RevidgeBlue

Yep. There's no incentive to come into the side and play well otherwise though.

We won 5-1 away tonight and scored 4 before half time. Don't care if it was Carlisle or Chelsea they were playing, those lads should now retain their places and TM should pick the same starting eleven until results dictate otherwise.

Will Tony have the testicular fortitude to go with this line up in the League or will we be back to Evans Smallwood Bennett and Graham labouring on his own up front I wonder?

That's a good looking line up. Wouldn't mind seeing that in the League.

Just logged on to the last page. Have no idea what everyone is arguing about. Guess I don't need to ask if we've signed anyone today. Lol.

Not by much. Edit: For 24k p.w. wages and a big loan fee there must surely be far better options somewhere across Europe.

Completely agree. They do say never go back and apart from anything else I really don't see the fascination in reuniting the strike force that got us relegated. They weren't the only reason we went down but it didn't quite work well enough, move on.

Sorry, despite all the smart arse comments about how people dissing Gallagher should be managing in the Prem he just isn't good enough for me no matter how you dress it up. If you're relying on him you're looking at bottom 5 or 6 at best imo.

Agreed Al. Certainly wouldn't start him up front as he isn't a striker but I don't understand the criticism of him as like the Millwall fan who posted on here Saturday night I thought he was our best player before he was hooked off. If you're trying to make things happen all the time and attempting difficult passes you will give the ball away a bit whereas if you're never trying to make anything happen and never pass the ball more than five yards you won't give the ball away much and your pass completion rate will look splendid in isolation but those sort of players are a waste of space for me. (Lowe, Evans etc).

Why? We fail to win Saturday and It's two or three points from three games which is a bit "meh". Does the next home game after that not then become a bit "must win"? Fail to win either or those two then you can't really expect to win the next game because it's an away game etc and all of a sudden you're looking at 5 games without a win and struggling. Every game becomes "must win" if you get a bit behind schedule.

We aren't going to be putting strings of wins together for fun like last season though so every single point is crucial in the battle to get to 50.

I may be wrong but in my view loans with an option or obligation to purchase are extremely rare so when TM casually dropped it into a presser the other week as if it were somehow the norm, it came across to me as an attempt to deflect attention away from how badly the permanent window was going rather than a genuine statement of intent. However because everyone was so desperate to sign someone people clung onto that particular comment like a drowning man finding a life raft. I wouldn't really expect anything other than out and out loans to come in during the loan window. Whether these will be the players we really need or just whoever has been made available on loan remains to be seen. I thought the need for a powerful striker with an eye for goal was never more apparent than yesterday and I was also thinking when Millwall were camped in their own eighteen yard area "God we could do with Chapman".

The last two seasons Graham has come back clearly unfit and hasn't got going until mid to end of November. Indeed I never thought he looked properly fit at any point during the relegation Sea so. We can't really afford that luxury this season with our lack of alternative options.

Yes can't argue with that, he did very well in CM when moved there last year. I think we have to try something a bit different moving forward. Evans and Smallwood in CM plus Bennett who is good at tackling back but who offers nothing offensively from wide positions and one up front (even if Graham gets fit) won't win us many home games imo.

Sure they used to say that about Jason Lowe and various other duff players over the years as well. "His best work goes un-noticed." ☺

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.