RevidgeBlue

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.

Yep, seemingly identical in mindset to Gary Bowyer. I always commented that we didn't turn up at Ewood until 4p.m. when he was manager. I really don't understand all this "stay in the game until half time" rollocks. Surely it's twice as difficult to win the game over 45 mins than 90?

God yes.

Preferably both.

Yes. I thought it was the funniest thing ever when the Dingles signed Hart. I laughed so hard. And true to expectation they looked nailed on for relegation with him in the side, and only picked up once he was axed. So to summarise: 1) He's (extremely) crap and 2 ) Is on an extortionate wage What could go wrong? Actually if there is a grain of truth in it and he is even under any sort of consideration then it tends to show Mowbray's thinking for next season that he would prefer a rubbish "experienced" player to a good young one.

It would appear from the outside that there's been a falling out between Raya and TM, otherwise why would he be completely frozen out for the last four games after being persisted with all season? I actually thought he'd picked his game up somewhat after being singled out for public criticism but the next news he's dropped. Very odd. I echo the sentiments above, when you see the howlers being made week in week out by De Gea and various other keepers costing 50m or 70m I really don't think Raya is that far away from being a top class keeper. If he is demoted or allowed to leave it will be a monumental blunder imo.

Definitely "go" for me. Not the man to take us forward. We've some promising young talent but we've only seen the merest glimpses of ithat even though the season has been a dead rubber since the start of February. When push comes to shove and it actually matters again they'l be jettisoned once more in favour of inferior older players.

We won't know how good a season this has been until twelve months hence. Personally I think it's been a pretty disastrous season in the sense we're no further forward than this time last year and if TM remains I expect a relegation struggle or us to go down next season. However if he changes his spots, ditches the old guard, gives youth a proper chance and supplements that with signings that will go straight into and improve the first eleven who knows?

Missed today's game due to working overnight. Hope those that went to the game enjoyed it, personally Im glad to see the back of this season I've rarely enjoyed a campaign less. The momentum derived from winning promotion last season got us off to a good start after that it was truly turgid stuff. Mowbray definitely isn't the man to take us forward imo and I doubt he will be replaced so on that basis I'm not optimistic at all going forward. Massive summer ahead, huge clear out of the old guard needed and major reconstruction of the side needed with quality additions. We can't afford to tinker about on the edges of the squad like we did last summer.

As an existing season ticket holder I don't EXPECT any perks or advantages. It seems to be the way of the world, entice new customers in with cheap deals whilst the loyalty of existing customers is ignored. "Brand new customers only" as the very funny Building Society ad went a few years back. However in an ideal world, it would be nice if loyalty could be rewarded. What if for example you got £25 off your ST up to a maximum of 4 years so that in the 5th year you got £100 off the price? Would that help build the fan base and keep them? I don't know if the figures stack up practically on that though, if you got 10,000 people doing that you're a cool 1m p.a. down after 4 years. It might reduce the rate of "natural churn" i.e. the rate at which people drop off slightly though.

×1000. I'd prefer we got a proper goalkeeping coach in and brought the best out of Raya to either of them but yes, you're right about Hart. One of the worst keepers I've ever seen at professional level. In fact I'd go so far as to say my ST will remain unused and go to waste if we sign him.