had last year because everybody expects something "NEW", or old as that tried to play itself out as. We've had the same design for over a century and, with any luck, will continue to have the same design for another century. Bring on next years kit of (THE RIGHT SHADE OF) Blue and White halves. Great.

Nope, you aren't applying context. We were on a downward decline by 2015 and by the time Mowbray came in we were up against it with both the team available to us and points requirement to stay up. So whilst we are back to that point is it not more of a positive that Mowbray is restoring us. Year upon year he has finished higher. Last season we didn't even flirt with relegation in our first year back, whereas Wigan and Rotherham were down there throughout the year. Our squad is also better than when he came in. We have a good, young squad with plenty of resale value if they hit the peaks they are tipped to do. On our books we have regular england youth internationals and some great experience. We have seen a few of the U23s coming through and the increased role of Damien Johnson in the first team squad is only going to improve on that. Mowbray has done great work behind the scenes fixing the mess he inherited after the damage "quick fix solutions" have done over the years. Finally we have a bit of stability manager wise, who has genuine care for the club beyond a stepping stone to the next, and you are chastising him because we didn't reach play offs last season, or because we don't pass the ball like Barca? In fact, Mowbray has spoken about wanting to play more possession football and for all I can see he's trying to improve that side of our squad. Your last sentence backs up my point entirely about your irrational hated of Mowbray. It's your own choice to buy or not to buy but quite frankly if you are choosing to stay away based on the reasons given then I'd suggest it goes above a dislike of Mowbray, and more a convenient excuse. There's no way on Earth anybody can justify boycotting the club based on TM if they were going in the years of Venkys (Lambert, Coyle, etc). Ludicrous.

That is the only part of that post that makes a bit of sense. Maybe a manager of the ilk of Warnock would have got us up with £10m. However, we don't have him, we have Mowbray and for the large part we are in a hugely better situation than we were in when he came. If you can't see that then that's your rotten luck. The rest of your post is way off the mark but that's probably because you have an irrational dislike of all things Mowbray.

Martin O'Neill has followed Roy Keane out the door at Notts Forrest. Oh dear.

It was a tongue in cheek. Like they have to specify he's not as good as Dack..........

https://hobnob.royals.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=185967&hilit=ejaria&start=20 Reading seem keen to have him back. Mention he's not good enough to displace Dack - really??? - but a poster quite liked him out wide. Looks like he impressed there last year.

He was decent at set pieces. Quite a good player in my eyes.

We have signed players that are established at youth level internationally. We have signed Stewart Downing and last season had Jack Rodwell. In terms of internationals we are probably on par with other clubs with how many established internationals we have. I'd say the fact that Mulgrew/Smallwood got dropped at the end of the season and Mowbray has himself indicated we need new defenders it doesn't mean much. Bennett doesn't even play in his position...... Paddy McNair isn't a fantasy signing at all. He's barely played over the past few seasons and clearly isn't fancied at his current club. As for the wages I can't see a guy that is yet to play 20+ games in a season can even begin to command a wage that breaks our structure.

Based on what?

I don't think I'd be completely against bringing Payne back in the club based on his quality, I always thought he was tidy enough. However it could hamper the progress of players such as Butterworth, or pave the way for a Dack exit, so taking that into respect I wouldn't be happy with that signing. May just be a case of lazy journalism though. I'd take Hanley in a heart beat. We need someone to head and kick the ball into row Z and I reckon him and Lenihan would be a decent partnership.

I thought he played well in his couple of apps in central midfield.

And by comparison our defence was 3rd best in League 1 (by 1 goal). Means nothing. We also conceded exactly the same amount of goals - 40 each.

Did he? Based on what? He was out injured for the start of the season if I remember correctly.

Why? I don't get it. We lost a player to another club that have, by the sounds of it, offered more playing time than we were willing to offer. We chased him last year, didn't get him, the interest obviously continued but ultimately it didn't work out. What doesn't sit right with you? Over the course of a transfer window every single club will chase and ultimately lose several players. It's part of the game.

https://www.theticketingbusiness.com/2019/03/29/zebra-halts-season-ticket-finance-applications/

Yeah, I never got this. What time and resources went into us chasing them outside of a few LT/The Sun journo columns? I can't imagine much resource was taken up enquiring about his availability to his agent. With respect to his squad status quite frankly I'm happy he hasn't joined. He didn't look brilliant from what little I saw of him and if he was put off by having to fight for his place in the team then good riddance.

He wasn't bending his knee was he?