Grealish is top quality, I hope the silly comments above don’t come back to bite us!

He’s been punished for not doing his punishment. If he was jailed, that obviously will effect his football, and I will start taking issue with it. He’s been injured recently and I’ve seen nothing to suggest that he’s not injured.

Playing football is what he does for Blackburn Rovers, nothing more, nothing less.

I don’t really care what Dack does in his spare time as long as it doesn’t impact on what he does for Blackburn Rovers - and so far it hasn’t. He doesn’t have to be a role model if he doesn’t want to be a role model, and if he’s acting like a dick then he’ll be punished, as he has been here.

Sounds a Mahoney-esque signing to me.

By that logic he’ll never play first team football again, I believe he’s fit and has had a full(ish) preseason. When better to play your first game back than in the League Cup against League 2 opposition?

Brereton, Reed and a winger in and we’ve had an excellent summer overall. I feel like we’re the perfect move for Brereton, he’ll get a lot of game time without being the main man, he’ll be able to learn off Graham (who is good at what Brereton seems to be lacking), and we’ve got a young squad who all seem to be mates. If he gets 10+ Championship goals this season he’ll be worth more than what we paid - I’ve got a good feeling about this transfer.

Yes, and it also depends on our ambition. If we narrowly miss out on the playoffs and then spend £20m+ in the summer for a proper promotion push, we might do enough to convince him he should stay.

I wouldn’t sell him midseason but if at the end of the season we are still in the Championship and a Prem club comes in for him with fair money, it would be unfair to say no. We are a selling club at the end of the day and players need to look at us as a stepping stone to bigger things. If we refuse to let our top players leave, why would youngsters with potential want to join? No kid who isn’t a Blackburn Rovers fan dreams of playing for Championship Blackburn Rovers when they’re good enough for the Premier League, we need to understand that and use it to our advantage.

Raya Nyambe Leni Mulgrew Bell Rothwell Evans Benno Dack Palmer Graham

Rothwell did the square root of fck all on the wing on Wednesday, he looked lost. Bennett is certainly more of a wide player than Rothwell (see his assist at Hull), however I think he all agree he’s more effective inside. If Dack is fit, Bennett has to play wide right today because there is no one else. If Dack isn’t fit, Rothwell should play the Dack role with Bennett and Travis going central and wide (not sure which one where). If Dack is fit, Rothwell should go next to Evans and Bennett go wide right. Hopefully Palmer is fit and he can go wide left.

If he isn’t performing in training/reserves, he won’t be playing for us. If he doesn’t play for us, we’ve lost out on the cheap wages that we paid him. It’s worth the risk.

Are you kidding? He signed a contract with you and he was honouring that contract, it’s not his fault that the contract you offered him was one of the stupidest things I can remember a football club doing. Every man and his dog would have accepted that deal and to say that he should have just ripped it up out of the good of his heart is naive at best. You are shocked that any professional club would give a chance to a 27 year old former England international? Somehow I think your judgement is (understandably) clouded by the fact that he was on £70k per week. Finally, good luck for the season. I hope you come straight back up.

Wouldn’t mind Rodwell on a cheap deal to see if he’s still got it, low risk potentially high reward. We shouldn’t be counting him as a signing though as we have no clue what he’ll be like or if he’ll even play for us at all.

Was completely out of the game in the first half out wide. He should be playing in the Smallwood role (or Dack’s if Dack isn’t playing), nowhere else.

Isn’t it that whenever Sunderland play they tend to lose?

Rothwell was excellent when he moved inside, he’s not a wide man - don’t play him there Tony. I’ve been Evans’ biggest critic on here but what a performance he put in tonight, both in the first half carrying a dreadful Smallwood, and in the second half. Nyambe is turning into a proper player, improving every time I see him. He still needs to be more confident going forward, although as he showed tonight, that is coming. He’s got some future ahead of him, Kyle Walker-esque. 2-2 was probably a fair result and I’m delighted with it as we looked dead and buried at half time. Some of the comments on here have been embarrassing... Downing better than Lenihan?? Evans a disgrace?? Christ.

He he’s confident with one and not so confident with two others. From what he says I’m assuming Bauer is one that he’s looking at moving on from could the other be Freeman or Brereton? From what Nixon said on Sunday (I think he’s got half decent connections at Forrest) we were just negotiating the add ons, does that mean that we’re close with Brereton?

We can look at £10m now for him, a very good season in this league (15+ goals) and we’re potentially looking at a club record sale.

It makes the cost of a season ticket worth it alone, enjoy it whilst it lasts.

It’s not just injury risks though, it’s massive injury concerns that could easily see his career finish prematurely.

Even though he’s never actually leaked any news... harsh.

Yup.

Bell & Lenihan men of the match. Lenihan is a premier league player in waiting. Great result.

Take Smallwood off now and Bennett in the middle and Travis wide right.