The disparity between us and Luton/Charlton etc last season is nowhere near the disparity between us and Bournemouth though. Either way, the performances and losses against Wigan, Luton, Millwall and Barnsley at the end of last season were completely unacceptable. We have to be finding a way to win those sort of matches this season.

Bournemouth’s squad value is 7-8x ours. Lerma cost them more than our whole squad is worth. Despite all that we dominated most of the game with 5 players from our Academy featuring. I don’t think anyone was happy to lose that game in the end. But surely you can take some heart from the performance against an opponent that was far superior on paper.

Dolan looks better than Bournemouth's whole team.

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Last season when we had a settled back four of Bell, Tosin, Lenihan and Nyambe we only lost a single game against Fulham (1-0). Bell was much improved in that period and far superior to Williams who is an awful LB, which is why he’s himself asked to not be considered for that position anymore. Williams has shown himself to be a capable CB when he’s played there for us. Can you name a single game he was truly poor at CB for us? That’s not me saying that Bell and Williams are good enough for a promotion chasing club. But they are more than capable of doing a job to get results in this league. Wharton/Magloire/Carter look really promising but Magloire/Carter have already shown they have major mistakes in them at this level and Wharton is unproven.

No.

The players we have gone for (Ayala and Kipre) are on wages that are within our budget, so they are seen as reasonable targets. What can you do though if another club comes in and offers double or triple what you’re offering in terms of wages? The player will obviously choose the better deal and we are unwilling to up our offer due to the salary caps. I don’t think it’s really a mystery.

Our expected back four for our 1st game this season is going to be Bell, Williams, Lenihan and Nyambe. That got me wondering how many times that foursome has played together in the past 3 seasons. The games they played in (I’ve only included games where they played as a back four for the entirety of the match): 18/19 Season Derby (A) 0-0 D Stoke City (A) 2-3 W Norwich City (H) 0-1 L Bolton (H) 2-0 W 19/20 Season Cardiff (H) 0-0 D Birmingham (H) 1-1 D So only 1 loss in 6 games and 3 clean sheets as well. Not bad!

So you want us to get rid of Lenihan and Nyambe?

Is it actually confirmed how much Brereton cost in the end? Articles at the time stated "up to 7m", but our accounts show 5.2m was spent on transfers that season, which would have included Armstrong, Brereton, Rothwell, Davenport and Chapman.

Agree with you there... but it’s hard to predict the impact loan players may have on the season. I don’t think we signed Tosin, Walton and Cunningham on loan last season to float around mid table. Unfortunately Cunningham’s stint with the club got cut short and Walton proved to be a dud. Both players could have had the same impact on our season as Tosin did though, in which case we would likely have made the playoffs. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a short term loan deal if it helps you get out of this league, as its likely that we have to reassess the whole squad again once we’re in the PL anyway. The long term signings we’ve made in recent times have been smart. Gallagher, Brereton, Chapman, Davenport, Rothwell, Armstrong, Dack - they’ve all signed on modest wages and are still young and have potential to develop significantly. Together with the players coming through our academy, we have a really good group of players developing and learning together. If we do make it to the PL, all those players will be easy enough to loan out or sell on for reasonable fees if they can’t cut it at the top level. If we don’t make it to the PL, we’re at a lower risk level because we don’t have players sitting on crazy wages and we can just try again next season.

Most of the clubs buying players have either: a.) Sold players for big money last season or in the current window, or b.) Have been promoted to the Championship and need to make signings to compete, or c.) Have been relegated to the Championship and still have Sky money to spend

How did Chapman not score there?? Sums him up ...

Williams deserves a mention today... he has been stopping everything today. Really good performance from him.

Magloire is ridiculously fast. He's done really well today. We obviously still need another CB, but we have some good prospects coming through in Wharton, Carter and Magloire.

Good chance for JRC there.. he's going to score a few this season I feel. Always getting himself into scoring positions. We look well up for it right now.

Someone seriously needs to run some throw-in training sessions with the team. We look clueless and lose it every time.

We've looked pretty decent. Can't really fault anyone's performance - Armstrong and Brereton not involved enough so far, but that's about it. Williams passing has been off on a few occasions, but otherwise he's looked solid. All the youngsters have done well!

Great chance there for Armstrong. We are looking okay after some nervous moments in the first few minutes.

The players we do hear about in the press are the ones that agents are trying to drum up interest for. I have no doubt that the only reason Kipre’s name had become public because his agent was using us to drive up the price with West Brom. You can already tell which links are real and which are just agents trying to get bang for their buck.

What happened with that Slovenian midfielder that was linked? Jaka Bijol? Any chance that it’s him?

Lenihan wasn’t absent though. In the lead up to the goal he was marking Meite, while Carter was marking Baldock. As the cross is about to come in the two strikers switch sides and both our centre backs have to change who they’re tracking. I don’t think there was anything wrong with their marking or positioning... it was a good cross and finish. The issue for me is that Nyambe was in no man’s land. Split between whether to close down Obita or mark McCleary. Travis and Holtby are nowhere to be seen, which leaves both Nyambe and Lenihan scrambling to track 2 targets. Travis was really poor that game and his absence left Lenihan and Carter to deal with 3 central attackers. He was also responsible for a goal about 4 minutes later as well. Besides all that, Walton should have saved it

Sounds like another club’s message board I know....

He played more games for us than he did at Fulham last season. So it’s rubbish that Mowbray didn’t think he was good enough for our first team. He’s gone to Fulham for £8mil, so there’s no way we could have afforded such a fee.

FAQs on the website suggest overseas fans can't watch Carabao Cup games via iFollow. Is there no other alternative?