briansol

Worth a punt. Only contracted for year and a point to prove. Has obvious potential, question mark about the attitude but this will be a clean slate for him and bit of last chance saloon. If he has anything left about him this will be his chance to show it. A great manager and great dressing room might be a catalyst. Rich Sharpe thinks he is mostly considered a centre back option, which is not a bad idea. An athletic option that can play a bit would be useful when injuries/suspensions hit. Not sure how Downing will cope with the Championship.

Really looks like Lenihan. If another team had posted that you'd think he was off! Anichebe might as well bring his boots. Samuel's injury looked bad, so that's him out for a long spell. Armstrong looked more like sprained ankle, but at this rate we need two strikers.

Rothwell should replace Smallwood for me. Showed tonight what an excellent all-round player he is. Drove forward with the ball, great passing, great energy and got stuck in. The man mountain Nyambe is becoming a beast. Bailed out the defence on several occasions as well running the full pitch all night. Forgot to mention Evans as well. Probably the most consistent performer so far this season. Another all-action performance with energy and know how. Loved who he took a yellow for the team when Reading was about to break through.

yep 4 goals in 20. Very limited player who will do allright in League One hoofball. Had a spell here in Norway with Viking but was released after half a season.

Good point. I was thinking about Haaland when we appearantly bid 8 mill for Brereton regarding value for money. Haaland has just been confirmed to Red Bull Salzburg for a similar amount. Haaland is a beast at 1.92m with pace, strength and good touch. He's also also a year younger just turned 18. Score 9 in 16 in Norwegian top division this year, and just scored two this week when Molde wiped out Hibernian in Europe League. He's not going to be long at Salzburg as most top clubs in Europe is keeping tabs on him. Would've been a perfect signing for us, but not sure he would've choosen the Championship. Caulker is a good shout if his head is right.

Sorry, totally messed that up. Should've done my usual fact check and not gone by memory, which isn't that great.

You are right he did. I think he spent a small amount. He sold Rhodes and was left with scrapes. That resulted in the awful DJ Campbell deal, where he was snagged from Hull in the last minute in a rumoured 20k week deal.

Samuel is another proof that being a good footballer is 80% mental skills. He's got the physical attributes and technical skills but lacking the mental footballing skills. He lack awareness om his own position and others, which means he always uses two touches two much. Similar with his decision making, choosing to dribble, pass or layoff is erratic. Mental skills are very hard to train. Experience will improve them somewhat. Danny Graham is probably on the opposite scale of Samuel. He is slower, smaller, less technical but we all agree he is a better player. For awareness take a look at the second goal vs Ipswich where he send Williams through. I watched a summary of Dack's goals for last season and was impressed how often Graham layed off to him. (Also suprised that I think at least 4 of Dack's goals where headers)

Of course Rothwell has gone up in value. The basic law of transfers is that players in their last year of contract commands a lower fee than if being on a longer contract. His contract was expiring this summer. We also paid less than quoted in January. Armstrong on the other hand had 2 years left, so the length was probably not a factor. However 1.75 must be a very good deal now that I see clubs putting 8 million bids in for Brereton You would think Armstrong is at least worth half of that already.

Brereton offer upped to 8 millions according to this. Which would be equal to our record paid for Cole and Rhodes https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/7042192/blackburn-ben-brereton-offer-8m-nottingham-forest/?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SprnklrSUNOrganic&UTMX=Editorial:TheSunFootball:TwImageandlink:Statement:Sport

No doubt there will pressure. But he wouldn't be the 15 mill player wanted by Liverpool anymore. He would be the guy who took a sideways step in the Championship and started fresh. Wouldn't be expected to carry the team like Kevin Davies did when he came. Graham and Armstrong would share the responsibility and I can see Mowbray easing him into the team. Might be a good platform at Rovers with a young British squad, rather than the Wolves light thing happening at Forest.

We don't have. Those links are from 2017 when he burst onto the scene as 17 year old. Since then he has obviously played a lot of games but maybe not reached the heights promised. Probably the only reason we have some chance to pull it off. Could well be easier to reach his potential with less pressure the being a prodigy from the youth ranks.

If he was 17 he's probably gonna play for the U-18 to start with. Wouldn't take the supposed interest from big clubs too seriously. Quite common that foreign young talents in an age group have trials/training spells with English clubs. If he was that good he would being going elsewhere for a lot of money.

Depends if he is able to jump over the fence https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jan/21/steve-bruce-drops-aston-villa-ross-mccormack-missing-training

Mowbray is still mentioning wanting 4 players more in today. Says he it might not be 4, but that's what he wants to create competition. Pretty sure Gallagher is one of the loan targets. Rich Sharpe has indicated several time that he is one list.

Watched the second half and was quite impressed. Derby had some experienced players out there but the youngster played without fear. Very noteworthy was that they tried to play all the time, very few clearances even with 10 men. Probably more impressive as a team, than any single individual. Have to mention Grayson though who had really good distribution from the back as well as a good set piece taker. Quite similar to Mulgrew in that sense. FIscher in goal also looked good, fantastic save from Chris Martin right before the end. A few looks ready to go out on loan and play men's football. Fischer , Grayson, Hardcastle and Tomlinson could all do a job in League 2 at least. Maybe Mols as well, heard he did well in the first half.

Think Rich Sharpe has suggested an interest in him on several occasions. He also said he had been told there was nothing in the Wickham story.

Just found out that Deby is showing the match live for free if you sign up. https://www.dcfc.co.uk/fixtures/results/2018/08/13/u23-v-blackburn-rovers I'll take a look at the second half

Pilkington would barely be an upgrade on Conway, we should aim a bit higher. Isn't Tomlin just a fatter version of Dack with an attitude problem?

Yes I thought that was a bit off as well. Seemed defeated after the window and no longer confident of pulling off the loan/perm options he alluded to earlier.

Yeah, a bit too much last dance on the disco for my taste. Getting things done on the last day almost never happens, I would guess 90% of approaches fails in general. Hard to know from the outside, but it appears we waited too long for our first choices to become available. Mowbray is a proud man, maybe in this case he's been too proud. We'll see how the it goes with untill the end of the month. At this point I'm more concerned getting the players in where we lack, rather than being loans. Need to keep the ship afloat untill January. Expecting a new move for Bauer in January at least.

Agreed. The failure has been getting the ones that will come straight into the team. Davenport (injured) and Rothwell was buyed for potential. Only Palmer and Armstrong was expected to challenge for a starting place which means we are we are still light on improving the core of the team. I think Mowbray also realises that it will be very hard to bring in that quality now when there is little chance to replace them for the selling club. Premier League surplus, but then you have the wage issue since even reserves there are paid over the top Championship wages. Foreign players are probably better since most windows closes 31 August, but then you really need your scouting in order.

Seem to remember last season that the manager was getting a budget for each transfer window. Waggott claimed that they had a very healthy budget for the January window which they didn't spend too much of. Bell, Downing and probably some loan fees for Armstrong and Payne. Rich Sharpe says that Mowbray doesn't like to overpay for players and will rather wait. Rothwell and Bell being two examples of this. They tried for Bell last summer ended up waiting untill January to bring him for under half the amount quoted in the summer. Similar story with Rothwell. I'm sure there will be money in January, though you would expect if we have we have some distant chance of a play-off that will really help towards a big budget

Very much agree, saved me from writing a review I agree with Bennett should replace Smallwood in the center. Palmer will be an excellent addition. So calm with the ball and can easily beat any defender with tricks and pace. He was though guilty of 3-4 through ball where we lost posession.

Very interesting in many ways and quite a few myths debunked as you say. Main takeaways for me: - The money was always there, and much more than imagined. I thought 3-5, but budget must have been about 10 mill+ given the players bought and bids. - Fair play to Venky's. They have obviously provided the money and responsibility to the manager to spend them without running the process through them. - Wages seems to be our biggest obstacle. We can spend big on transfer fees, but averages wages. - Mowbray has aimed very high on targets and failed. The way he speaks about the Rothwell and Davenport transfers suggest he was aiming his main money on far bigger players: “With due respect to Joe Rothwell and Jacob Davenport, they are a few hundred grand who will develop in to top players I’m sure. “But we tried to add some more ready players that would help us be at the top end of the table.” - Mowbray seems reluctant to spend on a stop-gap player, even if we might be lacking in options. So we will probably see some loans.