Looked a different team since the subs.

Second time I've seen someone say this lately, but if we drew every game then yes, it probably would keep us up.

How the fuck have we not scored there?

We need to remember that's a league where our youth LB (probably about 5th or 6th choice here if everyone was fit) is impressing. He probably was a gem for them. Hopefully Dolan injects more impetus for us.

It says something if Moran is an upgrade. Personally I think Ayari has shown good feet. He just seems to lack the brainpower needed for his role.

Aye but far too clumsy for it.

Chrisene's touch has been awful.

Gally seems to have forgotten what the offside rule is tonight.

So if he sold for say 42 million, we'd get a mighty 3 million extra. Woop woop.

A lot of talk about a knockdown price for Adam, and whilst I'm critical of the deal and think we could have got a bit more in the summer, and that he will go on to be worth a whole lot more in the future, I'm not sure we can really talk about the club record fee in this way. £22 million is more as less as much as could realistically be expected for a CM with only Championship experience. Unless you're a Jude Bellingham, who was a star at 17 and clearly a world class talent, and he only went for about £25 million about 4 seasons ago. I think we could have held out for more or less the same fee, and maybe by the summer we'd have been looking at about 26-28 million, but that's really about as high as it was ever going to go without us getting promoted. What's frustrating is that this is due to the market economics of us being a Championship club rather than the actual ability of the player. All he was short of was showing he could hack it in the Prem. He's already showing that and is probably already worth £30 million if the window opened tomorrow, and probably about £40 million by the summer. Give it another season and we could be talking about £60 million. The club better have worked a good sell-on clause into the deal. If not then we really have been low-balled.

Nearly said that myself when I posted, funnily enough. Don't think he quite fits the bill either though, comes inside a lot, doesn't really run by the touchline much compared to an out and out winger.

Wingers virtually don't exist these days anyway, in the traditional sense. It's all wide forwards, wide attackers or wide midfielders, and wing backs. I'm not sure I can say our squad actually possesses a single 'winger'.

It's becoming very hard to justify Gilsenan not at least making the bench. If they don't balls it up now, it will be 4 wins and a draw from the last 5 league games for the U21s. A massive improvement in form, in fact it's 13 of the 17 points they've earned all season, and Gilsenan seems to have been a key factor in it. As an aside, only 14 league games played, but 26 teams in this stupid inflated league they now have. I take it teams only play each other once then? Interesting to note that last season's clear champions, Man City, who won it by 13 points, sit rock bottom of the new league. They have 5 less points than the gap they won the league by last year! I think it's clear they no longer take it seriously now there's no relegation and have probably loaned out all their decent youngsters.

It'd be trying to argue against a far bigger bank balance and Champions League appearances for one of the biggest clubs in the world. Hanley had better luck with injuries but he was undeniably an inferior player to Jones.

For the 1 in 4 games he shows up, sure. He's been anonymous or a liability in the majority of his appearances so far. He goes through little patches of consistency though, but more patches of consistent crapness. Hoping he can establish true consistency at some point, because he does have quality, but I'm not optimistic on the back of a likely dispiriting spell at Wednesday and another injury. Adam Wharton was everything we were promised Buckley would be despite being much younger, a real blow to lose him.

I actually have more confidence in Garrett than Buckley right now, especially in a relegation fight. At least he doesn't go missing.

The second part of that sentence is why you probably shouldn't bother with the first part. Most of our lads are softer than Lorena Bobbitt's husband.

Surely not putting in a shift is the last thing Garrett can be accused of. Honestly, I'm confused by the flak Garrett has been getting. Admittedly, I've had to miss a lot of games this season due to working most Saturdays, but whenever I see Garrett play he is far better than people keep describing and his main shortcoming is he's impetuous.

Things can change. Grant Hanley was once considered a better prospect than Phil Jones.

Interesting that we are currently loaning in another 20 yr old left back who impressed in Scotland.

So Travis allegedly left because he wanted to play. He's not been doing much of that. As it stands, 2 appearances in 5 games (assuming he doesn't come off the bench tonight...Ipswich are pounding Millwall so they may well give him a run out). Both appearances were starts when he got there, lasted for 68 minutes then 61 minutes, and hasn't featured since. Along with Morsey back from injury, seems unlikely he's going to manage many minutes without more injuries. Ipswich better be paying the whole wage. Reckon he'd play more here than there if it were possible to recall outside a transfer window.

We haven't bothered having 3 keepers though. Happy with two shite ones. He's Wharton coming back (expected this Saturday) from being two players distant from our bench. Pointless signing.

Well, I hate losing against this lot at the best of times (which we are assuredly not in), ever since their arrogance during the Savage thing. Their wanker fans shouting 'who?' at every single sub like they have zero knowledge of this league cemented that feeling. And I hate losing to Mowbray's teams too. So, all in all a great evening.

That's got nothing to do with the point that the lad isn't good enough for our bench even with two players out injured (I forgot to mention Carter).

Yeh I wasn't optimistic when I saw the exact same team was starting a Tuesday match. Especially with JRC, Gally and Hedges not long back from injury.