Definitely premature. There are obvious question marks, but while there is still uncertainty about i) How extreme JDT will lean into basing our game on high pressing for 90 minutes, and ii) Dack's fitness and mobility once he gets more games under his belt, then it's impossible to know how well he can cope with playing in our new system.

The highlighted bit is the thing that remains to be seen for me. If Sammie doesn't cut the mustard and we have a player of Dack's quality on the bench, it'll take a strong manger to stick to his guns (which, to be fair, he still might do). Equally, if Dack does 90 mins in the league cup, puts a shift in and shows what he can do, then that might be the start of JDT becoming more confident that Dack has something to offer in this system. 100% agree with the rest of your post, and Dack will obviously have to prove that he is still physically capable of playing at this level, which also remains to be seen. As an aside, whilst it was clear to see from Saturday that pressing as a team is something that JDT wants us to do, I don't think it looked streets away from how we've pressed (at times) under Mowbray. Maybe it'll get more intense as time goes on, but we've definitely seen teams that commit to pressing more than we appeared to. A pre-injury Dack could've played in that team without any issue whatsoever, although I accept that might not be the case for post-injury Dack!

Yeah, I think this is fair enough. I do think some of the comments are in danger of forgetting the sort of player he was prior to his injury. He was never lazy in a million years for instance, quite the opposite actually. You couldn't miss his enthusiasm for the game and he'd often end up trying to chase down defenders when he didn't have much hope of catching them. He was never the most athletic I suppose, but it wasn't as much of a weakness as all that. Hopefully it's just a case of him having to be a bit more patient than he would ideally like. He'll certainly get chances to show what he can do with our squad being as it is.

It certainly means that we'll be asking Garrett and Wharton to play non-trivial amounts of football. If we rate them enough then you can't get in their way too much, but I'd be more comfortable with one more senior player there.

As much as we always beat QPR at home, we always lose away at Swansea. Even last year when we had about three gilt-edged chances, we somehow managed to lose. Can see that continuing at the weekend, sadly. Think they'll have a much better season this time than they did last year. I'd stick with the same team, I think. The only possible change I'd make is bringing in Dolan for either Vale or Gallagher for his pressing.

Fair enough. I know that Bowler scored few last year, but I wasn't really sure what sort of player he was bar being an attacking midfield type

Saw that one of Nixon's denials was predicated on Brittain and Bowler not being suited to being in the same team. I know that doesn't prove anything, but is there perhaps a point there? Is Bowler a proper chalk-on-his-boots winger? And if so is it likely we'll be playing that sort of player alongside a wing back like Brittain?

Unlucky with injuries, and there is talent there, but if he's behind Vale (admittedly two very different players) at his age then his time is up. Hope he makes of a success of things and we have the sense to put in a sell on % for one of our players for a change.

You're probably right, but then again we're now left with only three senior centre backs, one of them is Carter and another can't be trusted to stay fit. I know we have Phillips too, but it does leave us particularly short. I wonder if it's because we're close to bringing one in.

I think the loss of Lenihan at the moment is looking massive, especially seeing as we don't have Van Hecke either. Agree that Nyambe isn't as big a loss. I wouldn't say that I'm terrified because we can beat QPR with this squad and I expect more decent incomings over the coming weeks. If I'm wrong though, then I think we all should be concerned because we would be left on a big downgrade from last year.

There's two ways of looking at that though. Yes, those losses were very important in us eventually going down. But the bigger problem was that the squad was poor over the whole season (until Mowbray took over at least) and a lot of that was due as much to the signings that were in early as much as missing those who were in later on. Put it this way, what did more harm? Not signing Emnes, Gally etc. a couple of games early, or going into the season expecting the likes of Stokes, Greer, Byrne and Samuelsen to be first teamers? Sounds like an obvious point, but we can afford to wait if it's what is needed to get the right players in.

Completely agree - but an issue for them is that they're losing some of their harder players too. THB and the other young lad from City might be made of the right stuff, but they won't replace what they had with Mee and Tarkowski. They could easily end up having a strong season, but at this point it's incredibly tough to judge.

Obviously this is caveated that the replacements for them need to be up to scratch, but personally I think it's good thing for you that they're sold. McNeil will have much more quality than most at this level, but it's no good in his position if he doesn't regularly score and/or set up goals, which given his recent record would be a fair risk. Obviously no such issue with Cornet, but you'd worry about his hunger and physical capacity for such a tough league.

Without putting words in anyone's mouth - I think we probably all are to an extent. The disagreement comes with how urgent that it is to have players through the door before the first game vs being patient to get the right players, potentially at a lower cost. I would've definitely hoped that we would've had at least one or two more in by now, but at least the biggest issue with our starting line up (right back) is the one that's been sorted. I'd like to think that it's only one or two games before we get more reinforcements in though, and it's definitely going to be a long old season if we don't get at least three or four more in.

Assuming that it's a decent 8 figure fee, I suspect you might've got the better end of the deal with that one. Surprised that Roberts is going - I had thought that he would've been one of the ones more likely to stay.

Undoubtedly not. I'm hoping that our midfield across the board will be chipping in with more goals than they did last year, but the loss of goal threat if Brereton goes is immense. Would certainly need a replacement.

I actually think that's right - I'd have been happiest to keep him on the right side of a back three - but I don't think there's anything to be gained by making out that he's not very good at the defensive side of his game.

Not sure I would agree with that on last season's showing. I've said quite a lot that he's replaceable because of how poor his attacking output is, but defensively I don't think there was much to criticise last year.

Looks like the McNeill debate might be academic, as he's supposedly in talks with Everton.

I think a first choice centre half is still an absolute must to be honest - arguably as important as another midfielder which is also essential. As much as I'm happy to have Carter getting games this year, he's not proven at this level and Ayala is made of glass. Wharton is the only proven player who you'd expect to play most games in a league season. Add in that JDT might favour a back three at times, maybe one won't even be enough.

I think you're completely right about him being a better player than he's given credit for. Some very good finishes in the relegation season and his physicality (even though he doesn't make the most of it in my view, but that's a different issue) is still a challenge for defenders. His weaknesses (alongside maybe the teams/coaches weaknesses) are pretty bad ones, but I've always thought the 'Gallagher is rubbish' and 'Gallagher is good but played as a winger' views are both wide of the mark. I was thinking of mentioning Graham, so I'm glad you've done it for me! I think the only way that he could play as a lone striker is if we wanted him to score goals and not much else, because he definitely can't hold up the ball in the way that someone like Graham did. I don't think we'll be playing with proper out and out wingers under JDT, but we might be playing with wing backs who get crosses in, which we never really did under Mowbray for some reason, even though we often had the players to do it.

I think Pickering was the one who was really given a torrid time against Celtic. Carter struggled too, but was clearly out of position. We can't be expecting him to replace Lenihan or Van Hecke with the same quality, but with two successful L1 loans I'm happy to have him as an option to see how he does. On paper, he has established himself at a higher level than Wharton before he took his chance. Almost all of my knowledge of him is from the handful of Rovers appearances that he's made and second hand reports of him from his loans. I'm surprised that you mention his lack of comfort on the ball though. Without claiming that he's Beckenbauer, I thought the consensus was that he could play a bit for a player of his size?

He spent a part of that season playing wide in a forward three too. I think the Gally can't play wide thing is really overdone to be honest. He obviously couldn't be further away from a winger in a traditional sense, but the biggest issue like you say is that we don't get enough quality balls to him when he's in the box, which we can still do if he plays 'wide'. Big Sam used to do this all the time with Kevin Davies. It's true that his weaknesses (esp. his first touch) are badly shown up in the ways that Mowbray set the team up, but I think that would be just as true if he played centrally. The slightly worrying thing is that we've had Douglas, Giles, Pickering and even Downing at left back who are all meant to be crossing specialists, and none of them really managed to get Gally into more scoring positions. This might be their fault, and it might be Mowbray's fault with how he saw their jobs, but it might also be down to Gally's lack of nous when it comes being in the right place at the right time, and if that doesn't improve then a change of system and better crossers can only do so much.

Lower standards. Usually not paying significant transfer fees. A larger pool of 'acceptable' frees because contracts tend to be shorter at that level. The squad obviously needs substantial strengthening, but it's not a coincidence that most Championship clubs (at least those who don't have parachute payments coming in) tend to leave a lot their transfer activity fairly close to the window closing. The players who are easy to get are usually straightforward because nobody else is bothered about them. Cardiff have brought in 12 players, but I don't think many would make it into our XI on Saturday.

I think back to the Sheff U game at Ewood where he and Poveda were brought into the XI. Khadra, deflected goal aside, seemed to do nothing other than give the ball away for me. Poveda on the other hand looked a real player. Real shame what happened there. He (Khadra) obviously has talent and I'd love it if we signed him on a four year deal. A bit of football intelligence and he could do some real damage in the prem with just a tad more experience - but the worry with players who have so much pace is that they never get that know-how because they can rely on their speed.