Admiral Nelsen

I can see him playing Evans if he thinks that he's fit enough - otherwise that'll be spot on I think.

This is pretty much where I am too. I'm not happy with our defence, and there undoubtedly need to be additions sooner rather than later, but I think the stick that Bell and certainly Williams gets on here begs the question how we've managed to win so many games with them playing. I think we'll turn up and do pretty well, but the result will probably come down to where Bournemouth are. If they're determined to right a few wrongs, then like any relegated team they'll have the quality to cause us real problems. If they're underdone, feeling sorry for themselves or think that they can breeze through the division, I think they're in for a rude awakening.

The one thing which I'm taking some solace from is that the players who have been linked most strongly (i.e. the ones you mention) are exactly what we need, as I hope Kaminski is. Hopefully this is a sign that we're holding out for the best which is available, but time will tell.

"more reason to hope than worry" - a pretty good way of summing it up for me, but obviously we're short of a couple of quality defenders before we can really hope.

Questions are Key Stage 2 level. It's the only explanation.

I wish we'd have halved away kits every year, just with rotated colours. So few teams in world football have a style of kit as uniquely identifiable as ours - we should make as much of it as possible. Yellow & Black halves would be excellent.

Applying all the usual caveats about it being a friendly etc. you can really see what all the fuss was about when he got on the ball today. Some glorious touches. Having the extra time and space made a big difference, not sure if the change in formation that we seem to be going towards has got this in mind.

Totally agree. A lot of his game I was actually quite impressed by, but equally their chances came exclusively from loose defending from Fish, him, and at times Williams too (although I thought Williams was quite good). 12 months in league 1 and he could be a useful player

Easy to get down in the dumps when we have a frustrating transfer window like this one, and the bad bits of today showed that we're still well short of a centre back and that we need another keeper as back up. Even so, today also reminded us that we've got some good footballers at Ewood. Most of this team is ready to compete for a top 6 six spot. Buckley's cameo was quality, simply oozed class.

His first touch tends to be really poor (the worst facet of his game for me) but I think his finishing is really confidence driven. The goal against Wolves & his second vs PNE were both astonishing finishes, I just don't think it takes that much for him to lose his mojo. I think if he got on a roll at a lower level he would be unplayable, but obviously that doesn't mean that he was £5 million well spent now we're in the Championship!

No, you're right there. Graham still being somewhere near his best for the L1 season was huge. Equally though, whilst we've lost Graham, Armstrong is clearly a miles better player than he was in the L1 spell. Mulgrew didn't get worse in the Championship either, he was just doing a lot more defending against better teams. I'd agree that our transfer dealings have been patchy and often quite drawn out like this one, but I wouldn't say they've all been a failure. Sometimes we've been a bit too short term, like with Downing or the loans last year, or a bit unlucky like with Cunningham. Other times we've just overpaid or signed players which haven't improved us - so there are plenty of areas for criticism, but at the same time there have been some decent captures too.

I think we are to be honest. I know Gally for instance gets quite a bit of stick on here (or Mowbray for playing him wide) but if he was in the L1 team in the Antonsson role, he would've impossible to deal with at that level.

I don't hate completely hate it, but the frustrating thing is that if they just left it to be red with blue trim it would've looked great. Fortunately the home one is the best one in a while.

Fair enough on the injury, but bang average isn't at all fair. You could argue that he didn't play enough to show his weaknesses, but when he played he was good.

Being honest, whilst obviously I respect that it's always a lot of money to part with to get a season ticket & I'm not judging anyone for their individual choice, I have a lot of sympathy for the club when it comes to the current situation. Championship clubs leak money at the best of times, and that's without an unscheduled 6 months when we don't generate a penny in revenue. I know people will perfectly reasonably bring up the Smallwood/Sam Hart contracts, amongst other things, and that's fair enough. There are certainly things which could have been done differently, but the fact remains that our club (as with most at this level) are in a bloody difficult situation at present, so provided the price hike isn't a ridiculous one, I'm happy to cut them some slack under the circumstances.

Fair enough, but hardly fair to say that this is a Mowbray thing when Graham, Steele & Emnes were all signings from different managers!

I'd be quite surprised if that happens to be honest, if only for the reason that we'd need more bodies in that position. We're supposedly selling Williams & letting Mulgrew go, so even with two extra defenders brought in, we'd only have four recognised senior centre backs for three positions.

All the talk of Ayala when he was released was that he was nailed on to go to Leeds. Whilst that clearly hasn't come to fruition, implies that he still should be at the top of his game. Think I saw somewhere that Swansea were in for him but struggled to meet his wage demands. Would be interesting if it was something that we could afford but they couldn't

Jimmy Phillips' lad. Promoted at Stuttgart last season. Other that that, no idea on what to think about this.

No information whatsoever, but from the few titbits I'm nailing my colours to the Christian Atsu mast

Completely off the point, but loving that the Charlton fans have given him a song to the tune of 'Baby Shark'. We've really missed a trick not doing the same for Bradley Dack over the last few years

According to the Oracle, the young Celtic striker has signed for us earlier today.

Don't know him from Adam to be honest, but 2.5 million seems like a lot in the current climate for a defender who has never played above L1 level. Must be highly rated if he's going for that amount.

Above him in the pecking order.

Interestingly, Neil cops for plenty on their message board. I would've thought that he would be praised for walking on water given the job that he's done there.