I thought his debut was vs Blythe Spartans in the cup? Am I remembering wrong? Either way somehow I forget just how big the bloke was until I see him celebrating with the rest of the team there... What I wouldn't give for a young samba in the current side!

Hang on, he's got Benno playing left and right back...

Probably not... as long as they do the business. In all honestly I have no idea what the given value of a footballer at any level is these days. Fees get waved around, I shrug, sure; why wouldn't a player in the championship I've never heard of be worth £25m...

I guess devils advocate it's probably more like £8m and if it ends up being 12 they'll have done ok for the club... Doesn't look good on paper does it?

No idea what he did in real life but Oscar Ustari was a beast on football manager back in the day...

People wrote off Robinson I guess, and he did OK for us for a few years. ? (Clutching at straws to the point of near sarcasm)

I mean, second line of that BBC article... 'Max Gradel's volley and Ryan Nyambe's own goal gave the Elephants a 2-0 lead before Joslin Kamatuka pulled a goal back for Namibia.' I guess one of those where they gave it to the attacker in the end

Scored an own goal against the Ivory Coast apparently... Good, get them out of his system before the season starts! ?

Re Raya, I'd prefer to keep him but if he is going to be sold then I want the replacement keeper in first please and thankyou. Rate him or not he's the best we've got and I don't want a situation where we sell him and then flail around desperately trying to get a new keeper in as the window drags on and targets A,B and C turn us down or head elsewhere before a panic buy on deadline day. If we're getting a new keeper he'll need a full pre-season with this defence. They aren't of the quality for someone to just slot right in seamlessly.

IF nothing changes whatsoever between now and the close of the transfer window... The GK situation is the same, with the slight caveat that with a full championship season under his belt we should expect (I stress the should) Raya to have improved a bit. Verdict: the same The defence is the same, again we should expect the likes of Nyambe to have improved a bit but conversely Mulgrew is in decline. Verdict: the same. Midfield - Downing replaces conway, perhaps slight improvement (maybe), we've lost Reed (worse off), but hopefully Rothwell actually being in the first team from the start is a positive over last season and Davenport looked good at the end of last season, Chapman should be coming in. Expect Travis to have improved too. Verdict: similar but could genuinely be an improvement. Strikers - Best striker in Graham is in decline, but had a decent season. Supporting strikers the same, we have no evidence to say whether they have improved or declined. Verdict: slightly worse. So currently I'd hedge a similar finish to last season, possibly slightly worse as I think other teams are strengthening, but I don't think we are significantly weaker than last season. Everything hinges on the transfer window. Sign even a couple of players that genuinely improve the starting 11 and it could be enough for a significantly better finish. Sell a couple of our better players (Dack, Lenihan, Raya who regardless of what you think of him is our best keeper) without good replacements and we could be going backwards FAST. This is a knife edge window.

To be fair slightly self defeating that, watch a game or two - just accept it as football, the standards are getting so much higher than they used to be. I wanted to give it a fair shake so watched the first few games... and then just kept watching. I must have seen 80% of the games by now. It's good football. Honestly the quality involved in this years tournament is higher than I've ever seen in the womens game across the park, particularly goalkeeping, and I've found some of the matches a lot more entertaining than some of the dross we've had to sit through following rovers for the last few seasons.

Chapman on for Evans - Rothwell / Davenport pairing in the middle now?

Its such a tight league, I recon there's a good chance that there might only be a handful of points between, say, 6th and 15th (where we've spent most of the season so far). Picking up a couple of wins rather than draws, or conceding a last minute equaliser in again literally two or three games might be the difference between the play-offs and a bottom half finish. I'll hedge with just outside the playoffs on the showing up until now, but I wouldn't want to put money on anything.

Off the top of my head, do away with penalties in cup games, play extra time in ten minute segments until a team wins at the end of one of the 10 mins (I.e. if 2:2 at 90 mins play ten minutes, nobody scores play another ten minutes, both teams score play another ten etc...) BUT add an extra football after each ten minute slot.

I was having a conversation with my old man before the Bristol game where I said that in the next four games - Bristol, Villa, Derby and Stoke - I would be happy with a return of four points, as I thought that this was on paper as tough a run of games as we were likely to face all season. In hindsight we should have got three points at villa, which would make this a moot point, but we're either going to end up with 2, 3 or 5. 2 or 3 would be underwhelming, 5 would have exceeded my expectations. It is interesting to me that Mowbray (whom I generally rate) seems to be aiming for the single point rather than trying for the three. In the context of a four game run, three points doesn't feel very different to two, so I'd rather we went more attacking. I guess it all adds up over the course of a season and he's taking a longer approach. What would anyone else have taken over those four games?

Actually, just watched the highlights and he was well at fault for their goal. Didn't seem so bad at the time.

Re. Caddis - do I want him in the starting 11? No. Did today show that having him as a reserve right back as insurance against an injury crisis might not be the catastrophe some have made it out to be (myself included)? Actually probably yes. He surprised me and had a genuinely decent game, albeit against lower league opposition.

Yeah, I mean I can only echo that - when I look back at the relegated squad essentially three transfer windows ago where I was unhappy with basically every position to the squad now... Good options in every position and most of them under 25.

Been mulling this one over a bit. Come to the conclusion that I'm OK with Signing Rodwell - simple reason that we don't need to rely on him. We have solid players in his position(s) so if he's rubbish he doesn't trouble the starting 11 and we aren't weakened. Also, I want to start at least one televised game with a central midfield pairing of Rothwell and Rodwell, just for the commentary.

Assuming he is on a cheap deal. I'm not even sure what a cheap deal is any more to be honest. If he's in the lower half of the earners at the club, has been promised a decent contract if he performs and if he doesn't we can ship him out at the end of the season then there's comparatively very little risk. But if he's in any way talked his way into a decent wage and that stops us getting in a body in a position we are actually short then it's a bad bit of business. Weirdly the fact that he was once a talent, only 27, twice capped for England, had a couple of (at the time) big-ish money transfers makes it kind of seem worse because the media will talk it up like its a marquee signing for us, rather than the cheap gamble we have to hope it is. I'm sure there have been players who have essentially fallen out with a club and been transformed after a transfer. Not sure I can think of many though...

Cheers, my bad really - I meant how are the players fitting in to the 451 with the subs?

whats the formation (roughly)?

I'd say that this window we did the acceptable bare minimum. We didn't weaken the squad, tying certain players down to longer contracts will be of great benefit one way or the other and I'm cautiously optimistic about the few players we did bring in. No more than that though. Not a disaster - it's easy to imagine a worse window (selling Mulgrew or Lenihan without adequate replacements etc.) - but it'd be a stretch to say that it was a particularly good one.

Regarding the Palmer miss, I kinda always think that if that kind of thing happens once its a case of 'at least he got in the right place at the right time'. I'll start to worry if he's missing those game in game out without scoring but for now, on his debut with plenty of expectations, I'll give him the benefit.

People said the same about Chelsea, under the management of bright up and coming Mourinho and backed by Abramovic's seemingly bottomless money pit, they looked like they could win everything for the next ten years. Didn't really happen. (I mean they won quite a bit, but so did others).