His decision making has certainly improved this season. It is not "woefully sub-par."

Some more cryptic made up nonsense.

Like with any of the recent media bits and pieces, its just a platform to say the same uncontested rubbish really. Need to communicate better, the board are really hurting when we lose, the abuse hurts and a clear disregard and ignorance from those in power at the club as to why we are so unhappy. Communication is not the key. Change is.

We do have a number that are. Tronstad, Travis, Brittain, Hyam, Batth, Beck and perhaps Dolan are. Point being, I would consider Ohashi to be a useful player to have around but I dont think hes quite shown enough to be confident in being our main man.

I also cant understand how people still sometimes justify players signing here with the premise that "oh well, they are only squad players." One of the main themes in recent season has been a strong start which has nosedived partly because our small squad has lacked the quality in depth to cope with a long season and player unavailability. Forshaw is a great example. Its all well and good making the odd cameo alongside Travis and Tronstad. When one or both of those were injured and he had to start, it was an example of how big the gap was between first choice and backup. Obviously we wont get players as squad players of that quality but its the gulf in difference of quality that is the issue. If we decide to have players like Forshaw and Hedges then we are accepting that we arent bothered about having a competitive and deep enough squad to cope.

When everyone is fit, Forshaw occasionally coming on as a third midfielder to help to manage a lead, not so bad. But when you start getting injuries and needing him to start games, hes not good enough. He shouldnt get a new deal. I dont think Ohashi is good enough to be the first choice striker for a top half Championship side, but I do think hes more of a striker than a number 10 and he is definitely a useful player to have around. Problem is, we wont sign a better striker to be first choice. Gueye I think is better off moving on. He doesnt really fit in with the rest of the team and needs a very specific way of playing. He doesnt offer much in the way of goal threat and recently has shown poor body language when he has come on as if he is annoyed.

I have not seen any suggestion that Cantwell is on anything like £25k a week. The probability of promotion is at most 5% so we cant be holding off on that anyway although it should have been sorted far earlier. But even if we got promoted, the natural step would be to go and buy players for the starting 11 and we could still have Dolan as part of the squad knowing that if we came back down which would be highly likely, he is a useful asset back at this level.

The situation with Eustace should never have got to that situation.

Would you be for or against renewing his deal?

Point being, why have we just left that offer for so long and not offered him improved terms before, ones that might be enough to keep him.

Why are we making our final contract offer "shortly." His contract has 2 months left, its just a token gesture.

Im not sure how 6 players can deserve to be in the top 3, but there you go. Hyam has had a good season. I know hes not the most popular player we have but hes played a key role in our strong defence and perhaps hasnt got the plaudits he deserves.

Again, "wants to test the market" is just parroting what has been put in the media. I suspect that if he had been offered a proper deal proactively then he would be here beyond the end of the season. If there is even a deal on the table its clearly nowhere near at market value. Similarly, all of our other key players are about to go into their final year and we havent even bothered trying yet to tie them down. The next contract news we will hear will be in the summer when we give another year or two to crap like Hedges and Forshaw who no one else will want.

Forshaw as well as Hedges? Jesus christ. Shows the ambition of the club.

The issue is, even if we attack from the start its not really our strength. If we are to win it perhaps is more likely to be from a tight game that we grind out built on a clean sheet.

Sadly I cant see them going even if we go up. Not to burst your bubble as I know otherwise the idea of promotion is not one that you like ie playing in the Premier League.

Me and Eddie may have interpreted it in slightly different ways, and neither of us are certain as to exactly what he meant. So I will reword, IF Gestede is having any say in player selections, then it is totally wrong. Also on the academy graduate target, I am pretty sure I read recently that the target is either 2,000 or 3,000 minutes per season by graduates. I have said before that I believe that it causes a huge conflict of interest by setting such a target, certainly if its seen as an important objective to meet. Its not my "issue" but my opinion that some of the things that our club does, things that are seemingly becoming widespread across football in this country are illogical. You have real difficulty in showing any critical faculty, you assume everything done by a football club must be right and refuse to even allow the thought to cross your mind that there may be something that you either dont agree with or think is wrong. You dont give actual reasons why they are for the betterment of football and specifically our club, you usually justify them with parroted management guff. As far as I am concerned, and I dont really care if other teams do these things, but the below points sum up my opinions contrary to how we actually do things: - styles of play should not be determined by anyone but the manager/head coach - selection shouldnt be in any way interfered with by anyone but the manager/head coach - arbitary targets for things like minutes for academy graduates shouldnt be seen as important objectives because they cause a conflict of interest - a player should only ever be signed with the full approval of the manager/head coach - the only factor in picking a manager/head coach should be who will accumulate the most points

You really are on full propaganda mode lately regarding the club.

In general. Although if our wage bill is the same as 5 or 6 years ago, its less because of inflation. I never mentioned money re Dolan. I just think he could get a better move considering hes only going to cost a small compensation fee due to our clubs incompetence again.

He definitely isnt better.

Not particularly relevant to Dolan but that tendency of our players moving on and their move not working out to their advantage has massively shrunk. Obviously you will find that our players in general are very rarely of a standard to establish themselves regularly in the Premier League but a few (Kaminski, Rothwell, Armstrong, Brereton, Szmodics etc) have at least experienced a season up there before then falling back to playing at genuine promotion contenders.

Dont you think Markanday is better?

He certainly is, but I was thinking whether its in this league or abroad, for at most nominal compensation, he could surely do better than Derby. They have such a poor squad.

As a free agent aside from some nominal compensation, many assume he will just go to Derby and that may be the case but you would think a better side would fancy him even if its not to play every game? He has certainly improved more this season than IMO any other in his development and I think has benefitted from the simplicity of playing from the right.

I mean more that the topics in general discussed and the subsequent reporting has such a big gap. It is not usually so long.