If we played France at wembley, you would expect to win or draw. In France, draw or lose. Either team capable of beating the other. Same with Belgium and Croatia. Anybodies tournament this. Belgium and France have the strongest squads but first eleven are pretty evenly matched.

Didn't Mowbray say that the owners were enthusiastic and he had to reign them in as he wanted to build sensibly. In which case, he shouldn't be frustrated as the money was apparently there if he wanted it! Allegedly.

Unfortunately to get a good player with our budget, it is probably a risk we have to take. Players with pace like Chapman will probably only be available 2/3 of the time but tend to impact games more than your Conways etc. Look at Josh King. He had injury issues here but seems to have shaken them off since joining Bournemouth so not always indicative of their future career prospects. Personally, from what I saw of Chapman, he is the nearest to Duff that I've seen -and that lad was a joy to watch.

I thought Bennett was one of our best midfield performers. We need to add some height and pace still.

Athletic? Nah. If you have the talent you don't need the muscles. Modric is phenomenal - yet physically is built like your nan. That said, Tomlinson is nowhere near that level?

Certainly at home.

Mowbray has said we are waiting for prices to 'lower'. The Waggot interview mentioned out of contract players. Put the 2 together and we clearly don't have a competitive Championship budget. Yes we will sign players but Mowbray will have to unearth some gems if we are to do anything but battle relegation.

You know Jack

Better team spirit, definitely. Better calibre of player than those relegated? ...not convinced yet. We have a spine of Raya, Mulgrew, Dack and Graham. Two of those are in the twighlight of their careers. We will make additional signings; whether they will be good enough is the debate. To bring in at least 5 players of sufficient quality will cost. The noises suggest we don't have sufficient funds to compete. Mediocre signings will see us struggle. For me, loan signings that you can't make permanent area waste of time. If we had signed Chapman, Armstrong and Payne last year. Two or three signings this year would ensure a good season. As it is, our squad is weaker than the league one squad of last year. It needs 3 players of equal quality to those above plus another two or three to improve on that league one squad.

Not missing the point. That 'starting place', without serious investment in 5 or 6 champ quality players, is relegation fodder.

There seems to be a rumour that Samuel is quick. Have we signed a new player? The lad is faster than most of our squad but I would imagine Bell and Nyambe are comfortably quicker. An express train he is not.

Nail on head. Last season we played well in patches. Normally a couple of 20 minute spells or one half. It was usually enough at that level but won't be this year.

Either of those line ups is relegation fodder. We need something. Preferably pace out wide and up top to hit teams on the counter. Just too many pedestrian players in there. Sounds like we are keeping our powder dry until clubs are prepared to accept less than market value for their players...

No sign of that amount being invested in new personnel to date.

Couple of big Lads required. Team small as it is.

Is he quick?

Makes sense. He would be expensive by our standards. Shame though - as Newcastle seem to want to let him go. One of those who only needs one good season at champ level for his value to double/treble. I fear a lot of decent players will be out of our reach. I expect most signings will come from league 1. There's some decent ones there tbh but even some of those won't be cheap - like that Charlton CB.

You would expect that if we were serious about buying Armstrong permanently, then that deal could have been done. More time passes, less likely that becomes.

Pretty certain Shrews had a flyer - winning their first 7 games. Set them up well for the season. Hit the ground running is where we want to be - not scrabbling round like previous seasons.

You missed out calamity Steele

6 good quality signings then great. Not convinced Mowbray has worked out who he actually wants to sign though. I imagine, as we are no longer the big fish in a little pond, he is finding it a lot harder to attract better players -without paying more than he wants to.

Here in lies the rub. The squad that finished the season (including Payne, a fit Chapman and Armstrong) is stronger than the one that came down but those loanees are no longer here and there are no guarantees they will be back. Lets be honest, I've seen some optimistic fees banded about for Armstrong but realistically, if he was our player, would you let him go for less than £3 million plus add ons? Chapman, World Cup honours for England under 20s. Can't imagine a tribunal fee would be low. We got £400k for Mahoney and he hasn't the pedigree of Chapman. Jack Payne is another who would likely command a 7 figure fee. On top of that, we definitely need another 3 first team players. Everyone knows we need to add height and pace. As others have said, Graham is a decent proposition for 1 year. Conway isn't unless it is very low wages. Our Talisman is Dack. The first contract renewal announced should have been his. Keep the positive momentum going. Last year was a pivotal one, could we stop the rot? We did and gained some momentum and belief back. This season is massive. We could end up with a competitive side that may bloody a few noses and have us sniffing around the playoffs - like the Rovers of old or, conversely, we could see Dack refuse to sign, Lennihan run his contract down and the players we were all enthused about signing, drift off to teams ready to spend the money. Followed by a relegation battle. Hoping for the former - as I've renewed! I'd love to trust Mowbray to deliver on his pre season musings, but the cynic in me isn't convinced he will get the finances. Final point. From a marketing perspective, you would want to announce the 'big' signings/news after the early bird offer has closed. That way any exciting signings will negate the negativity of the price hike!

I know we don't venkys bash any more. Lots of talk about a decent budget, doing business early etc. However, maybe the funds aren't in place yet?... Wouldn't be the first time. I still don't trust Venkys to follow through on anything positive!

Bolton seem to think they're getting the little Turk Otzumer. Decent player to have on the bench that lad.

A motivated Graham is probably worth a 2 year deal. His game doesn't rely on pace. However, given the likelihood of him being one of our top earners, perhaps it will be a financial choice between Graham or Armstrong permanently (who I assume will be on decent money at Newcastle)?