Hughes can set up a team to be pragmatic and hard to beat whilst pinching goals the other end but also letting them off the leash against the right opposition along with a good counter attack, it was all based from a core style of being hard to beat though. Say all you want about him at top level but given the same as what TM has had to work with the past couple of years i'd expect him to have a more solid looking team to build on now. Mowbray came into a club destined for relegation and with a thrown together crap pool of defenders and he's never altered that at all in terms of astute signings just relied on the same ones and the youth coming through to which he added Bell.

It'll be tough to find those extra now obviously but how much do you think was committed to in summer on Downing, Johnson and Gallagher ? They aren't all coming here for half their heft previous pay packets i can guarantee it.

Maybe got wind of Rovers trying to get Hanley in and didn't fancy being on the wrong end of him in training.

Houghton would certainly fit the bill but he'll be well coveted and probably end up at Huddersfield or similar. Yet again i'm convinced certain people involved at Rovers will be happy to plod then dismantle the squad again whilst also hoping to double money on the big signings. Middlemen and their motives still worry me. It's genuinely bizarre why any manager would try and build a team from front to back using up big money whilst knowing and acknowledging he has one of the weakest defences in the league. That's before we start on the keeper situation or Mulgrew, both trying to be replaced by young loanees or a coverted plodding lower level left back. Second summer in succession they've invested big money in the wrong area of the team and even that doesn't look like reaping any rewards yet. Something as always under Venkys just doesn't add up at all.

Lower level Hodgson i did say but to be honest i struggle to agree certainly at top level he was awful but like a few others he's more suited to the smaller less expectant jobs.

To be honest i've always seen him more of a lower league Roy Hodgson the way he over thinks and over cooks things to the point it never really works, how expects so many players to be multi positional and how he doesn't expect having so many of them on at once could offer anything but an unbalanced team. Chuck in the players he signings for not much do ok and those he pays big money for or lavishes good short term contracts on turn out pointless. Then add in the nice guy conduct every interview on sounbites fans want to hear that unlike Kean or Coyle and some others comes across as deep football speak rather than verbal diarrhea but in the end still turns out mostly to be nonsense after a while.

The good signing relatively cheap of Dack and his dazzling but unreliable form since has clouded a lot of judgement where TM is concerned. Other words he's pulled him out of the shit many times but that kind of thing runs out eventually when a manager can't squeeze what's needed out of them more consistently.

He's been signed because he's Tonys pal from oop the Boro and needed a well paid localish gig so Mowbray will shoehorn him in wherever and whenever there's no plan to it. Utter pointless waste of big wages.

Another raging dinosaur.

No thanks

I'd say we'll soon be entering the Evans and Smallwood zone again....

We can recover from bad starts but i don't think there'll be any fairy tales this season it'll be a long hard slog with the excuses rolling thick and fast. Mowbray has form for wheels coming off after a decent season or two and its been clear why for a while not just two games this season. Very poor planning to go along with the tepid tactics and tombola selections we've become used to.

We are truly on the verge of madness......

Only in the head of someone looking to sugar coat it whilst in reality it'll have been nothing like that.

We've finally got an alleged decent left back therefore 'Amari' should be on the bench hoping and training to win the place back he's lost through plainly not being good enough at this level. That's how it's done by successful teams Tony ffs!

Windows shut, good ones are kept, newbies are here so game one time to show some mettle from dugout to pitch. Season starts today COYB

Policing itself is one thing but running itself on the pitch is another, probably harks back to old school stuff i remember Souness having Flitcroft and Short as his lieutenants in there but i doubt they had much say in selections and tactics like these lot seemed to have.

Mowfray very much comes across as the affiable type who makes rods for his own back but to be fair after a while he does react we've seen it before. My concern is given who/when Mulgrew was brought in why did he seem to end up weilding so much power over the team ? He always had a touch of 'big time' about him on the pitch something i touched on after the first 2 games of the league 1 season but he really knuckled down after that, once Mowbray ( or him ) had altered tactics.... As a manager gets more experienced he should get more ruthless really anybody looking for an easy ride is knackered if they can't run their own dressing room when things go difficult.

The majority of them will be on the 10-15k bracket with a few exceptions either way the football staff wage bill speaks for itself. He is right about it being a huge potential weight off the wage bill eventually but sadly it doesn't work like that as to replace like for like will cost the same and better will cost more obviously. Good job there is some youth to come in but again you can't fill half a team with it too quickly at this level or it'll be down a league again. Also factor in how TM & co work they'll be a few who get new ones for another year or so i'd wager it's all part of the stability line.

No mate way off the mark, way off trust me.

My god who's paying wages Scunthorpe ???? You could more or less double the majority of those we are a Championship club shelling out about 15 mil per year in wages.

Yep good back up which is what he should've been here from last Jan then there could have been a parting of ways planned for summer and the no 1 priority recruitment of a decent replacement. Shambolic and very odd.

We should be able to 'deal' in facts by then ?

Bingo, hole in one, 147 and 9 darter ? Just the kind thing this silly club would attempt though.

Daft question, ask again at Christmas...