I dont agree with the idea of targets that graduates should play x minutes in general. Nothing like that shouls be a target as it causes conflict in the sole purpose of picking a team every week that is best suited to winning that game. Of course but as evident in the season prior, we cant guarantee the fitness of any player so you need 2 players for every position. Travis got a bad injury and it left a huge hole. 4 players supplemented by youngsters who may be ready now, may be ready at a later date and may never be ready seems reasonable to me. As it stands we look light.

Why is that the alternative?! There is never any middle ground.

It isn't, especially at Championship level. Take last season, we finished 8th but far closer than in recent years to the play offs and we were right in with a shout and it took a collapse to miss out. Did that come as the culmination of a slow build? Not really, we sold our best player, lost a number of other important ones and had no reinvestment but in a poor league, sometimes things click into place, a couple of really good loans, a quality freebie, a new formation, a new manager, a sudden breakthough star, it can be one or a number of these factors. I can't abide by writing seasons off. And if that is what we are supposedly doing, surely you would be against ANY loans this season if it is purely a development one? Not withstanding that Morton is presumably seen as better than the kids we have which is logic that I can understand. Thankfully all of the rhetoric coming from the manager and players seems to continue with the goal of aiming for the top 6. We are spending more money than last summer so why this would be the point of a written off development season makes no sense anyway. Look at Luton, Barnsley and Huddersfield, none of their success seasons necessarily followed a slow build. It shouldn't be about building towards the end of a cycle. It should be underpinning that we have the academy running with individual players (not batches out of necessity) pushing into the first team as and when they are good enough, of constantly looking to develop and to potentially profit on assets, all continuous but with the constant seasonal aim of the top 6. We will always be somewhat reliant on the loan market unfortunately, it wasn't something he chose to do because he preferred it. He hasn't, my post was in response to the poster who had mentioned slow builds, not the manager.

If you think that the problems started a year ago at United then you must have been living in a cave prior.

It's the centre of midfield that we look really light in, not the more attacking roles. If Travis ever doesn't play, who is putting a tackle in?

Slow builds again, the same things Mowbray used to say and get lambasted for! This league as much as any doesn't allow for slow builds. Most teams have a high playing staff turnover each season and we as much as anyone are reliant on the loan market and also find that our better players quickly become impossible to renew the contracts of financially. We cannot just write off this season, the aim should again be the top 6, which as much as it would be exceeding general expectations based on resources etc is definitely not impossible, as Luton, Huddersfield and Barnsley have proved in recent years. The stuff about a Man City like war chest and using the word "expecting" promotion is taking the argument to extremes that nobody has demanded, a straw man argument. I don't get this desire to promote numerous academy graduates for immediate involvement all at once to plug gaps, its unrealistic and its not going to lead to winning matches because some won't make it. For example in midfield, I felt that we lacked quality last season beyond the main 2 but even then, Johnson v Boro and QPR and Davenport v Sheff United were called upon against decent opposition and stepped up.

Considering how poor their other attacking options are, they would be crazy to pay Ronaldo off.

A lot of business talk but 5th considering how much they spent last season was poor and I would suggest that a similar failing to get the top 4 after another summer of huge spending would leave him at the job centre.

I don't feel like kids football is strong enough a barometer to judge the potential success of a young player at senior level, especially with immediate effect. But my point has never been about the individuals, it is about the expectation that a number come through at once, usually out of necessity. I have never doubted the quality of the individuals, but as with basically every youth team, some may well come through, some will tumble into obscurity, and even of those that will come through, they won't all be ready NOW, purely forced out of necessity. Say if Wharton and Phillips are the two that eventually come through, they might need a bit more development to do so. No need to rush it. If I had said x y and z youngsters aren't good enough, you would have a point but I never have. The focus seems to be simply to equal the quality of squad last season but surely the onus is to better it. I would try and get what I consider to be enough first teamers without considering the young lads, so we are covered prudently regardless of if and when they breakthrough, and allow any that are good enough to supplement it. It's a long old slog of a season and especially with 5 subs available, we can't afford to take risks not signing players. Just to clarify, just because the manager does something does not mean that it is automatically right or that our opinions have to align with it. We have both said that we should sign another midfielder, I don't think we will and to me, we would look very threadbare, with no improvement on an area to which we was already light of quality last year. Take Hull away, one absentee in Travis and we looked all over the place, I think if and when he misses any games this year, it could happen again.

The thing is, the benchmark is always to revert to being "as good" as last season. I personally don't think that we were strong enough in central midfield last season, and got lucky with injuries/suspensions. Surely the aim is to be better than last season?

You'd drop Dack from the squad entirely?!

Great post. If a young player as an individual is deemed to be good enough then he will break through either way, every summer with this one particularly bad, we have this thing where people say we don't need to replace x number of senior departees because our young players will all simultaneously step up. That R number is a load of nonsense. If you start measuring targets like that, there becomes a very real chance of that objective conflicting with that of winning football matches.

Arsenal also have spent crazy money in recent years so Arteta is lucky to seemingly have total security in his job.

One drawback could be that there may be a 19th man who usually is on the fringes of the first team but equally becomes rusty as he is around the first team squad on matchdays and not topping up with the reserves.

I imagine one of our attackers will be left out altogether this weekend because there are space for 4 in the starting 11 and you are probably over-doing it by having more than 3 on the game. You would imagine that Szmodics will be at least in the squad, as well Brereton, Gallagher, Dolan and Hedges, so it is 2 from 3 in Markanday, Dack and Vale. Markanday didn't come on at the weekend, neither did Dack, and Vale struggled and would be who I would leave out as the 19th man, but interesting to see who is left out. Mind you, Vale has been compared to both Mark Hughes and now Firmino after his performance last weekend so I guess how can you possibly leave him out!

That would only be valid if ours (or indeed anyones) transfer recruitment was 100% efficient. As it is, it seems perfectly valid to suggest that we should/could sign various players.

If proof is an expectation. How do you know that Ayala and Dack struggled with Tomasson's training?

I doubt we paid an initial 500k for Szmodics when they paid much more to sign him.

Obviously, but the purpose of this forum is for us to share our opinions.

They are critical if we have any ambition of doing anything decent this season I would say.

We 100% need both critically to be honest.

We need better than both as our main striker if we want to do well this season.

His first touch is terrible and he really struggles to hold the ball up so I dont see how he would be good in that situation at all. An extreme and old example of him running down the clock was him setting up Prestons counter attack last minute equaliser in the relegation season! Dack is great when holding on to a lead. Very intelligent and excellent ar holding it up and killing time.

Gallagher has a lot of flaws but one thing he does have is that he is quite quick and powerful over long distances. Vale looks very slow and kept getting beaten by the QPR centre backs in races to the ball and was also shrugged off the ball a few times.

Following the bizarre Norwich model. Spend a decent amount to get to the promotion and when you get there, treat being there as an inconvenience.