Admiral Nelsen

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.

It did, but we were missing an unreal amount of chances on the way, first half especially. In the end we were a bit lucky, but had Rhodes still been playing for us we would've won 3-0.

We did last year! Other than that though it was something like one win since Souness or something daft, so I take your point.

I think that's a fair comment (and being 21, he needs to be getting games now if he is ever to make his mark here). That said, I'm cautious about reading too much into pre-season form. Might be a little risk averse but I think having Vale as our first option off the bench is a fair reward considering where he was in the pecking order last year.

No Gally in the XI Joe? I can see the appeal of going to 343 now that Brittain is through the door, but I'd be surprised if both Dolan and Vale get in front of him (although I'm looking forward to see what Vale can do if given the chance).

He did indeed - that passed me by. To be fair if he's fit enough to deal with the intensity of a league game for an hour or so then I agree that he should be in there. I suspect we'll be seeing Dolan a bit more as a 10 this year though, probably starting on Saturday. Feel a bit of trepidation about this one. I think we'll be fine over the season once we have a few more bodies in, but I can see why lots of outsiders would look at our squad at the moment and put us as lower mid-table. I'd take a horrible 1-0 right now.

I think that's our best team, but I'd be surprised if Dack starts with him only having 45 mins of pre-season. Would probably have Dolan as the 10 with Dack coming off the bench, and have JRC on the bench in front of Garrett.

1. Where will Rovers finish ? Caveated that I expect i) BBD to leave and ii) another four or so first teamers to come in, 12th. 2. Who will be the Rovers (official) Player Of The Season ? S. Wharton. Hopefully one of our attacking or creative players will prove me wrong and be consistently good enough. 3. Who do you think will be the breakout/breakthrough academy player this season ? (Let’s say under 23 at season start & fewer than 10 1st team appearances to be eligible) Vale. Now or never. 4. Who will win the Championship ? Hard one, but I'll go for Norwich. 5. Where will Burnley finish ? 5th. But could be literally anywhere from 1st to about 18th.

Maybe, but the Wigan deal (which I agree is a little strange) suggests that he didn't have too much in the way of suitors at our level or above. If teams aren't making the effort when they don't have to pay a fee, presumably it wouldn't be straightforward to get decent money if we were trying to flog him. I suppose when it comes down to 'protecting assets' - which we've been awful at - so much of it is successfully judging how players are going to develop and what they're likely to be worth down the line. If we think that Ryan, now in his mid 20s, isn't going to get much better then there's a logic in cutting our losses rather than paying him a good whack to stay a mid-level Championship right back.

Even now, I'm not so sure. It's obviously galling in a way, but the fact that he can't attract anything better than Wigan even when he's on a free suggests that he's a long way away from being a decent sellable asset. His strengths vs weaknesses have been done to death on here, but say we upped our offer to a decent level and he signed a new long term deal - that means we could be entering the territory of paying first XI wages to a player who isn't quite at the level we want to progress. On balance I wish we convinced him to sign on but there's risk involved in keeping him on too.

Barnsley fans having a go at him seem to be criticising his crossing more than anything else. That would be at least one difference to Nyambe because he never used to cross the ball in the first place! Like you I'll wait and see before saying that he's an upgrade, but I'm pretty optimistic. He can obviously travel with the ball well, and if he can play in midfield you'd imagine that his all round game on the ball would be much better than Ryan's. Hopefully we don't lose too much on the defensive side.

I was a bit shocked to see some of the opinions of Sheff U fans when someone posted a link to their forum. Can't have set the world alight there. But he was very good at PNE by all accounts, and he's still at a good age, so I'd be over the moon if we signed him permanently. Him on a long term contract alongside Wharton and Carter waiting in the wings is a bit of decent stability at the back that we won't have had since at least Mulgrew and Lenihan, and even then we needed an upgrade at this level.

That would be ideal - although to be honest I'd be surprised. I think the most likely scenario of him extending his deal is going to be through a lack of form this season if we don't sell now for whatever reason, which obviously wouldn't really suit anyone.

It's perfectly feasible that most (all?) of the links we've seen so far are Rovers trying to flog him. I'm just saying that IF we get more than two clubs who like the look of him, then we're not over the barrel quite as much. FWIW I think he's got more about him than Armstrong so it's not impossible, but we'll have to wait and see.

Possibly. Thing that did for us with Armstrong too is that there was only one serious suiter. If both West Ham and Leeds (and/or others) genuinely want him, I think £20 million is achievable.

It's interesting - on the face of it you seem to be linked with lots of shrewd looking long term investments, but not really players with proven records of competing at the top end of the Championship. Don't know if that speaks to the financial situation at all, but with the noises that were coming out a month or so ago I would've thought there would've been enormous pressure to go back up first time (which you still might, of course!) so I'm a bit surprised that you're linked with so many players needing to make a step up.

I think he will be an exception to be honest. A player who was never Liverpool standard bought in a panic and who hasn't made a single appearance for the club in 18 months, even during an injury crisis. They won't give him away if they can help it, but it's a world away from a promising youngster who hasn't quite managed to break through into a great side (who like you say, they tend to sell for big money).

Liverpool seem to see him as totally surplus to requirements, so it could just come down to accepting the best offer that comes their way (including subsiding a big chunk of his wages if they're as high as some are suggesting). That's obviously not to say that the best offer would come from us - I can't see us offering the same sort of fee that we supposedly were for the Bosnian lad seeing as there's little chance of getting a big profit further down the line. We might still be able to offer a semi-decent fee though, which might be enough with a bit of luck.

Good spot. Would be interesting to see what the overall financial package would be then, you'd have thought our absolute limit would be about a third of that if we're paying a fee on top.