Admiral Nelsen

The World Cup break bookended by Burnley away and PNE at home. Potential for a brilliant or utterly depressing few weeks!

True enough, I don't really expect them to carry on a downward spiral like we did. I do think that their squad has some similar issues though. Collectively we had at least Murphy, Etuhu, Olsson, MGP, Dunny, Dann and maybe one or two more who were all comfortably mid-table standard players in the Prem only a year or two previously. A combination of age, attitude and the club being a total basket case meant that they weren't able to show their quality. Burnley aren't in such a poor state as we were, but it still remains to be seen how well their more experienced players deal with going down, as it usually goes one of two ways.

I think you're right - but then again our team was full of players with a good top-flight pedigree when we were relegated and they absolutely bombed. Some of them were perceived as good senior pros too, with experience of how tough the Championship can be. I'm not saying the same will happen to your lads this year, but we suffered badly from players approaching or past 30 who lacked either the desire or the physical capacity to compete at the levels they were once capable of. I'm looking at some of the players that you mention, and thinking too about the likes of Westwood, Cork, Gudmundsson and one or two others. It's going to be a big mental and physical challenge for them to get up for a demanding season at this point in their careers. With the unknown quantity of the new manager to factor in too, you could literally finish literally in any position from top to just above the relegation spots and it wouldn't shock me (I can't see you actually going down though, too much quality for that).

He's a good player with massive potential. Not sure he's quite at the level for a promotion chasing team just yet though, especially considering they're losing Mee, Tarkowski and seemingly now Collins too.

I think that's right. The trouble for Dolan is that the players who are both very small & lack serious pace usually need to make up for that with serious ability. He has quick feet and all the time in the world to develop - I definitely wouldn't be looking to sell unless we get a silly offer - but he still has some way to go to be able to properly compensate for his lack of size for me. Having said that I'm looking forward to seeing how he goes under JDT.

I half agree - a low centre of gravity is useful to be sure. At the moment though, his lack of size is a definite weakness in my view. He loses the ball far too easily and his size (alongside being not particularly quick after the first 10 yards or so) is the main reason for that. Dickov's a good example of a small player who ended up thriving after making the most of their stature - I'd back Dolan to be another at some point in the future, but it's the main thing that he needs to work on if he is ever to get near his potential.

I often need to remind myself how young Dolan still is. He'll probably have racked up around 100 first team appearances around the time of his 21st birthday. I worry long term about how difficult he'll find it to overcome his lack of size, but he still has big potential. I'd be much happier if this story is his agent after a new contract rather than us selling him for £2-3 million.

Big challenge for a decent number in Burnley's squad will be whether they can stay fit and hungry in a Championship season. Quite a few in their 30s now and have struggled to play much more than 20 games a season, despite only playing once a week and never doing anything in the cups. If they crack that side of things then they could obviously do well and bounce straight back, but I get the feeling the relegation has come at a bad time in a lot of their careers.

What an absolutely ridiculous final session. Amazing hitting.

Not sure how the rules work, but he's yet to make his international debut if you don't count the U21s. Might make a work permit tricky.

The angle from this shows it pretty well. Onside. Great pass from Leuluai to set it up, like you say.

He was indeed - it was a banger too Derbyshire scored in the same game

Nobody expects a full day's entertainment to be £20/£30, but the price of test match cricket is a complete scandal. I understand there's always going to be an element of cashing in on those events which can bring in the most cash, but that sort of cost is going to prohibit a huge percentage of existing cricket fans from going, let alone the sort of casual fans you need to convert if you're serious about growing the game. They'll probably just blame the empty seats on the Jubilee and the side's poor form though.

As someone who sees Mowbray's virtues more than most, that is top trolling.

A good point - I'd say there's a potential difference in that Carvahal had options (including staying in Portugal). Perhaps Farke just hated the idea of being out of work, even if his reputation could've got him a better job. Certainly might explain why he's interested in the Rovers job!

And we should've been the first! (along with Man United). I love Pedersen, but I'm still not over that.

You can distinguish between them though. One involves still wanting (albeit at a much lower priority) to win the game using players that were signed because they thought they could do well for the club. The other scenario is deliberately losing to undermine the fairness of the competition. Teams get relegated all the time because their competitors are playing teams that are already on the beach.

The last ones that comes to mind were Blackpool/Swansea and latterly Huddersfield, but all of these were via the play offs, which proves your point really.

Mowbray had his own issues which prevented this from happening, but if we had a top-six place wrapped up going into the last day of the season I'd have no issue whatsoever with us doing the same. I think managers have to make calls like that entirely with the fortunes of their own club in mind. We had 46 games of our own to make sure that we didn't find ourselves at the mercy of another team doing us a favour. I'm not sure if we have the squad for a Wagner type manager, but his ability to do well with us in the future would be the sole consideration for me.

I don't think it's that small necessarily - it's just that we're dealing with uncertainty. Wagner, Dyche, Farke, none of these had particularly high stock before taking over their clubs, but then they showed their quality. Not saying that I would advocate bringing in Ferguson either by the way! But sometimes managers just need the opportunity. There are always good options out there for a club with the right imagination.

To be honest, whilst I'd be very pleased with Carvahal, I'd still be concerned until I see what the rest of our summer business looks like. I was so encouraged when Lambert took over, especially with Irvine and Rob Kelly coming with him. We all know what followed though, so until we know that whoever gets the gig is going to be backed, I'm going to be a bit worried.

I believe one of the reasons that he went to City was our inability to push the boat out to get a couple of players. Kompany, Zabaleta & Lassana Diarra all come to mind, but others might know more about that.

Not seen enough of Tomori and Gheui to really have a proper sense of how good they are, but off reputation it's good that our pool is looking a bit deeper than last summer. Mings is a perfectly decent player, but I didn't like the fact that as soon as Stones or Maguire were unavailable, he was the obvious pick as a replacement. Still a long way from having being potentially to draw upon Ferdinand, Terry, Campbell, Carragher, King or Woodgate at any one time! But certainly an improvement on what has been a pretty noticeable weak spot for a few years.

Being slightly flippant, even K**n started off with a couple of decent results before it became obvious that he was about 1,000 leagues of his depth. I won't pretend that there's not a lot of schadenfreude with their current situation, but you're 100% right that it's a scandal. The worst thing about their (relative) success was that you had to grudgingly tip your hat off to how they were going about their business. Massively upsetting the odds, whilst investing in the club's infrastructure and future-proofing their finances for when they would eventually get relegated. That seems to have gone up in a puff of smoke now, and whilst I'm certainly not going to be crying about it, it's so worrying that years of progress can be so precarious. Not that we need telling that, I suppose.

Turns 23 in September too. I'm not totally against extending his deal for a year because he does definitely have talent, but he's really got to take his chance if it comes his way. Potentially a career defining season for him.