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Only a very small minority think that. Rumours are that AN has asked Hemmings to guarantee that Davies, Pearson and Browne won't be sold if he is to stay. Knowing TH I suspect he will do some silly brinksmanship, allow AN to move and then we start all over again. We've outperformed ourselves for the last few years thanks to Ridsdale running football operations/recruitment and a couple of decent managers. However young ambitious managers like AN don't need to work with no budget or under unambitious owners like TH for very long.

Apparently this figure does not take into account the sales of Hugill (£9.5m) and Cunningham (£3.5m). After paying a bit to Port Vale and Bristol City in sell ons, I suspect it was around £8-9m in overall. Overall your point is right though that it's almost impossible to be self-sustainable at this level.

One thing that struck me really was that Blackburn don't seem to have a particular way of playing. The formation gave the wing-backs a lot of time and space but they did nothing with it. Nobody really got around Graham when it went long to him. The formation then changed as the subs came on. Looked a bit of a mess of a set up with an unbalanced squad. Not having Pearson, Potts, Barkhuizen or Robinson available didn't help us but we still had enough good players on the pitch to play much better than we did.

Thought we were poor overall but let off the hook but a poor Blackburn side who showed no quality going forward. We just didn't get a foothold in midfield without Pearson, and your wing-backs seemed to have so much space. Yet you had a £7m striker on the bench who always looked good against us for Forest?

Premier League fixtures like Man Utd vs Liverpool with 74k fans can kick off at around 2, yet Blackburn vs Preston has to be noon? It's bonkers, and not good for either set of supporters or either set of players.

Ben Pearson now banned for this game after picking up a 10th yellow of the season today. Ledson will probably play instead.

Looking at the overall picture I’ll be disappointed with anything below 7th, which is where we finished last season. Not exactly a mark of progress if we finish below that, although we are now playing very well. Potts looks a bargain at £1.5m. I don’t blame Alex Neil at all. He’s an excellent manager and for some reason Hemmings didn’t really back him to replace Hugill in the summer and it all spiralled from there. Injuries terrible and out of our control but Hemmings had a chance to help us kick on in the summer and passed on it, the (re-)investment (of player sale cash) in January was welcome, but 6 months too late to seriously have a go at the play-offs. Problem is we’ll probably lose a couple again in summer. Pearson has been attracting Prem interest for a while, and rumour has it a deal for Robinson to go to Bournemouth is already done for summer for around £12m. I think we have a better squad and recruitment structure now to cope with that, compared to when Hugill and Cunningham were sold.

Yep, after an early KO. So making it a noon KO doesn’t really do anything to prevent fighting, pyrotechnics or boozing. As I said, pointless for both home and away supporters.

1500 already sold. Noon KO seems unnecessarily early. PNE police officer saying on Twitter it was a club decision with little police involvement. He then went onto say the uses of pyrotechnics on recent visits probably helped inform this decision. Those other meetings were also early kick offs though so it obviously doesn't stop any trouble, pyrotechnics or whatever. Just seems pointless, 3pm better for everyone.

It would cost a lot and I doubt they'd want to sell to a local team unless he ran his contract down or something. He's another one who divides opinion. He lacks technical ability but runs all game for the team, great defensively for a winger, his pace gets us up the pitch and he chips in with important goals. Like Browne, Neil absolutely loves him. He was probably going to be rotated a bit more this season but Bodin did his ACL the week before the season started.

Yeah Nmecha hasn't scored yet. He was well off the pace when he first came, didn't seem to know the requirements in terms of work rate at this level, but then again he only had 2 sub appearances in professional football on his record and he is 19. Something just seemed to click with him though and in games against Villa, Wigan and Brentford he's absolutely dominated their defenders all game. He will be a top player but we need a more experienced type with some guile to help us kick on. Browne is a bit of an unconventional no.10. Not really a technical, playmaker type but he presses like an animal all game for the team and wins a lot of headers up there, plus chips in with a few goals. Neil absolutely loves him and views him as a key cog in our system. Robinson will probably end up being the next one we sell for a fortune and only reinvest a few of hundred grand on a replacement. It's the Hemmings way.

Neil and Ridsdale would've paid £1.5m-£2m which sounded do-able in June, but Hemmings didn't sanction it. By the end of the summer his price had gone up even more with Barnsley fielding enquires from several other clubs. It should have been sanctioned given the amount of money we received for Hugill and Cunningham, but unfortunately Hemmings is not a footballing man, and is quite old-fashioned in his views on what footballers are worth. So we don't pay the going rate for wages at this level (understandable) but we never pay the market/going rate in transfer fees which has held us back, especially during the summer when looking for a striker. Not signing a target man to replace Hugill hurt us quite badly at the start of this season, and it's taken us a while to adjust. I expect one to still be on Neil's list come January, and we've scouted Sam Surridge (on loan at Oldham from Bournemouth). Nmecha is a big talent but he's only on loan, very inexperienced and not really a proper target man. We needed more than a youngster on loan really. I feel a bigger club at this level will probably get Nmecha on loan next season and benefit from the experience he's had at PNE, and he'll be an animal in this division at that point.

We were quoted over £2m for Kieffer Moore in summer, and with Barnsley set to seriously challenge for promotion, they'll probably be asking for even more come January if he was to leave.

I was reliably told at the time that we missed out on both Armstrong (matched your bid) and Palmer (loan obviously) to you in the summer. Surprised to hear that they have underwhelmed a bit.

To be fair to our players, they managed the situation quite calmly after giving away that goal and then continued to use the counter as the game went on. Pearson was just magnificent (again) in midfield IMHO, and as result I thought he ran the game second half. I expected a bit more from some of your attacking players, although as we've already established, the lack of a proper striker does have an impact. Most teams need some sort of physical presence up there to bring out the best in the others, more technical types (Dack, Armstrong, and Palmer for you). It's something we have struggled with since Hugill was inexplicably sold at the last moment in January. Some of the other attackers thrived off playing with a physical presence and then it was just gone. Nmecha can put himself about but is very young, we still need a target man signing in January really after failing to sign Kieffer Moore during the summer window.

Have to say was relieved to see your teamsheet didn't contain a proper, physical striker. Our defenders are alright but balls into the box have caused us problems at the times this season, whereas when teams try to pass pass pass we seem to deal with it relatively easily then pick them off on the counter.

Chatter seems to be that he's pretty much signed for us and it's just a case of when it's announced. Can't say I'm too enthused about it really and it seems one dip to far into the Irish market but hopefully he produces the goods. We're also in for Callum Connolly (Everton) and Cameron Jerome (Derby) who would be much more solid signings to complement the squad.

Sounds like he's going to extend for another year with us. Still has quality passing but rarely plays a full game and often looks wooden when trying to run all game. Good influence supposedly in dressing room though.

He's 28, soon to be 29. Don't know whether he's quick or not though, not seen much of him. Alex Neil and Peter Ridsdale have been scouting him recently though.

Still early days only one match in but the signs are promising. He says all the right things and we were decent in pre-season, then we played Sheffield Wednesday off the park on Saturday. It seems to be on the deck a lot more and he seems a bit more intense/hard-working than Grayson, who did a good job but may have taken us as far as he could.

Rhodes was absolute dross. Looks a terrible footballer who just has a knack of finding space and being able to finish, ask him to do anything else and he's useless.

Yes that was in the LEP this morning. We've supposedly agreed a deal to sign Sean Maguire from Cork City though so it might be him rather than Mahoney.

Some of our fans still think we're interested but if someone has offered him 8k per week (surely not given his age, lack of experience etc.?) then I doubt it's us.

Yeah, I understand some people like it. I personally just find it a bit cringey how they act like enemies then they are mates again straight after the fight. It all comes across as a bit fake.