Have we ever hit 600 pages before?

Agreed. Time and again last night Phillips was bullied by Shane Long. Punt upfield and Long was holding his ground, letting it bounce off him and Phillips missing his header. On one occasion Phillips tried to nip in front and it skimmed off his head and out for a throw in deep in our half. No major criticism as he's such a young player, but if a 5'8 Shane Long was giving him trouble in the the air, it really shows its not going to be a seamless transition from youth to first team football, no matter his potential or size. It was a remarkable drop in standard from his performance vs West Brom. One other point is that every pass was short and square. The midfield were generally very poor in showing for the ball but without any adventure in the pass we are going to struggle. Not to pour cold water on him. The potential is clear for everyone to see. I'm just not sure he's of the required standard quite yet.

I think we can get £15 million rising to £20 million with add ons. We're about to hit silly season and his performances will have refocused a few clubs gaze his way. We may even get more if a bidding war ensues.

If he's playing the next two games for us we'll begin to see if the West Brom game was a fluke or not. I felt he was superb. Its a big week for him and the club. Show his worth now rather than just potential and suddenly the club have justification to offer him a first team players contract rather than a youth contract. He gets the money, we retain an asset and he's put his hat in the ring for a lot of minutes moving forwards which will be best for his development. Like someone else said, the money we can offer for a first team player will be comparative to a spurs youth player. The big thing is us being able to justify the contract to our squad and the only way to do this is him performing in our first team.

@chaddyrovers has pinned his colours to the mast regarding Dack. He does this sometimes in that he's taken a controversial stance on one particular debate and nothing will sway him in that opinion. Even his biggest doubters recognise that Dack offers something that no other player in our squad does, so it's a ridiculous stance to take which not only demonstrates a lack of footballing knowledge but also an inability to have a true debate based on merit. The irony being he'll tow the club line with 90% of other debates which come up on this forum, again with an unwavering opinion, regardless of circumstance or fact. As peculiar as it is though, fair play Chaddy for your constant support of the club. I'd buy you a pre-match pint for sure.

John Buckley will be almost universally regarded as the best footballer at the club at the end of the season. When I say almost universally, I mean everybody but @Sparks Rover

I'd love to see Ten Haag put Ronaldo in the reserves. That would send a proper message to the rest of the squad and the world about who's in charge. Plus Ronaldo, as great as he's been in his career has been stat padding and playing for himself for the best part of 4 years now, if not longer. I'd love to see the masses who fawn over him throw their toys out the pram. That would make me happier than any United demise. Admittedly they are both past it now, but in their generation there was one player who stood head and shoulders above the rest, a true footballer in every sense of the word, and that was Leo Messi. It's an endless debate and one that bores me to death. But I'd enjoy seeing the arrogant one put in his place.

Don't know much about him. But he looks a lot bigger than Clarkson from the couple of clips I've seen. I'd say we definitely need another body. Still want Styles. Wharton is only 17. Surely he's not ready for the step up this year. As for Garrett. Even with Trav, Buckley, Styles and Morton in there he should see some minutes and an opportunity to work his way up the pecking order.

Genuine question. Have I missed something where Dack has thrown his toys out the pram?

No issue with Morton and Styles. Morton alone, regardless of talent would be a big disappointment. I'm happy for us to bring in loan's to bolster the squad, but right now it's threadbare. We need a permanent signing in CM badly.

I don't think it has been made clear him signing a new deal is a non-starter. He's worth pushing the boat out for, salary wise. I don't expect him to resign. But I've seen no quotes from him being 'flattered' by other clubs interest or anything along those lines, and the club is pretty quiet on deals in the pipeline.

It's worrying we've not brought anybody in, but I do think a few assumptions are being made. From what I can see the only real solid link has been the Bosnian defender. Him choosing Sheff United over us doesn't mean we've no budget. It sounds like an excuse but parachute payments skew the landscape. It is very plausible in my eyes that he was highly interested in coming here so Sheffield United blew us out the water with his salary. I agree our wage structure requires some 'flex' however completely breaking it on a highly rated, but somewhat unproven player would be foolish. The fact we were in for him, to me shows we do have a budget. We've missed an initial target. It happens, but it's important we were already making progress on alternatives. Broughton will be aware of the urgency. It's a tough gig, but I don't believe our budget is buttons and the current set up, I'm sure, have a real desire to get these deals over the line. Pressure is on, so I'll just sit back and judge at the end of the window. And that judgement will be on a scale. Not purely success or failure.

I wonder if Dembele might be considered for a loan. I got the impression they didn't want or need him, and were hoovering up players in a grasp for promotion. He didn't play a huge number of minutes, so could be available considering they have stepped up to the prem.

Yes it's a little concerning we've yet to sign anybody given our depleted squad. But I don't think that we have wavered from the plan at all. It was always said by both JDT and GB they wanted to assess the players at their disposal first, before then looking into the transfer market. That makes sense. This is why it was concerning that it took us around 6 weeks to bring them in. The pace we moved in making a managerial appointment was always going to lead to huge time based pressures. We didn't set them up with the tools / time needed for success. They may well still achieve it, but waggot and pasha etc didn't make it easy for them.

My recollection is that an extended contract protects the investment rather than compounding it.

Nonsense. Last summer that was not the mass mindset. It was that he was looking like a useful player.

Nobody predicted Breretons meteoric rise last season, however i am certain an overwhelming majority would have been supportive of a new contract. He had shown signs, especially post lockdown that he was finally beginning to find his feet. The fact that he also represented a significant investment from the club and is a young English striker made it a no brainer. That is without mentioning he'd just been called up for international duty. All these posts saying people would have been disappointed had we offered him a new contract last summer are ridiculous. It was the perfect time to do so when comparing progress/potential vs length of contract remaining. But we'd fudged ourselves into an embargo to begin with and then suddenly woke up in shock once he started banging the goals in. Unbelievable lack of foresight, even had his progression not been so dramatic.

I'm not 100% sure Brereton is gone. The only thing which makes me say this is its clear as day that he really likes it here. He's got good mates, he's a leader in the side, and he looks like he is really enjoying his football. Greg Broughton is in Portugal for the first few days. We do need to slap a contract down in front of him, insert a release clause as an incentive, and have a deadline for it being signed. Our cards are on the table then. Show him we really want him to stay, and then if he turns it down, it's understandable on a human level if we start offering him around to other clubs. Personally I think it would be a good thing for his career to spend one more season with us. I don't have the fear that his form last season was a purple patch. He'll retain his value, and there is a hell of a lot of development left in him, which he'll need minutes to fulfill. The fact he is a leader of the side can also help accelerate and bring out that potential.

The wage structure is concerning. From what I've heard previously it means that players are entitled to % increases when renewing contracts. If our structure dictates a player can't have a dramatic increase in salary then we've shot ourselves in the foot before negotiations even begin. Its not like a normal job where you work within a pay scale. By our skewed logic, Messi could come through our academy, the entire team be totally reliant on him, yet he'd be paid less than the rest of the squad. It's no wonder there's discontent. Nyambe being paid the same as Pears and less than Davenport. To then be told, we'd love to pay you more but we can't as it would break the pay structure. What an awful excuse. And something for Waggot to hide behind. In short our pay structure encourages the movement of players as its the only way for a player to negotiate on their terms, rather than be tied into a set of ill fitting rules.

Rothwell, Nyambe and Lenihan. I think it's reasonable to say they could fetch around £2million each if they'd been tied into contracts. More if there suddenly became a few clubs interested which can happen with hot streaks of form, market conditions, transfer window deadlines. Whether they are setting the world alight or not. We've lost assets that had significant value given both our finances and the way we're trying to model the club. It is very simple. Player power rules. We'd tried to see who would blink first which is a very high stakes game to play. Adequate management would have been a deadline midway through last summer for them to re-sign and it they didn't, they should have been sold. You can rewind it further than that too. In reality once between 18-24 months left on a deal we should have had much more urgency around the situation. If talks weren't progressing, then moves for replacements should have begun. The club has been run with a short term attitude of meeting financials. Not to mention the mad contracts given out to Tony's old boys club a couple of years back, all of whom added no value to the asset sheet.

He turns 17 on Sunday, so if this pre-contract is correct we'll find out then.

It's the most important season in Gallaghers career. His touch etc can be maddening, but the thing that irritated me the most was his unwillingness to gamble. You never saw a tap in at the far post or a 6 yard box scramble goal from him. He seemed to lack the anticipation, and surely there's nobody better to teach him this than JDT. It will be nice to see a manager have faith in him in his natural position too. If there is a stick to beat Mowbray with tactically it's his use of Gallagher. Frankly, it was absolutely ridiculous.

Absolutely. Now we have a decent set up I'm place we'd actually be somewhat appealing to a player of his ilk. Though I imagine Mk Don's will be holding out for a decent fee considering the year he had last year.

I'm not sure how we'd afford Cantwell. If he was affordable he'd be eating up a good chunk of our budget. He doesn't strike me as a player 100% focused on football, but he extremely talented. High risk, high reward.

Surely there is a positive in this that you've not mentioned, in Greg Broughton being the one who found JDT and got it over the line quickly. Regardless of the short or long term success of JDT it is excellent to have somebody in place to ensure consistency and succession planning. After seeing how swiftly GB moved in bringing JDT in, I'd certainly hope next time we come to look for a new manager, the dithering of the past would be a distant memory.