If we all thought like that we'd be dead before we achieve anything. I think we should be aiming for a season where we rarely have to look over our shoulders as a minimum.

I'd say on the evidence of the performances of Palmer and Rothwell today and Bennett last season and with Travis available we already have the personnel at the Club to shake it up a bit in CM. It's just that Evans and Smallwood together is a really dull and lacklustre combination. I'd still take Smallwood over Evans though. I'm so disappointed with Evans every time he goes out. He looks like he's playing at 50% all the time.

We badly need a decent striker, thought Graham looked overweight and miles off the pace today. Strange substitution of Palmer, thought he was arguably our best performer at the point he was brought off. In my opinion the formation of Evans and Smallwood in midfield combined with Graham on his own up top is way too negative at home, TM needs to be a lot braver going forward as we need to pick up as many points as we can at home. Bennett is a real conundrum, did well at times tackling back today but his attacking output and delivery from wide areas was as always atrocious. Not worth his place unless he's in central midfield for me. Need that first win.

Wouldn't be surprised if TM was a bit peed off given that going off his own rather Ill judged comment we only managed to bring in one player (Armstrong) off our "C" list. Chapman with a view to a permanent deal and Abraham on loan please. Let's salvage the situation.

I think we "need" to win tomorrow, it would take the pressure of and give us a really solid start. Conversely the longer we go without the first win the more the pressure builds. Coincidentally Allardyce was interviewed on Talksport yesterday morning and was asked about the prospects for the promoted teams in the Premiership. He said he'd done his research when he was at Bolton etc and in his view the key to survival for promoted Clubs was putting as many points on the board as possible during the first ten games. He said wherever he'd been that they had more points than games during that period They'd been comfortable. Whenever They'd started with seven or eight points from the first ten They'd only survived in the last couple of games of the Sea son.

Do we not need to win our home fames? If we start welcoming draws at home like we did before Gary Bowyer was sacked we'll be in big trouble. As TM said a week or two ago the match day squad virtually picks itself. Wouldn t be surprised if we see the same starting eleven as against Ipswich with Armstrong on the bench. If we'd have beaten Ipswich a point wouldn't have been the end of the world but the failure to hang on means we need a win on Saturday imo.

I would have thought anyone expecting the loan market to be our salvation will be sadly disappointed. Essentially It's a pool of players either Clubs Don't want or young lads with hardly any senior experience. As has been said many times before, ok for putting the finishing touches to your business but not for forming the core part of it. Still as gutted as I am about the window, that's my last word on it, nothing we can do about it now. All we can do is get behind the team and hope.

Disastrous window for me to date. Imo we needed 2 strikers 2 wingers and a big nasty CB with experience at Championship level. We've brought in one of the five in Armstrong. Even by the Club's own admission it must go down as a disappointing window. We were told all summer after Rothwell and Davenport came in that we were looking to bring in 4 more, 2 on permanent deals and 2 on loan so by that yardstick we're a player short already. TM also spoke at that point of bringing in some Championship experience and that hasn't happened either. I'm also really annoyed that we've let Wharton go out on loan and have not replaced him. So we'll probably have to spend money and waste one of our loan slots bringi g in a young CB on loan to errrr......replace the young CB we let go out on Loan. Genius! There are four players we need to cryogenically freeze and wrap in cotton wool and hope they stay injury free this season, Lenihan, Mulgrew, Dack and Graham. Injuries to any of those players for any length of time and we'll be goosed. Maybe we can salvage the situation slightly in the loan window. Let's hope so.

Spot on.

So how many Clubs allow their better players out on loan? Edit: It's a bit like someone coming up to us and saying "Look lads we've had a bit of a *** window so could you do us a favour and let us have Bradley Dack on loan?" They'd get told where to go. Even the V's would want a galloping great fee for him as an absolute minimum.

It's 3 years before you have to worry about any potential FFP implications. You could have bought and sold a promising player for a huge profit in that time and you have to establish yourself in the division first and foremost before you start worrying about FFP.

Not sure what to make of these bids of £4m and £5m allegedly going in 24 hours and 1 hour before the end of the window respectively. Certainly in respect of the second one, there's no possible way to get the deal done in time from a logistical point of view and the first one would have been a hell of a push to come out with a bid out of the blue, get the selling Club to accept, do medicals and get the deal done within 24 hours so I wouldn't say either alleged bid was evidence we had that sort of money to spend. If we did have that sort of money to spend we should have got our business done early and landed our targets like you say. Not the "Head of Recruitment'"s finest hour.

Even more important Dack has a completely injury free season imo.

Yes I'm delighted we're not risking another transfer ban so we can sit there and not sign the players we want in future windows as well! I hope you and I Ossy Dave will be just as happy we didn't overspend if we get relegated and we're waving goodbye to the Championship. We might not go down but we're taking a huge gamble on us being good enough.

I'm not sure how "try before you buy" deals work, are you automatically obliged to purchase at the end of the loan period or do either party have the option to pull out? These sort of arrangements haven't worked too well for us in the past. D.J. Campbell and Barney both came in on loan and were garbage yet we still mysteriously signed them and surprise surprise they were both garbage after signing permanently as well.

We'll have to see whrther it's good enough won't we Parson. Sorry, this "the market is inflated beyond belief" guff that has been coming out of the Club all close season is absolute rubbish. The market is what it is. Prices aren't just temporarily inflated this summer then going to return to a lower level thereafter, they're going to continue to rise at least in the short to medium term.

and we didn't get the players in we needed despite the fact we've had all summer to try to do so. Bottom 4/5 squad.

That would seem fair comment. I still think it looks as though we misjudged the market completely initially, went back to Venky's for more funding and we've been floundering around at the last minute trying to get people in.

Not going to sink to your level and resort to hurling insults but it is not a ridiculous comparison at all. I'm merely stating facts. You Don't like it because it doesn't suit your argument.

I'd rather go big money on a striker and bring in a midfielder on loan if deemed necessary. Agree on Chapman.

We've spent around £2.5m so far. £1.75m on Armstrong up front and small fees for Rothwell and Davenport. I wasn't sure we were going to bring in Armstrong granted but at the start of the summer I'd have said we probably needed to lay out about £6m primarily in the forward and wide positions to make us competitive. Maybe we will by 5p.m. tomorrow.

Just on the midfield, if we were thinking of maybe playing a 3-5-2 then arguably we'd have Smallwood, Evans, Whittingham, Rothwell, Davenport, Palmer, Bennett, Conway, Bell, Travis, Tomlinson, Gladwin Hart and any new signings competing for a midfield slot! Way overstocked in that area already. Whether the quality is there is another matter entirely and we'll only find that out as the season unfolds.

Ooo you bitch...... Perhaps we should revisit this conversation when we've spent another £5m or so!

Don't really understand the sudden love in for Gallagher tbh. He's not good enough imo, you know what You're going to get off him, plenty of honest endeavour but no real presence, either in the air or as a target man, plenty of missed chances and a modest return of around 5 -10 League goals. I d hope we had someone better in our sights.

You're easily pleased. My ideal window would be bringing in Maguire, De Bruyne, Salah and Lukaku on top of what we've already got. Still, there's always the January window......