AspRover

200k per week, per reports, you're a bit out of date. Anyone got our total wage bill to hand?

Something along the lines of? Kam Travis Ayala Phillips Pickering Morton Wharton Hedges Dack Dolan BBD Struggling to keep up with the formation changes - Got to say that for all it hasn't worked so far JDT isn't afraid of shuffling the pack to try and find something that does a job. Good god do we need reinforcements though.

I'd be happy with caulker as an 'and' signed - ie. At the end of the window you get a report that reads 'Blackburn rovers have been busy in the transfer window with the late signings of X,y,z and also picking up veteran journeyman Caulker on a free as defensive cover...' If he's the headline then I withold comment on the grounds the mods have enough to be getting on with

My main takeaways from the game - The talk of our youngsters not being professional standard is off the mark. Even the players that honestly I don't think many of us expect to make it into our first team at this point (Annesley, JRC etc) look fine Vs league 2 opposition, and could plausibly end up at a higher level than that. The younger players that we do have some hopes for (A. Wharton, vale etc) looked to outclass a decent league 2 outfit. Our youth setup is doing good work. They won't all end up with us, but I'd be surprised if many of them dropped into non league unless they have attitude problems. From the highlights I didn't recognise Dack for the shape he's got himself into. Misread his shirt number and thought he has one of the kids in midfield, initially thought 'amazing first touch but might be a bit lightweight'. Lovely game from him though, needs to be playing.

The five minute warning is dated August 1st

Like, Sancho was good for Dortmund right? I'm not inventing that? Goal involvement (scoring or assist) better than every other game if memory serves. Not sure id prefer him to Hedges at the moment. Edit - tell you what Raya will be having a giggle at de gea too. Spain's no. 1...

Gives Scott a break I guess, does JDT really see Pickering as a centre back though? Two games in a row, unless Edun is playing central.

BBC have got the formation hilariously wrong - Dack at left back, Edun right wing!

I pretty much want us to line up with two Whartons and a Morton just for the commentary. Are there any Hortons or Nortons we can sign?

In general I agree, but it would have been fun if they'd both got sent off

We almost had a double, Nyambe was brought on as a 90th minute sub and still contrived to get booked...

28% possession per BBC stats and a comfortable win. We had their number from the start.

two hours of football into the season, new manager, new lineup, haven't conceded yet - maybe give them a couple of games to get going eh?

No subs on the horizon? Five available, even to allow for fitness surely we need some?

It'll be very interesting to see the subs - who and when will be quite telling for JDTs management style I think. All of us could probably have a fair stab at predicting what TM would have done from this position.

A few high press sides have had that one bloke though - usually some maestro well into his 30s to pull the strings, but a talented 20 something with no knees might fit the bill. Surround Dack with other players to do the running for him and it could work.

It's arguable he isn't a huge upgrade on nyambe, but we don't have nyambe anymore so to be honest I'll settle for not an obvious downgrade and grumble into my beer. At least this guy will be under contract for a few years. Too many gaps to plug, need to get on to the next one.

Gallagher wasn't really playing on the wing though to be honest, it was a very narrow system but also almost asymmetrical - BBD spent a fair bit of time out wide and even tracking back a bit to help out the beleaguered Pickering, but Gallagher was more central for more of the game and stayed forward with Travis providing the extra cover for Carter from the midfield. Difficult to put it on paper as a formation, but seemed tactically quite flexible. Relied on Travis covering a lot of ground though and I think he's the only player we've got who can really play that role, so that's a new concern.

I doubt JDT had heard of him before taking over, probably looked at the stats for where he has been played previously and is running with it. With a bit of luck he'll work out that Joe isn't a full back after a couple of games.

This is presumably not far off the highest standard of opposition that Carter and Vale have faced in their careers right? And Carter out of position too, they've done fine. Don't particularly want Carter to be first choice right back for the entire season, but I'll take him in the squad no probs.

Kaminski Carter Ayala Wharton Pickering Travis Buckley Dolan Gallagher Vale Diaz That about right? not much width in that formation, pretty attacking though and a good start!

Maybe we measured him as a kid and noone has bothered to update it?

I guess the hope is that GB is compiling a shortlist for all positions, sounding out fees and wages behind the scenes, whilst JDT is taking a good look at literally every player contracted to the club and working out who he thinks is up to the job. Once he's worked it out he goes to GB and says 'right, we need one of these, two of these, one of these, a big one of these who can head a ball really well...' etc. At which point GB pulls out the shortlist(s) and we sign a bunch of new players in quite a short space of time. I don't think it's likely to happen, but that would be a scenario where the difference in Head Coach/DOF approach would make sense?

I'd believe he was on £600 a week when he first signed, but he signed a new contract pretty quickly after breaking into the first team didn't he? Must be on more, probably still not a lot, but surely.

Gallaghers goal return (ie. 7-8 goals a season) has been pretty consistent for the last few seasons considering he's mostly played out of position. I'd love to see a breakdown of his goals/game at centre forward vs his goals/game out on the right, but I didn't have the presence of mind to track that. As a first choice striker not particularly good, but if we end up playing with one up front and either keep BBD (unlikely) or bring in a new striker as first choice then use SG as the back up striker I'll bet that coming off the bench or as rotation he'll get a similar number of minutes at #9. If he bags 7-8 goals as a back up striker that's an ok return. For comparison most of the top half of the championship had their second best goalscorers got 10 or fewer this season just gone, the exception I think being Forest who had players with 18 and 12. So not amazing, doubly so not as one of our highest earners, but not awful. If we can't get decent money for him he'll do a job. We need players in before we start getting rid of what we have.