Its not about how much faith or confidence we have in Tomasson. As far as I am concerned, he hasn't earnt trust or caused distrust, its a clean slate. But if we were City fans with Pep as manager, we could still constructively critique potential signings and sales, if they question the Kalvin Phillips signing, the massively overpriced Grealish signing or the Raheem Sterling sale, it doesnt mean a lack of overall trust because obviously Guardiola overall has earnt trust. I just find it strange that you are so active in a discussion about the prospect of signings when your attitude seems to be to totally remove the potential to question linked individuals. Your default attitude is if Tomasson does it, it must be right. That isnt the case. If you have doubts, if you wouldnt like something about a signing, it isnt committing treason to say. Exactly. And now we need a centre back to potentially (form allowing) come and play in the heart of defence next to Wharton who is 1st choice. Surely it makes sense to have someone who prefers to play on the right hand side. I think you think that yourself as you basically said so earlier.

Ideally you would have someone who prefers being on the left and someone who prefers someone on the right but I think it is beyond just probability/law of averages that managers so seldom have 2 left footers together. Left footers are often particularly one sided compared to right footers. Not exactly the same but I think back to when we sold Warnock and brought in 4 defenders but were unable to sign a direct replacement. Jacobsen was poor but we also signed Salgado (who was excellent for a season) and Chimbonda (who had excellent credentials and did score that goal v Burnley but overall was not a man youd want in the trenches with you) leaving us with 3 natural right backs and no left backs. We also signed Givet who again was a very good signing but a natural centre back who looked a little awkward as a full back but with Nelsen and Samba he struggled to get in there. Especially when Chimbonda was asked to play as a left back, we were so imbalanced because the whole defence was right footed. Either Davies or Wharton would be not quite in their natural position and it would be a potential problem.

Is your attitude until further notice, if Tomasson does it, I will suspend all critical faculty and assume he must be right? We dont need competition, we need at least one top quality centre back to be able to start as only Wharton is proven to any degree AND reliable with 2 top end Championship level centre backs including our captain departing. Left footers tend to often be quite one sided and both Wharton and Davies would usually play on the left so if he did join it would IMO be a concern when they would be the 2 most reliable centre backs. Saying so doesnt mean a lack of backing for the manager. Ultimately we have no idea if the rumour is true.

Wharton. 2 left footed centre backs are a very rare combination so I would feel a bit uneasy about it personally. I do rate Davies as a Championship centre back but the fact that our reliable CB that remains is also left footed is a big concern should any interest be genuine and materialise. I am not convinced that we will go for him though anyway, especially as a potential loan with a fee if there is any truth in that. The idea that Venkys temporarily refrained from investing because they didn't trust the manager yet kept him anyway is as far-fetched as it is illogical.

There is a reason why very few teams have central defensive partnerships of 2 left footers, it just tends to seem particularly imbalanced. If they are happy with it? I don't think the issue is the potential willingness of them to do it. Why would you willingly accept players that you personally concede aren't "ideal" for the role we need them to play? Why make do? Surely we should sign someone perfectly suited to what we want. Not settle with "not ideal but fine." I don't see it happening, as we have said he is left footed, he seemingly would warrant a loan fee, his wages will be big, others teams are linked, I would be surprised. He is a good player at this level but we need a right sided centre back either way so it would have to be as well as IMO.

I don't think its the same one, I read the other day that he had been left out and I think there was a H.Davies on the squad list, presumably a kid. Not that I suspect any deal is close by any means.

Come on now, yes they initially planned a £2m full pitch renovation and decided against it, but we have weaved goalmouths now, stop being unrealistic!

Ben Davies is a very good player at this level. I can't see it happening however, firstly because of his wage demands and also I am not sure how it would work with 2 left footed centre backs. Quality wise, he likely is as good as we could get. Would say a lot about our supposed intentions with expectations of £3m being spent on one centre back to loaning one in however. I am not sure why it has become gospel that we paid loads for Poveda, ultimately none of us truly know but last summer was one where we had to wait and wait because we needed Prem teams to subsidise loans. I do love how you describe someone who was performing consistently well enough at Championship level to earn a move to Liverpool, albeit in mitigating circumstances as "uninventive" yet go on to laud signings like Shane Long, Jeff Hendrick and Jay Fulton. You also say that Shane Long guarantees 15+ goals, I can only presume that was tongue in cheek seeing as he has managed that once in his career, 11 seasons ago!

I never said that it doesnt affect transfers. I just dont think Venkys would spend any more money if it didnt exist. It really isnt. They could sell the player before his contract expires.

Ah yes, a very substantial budget that the evil Mowbray and Waggott chose not to utilise that conveniently puts 100% of the blame on to them.

Absolutely incredible that I bet we could go through the summer without spending a penny (not saying we will) and people would still not blame the actual people who are to blame. The outgoing head of recruitment? Absolute nonsense.

At times, with many other summers in which the taps were off. If the FFP was the only thing stopping them, they would have gone ahead with the pitch reconstruction. "More would have been spent" is an opinion not based on historical evidence I would suggest.

7 games in is fine by you.

Mooy would be a brilliant signing, I really hope we are in for him but seems like transfers are a bit beyond us thus far!

Berget seems another rumour that has nothing to it based on previous links from the manager. Didn't really excite me, although it does seem with him and the other Malmo player (who I am sure was off the back of a jokey make something up type post) that Rich Sharpe in the absence of genuine links read on here and based his links from that. Slow, very slow, the season only 2 and a half weeks away.

Surely my change was self-explanatory.

Is it thanks to FFP? They wouldn't spend £2m on the pitch which was an exempt expense. But whether they can't, which is down to interpretation. Would they anyway? Based on what? Many seem to imply that they would if they could, that is what I question.

Its absolutely crazy how many seem so convinced that FFP is stopping them from spending any more.

Fixed.

If you say so. Not a clue on the logistics, but I am sure they can work around it. We are ill prepared for the season so the sooner we improve the squad the better. There will always be at least a game a week now.

The Berget link seems an obvious one, whether it is people putting 2 and 2 together or a genuine link seems unclear, Rich Sharpe seems particularly off the pulse lately and he put that comment about half an hour after it was suggested on here. We need to have as many attacking options as we can with the option of 5 subs available which if we are to press could be even more important, whether Berget will be able to press as much as the years go by, I don't know. There definitely could be value in Tomasson taking someone that he knows and trusts at the start of his reign, many managers do similar. His versatility could also be useful. Few if any of us will have seen much of of him I guess, but some of the previously raised questions stand, is he immediately obtainable due to the Champions League qualifiers, his age is a plus and a minus as we need experience but about to turn 32 as an attacking player could be an issue physically, and his CV suggests that he has struggled away from Malmo. We could do with getting a few in this week to get players settled but I won't be holding my breath.

And neither obviously means it quite as literally as that, as if positions are never mentioned, and indeed as if either is stuck to one formation indefinitely. Just the usual typical managerial soundbites about philosophies, styles and adaptability.

I don't get how you can know that either way or even have an opinion on it at this stage.

I would even say though that neither of those unsuccessful loanees who ultimately did not improve of us still didn't impede anyone's development. Branthwaite came along with Harwood-Bellis when we had an injury crisis when January came around, the former was clearly inferior and soon lost his place. Clarkson came, wasn't very good but Buckley continued to keep his place and we sent Clarkson back as soon as possible. Sometimes especially when as often is the case our budget is minimal or non-existent, a loan can improve our team temporarily whilst allowing one of our own youngsters who is still a rookie to play week in week out and prove themselves a division or two below rather than be 3rd/4th/5th choice here. The question when analysing a potential loanee is is his better than what he is coming into replace in the immediate future. It should be as straightforward as that but I do feel that there is the additional difficulty in justifying loanees on simply whether they are good players are not.

Equally, how do you know they are not rubbish? Loads of teams are being linked with Khadra, Alan Nixon we know has history of hedging his bets, 4 teams linked including the easy one to the club he spent last season at, seems like he has got many tickets in the raffle to be able to say "I told you so" or indeed "aye." The Sky Sports link with Davies again has more than once club which always makes you suspicious that is is an eager agent testing the market, throw in the fact that he is left footed and I would find it illogical to see our main CB signing to be left footed. My point was that previous success as a player does not necessarily automatically mean that a manager will be any more or indeed any less respected. I had already heard of Tomasson from his playing career but I am older than most of the squad, plus of course I had read about his managerial career but that wouldn't in itself cause me to have loads and loads more respect for him than another manager. He will have to earn respect by how he is as a manager, and I am not saying that he isn't capable of that.