bluebruce

I think he'll get over it if he wants something left of his career. Look I don't rate him much anymore but with the lack of experienced CBs there might be games where he can plug a gap and offer the odd goal threat. So he wouldn't be my 5th/6th choice with current personnel like you imply. I'd expect to be able to get more than 120k back on terminating his contract if we got the players we need by the end of the window tbh.

Mulgrew is on half that at best.

I'm sure we could put out feelers in the Middle East, China or US or something to pay more.

I'll be amazed if 120k is the difference between signing someone or not. If you told me we could have Mulgrew as an emergency backup for 120k for the season I'd probably say sure. We concede more with him but he also scores.

Fine let me rephrase- I'm bemused we are entertaining it. It isn't really worth bothering at that amount. Like Alex said hopefully there's a big loan fee attached to get around it.

Bit bemused we are looking at League One loans for Mulgrew. With their new wage cap in that league isn't the absolute max they can contribute 2.5k per week? On what is probably a 15-20k pw contract. Barely worth bothering. For now rather wait and make sure we get some CBs in and what happens with Williams.

There's loads of evidence of us going for Kipre. If you mean absolute cast-iron proof, maybe there isn't, but there rarely is for moves that don't work out. Evidence is a different thing to absolute proof though.

I think it could be mutually beneficial and Barrow could become a nice little feeder club for us essentially. We have to start using the loan system better. Good loans from us could also help them stay up. Dunny will be pretty familiar with the lads too from his time with us.

Who said all that?

Fisher, Lewis Thompson, maybe Brennan. Really, anybody we think is ready for that level but also risks not getting enough game time in League One (not necessarily through not being good enough). Jack Vale might be a good age for that step, but we could get a bit short on backup forwards if we sent him. Maybe Carter as I dunno if he would get enough games at League One either.

That would be great if we weren't in the third year of our FFP cycle. Which will mean a bunch of them being sold off, with clubs knowing we need to sell. Personally I feel confident we will be playoff contenders if we can sort the defence out this summer. How likely we are to do that is the big question.

Because we haven't bothered to recruit properly at full back

I suspect TM has been thinking that Magloire will be the best equipped to deal with Josh King next week for those reasons, so has seen being up against Vardy this week as a good litmus test.

Thought this too, its ridiculous. The result might not matter but this is our last chance for match fitness so I want to see 90 minutes of actual football.

Really quick thinking and quick feet from JRC too. Seemed like the split second he saw Johnson was there he played a perfect pass to him.

Uhh...Lenihan out altogether because he was an unused sub for Ireland the other night? This is our last friendly, we play in a week...not too happy about that. Should be as close as possible to the Bournemouth side. And Magloire, really?

We wear blue and white halves, not stripes. He asked you to fully read his post so he didn't have to repeat himself. Then you didn't fully read his post. Or you at least switched your brain off. They would have been the same kits for both sides in both the home and away ties. They can't only clash at Ewood but suddenly at the Riverside they stop clashing! Unless you really were talking about blue and white stripes not halves. Which would be...absolutely irrelevant as we don't play in those.

Several of our players have improved a fair bit since then as they were young, including players breaking through from our academy. Travis wasn't a feature then and he is far better than Smallwood.

Did it only start clashing two seasons ago?

As a few have said (including me), commercial reasons. To promote the third kit better so it seems more worth buying. That's not necessarily a bad thing (though I'd prefer to see our famous halves more often), and plenty of clubs are doing it. But it's why it is how it is. Look at those old Stoke pics, you'd have to be blind to pick the pass to the wrong player. (Insert joke about 'or one of our midfielders')

I'm fine with it. Far better than last year's.

Not suggesting we shouldn't have a third kit, it's a must. Just suggesting (tongue in cheek partly, but we do seem to end up actually wearing the third kit more than necessary) that we put blue on the second kit to maximise the profile of the third.

So that we can spend a bunch of our away games playing in the third kit, making it easier for them to flog that too.

Ah yeh Holtby. They're the only true Academy graduates, but they're not the only ones that are from or were signed for the u23s. Dolan is a welcome surprise, not an attempt to buy a first teamer.

True, although 5 out of those 11 are youth players who broke through, so they're not part of what he intentionally moulded through signings. The imbalance is real and stark though. And unforgivable.