The worry in the back of my mind is....that is the plan, it has been put into action, and we are spending it in advance.

That's not really what I was saying. Obviously being bobbins isn't a requirement. What I was saying is, there are three categories of players broadly speaking. More age groups than anything else. The young uns, who are often untested, or if they're experienced are pretty damned expensive. Established players. And players with loads of experience, generally 30+ and generally not good assets to buy unless you're already tooled up, have money, and need an extra push to get you over the line. You don't seem to be a fan of young, untested players, hence us having this discussion, so I assume us signing some 19 year old from another team's academy wouldn't suit your needs. You do seem to quite like your old grizzled slow vets, as I've seen you praise Johnson a fair few times, so I may have assumed wrong with the other post in that regard and you'd in fact like us to sign some old fart (who I would probably consider bobbins if they're like Johnson, and would almost certainly cost a fair bit in wages to barely feature). I wouldn't want to sign such a player, generally speaking. My point was though, the experienced but not past their peak players mostly fit into two categories - too expensive for this kind of squad role, or too bobbins to be a definite improvement on two very promising youngsters, or worth reducing their opportunities to appear. You don't really find many decent mid-20s players with Championship experience available for loan at a reasonable price. I suppose essentially I'm asking you, what sort of profile of player do you see us being able to sign or loan for a 2nd CM recruitment this summer? Not asking you to name a player or anything, just what sort of age, experience, quality are you really expecting we could manage for that position on our limited budget? As personally I can't think of a 'type' that would be appealing. Not saying they're physically not out there mind. Thinking about it, we've talked about loans too, which I'm not against for a 2nd CM if the budget covers it...and maybe we can get someone who has already had a season out in the Championship, but quite often we're looking at someone with about the same experience as Garrett and Wharton have. If it is someone who has had a year in the Championship, they're probably looking to feature more than being 4th choice in our 3 (or even 2 potentially) man midfield. If they're not, then they probably bombed at their prior stint in this league.

Buckley was fit for most of the season too. Not sure it's luck, rather than Buckley and Trav just not being that injury prone. Travis has been known to be out for a couple of months before though. Agree midfield was an issue whenever one of our main three weren't available, when we used three in the middle anyway. Less so when using 2, which is always an option. I think that affects the team less than switching from a back 5 to a back 4, as all you really need to do is drop an attacker (Dack ideally) a bit further back until someone is back. It's not really 'a reasonable role with immediate effect'. It's a reasonable role if somebody gets injured. It's even possible to go the whole season with this almost never happening to the whole midfield 3. If that happened, Edun and this new midfielder would mean Wharton and Garrett got almost, or perhaps actually, no game time at all. 'When they're ready and if they're good enough' well what if they're ready and good enough now? Whether we can afford 2 does matter though, indeed before whether we need 2. We seem to be willing to pay I would guess about 2 million to land Styles. If the budget doesn't stretch to a second, one option is to not sign Styles, and spread it over 2 CMs the club wants less, which I'd consider quality dilution. Of course, you're more talking about not getting a second CB, and I refer to my previous comments on that. Agree Carter has proven himself a bit more than the two young mids, but he's also further up the pecking order for that position once we assume a CM and a CB bought and Ayala out for his usual 2/3 of the season. After that it's kids with actually less experience than Garrett and Wharton (Phillips, barely even played u23s). In fact assuming 3 CB and 3 mids it's only 5 players for 3 positions total in CB (Ayala, Wharton, new guy, Carter, Phillips) vs 6 in CM (Buckley, Travis, new guy, Edun, Wharton, Garrett). With more injury record amongst the CBs than the mids.

I don't think Dack needs to worry about Styles, doesn't really play the same position. Szmodics does, so it's whether they see him as backup for Dack or the other way around. I'd imagine Dack starts with the shirt, given his wage, history with the club, and the injury niggles that mean Szmodics will inevitably get his chance. The club also needs to put him in the shop window if he's on borrowed time, as his injury record and lack of game time in the last two years will have drastically reduced his marketability and value.

Indeed. After that you're probably not bringing anyone in who is currently very good, you're either bringing in a has-been like Johnson on no real fee but quite big wages to hang around and play 10 games worth like he did last season, or a cheap punt youth prospect, and we have two of those. Anybody in the say, 26 year old bracket like I'm guessing RF99 would prefer, is going to be bobbins, or too expensive to waste most of the season sat on a bench.

CM: We've lost Rothwell, so he needs replacing. After that, we've lost Johnson and Davenport, who were only squad players, the former a very old and shit one by last season. Davenport was average and extremely injury prone. I'll take two untested but promising kids in their place. We can always loan in January if they're not up to it (I know what you'll reply with to that, yes that's half the season gone, but I don't see us getting relegated nor promoted this season so I really don't care...they'll barely be needed anyway so won't make that much difference). Davenport played 252 minutes this season gone. He barely counts. Johnson played 905, which was about 905 more than he should have. Some of those were at CB and as a 'second striker'. Between them that's an equivalent to 13 full games. Happy to give Garrett and Wharton about 6.5 games worth of playing time each to see if they're up to it, most likely spread largely over sub appearances, personally, rather than go pay for someone else to get in their way on our limited budget. There's also Edun, who may have been a little underwhelming but less so in CM than Johnson certainly. As you point out though he's not an option there whenever Pickering is unavailable. At CB, we are probably lining up with 3 of them it sounds like, so we need 5 dependable ones. We have Ayala for about a third of the season, Wharton, New Guy, Carter (who I expect you'll put in the same underwhelming category as Edun?) and then it's untested kids. So yeh I'd say two CBs is a bigger priority than two CMs. This changes a bit if we plan to play 3 CMs too though, in a 5-3-2 say, although then as things stand we could name 3 good mids (let's say Styles, Buckley and Travis) who have no real injury problems historically bar the odd niggle for Travis, but our best 3 CBs would be Ayala (injury prone), Wharton (some history with injuries) and new guy. Also to use the logic from my CM bit, we have lost two very good ones here, not one very good one and two also-rans. I see that as a bigger problem. If we sell BBD I'd probably say sure, bring another CM in once BBD is replaced. Probably on loan, which I suspect our second CB will be too (giving us time to see if Carter and Phillips are up to it rather than buying someone to get in their way).

You draw a very different conclusion to myself, if you're referring to a God of some sort, it's often an easy explanation for things that are too mind-boggling to comprehend but over time more and more of those things get answered in comprehensible ways. But that's probably a discussion for the new forum page so we'll not do that! Something greater than us though, yeh, all this huge and minute scale is absolutely greater than us. We're just little tiny specks in a colossal dance of chaos and order. It does expand the mind to know about these things. The micro universe, the quantum realm essentially, is utterly fascinating too, and probably more important for technological progress than the huge picture stuff for now. If you understand exactly how atoms and subatomic particles work...you can pretty much do anything at our level of matter. I also sometimes wonder if we're just parts of atoms of something much, much larger. It's crazy how much of the architecture of atoms has similarities to those of star systems etc.

As I've already pointed out to you, the lad has played in the '2nd division' for the last two seasons. But why let facts get in the way of a good trolling eh?

There's always a way...given their ages and profiles, I'd be telling Venkys it's better paying a bit more now than a lot more later.

Transfrmarket has it as LM. Their positional stats can be a bit ropey I find, but since he also scored 5 and assisted 4, seems more likely than LWB. I'd defer to anyone who has actually seen him at length though, like the Barnsley fan who says he 'officially' played LWB but was so far up the pitch it was LM really.

Nice. Definitely has talent, even from a youtube highlights reel that's clear. Hopefully it translates into regular returns. Looks very Rothwell like in many regards, probably not quite as fast, may be a bit better with his decisions but that's hard to tell from his best bits. Looks like he could have a little more bite. I'm quite excited about this one. I don't know if Brittain will be an upgrade on RN because his assists were only 1.5 more per season and I've no idea if he is defensively up to it, which is always my biggest concern for a defender. But still looks a good signing in the circumstances (that we created). But this lad excites me, I remember him bumming us and I especially like that he has started playing for Hungary at about the same time they've announced themselves as being able to handle the big boys on their day (if anyone doesn't know, beat us twice, drew with Germany and only lost by a goal to Italy away, and he played in all those games). Only 22, great age, loads of time left and should be room to improve. Would love to know what the fee is meant to be, but think we're signing a real asset here. Hope we don't let the sell-on clause get too high. His right foot looks like it's just for standing though. Quick Rothwell stats comparison in the Championship: Rothwell: 152 games, 10 goals, 18 assists. Goal every 15.2 games, assist every 8.44 games Styles: 102 games, 8 goals, 5 assists. Goal every 12.75 games, assist every 20.4 games So Styles more of a goal threat, less of an assist threat. Course, Styles seems to have moved around more than Rothwell positionally, playing quite a bit on the left (just left mid it says, not the wing) and in attacking mid, and the teams were different so I know it's not the whole tale, just illustrative. Styles also gets booked a bit less frequently, every 9.2 games compared to every 8.

As far as I can see online, he's never played LWB?

Gone all BBD hasn't he...shouldn't he be called something like Callum Styles Puskas or Callum Styles Orban now? Eh maybe not Orban, that guy's a wanker...

Also been claiming no links or rumours, when there have been, even on days where links have been discussed in the thread.

Brittain last played in the Championship mate. He's left Barnsley because he's too good for the '3rd division' they've dropped to.

I edited it too late it seems.

Edit - nevermind, you said GB, I thought you said JDT. Still, what would Broughton have been watching Icelandic football in 2016 for? He'd have been at...Norwich would he? Wouldn't have thought it would be a priority league to scout.

Think there could be an element of truth to it being a factor. But it's definitely not the main reason...

What we've got in his position? That would be Dack...if he's 'not much better' than Dack, I'd take that 😉

Yeh, at about double what we're reported to have offered. I bet the poll would look very different at 1 mill. Wouldn't want us to pay 2 mill for him personally.

Indeed. I do think there might be more to it than just the money in this case though, unlikely Wigan are paying much more than we offered, pezzy as it was. I think there are things he isn't saying that don't involve money. But we'll probably never know.

Honestly though, I wouldn't say Johnson needed replacing. Nor Poveda. Looking a bit like Markanday essentially replaces Khadra since he wasn't available last season and looks like he has similar attributes in pre-season, although that's not for sure and we need to see some goals from him. Wouldn't say Giles needs replacing either, we didn't use him remotely right and he was probably a hindrance as a result. We do have some young players coming through who can probably account for a slight shortfall in numbers by being squad or fringe players. So I wouldn't say all of that really needs replacing. It's still utterly essential to replace: Lenihan and JPVH (possibly just one if playing with 2 CBs but if 3 is the plan definitely both), Rothwell. Davenport sort of needs replacing, as he would play sometimes and was, along with Johnson who was shite, our backup spoiler, so between the two of them we probably need a player for that role. But Garrett may potentially fill it. A gamble though as he's totally untested at this level. Edun can play backup there too of course, but only when Pickering is fit. Between both Khadra and Poveda going, and Markanday only potentially replacing one, another attacker might not exactly hurt, even though if we'd just signed him now we'd be saying he replaced Khadra and we probably don't need to replace Poveda. So 4/5 more players should about cover the (new) shortfalls that matter, and as long as we bring in good players there I'm not too bothered by youth players being tried in other areas when numbers are short, until January, as it's a transitional season anyway. They're mostly filling in for players who weren't good enough anyway. We'll never know if they're good enough themselves if they don't play. However I do think maybe add one more to that due to how we will seemingly play, with Buckley more withdrawn, a CAM and Dack having injury trouble again. Probably need a CAM even though we haven't lost one, hence the Szmodics bids. And BBD will likely leave and need replacing, obviously. Wouldn't mind a more reliable backup GK either, those can be hard to find at the right money though.

No, same height according to Wiki. What excites me a bit about Styles is he has recently started playing for Hungary, seems to be about the same time Hungary starting playing well above themselves against top sides recently... Szmodics outscored him last season though, but I think Styles plays a bit deeper usually. Styles 4 years younger too. Not sure it's an either/or thing though, or whether we're even in for Styles. I suspect we are in for him or another Barnsley player though, due to the compliments about Barnsley after signing Brittain. Feels a bit like we are keeping them sweet. And they have some decent players at reduced prices.

Wow, Szmodics is tiny, 5 ft 6. Doesn't bother me personally because of where he plays, but I know some on here like to talk about how we need height throughout the team.

Nyambe explains why he left