I sort of agree with you on the young centre backs, especially Wharton, but you could equally use that argument for Fisher/Eastham/Hilton.

You really don't rate Fisher/Hilton/Eastham then if you think none are good enough to be a number two? As regards Phillips we must rate him to a certain degree or we wouldn't be in for him in the first place. If he's the man we really want I'd say pay the asking price, if we think there's someone better available, walk away. If push came to shove I'd rather pay decent money for a reliable keeper and get a LB in on loan and rely on Wharton/Carter/Magloire than spend money at LB and CB but only get another loanee keeper in.

Isn't that the very point he's making though? Some Clubs have made additions, some haven't ,but it's irrelevant the level of business other clubs may or may not have done. We only need to worry about ourselves. We have glaring gaps in the starting eleven and to be fair, other than very tenuous speculation, there's no evidence of anything imminent happening in the form of serious interest or concrete offers going in etc.

Bloody hell chaddy calm down, no-one is accusing you of anything. In your reply to JHRover you seemed to be suggesting contrary to his opinion that the reason we might not go in for Phillips was that we might CHOOSE not to pay in excess of a million for a player rather than us being simply unable to afford that. You seemed content with that stance (if that's what the Club is doing) and also seemed quite content with the concept of the Boro lad coming in so before you clarified exactly where you stood it was unclear whether you were advocating the Boro lad as a number one choice. I think you need to stop getting so aereated about subjective matters of opinion. For what it's worth I can't see any merit whatsoever in bringing the lad in as either a number one or number two. If Warnock doesn't want him he's unlikely to be what we need as a first choice and if it was as a number two we already have three lads of a similar sort of age and I'd far rather they got the chance.

You appeared to be trying to defend the position of not being willing to pay 1m ish for this lad because he is down to the last 12 months of his contract. Unless you think we can afford to wait 12 months and will still be in pole position to secure him at that point I can't see the argument. If he's the man you really want, pay the money. If he isn't then you shouldn't really be in for him in the first place and should look elsewhere. Of course, I and a few others don't think we have 1m to spend without sales. On the other hand there are claims the new budget is reasonable so we'll have to wait and see. The overall point remains that regardless of budget there must surely be better options in the wide world of football than falling back on Mowbray's default option of returning to Boro (and possibly HSH) .

You obviously missed the point I was trying to make before completely. It doesn't matter whether X has made 20 appearances and Y is still waiting for his chance. It's ability that matters. The fact X has played 20 times doesn't make him a better player. Walton has plenty of experience but no talent and will always be a terrible keeper.

Just playing devil's advocate but why does Hilton need to be loaned out to get some first team football? If he's good enough to play elsewhere, why can't he play here? I'd make the same argument for Wharton as well. I can't see the point in loaning out or selling our own youngsters so we can pay more to bring in generally substandard players from elsewhere. (Tosin being an obvious exception)

We can't afford to wait another 12 months for a decent keeper. As far as this particular player is concerned, I haven't seen him play but he seems fairly highly rated and it may be that 1m is a bargain price for him entirely due to his contractual situation. As always you're waiting to see which way the wind is blowing on any particular topic and backing the Club's apparent position. If we did an apparent U turn and signed this lad for £1.5m tomorrow you'd be hailing it as a brilliant move!

The fact he's played some games at this level doesn't necessarily make him any better than Fisher, if by chance we'd had injuries in that position like Boro and been forced to play Fisher or had simply opted to give him a try out because Walton was so poor, would you still say this Boro lad was a much better option? The fact he's played a few games doesn't mean he's the answer any more than the view that Fisher is not because he hasn't yet been handed his chance. It's like saying a crap older keeper is the answer because they have "experience". It's nonsense.

What a bloody joke. Nothing changes, Mowbray doesn't seem able to find anyone unless they've played for him before, played for Middlesbrough before, or both - (Chapman)

Gallagher, Brereton bargain basement at 12m?

Unbelievable that 34.11% were in favour of signing him at any point. Completely talentless. You have to query the quality of our scouting when the best they can come up with is Walton. Seems pretty obvious we never watched him play and simply picked him from a list of players provided by agents and wrongly assumed that because he was on the books at Brighton he must have been ok.

Yes, a quality keeper is our top priority, I'd be reasonably happy if there were no major sales and we only brought in a keeper who was actually half decent.

Wasn't the owners fault Mowbray fell out with and scapegoated Raya, sold him for peanuts, wasted the proceeds on an abysmal forward, then found securing a permanent replacement was going to be a lot more difficult than he had anticipated!

You don't have to confirm or deny but I'd me more inclined to think that if such an offer has been received it would be more likely to be someone trying to nick Dack on the cheap due to his injury.

Hypothetically I'd say £10m was a very reasonable offer for Armstrong, he's a fairly in and out player who tends not to influence games on an off day. A fully fit Dack would be a different matter, I'd value him at at least £20m. That doesn't alter the fact that as things stand we'd be absolutely goosed if either were sold and in footballing terms they shouldn't be sold. You wouldn't trust the manager to reinvest the proceeds wisely and you'd suspect that in Armstrong's case he'd go on to do even better under another manager.

One of my favourite players in my early days of watching the Club. Wonderfully gifted player even if he often had to swivel round 180 degrees to get the ball onto his favoured foot. I used to have a picture on my bedroom wall of him dribbling with the ball and an opposition player on his knees in the background looking in wonderment at how Meccy had managed to take it round him. Also remember seeing us playing Chelsea in the Championship c1976 against an 18 year old Ray "Butch" Wilkins and thinking how I'd much rather have Metcalfe. Of course in recent years you'd be more likely to see him out and about locally enjoying a few beers and laughs with the likes of David Bradford who used to run Brownhill Post Office. You would never get that today with today's multimillionaire players who aren't actually fit to place his boots. RIP Stuart.

No potential transfer news then?

31 I think, quite a bit younger. Have to admit we have far more pressing priorities though.

We "improved" by three points yes. One result, either way, hardly evidence of massive improvement. Don't know what you want me to say to that really, even if a similar marginal rate of improvement in the points tally could be guaranteed each season it would take another four or five seasons before we even broke into the play offs.

Must be nothing going on transfer wise if we're reduced to bickering about the merits or otherwise of the owners for the gazillionth time. Apologies if this has already been discussed but would Chris Martin who has been released by Derby be any good for us? Or is he out of our League wages wise/ the striking equivalent of Bradley Johnson here for one last pay day/not someone we need with Dack/Armstrong/ Brereton/ Gallagher already on the books?

I'm not completely against you on the ownership issue but on the pitch we aren't "steadily improving" though. A negligible increase in the points tally is being used to mask the glaring deficiencies appearing in the squad. We finished nowhere the first season back after promotion from League 1 and we finished nowhere last season. Surely after first season consolidation you'd expect a significant improvement as a matter of course? We didn't see that, we just saw the same disappointing level of performance as the season before which is deeply dispiriting.

Do stop talking rubbish. If you're going to start quoting random examples which suit your argument, how about Ollie Watkins £1.8m 25 goals? Personally I think Gallagher is absolutely useless but whether I'm right or wrong he only scored 4 goals this season which is completely unacceptable by any yardstick and whether or not he was in his preferred position centrally or utilised more from a wider position.

That's the feeling I'm getting in my water as well, albeit with absolutely nothing definitive to back it up. Hope I'm completely wrong.

I posted last night what I would have done, it seems extremely obvious to me - get people signed up on direct debit at a lower rate commensurate with watching the early part of the season on I follow (say half the rate of a normal season ticket) and adjust the payments back to a normal rate once fans are allowed back in the ground. We're probably one of a relatively small number of Clubs who shouldn't have to worry too much in the sense that more or less everyone who wants a ST should still be able to get one even with restricted capacity so I really can't see why we haven't rolled out some sort of scheme. It would have provided an element of cashflow and I think there is a real danger the longer people go without hearing anything , they'll lose interest and not bother renewing. Even if you signed people up for a pound a month initially while nothing is happening, they're committed for later on when things get back to near normality and have to take positive action to cancel if they're not happy with the price or what's on offer. Even that would be better than doing nothing and leaving things up in the air indefinitely wondering whether anyone will eventually come back.