I have seen him and his attribute is wasting a place in the team that could otherwise be used by someone with something to offer.

Not interested in gossip from supposed ITK's.

£4m for Rothwell, £8.4m for Brereton so over £12m, I think anyway. Might not be exact.

Indeed although you never actually say what those attributes that you see are aside from Hirst scoring goals mainly in the second half of last season at a lower level.

The 2 strikers mentioned in the LT that he turned down were Forss and Connolly who went to Hull and Boro. Neither I dont think would have made a difference. A budget of 700k and a couple of loans was poor from the owners following the Armstrong sale and in a position of strength. He also went for Jed Wallace, he said so last week in a Sunderland press conference. The issue is more with allowing players to run their contracts down after rejecting bids for them, totally against the supposed project.

I dont see any attributes to cling on to in either Hirst or Vale. Both slow, weak, cant hold it up, dont work overly hard, dont offer a goal threat, cant win headers.

Not a clue. Point being we could have signed 1 or 2 long term assets for the same money. Pissed over £12m down the drain and then continue to bang on about projects.

Was it all on him that we were 2nd in the first place when he had his best player sold with no money for reinvestment? Its not as if we couldnt replace Rothwell, we could have used the money and then had one or two assets for the long term.

He may well have been his first choice but he would not come out and say "Tomasson wasn't convinced but he was all we could get so he will have to make do." We bid for Brandon Thomas-Asante (there was a clip in the Salford boardroom on Class of 92 where they had discussed our bid) but he went to West Brom so I doubt whether Hirst was our first choice target.

Is Prem football a project? It is obviously the objective but the project is mentioned every week by Tomasson, player development, building them up, using the academy and the key to that is getting highly valuable assets. People fixate on individuals beneath Venkys as the reason why things go wrong, obviously they aren't blameless but they are never the main problem. Mowbray turned down young Prem strikers on loan but that is beside the point, if the project is about player development and selling on assets, something that all of Tomasson, Broughton and Mowbray have mentioned ad nauseum in press conferences so it is a fair assumption, then the owners preventing sales to allow that continued trading just undermines everything. With less resources than recently relegated teams, we have to be clever with what we have and taking such risks with valuable players with little time on their deals is the opposite of that. I have no faith in the project under Tomasson and Broughton not because of them as individuals, but because history tells us that under Venkys it won't happen.

Our owners have intervened twice in the last year to prevent us profiting on players and making over £10m in favour of letting said players leave for free. Not the decisions of owners invested in a project. The people underneath will talk about projects and visions as they are typical soundbites which can help to buy time with supporters.

Based on what I have seen from Hirst and Vale, that very much is blind faith as it stands. I havent wrote him off. He is an average Championship striker who I would rather was in the team than not. Not a top striker at this level but still a very useful one.

He might do in the future. So far, he has not established himself any more under Tomasson than he had prior.

Never said he isnt. I agreed but also mentioned that his most likely replacements in Hirst and Vale are so lacking at this level that when Gallagher misses out, a big part of the issue that follows is that one of those are playing and contributing nothing.

In terms of inconsistency both in regards to performances and nailing down a regular spot, not so much. Marginal at best.

Has Dolan come on under Tomasson? He is a sub more often than not.

Not sure he can be considered one of the best strikers in the league, and he often still plays from a wide position. I think most of the best strikers are up there as top goalscorers, Rodriguez, Gyokeres, Yates, Sargent, Pukki, McBurnie, Morris, Akpom, Pedro, Piroe, even if you discount Brereton. That being said, he is an important player for us, I think that stat is misleading in that our alternatives (Hirst, Vale) are so poor that it is at least as much that as Gallagher being good that causes us to struggle in his absence, but he definitely gives our attack something we lack when he doesn't play.

Really? His poor finish 1 on 1 at Hull certainly wasn't an exception.

Is it?! He may say that but it is only infrequently been seen on the pitch. Travis can't take the ball on the half turn, he is very limited on the ball and playing it out from the back really highlights this. Morton struggles with that too, so often caught due to a lack of awareness of what is around him.

I suspect that the highlights if anything do him a favour, there was also once in the first half that he seemingly tried to shepherd it out on the left touchline, Johnson nicked it around him and subsequently blazed over a good chance.

To be fair, if he wants to persist with playing it out from the back then he needs to let a considerable chunk of our team go!

I take from your cryptic answer that you have nothing.

Our first 11 is competitive but beyond that we are extremely weak in terms of quality, not numbers. If we had to play Edun/Mola at left back or Garrett in central midfield for an extended period of time, do you think we would remain competitive for a top 6 place?

What have you seen from Hirst in regards to attributes that makes you think he could be any good?

I am not convinced that many of our players individually have thrived under Tomasson as opposed to prior to his arrival. Scott Wharton has had a really poor season, Travis has really struggled and his limitations on the ball are clear for all to see, Buckley has spent much of the season in the kids team, Brereton has been no better although he has been effective still of course, Hedges had a good spell that soon waned and he has been poor for a while now, Kaminski is maybe an obvious exception but he has always been a good keeper. The fact of the matter is that football is judged rightly on results and somehow we are third so fair play, but an interesting and I think valid observation nonetheless.