Sorry to sound like nicko setting up a random deal out of the blue as a near certainty then making more mileage on it when "Shock horror" it doesn't happen but according to my friend who knows Hanley, he isn't coming back. I know not why but I'd be surprised if we were in the same ball park as him re: potential wages. Yet another dead end and more time wasted.

The fact he's crap might have something to do with it as well!

See that Man Ure are being linked in the Sunday Press with a £50 move for Mcginn who we were linked with 12 months ago before TM no doubt told him (like Bauer) that he wouldn't be a guaranteed starter and he'd have to dislodge the mighty Corry and Richie. You couldn't make it up. As far as the rumours concerning us go I'd be gutted if Raya was sold, think he'll turn out to be a top keeper and if he goes he'll no doubt be replaced by an "experienced" keeper like Steele who let's every shot the opposition take in. I'll also be disappointed if Gallagher comes in. He'll never be better than average imo and I can't for the life of me understand why we want to reunite the strike force that took us down, especially seeing as Graham is now three years older and has one foot planted firmly in the knackers yard. I'd rather stick with Brereton (in the correct position) than Gallagher. I think Brereton has raw potential, for me Gallagher doesn't have much about him at all. What you see is what you get with him. Lots of endeavour but not much quality. What's happened to all the bold talk about scouring Europe for players? Seems we can't sign anyone unless they've played for us before (Hanley, Gallagher) or played for Boro (Downing) plus all the others we've been linked with.

There was an article in the LT a week or two ago stating the aim was no major sales of the likes of Lenihan or Dack and 5 in. Downing has come in since then so that's 4 to go according to the stated objective. I don't necessarily believe the owners are the problem in terms of landing players, Mowbray wasn't wanting for support when he lashed out 7m on a player he then barely used last summer, nor when he bid 4m for Freeman, nor in January when I was told there was a very substantial fund available if the manager wanted it. TM has also said in the past that far from having to beg for money he's had to try and keep the owners in check, so is the reason we seem to have difficulty in landing players more down to the fact the manager doesn't really want to bring in anyone new and upset the core group as per his comment in the article Stuart posted that "the most important thing is to work hard with the players you've got". Of course, if we're no nearer promotion after 3 seasons in the Championship, then FFP will probably dictate that players have to be sold to avoid going into embargo but in the meantime for the next 2 seasons you'd like to think we'd have a bit of a go and not just sleepwalk into FFP whilst rambling on about long term plans and gradual improvement etc etc.

All this talk about starting elevens for next season and trying players in different positions out of the existing personnel reminds me of shuffling deckchairs around on the Titanic. We need quality injecting into our starting eleven, not 35 year old squad fillers or "ones for the future" who are then subsequently never given a chance on account of their age. Bare minimum of a centre half, central midfielder and main striker for me otherwise we will be relegation fodder. Shuffling players about in the hope that they'll perform better in an unaccustomed role than in their normal positions where they've been under performing won't hack it nor will the manager bemoaning how difficult it is to sign players which we had to put up with all last summer. I think the talk that the criticism the manager is getting is unfair is unfair in itself. No-one is saying he's a bad person but his job is to improve and move the team forward which he has patently failed to do over the last 12 months imo. We're not significantly better than two seasons ago when we were due to start the League 1 campaign imo. That's what he's being judged on.

Just waiting for Hanley to be unable to agree terms now then those who were saying how he would bes so much a better option than Bauer will then no doubt be saying "he's rubbish" "didn't want him anyway" "liability off the pitch" and "we've dodged a bullet there" etc etc. Last summer we seemingly drew a complete blank with all our main targets then started chucking telephone numbers about right at the end of the window at anyone who might still be available. Let's hope this window doesn't go the same way.

There's absolutely no evidence he can't either but as a free agent he represents a relatively cheap gamble. I'd be pleased with Hanley coming in if it happens but Bauer on a permanent deal sounds better than Hanley on loan to me. Even if his return were to be a success we'd be back to square one in 12 months time. If Hanley was being lined up permanently I'd be far happier.

What is mad is chasing a player for 12 months but not having the courage of your convictions to clinch the deal. If you're after a player, make sure it's someone you really want and have confidence in your judgement and be prepared to pay what is necessary to get the deal over the line. Don't fanny about half heartedly for 12 months fluttering your eyelashes at a player you don't really want simply because there's a slight chance you might land him on the cheap.

In actual transfer news, Hanley could be next in, a mate who knows him says he was in talks yesterday with the Club. Guess it will depend on whether they can agree on wages. Think he would be a good signing IF he was being brought in to go straight into the starting eleven. Not sure I'd want him on largish wages sat on the sidelines.

This is absolute madness. How are we ever going to persuade anyone half decent to join us if the deal is they're only going to be a squad player? And if the players any new targets apparently are going to be behind are so bloody good, how come we only finished 15th in the Championship last season? The more I hear from Mowbray, the less I like what I hear and the less I respect his point of view. His only concern appears to be protecting the interests of the players already here and he appears to have zero interest in actually trying to improve the starting eleven.

I'd look at that and say that if we were to lose Dack we'd have next to nothing as Graham and Downing are past it, Samuel isn't good enough, Armstrong is very inconsistent and Chapman and Rothwell can barely get a start. If we were to sign a new main striker who came off or if Brereton was given a proper chance down the middle and clicked and Rothwell and Chapman became mainstays and Dack stayed and Armstrong became more consistent I'd agree. Lot of it's buts and maybe's there though.

Problem is a Conway replacement was the absolute last thing we needed. Yes, it's probably an ally for Mowbray in the dressing room after losing his trusted lieutenant Conway. Yes, if we wanted to waste another wage on another player who is past his best after being fortunate in losing one off the wage bill, and further hinder the prospects of Chapman and Rothwell then he's theoretically a alightly sexier name. But for heaven's sake we need a spine of experienced Championship players at the peak of their powers in the 25 -29 year old age bracket who will come straight in and improve the first eleven. We needed that last summer and in January and we need it now. We don't particularly need any further youngsters bringing in who won't be given a chance on account of their age and we don't need any more 34 or 35 year olds hanging around the place collecting a wage because they're all round good eggs. When's Mowbray going to bring in what we actually need, if ever? Top class centre half, central midfielder and main striker required. Instead we get a nr 35 year old winger. To replace another 34 year old winger who shouldn't even have been here in the first place. It's an absolute joke.

Or C) None of the above? What next, Simon Garner? When we were linked with Downing I thought it was a mischievous wind up perpetrated by fans of rival Clubs. I can't stress how annoyed I am by this signing, we finally get one past it player off the wage bill giving us a bit more leeway and promptly replace him with another equally past it player in exactly the same position. It's almost as though Mowbray is sticking two fingers up at the fans.

Disgusted with this signing, we manage to finally get one completely past it winger off the books only to promptly replace him with another! Not renewed my season ticket yet and although I probably still will, if this is the level of dross we'll be bringing in, it's a major disincentive.

Hope so. If that one or two was actually more like six or seven we might have a chance of getting somewhere!

Get a grip everyone, you'd think it was Cristiano Ronaldo that was leaving. Was decent but not outstanding at his best but that was quite some time ago and he'sbeen very poor for 2 or three seasons at the least. We need better than he ever was if we're to entertain dreams of getting back into the Premier League at any point. Next.

Gallagher is bang average at best. Reed would be useful if Mowbray would actually play him in the middle rather than wasting his talents out wide but hypothetically sacrificing Dack to bring them in would be a seriously backwards move imo. That said even if we signed no-one for the next season or two we'd probably fall foul of FFP purely on the basis of our operating losses so blowing £7m on BB and not playing him, handing out new contracts like sweeties to players who should have been discarded and talk of slow burns and long term plans seems all the more baffling and negligent.

JFHC. There shouldn't even be a second's hesitation in discarding the first three. Can't see Rodwell wanting to stay for the amount of game time he's had this season. Downing is one I wouldn't mind us keeping as back up in an ideal world but if he's off then we need to look at bringing Wharton back into the fold and have him and Magloire challenging Lenihan and a new CH for the central defensive spots.

If we're serious about improving Graham needs to be at most a back up option off the bench next season. I suspect however that due to the manager's loyalty to the player and the fact that top strikers are horrendously expensive that's a change which won't be made and we'll attempt to make do and mend.

I agree with your proposed side for next season but I strongly disagree with your assertion that without additions the current squad would go neither up nor down and might improve. I think without significant strengthening we'd be strong favourites to go down. Absolute musts for me are new CH, new CM, new main striker, and we also need to avoid losing Travis by getting him signed up to a proper senior contract. If we get all that and the new additions are good enough we can probably hope to finish better than last season's 15th position. In an ideal world after that if we're really serious about improving we could probably do with a specialist left back, another quality winger/wide man and a back up keeper. So for me an absolute minimum of four players to come in who will go straight into the first eleven and improve it. Should have happened last summer but didn't. Anyone actually fancy Mowbray to do that this time round or will it be another summer of tinkering about around the edges "to help the ones we've got?"

Hair dressing quips aside, it will be an absolute joke if Conway gets any form of deal and only slightly less so if Mulgrew does as his form seemed to fall off the face of the earth very quickly indeed. As another poster said earlier, there is no point whatsoever keeping players around the Club for sentimental reasons on the off chance they'll get an odd 15 minutes here and there. I fear this is what will happen with Mowbray at the helm though. Would hope to see Leutwiler, Gladwin, Mulgrew and Conway being allowed to leave when their deals expire in the summer and wouldn't imagine Rodwell would want to hang around given his lack of game time this season. After that I'd also like to see the back of Bennett, Williams, Evans, Smallwood and Samuel and some serious quality being injected into the squad in their place. Getting these players off the wage bill might be another matter entirely though. Who'd want them? (Apart from Mowbray that is)

Looks to me that Nyambe is more than capable of bursting forward but was under instruction not to do so. We'll have to agree to disagree but criticising Nyambe's capabilities at RB when the vastly inferior Bennett has been in there is somewhat bizarre imo.

Don't agree Nyambe has had every chance this year, I think he's been very shabbily treated.

So in your view, 6 out of the 11 need replacing then? Perhaps that's why BRFCS was hyperventilating, we went on more than one multiple losing run, and there were several relegation threads!

Chapman is definitely good enough for me and properly handled with a manager who has faith in them Raya and Nyambe too. If they were top class might get away with (just) a CH, CM and CF although ideally other reinforcements are required as well. Even at that that's not to say it will be easy as top strikers are rare as hen's teeth and extremely expensive in themselves. I think to a large extent our success next season will hinge on how good the striker is we bring in to replace Graham who should be used sparingly as back up or from the bench.