It's gonna be Arma. Small chance it's a gamble on Dack before his fitness is proven.

Two players. Williams too. Injuries can happen at any time, at any stage of fitness. The enforced break probably resulted in some players not taking care of themselves enough, or maybe even pushing too hard. We get injuries in pre-season all the time, and that's after months of not playing too.

I mean google can help if you're that curious, but: Amari'i Bell is back in first-team training, but Tony Mowbray doesn't expect he nor Tosin Adarabioyo to feature in Blackburn Rovers' final day fixture against Luton Town. Bell has been absent throughout Project Restart, nursing a muscle injury that has prevented him from featuring in the past eight matches. (20th July) https://www.lancs.live/sport/football/football-news/blackburn-rovers-graham-bell-luton-18627979

Ok, you seem to feel unnecessarily strongly about it, so we will, no worries.

Sounds a bit conspiracy theory for me that one. Pretending players are injured is usually more about covering up that they're about to move clubs. And I don't credit TM with having figured out he bought a shite player. Especially when he had been looking less shite if anything.

Don't see any reason for them to hide that. I also don't see TM realising when someone isn't good enough.

Don't remember, didn't miss him enough to care what it was. Him and Del were both injured for the entirety of post-lockdown is all I remember.

Although tbf he was injured

Eh? If we have Dack back at anything like his former self, solidify our defence and 2-3 players have an Arma level breakthrough we would absolutely storm this league nevermind have a chance.

7. Of which 6 were in the league, 1 in the cup.

No you're confusing 'we shouldn't overpay for players', which I generally agree with (sometimes you have to make an exception though) with 'we are crap at figuring out roughly what clubs value players at and judging the market', which is the poor state of reality we inhabit and which makes us flounder with our transfer business every year.

Chaddy come on, we get this wrong every summer, and that's from the horse's mouth. Mowbray and/or the recruiting team don't have a clue what players are valued at. Blaming other clubs is daft, it's not about them raising prices on us, most of the time at least. It'll be poor estimates grounded in TM's outdated notions of player values.

Until we realise everyone costs double what we thought...

26 year old LB with 51 career league appearances. Sounds about right. 22 Australia caps too though somehow.

Did you also ask them why relatively rich footballers like Smallwood were granted contract extensions even though we had no need of them, if the club are in such a poor financial position that relatively poor supporters can't even be granted a comparatively minor refund for something they bought in good faith?

Tbf I don't think that follows. His agent knows we are going to need about 2 million for the fee, so it won't be news to him that we have a bit. All Sparks is saying we have said is that if we still have enough left after the other two (?!?!) priorities, we will put a bid in. It hardly makes us sound minted and in fact makes it sound like 'if we can squeeze you in at the end'.

Scary shit. So we're of the opinion we just don't need to replace Tosin, and that Del, Mulgrew, or one of the kids will do the job? Tell me you've at least heard CB is 4th priority, even though that's still scary. Hope we are shifting 2 or 3 CMs too if we bring one in.

He'll sign for someone else before we even sign either a GK or LB most likely. Or anyone.

Actually, I can't speak for his previous clubs, but Northampton have made it clear they absolutely do want to take him in League One.

I'm sorry. You did just say that GK, LB then CM is the order of priority? Not CB? We're fucked.

Far too early to call this. I generally wait til the transfer business is done before calling it. I believe I've actually predicted it more or less spot on since and including our relegation season (I think I might have said top 10 for the season just gone which even one more point would have got us, not sure though). It really depends on whether we sell any stars and whether we fix the glaring defensive problems with the right recruits. Too much change is still needed right now.

25 not 24, but yeh a good age for a goalie. Should easily have 10 years or more left in him, and likely get better over the next 5 or so. From that video...not too many I'd put in the 'just wow' category, and I'd say most of them I'd expect Walton to have stopped too. But a few that I think you'd rarely or never see from Walton. Looks a bit like he has a tendency to parry when he could catch, but that's a modern keeper's disease. A lot of these were pretty much straight at him, and I find saves like that to be overrated, but some he came out well for, some good intentional parries on them (as opposed to it being blasted right at him, which I find it bizarre when a keeper gets praise for) and looks good at stopping them with his feet, which I think is an underrated keeping skill. It bugs me when I see a keeper beaten because they tried to get down to something they could have stopped with their feet. Only a highlights reel but overall I'm feeling fine about it if we get him at the right price. The real measure of a goalie is in their consistency though, and it's promising he got player of the season for Charlton, a team who I'm sure spent much of the season under the cosh. 65 goals conceded, only 2 more than us despite being 15 points lower. I wonder what a likely fee would be. A few suitors, and Charlton clearly rate him, but they just got relegated, have financial issues, and Phillips has a year left on his deal with no intention to extend apparently. Plus the current financial climate. A million with a sell-on? It also occurs to me that TM said his preference is for an experienced, older stopper, and a younger one to learn from them. I doubt Phillips wants to be the understudy. And just read this: Only Millwall's Bartosz Bialkowski recorded a higher save percentage than the Addicks 'keeper That sounds good to me! Sign him up.

And yet I was a (pretty decent) CB and never got to go to town team trials. *shrug*

I rate Costello too, but if you're looking for explanations, it's probably a lot to do with we haven't seen Wharton for more than a couple of seasons, only heard he is doing well. Meanwhile we have seen JRC, recently, and for some (not me) he hasn't impressed. Basically Wharton represents the slightly unknown youth player who has played well at the level he has been sent to (it's a low level but that's the level hes been sent to) and JRC represents the 'known' quantity youth player. You can rest assured that if he was a bit naff in his first couple of games for us, the same people would stop pushing for Wharton's involvement.

So you're open to a different view, but because these ones are too different to yours, the only possible explanation is that people are definitely completely biased, even though you have no idea on what grounds this would be the case? Come on Joe. Just accept some people don't see it your way and you'll stop being so puzzled.