RevidgeBlue

Wow - didn't realise that. On checking it appears he made 18 Championship appearances for Forest in the 2016/17 season and 35 in the 2017/18. Not sure how many of those were starts or off thIe bench but I find it completely bizarre that the lad is apparently good enough to play for Forest regularly n the Championship at ages 17 and 18, but not apparently judged good enough for us at exactly the same level at age 19. Especially when we've agreed to pay £7m for him!

My gut feeling after the end of the transfer window was that it was a poor window but with the benefit of hindsight I'm not sure whether it was a poor window as I initially thought or a decent window but with the manager for some unknown reason refusing to show any faith in the signings he made. For me only Reed so far can be considered an unqualified success. And he isn't our player. Of the rest: Palmer: I like the look of him (in midfield) but seemingly the manager doesn't. Rothwell: As above but with the proviso that the manager seems even less inclined to pick him than Palmer. Davenport: What the hell has happened to him? Rodwell: Somewhat predictably has barely featured Brereton: Paid £7m for him and TM refuses to give the poor lad a start or play him in his natural position. Armstrong: Very disappointing this season but again like Brereton probably needs to be playing down the middle. I do think all of the above players have talent, however at the moment we're not getting much out of any of them bar Reed so unless that changes it has to go down as a poor window for me.

This comes across as a really tacky plea to try and boost disappointing half ST sales to me. It seemed as though there was a really healthy uptake of half ST sales last season but then again we were involved in an exciting promotion battle. This year the likeliehood is that it will be mid table security at best and imo the entertainment levels at Ewood this season have been poor, (Leeds and Brentford apart) so I would imagine that for the neutral or floating fan a half season ticket is a somewhat harder sell than at the same time last year.

We might have lost the game because we were out of it after ten minutes on Saturday, hence why I said the players need to be up for it from the start on Wednesday. However imo the reason we couldn't get back into it on Saturday and the reason we struggled away at West Brom was because we lined up without a natural striker. Not sure why you can't see that most basic of points.

If it is that I'd expect us to get absolutely battered and I wouldn't have thought there would be much point turning up. 8 defensive players plus Dack with Graham completely isolated. You might as well replace Dack for Travis on the basis that playing the former would be too expansive!

Timid Tony doesn't need seem to need much encouragement to err too far on the side of caution so I hope he isn't reading that pile of old guff. If we're going to teams at a similar level to us hoping to park the bus and at best scrape a 0-0 we'll soon start plummeting down the table. I agree with Mercer on this, after a horror show like Saturday the players need to be let off the leash and given the chance to redeem themselves and show what they can do. It shouldn't be too difficult, make sure they're up for it from the start, play players in their correct positions and get our best attacking players out onto the pitch.

Yup, that would be my preference although Id probably go Smallwood over Rodwell. Either way it needs shaking up a bit. I would give Dack one more chance but I wouldn't object if we did start with 2 strikers up front in Graham and Brereton either. I've often wondered why TM won't try that to give the forward men more support, even usually going like for like, replacing one striker for another when we're chasing a game.

I find that explanation somewhat baffling. On first sight Brereton looks a big powerful lad and there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason from his stature and physique why he couldn't be starting on his own up top. I find it bizarre that any Championship Club would spend £7m on a player and not attempt to make them the main man. When all other alternatives are out and midfielders are put there in preference it becomes incomprehensible. I'm starting to wonder if BB wasn't a Mowbray signing and TM is leaving him out deliberately to make a point to the owners that he's the boss. Either way I feel very sorry for Brereton who in his last 3 cameo appearances out of position has managed to contribute 2 assists and a decent finish arguably wrongly chalked out for offside. If he isn't the answer up front after he's played there, so be it. But give the lad a chance for heaven's sake.

Probably the fact Williams is shocking at left back and opposing players run in behind him at will. Bell is by no means perfect but by far the better of the two imo. Unfortunately Williams appears to be one of TM's favourites and he can't seem to bear to leave him out of the side.

I'd say we are still much the same as last year. An ordinary set of players then there is Dack. If he's on his game he can make a fairly ordinary bunch appear better than they are. If he's off it, which he has been for a while, we usually look hopeless. I'd also disagree re: Palmer. I think potentially he looks a very handy player indeed, unfortunately TM appears unable or unwilling to place much faith in any of his summer signings apart from Reed.

Not sure the quality of the signings is so much of an issue per se, the problem for me is that TM views them as merely bit part additions to the squad that won promotion, and is too loyal to the llikes of Graham, Conway, Bennett, Evans etc. There's no room for loyalty in football and if the manager feels the team can be improved by bringing in someone else then that's what should happen like when King Kenny sacrificed Speedie for Shearer. What we ireally needed were two or three big signings to go straight into and improve the team and replace the likes of Graham, Evans Bennett etc instead of a bit of messing about around the edges to add to the squad depth. That said our current position isn't terrible but I hope that isn't as good as it gets this season and that we don't start to slide backwards at a rate of knots.

Not entirely surprised by this performance and result as imo the manager has been picking the erong starting line up for a while and been attempting to put square pegs in round holes, We've also been playing fairly poorly on the whole but scraping results up until today. That can't go on forever. I'm not sure if Dack thinks he's moving in January but he's been really poor for a couple of months and looks overweight to me. Armstrong has been generally very disappointing this season and would no doubt prefer to play down the middle. Brereton also needs a chance playing down the middle and will never progress until some faith is shown in him and he gets said chance. Williams is an absolute liability when playing at LB and I've no idea what the manager sees in him in that position. The team desperately lacks pace and width on either flank and the bizarre experiment of starting without an out and out striker be it Dack or Palmer simply doesn't work. Apart from that it wasn't too bad......?

Good post. However I think Nyambe would need tying down to a new big long term deal before he was worth megabucks. Not sure what his contractual situation is but if he hasn't had a suitable upgrade recently it should be a priority. Same applies to Raya.

I would have thought our hands would be tied on this to some extent by the fact a release clause was probably written into his latest contract. If there was such a clause, hopefully we were prudent enough to pitch it at an absolute minimum of £20m and hopefully higher. If not we can demand telephone numbers should there be any interest as philip says.

Bit harsh on TM. Whilst there is the possibility TM could become a more experenced version of Gary Bowyer when he was here and whilst I have some sympathy with Mercer's view that he might have kept up up had he not gone too negative, and despite the fact he is too cautious and pragmatic for my likiing, overall he has done a great job and appears to be a man of genuine integritty which was exactly what we needed after Lambert and Coyle. Have to agree with Parson on Lambert, in the absence of anything to the contrary I remain to be convinced he wasn't simply in it fot himself to boost his bank balance for 6 months. Who takes a job and inserts a get out clause? At the time of his appointment the squad was at tipping point with some players getting over the hill and the others we wanted to keep having their contracts running down. We needed someone to come in for the long term and stick around and sort the playing squad out, not someone who buggered off as soon as results didn't go his way. Whilst not wanting to be an apologist for Coyle who was clearly the wrong appointment and who couldnt set up a defence, he had his work cut out for him by Lambert who left the squad in a right state and without a single striker under contract and the owners who sold Hanley and Duffy immediately after his arrival.. Anyone would have found it a challenge.

How can anyone say he's not ready? He hasn't been given an opportunity to play down the middle yet so no-one knows. If he had been played there and failed to imprress then that view might have some validity.

Graham should have been hooked yesterday well before he may or may not have picked up an injury.

Yes I thought Rothwell was poor when he came on as well, possibly too eager to impress, which is maybe understandable given the lack of opportunity he has had despite looking impressive on the rare occasions he has featured.

Frustrating result yesterday but an infinitely better performance than the shocker against QPR and over the two games four points is probably a fair return. Not sure what Brereton has to do to earn a start. In the last two games he has been brought on too late for a couple of ten minute cameos, but still created a couple of goals and generally looked threatening and direct even stuck out of position on the flank. By way of contrast Graham has had the odd really good game this season but nore often than not has looked completely past it. The roles of Brereton and Graham need to be reversed imo, Brereton needs to be starting and Graham could come on to try and hold the ball up etc and take the pressure off us in the last 20 when hopefully we have a lead to protect. Dack has also been completely off the boil for the last four or five games as well and I didn't think he was any better yesterday again either until he scored then it was like a light had been switched on and he looked a completely different player for the final few minutes. Let's hope that's the end of his barren spell. Elsewhere I thought Nyambe was sensational when he came on and showed what we've been missing in his absence. Smallwood for me had one of his best games of the season beforr being sacrificed and I thought Palmer and Bell looked promising although the latter let himelf down with poor delivery after doing really well to get himself into dangerous positions on a number of areas. Overall at the moment we look more likely to finish mid table than in the play off positions for me, we just aren't quite there yet. That's not terrible after being promoted but you feel it could be even better if if Brereton came in up front and were to be a hit and were to bring in at least one wide genuine man in in January and Tony iwere to be a bit more adventurous with his selections and let the players off the leash for 90 minutes as opposed to 45 minutes per match.

Couldn't disagree more, for me Evans still offers absolutely nothing and the partnership of him and Smallwood simply doesn't work for home games, far too ponderous and negative. Whilst Palmer does tend to give the ball away a bit at least he injects a bit of urgency and is always attempting to do something imaginative and worthwhile with the ball as opposed to merely abdicating responsibilitty by passing the ball two yards sideways. I thought we only improved a bit when he came on yesterday. Generally I'm quite surprised by the overall reaction, I think the bare result masks the fact it was a dire performance and for the second week in a row an overly cautious team selection by the manager. Can't complain too much whilst the results are still coming but I'm not sure if we can continue to play as we have been doing and get results in the long run.

Only read the last page of debate and can't be bothered scrolling through every comment since the match finished but I was at the Hawthorns and for what it's worth I thought TM got the starting line up completely wrong, neither did I agree with the withdrawal of Palmer who I thought was having a very good game. I also thought he was bailed out by Reed putting in a superlative performance second half. But we just about got away with it so onwards and upwards. On another note it must be extremely worrying for Brereton that TM would rather play Dack out of position as a lone striker rather than give him a chance.

"The jury has been out" on Lambert for so long I think most of them will have expired due to natural causes by now. Very poor record since leaving Norwich in 2012.

Fair enough, wasn't aware of that. Always a bit wary of players dictating a manager's departure though.

He's had two very quiet games the last two imo. Hope the speculation isn't turning his head a bit. Arguably he'd look a lot better the better the side he was in but performances apart you can't really quibble with his goal scoring return this term at a higher level especially considering he isn't an out and out striker.

How does that fraud Lambert keep getting gigs? He just seems to sail merrily from job to job and the poor performance of his teams always seems to be attributed to someone else. If the Ipswich fans didnt like the style of play under McCarthy, they're going to be sadly disappointed now. Also expect there to be some sort of escape clause in Lambert's contract allowing him to walk out and make himself available should the Real Madrid position become vacant. Lol. On Hurst, I don't support Ipswich but looking in from the outside it seems to me that they should have treated his appointment as a long term project. McCarthy had been there that long it was bound to take time for Hurst to fully implement his ideas and style of play. Especially with little or no investment in the team. I'd have thought he would have needed two to three transfer windows ideally. Man Ure are still struggling relatively speaking several managers down the line from Ferguson and they have all the money in the world to spend on the best players.