Buying ten Bradley Dacks wasn’t an argument

One would hope so but isn’t that what Ipswich did over the summer?

I’m sure you would have been first to welcome him buying ten League One players.

No argument from me on that aspect.

But surely you see the cost difference in salaries between buying one young player for £7m vs buying three much older, established players? It turns what was probably a £9million decision (of which £7million is in theory recoverable) into something like a £13-15m decision of which the majority of the money will never come back. The two situations aren’t remotely comparable financially.

Maybe, maybe not since Mowbray is 5/10 on transfers...

I personally have no issue with some guidelines on how the money may be spent being defined by whoever stumps up the money. When you get a mortgage, you can’t use it to buy whatever or however many properties you like, the bank has a say. Equally, I think it unlikely that £7 million appeared with instructions to Mogga to do whatever he liked with it. That much money, spread over the lifetime of his contract, is a capital investment that may well pay back given Brereton won’t be on top dollar wages. The same amount spent on two or three “proven” players, probably needing 6x the salary outlay for years to come, could only not be a sunk cost if we won promotion because of it. And I think we are more than three players away from a promotion team.

Here’s my reading of the summer transfers and the Jan priorities: Rodwell - long shot bet with big upside Reed - Sign in January Rothwell - signed as a Payne replacement i.e. cover for Dack (who is never injured or dropped, but we need cover). Davenport - TBC Palmer - southern softie, return to sender. Armstrong - A bust. Not big or strong enough to lead the line and we won’t be playing 4-4-2 till we replace half the team. Brereton - I’ve been willing to give him time but his demeanour waiting to come on Saturday infuriated me: shivering, blowing into his hands, he looked more like Billy Caspar in Kes than a professional. Needs: Glen Keeley, Windy Miller, Howard Kendall, Simon Garner

Dack looks lost without Graham on the pitch IMO

Having watched the penalty incident several times, I think Raya’s rush of blood was motivated by trying to save a corner. He clearly didn’t see that player till he clattered him. The mask can’t be doing him any good, it must be having some impact on peripheral vision if it’s stutdy enough to shield his nose. Another egregious error as well as the full backs for the second was Charlie dozing off, loses track of his man, the scorer, going behind him and didn’t do much to recover.

The defence needs a proper leader, the goals against column doesn’t lie.

Fair do’s to the lad, he has been front and centre in the pics for the Disabled supporters Xmas do and the hospital visit.

How many points does infrastructure get you? Or Leeds? Or Sunderland? Over 20 clubs have been relegated from the Premier since we were. It’s odds on we would’ve been one of them even without the help of Venkys. Look at Burnley, Europe to relegation dog fight in weeks.

No doubt true due to inflation in fees. But, far from having buyers’ remorse, the holders of the debt appear to be gagging to spend more in January.

That was Jack’s money. My point was $500,000 was a big punt then - 1/6th of the British record fee we would pay for Shearer a few months later. Sherwood had bags of potential but Cowans was anchoring the team so he had to wait his turn.

I think I’m right in saying that Brereton has been on the field more often than Tim Sherwood was in his first three months. Tim’s fee of $500,000 would’ve comfortably been a club record before Jack got involved.

Instead of Danny Graham? Righty ho

Not sure I agree with that, he has easily the worst goals to shots ratio. He’s greedy and shoots when there are too many defenders in front of him. Today he was played through by Dack, perfect position and pass, but didn’t even get a shot away.

Armstrong’s was as bad a cameo as I can remember seeing, and nothing to do with the position he played, just rank bad decision making. Plus I don’t think Danny Graham touched the ball second half, tho we did need him on to help defend Boro’s throws. Not a top 6 team yet, which is perhaps why we aren’t in the top 6.

Excellent first half. The sending off cane from our aggressive pressing and, since then, we have really worked the ball well. Exactly what you should be doing against ten men.

I’m not sure Rothwell’s, Palmer’s and Armstrong’s attributes are enough at this level, and it seems neither does he so far. I think we can all agree that for there only to be one of this year’s signings in the team today - a team most of us would’ve picked - is a disappointing outcome from the summer signings.

Yes, you also mentioned that in the Venkys thread, every match thread and no doubt many others. Personally I’ll stick to rating the attributes of the new players, as those aren’t likely to change very much while at the club. Which position they play, and who picks them, are much more likely to change.

So you are judging the manager, not the players. There have been plenty of instances in our history when a signed player has been misused or ignored by one manager then flourished under another, which still made them good signings. Furphy hardly played Don Martin for three seasons but he was subsequently crucial to Lee’s promotion team.

Whether or not the manager plays them in their best positions (as judged by us amateurs) is somewhat tangential to the topic. If Mowbray left tomorrow, we’d still have all these players, and that shouldn’t change whether we view them as being good signings or not. I think we can all agree that Reed has made us a better team no matter what position he plays. Palmer I think is the wrong player for this squad, not a grafter. Rothwell seems to do one thing well - surging runs - but that doth not a central midfielder make. Looks like he came from a Div 1 club to me. Rodwell is clearly a gamble, but one with a lot of upside. Brereton - too early to say. The alleged fee is irrelevant to me; we couldn’t have spent it on three proven Championship players as we can’t afford their wages, which would’ve doubled the cost vs Brereton over the life of their contracts. Armstrong seems to be replicating his Bolton form at this level, which makes it a bit more worrying.

Jack was definitely right!