Admiral Nelsen

Like Gally, and a few weeks ago Armstrong & him would've sounded ideal, but I don't see where he gets in the team now we've signed Brereton. Chapman on the other hand, would be brilliant & the cherry on top of a great window!

Honestly, I'd only be nervous if it was a top flight team at present. Not saying that he'd never go to another Championship team, but I think our momentum (along with his new contract on which the ink has barely dried) means that we should be able to fend any interest off without Dack being too bothered imo. 12 months time might be a different story.

Struggling to pick a side for this one. Even if Reed & Brereton will need to be patient to begin with, there'll still be some very unlucky players on the bench. Assuming Dack & Armstrong are fit, I'd go with: Raya Nyambe Lenihan Mulgrew Bell Smallwood Evans Bennett Dack Palmer Armstrong Subs: Canadian, Graham, Brereton, Rothwell, Reed, Travis, Downing All of a sudden, that's some squad!

Wasn't he still calling himself G8 around that time?

I'll take that, and raise you with I thought that Jon Stead was going to be a mainstay England player for the bulk of his career, and easily our best forward since Shearer!

Agree. More than anything else, he's obviously in desperate need of a loan just to play regularly. He's not that young anymore, but for all that he hasn't played too many games either. Seems to me that the biggest thing for him is quite simply just to learn the game and get a bit cannier with his all-round game. He has some decent attributes already and there's no reason why he can't be a decent squad player at this level if he just starts playing a bit more intelligently.

It's hard isn't it! On the one hand it looks too early in the team's development to realitically challenge this season, and yet we have this momentum... All ambitions aside, I'm so excited to see what this team can do over the next 2, 3, 4 or more seasons. If we're being brutally honest, our current ability is probably somewhere around upper mid-table in a strong championship. What makes us different is that you can look at 5 or 6 players and think that the sky is the limit for them. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that we have future England internationals playing in blue & white halves at present. When could we last say that?

Fair enough, accept that "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting until they actually sign. Bereton at least is looking likely though, and whilst it might be a bit of a straw man to compare it to Coyle, I think the difference is absolutely amazing. With the odd exception, we were signing either players with next to no value, or loaning players with some value that we couldn't keep. Don't want to keep looking at the squad purely in terms of assets & liabilities, obviously we're more bothered about what they do on the pitch rather than selling for profits. Even so, It felt like we were an empty vessel last time we were in this division, whereas now it seems like we've got more assets than we know what to do with. Still have a long way to go, but the difference in two years really feels like the difference between night and day.

Might be in danger of being overly optimistic here, but I genuinely think that the capture of Bereton & Chapman (on sensible wages) would mean that, on paper at least, we've had an absolutely phenomenal window. When you think of the issues facing the squad at the end of last season and some of the holes we've had to fill in terms of numbers & quality, the fact that we've managed to get the position of going into September with the amount of depth we now have is staggering, and a world away from where it seemed we would be even at the start of the window, let alone the state of the club pre-Mowbray. Along with securing new contracts for our top players, the potential of a team containing Armstrong, Dack, Chapman, Raya, Lenihan and Bereton is absolutely enormous in terms of both ability and if it comes to it, transfer fee. It seems basically a certainty that at least a couple of them will be top flight players before too long, and this is ignoring Travis, Davenport, Bell and certainly Nyambe, who all look like they could become very handy players at this level at the very least. The loan moves have both been for players who were amongst the best at their previous clubs, and even Rodwell, who clearly wouldn't be everyone's choice, has the potential to be a master-stroke if he comes with the right attitude. I'm still uneasy (and excited) about spending so much money on a teenager which could theoretically come back to bite us if he doesn't develop, but I think even the most optimistic Rovers fan would've considered our business this summer as fanciful. Certainly beats scraping the barrel for Feeney, Greer and Stokes.

Pretty gutted for Samuel. Not convinced that he's ever going to have enough to be a regular starter, but he seems to have put a lot of effort into staying in Mowbray's thoughts despite the step up. Really hope he's not out for too long.

Ideally I'd like to rest both Lenihan & Mulgrew for this one, considering they'll both be away with their countries. Not sure how we can manage that if Rodwell's not ready, as it seems like TM has hinted at. Realistically, I'd like to see something like this: Raya Travis Lenihan Downing Bell Reed Tomlinson Conway Palmer Rothwell Nuttall

One that sticks in my memory is how excited I was when we signed De Pedro. Genuinely thought we were getting an absolute worldie who could've been playing for anyone in the country. Much less bothered about the comparatively unheralded signing of MGP that summer. Championship manager has a lot to answer for!

So much phoney war stuff going on at the moment. No idea if the Brereton interest is smoke and mirrors or not, but you'd expect that if there's any sort of budget at all to speak of, then this must be agent-talk.

Brilliant!

Agree (you'd struggle to not do, in fairness) but it'd be interesting to see how Cairney would've fared under Mowbray. As much as we loved him and as much as Fulham absolutely rinsed us for £3million, he definitely had a tendency to missing at times when he was at Rovers, and seemed to be passing to keep his completion % up rather than trying to hurt teams. Dack vs Cairney since he left us would be a very interesting one.

I was too young to really remember Shearer, but since then Bellamy is easily my favourite Rovers striker. When you think about some of the competition he's had, that's really saying something.

On the New Order theme, If the budget stretches, you could have "Touched by the hand of God" with picture of Shearer with his hand aloft celebration? Or failing that, MGP punching the ball into Newcastle's goal...

Reading between the lines of Mowbray's interview, it's looking like we're probably not going to be risking Dack, so you'll probably get your wish with Graham, Palmer & Bennett as the front 3.

Not a signing I would've wanted, but Mowbray's done enough to get the benefit of the doubt with something like this. Clearly there's ability, so optimisitically could be a blinding bit of business assuming his contract is a fraction of what it was. Sunderland message board is (unsurprisingly) brutal. Should probably take it all with a pinch of salt, but one post caught my eye: "Justice for selling us Steele"

Agree. Whilst the criticism doesn't come from the same place as it did for Jason Lowe for instance, I still think it's been a little unfair. Ultimately, we've been beating teams in the midfield battle, apart from maybe a spell against Millwall. The attack is flowing pretty freely & the defence is looking pretty solid. Usually a sign that the engine room is doing it's job!

Agree with others who've said that the first (especially early) goal is likely to make all the difference here. Get three points here, and we can go into the international break saying that we've had a good start, even if we lose to Brentford beforehand. With Dack, I think we win this fairly comfortably. Without, still going for a slightly nervy 2-1 win.

That'd be my team as well, only with Smallwood keeping his place in front of Travis. I know that Richie's never going to be the perfect midfielder, but there's a lot to be said for his role the platform that the attacking players have had to take the game to the opposition. Dack et al are getting all the plaudits and rightly so, but Smallwood and, even though I'm not his biggest fan, Evans must be playing their part in that too.

Obviously wish him well if we end up signing him, but he'll have to be some player for me to get past that ridiculous and completely unnecessary way of spelling his first name.

Guessing he's a creative player who plays a bit deeper, in the Tugay/Carrick/Pirlo mould.

Only guessing, but I expect that it's already down to valuations, rather than them really wanting to keep him necessarily. Clearly never been a Pulis-style winger, and didn't get off the bench on Saturday, even when they were chasing the game. Sadly, I suspect that it's always been about how much Tony wants him, and I just don't think he's as willing to take a punt as a lot of fans are.