Whether that was an obligation or merely an option to buy is unknown, and the potential to buy itself is merely speculation. And irrelevant because he didnt sign. And a very small matter amidst the overall point of a lack of plan throughout the last 10/11 years.

But equally you have to show enough to warrant more game time, and that you deserve regular starts. He certainly failed to do that.

The point I was making was that the way we have operated in the last 10 years has not been the most efficient way of working and have lacked a plan. Embargoes are not a necessity, they are a symptom of a poorly run club. It should be sell players, reinvest a chunk, keep the rest, continue consistently. Not splurge loads on big earners, then spend loads paying them up, then spending on cheaper players, holding on to every single one until we hit embargo, couple of years of struggle and no reinvestment, then occasional splurges on big assets, hold on until the last year, then finally sell one, then reinvest nothing again. Venkys out. Maja was a loan and I dont care about could haves and should haves. Is he here, no.

Splitting hairs. Point was that the overall Venkys tenure has been consistently lacking, this summer was at least the second in which an asset or assets were sold with zilch reinvested in a replacement. No consistency. Venkys out.

I don't have a problem with signing players with the primary intention of selling them on. The problem comes back to the owners, it needs to be consistently done, effectively done and repeatedly done. You sell one, you rein Have we really sold anyone using this process bar Armstrong? It is so inconsistent, regularly spending totally hits the buffers with no reinvestment, like when Armstrong went, and like when Cairney, Gestede etc were sold, often incompetence takes us into embargos too. It is never thought out properly. Those players were also sold cheap due to being under pressure to sell. You then start signing frees and loans and the whole process goes back 5 steps.

My lack of "belief" expressed on an internet messageboard makes no difference. Its just an opinion which I have based on a lack of goals in senior football. If everytime a goal threat was removed from a team, the team continued to score at the same rate, a goalscorer wouldnt be worth anything. I hope someone steps up top but I think its a genuine concern.

Not an issue of belief on my part, I think my concerns are very valid, objectively the attackers available have scored minimal goals between them. Armstrong stepped up but whilst the extent to his goalscoring was remarkable, he had scored plenty of goals in his career already including 20 in 1 season. Brereton is even more remarkable although he did score 7 last season. That won't happen anytime, I hope that someone will step up to the mark but I am not being unreasonable or baselessly pessimistic with my comments I don't think and I bet that many share my views.

I dont think we do have many goal threats remaining personally. Butterworth, Khadra, Poveda, Burns, no senior goals between them. Dolan has is it 5 League goals in his career. The likes of Rothwell, Buckley and Travis dont really chip in either. Maybe Gallagher who himself is very limited will be fit which would be helpful.

Urgh, negative, negative, negative, bla bla bla. I think its a fair, constructive point to suggest that the attackers that we have left with barely any goals between them is a worry in regards to where our goals are going to come from. Obviously I would take any win, a defence with more options and no Magloire gives us a better chance at one end, such a depleted and inexperienced front line reduces our chances at the other. Not negative, I think thats balanced. You implied that the loanees will come good with time, yet even with our 2 main goal threats out, Poveda would be unlikely to even come off the bench? When will he be of use? I never specifically said that I would drop Buckley, it was more aimed at the point that I hope that Mowbray doesnt try and be clever with Buckley as a false 9 or similar. And if that happened indefinitely with attackers then they wouldnt be worth so much. I think its a fair question with Brereton and Gallagher out.

Johnson might be important just because the team is so small without him, but it would have to be at the expense of one of the midfield 3, most likely Buckley.

Lampard seemingly in the run in for the job then purely based on his name and his playing career rather than his managerial history. Surely they can find someone perhaps across Europe with a far better CV/reputation than him. I find it hard to warm towards Newcastle at all and to be honest would find it hilarious if at all fell apart. The media and seemingly their fans seem to be entitled and see consistent Premier League finishes and 100m spent in the last few seasons as hardships and have treat Steve Bruce horribly in terms of personal insults when to me the job he has done is very similar at Premier League level to Rafa Benitez who for some reason they loved. If the money indeed is imminently coming, lets hope that it is spent poorly, that they chase the storybook manager ie Lampard and big name past it players and go down this season!

Wow, and this isn't a pop at your team selection specifically, but that is a dismal team in terms of goal threat, it must be as toothless as any team across the league, where are the goals there? You defended the loanees earlier and claimed that they will come good, surely they have to start if Gallagher misses out with Brereton also unavailable? If not, then when will they play? Also, Rankin Costello apparently is better from a wide position, surely he comes into the reckoning? Perhaps a front 3 of Dolan, Khadra and Rankin Costello? I know he crossed for the goal but Buckley is not a winger.

His starting lineup was quite attacking to be fair. Grealish, Sterling, Kane, Foden and Mount all starting.

Very poor all round including Southgate who was poor both with the balance of the starting 11 and also the very strange subs and tactical tweaks.

The big question for me around Grealish both at club and International level is whether he can adapt to being a smaller fish in a bigger pond. At Villa everything was built around him and geared around everyone working hard and feeding him at every available opportunity, and he is a maverick with real ability, both to draw fouls and to come up with magic. At City and for England, he fits in technically but can he be a player who is equally responsible for working, for pressing, to not be in a team where he is the primary source of flair, early days but a big question mark.

100%, I said earlier that it is a different ball game comparing 11 games into a season and near the end of one when top 6/relegation both are impossible, either mathematically or beyond reasonable doubt. I criticised Mowbray last season for the reasons you mentioned.

Out of interest, in our current position only 11 games in, if there were 2 players, one slightly better being a loanee, would you choose the alternative who is slightly worse? I hate seeing Rovers lose and never take any consolation from the number of players on certain types of contracts when we do. Especially so early into a season, the type of contracts that players are on shouldn't come remotely into team selection or substitute choices, not at all and that is my point. The overall planning (well at most clubs they have this) should of course try and include getting assets on long term details, the squad should have a core of those with some experience and if necessary loanees around that, but the manager shouldn't be selecting based on contracts. The quality of the loanees is a totally different point and again I agree with you. Poveda and Clarkson look particularly poor, but I would not select them solely because they don't look very good rather than because they are on loan.

Thats not the point I was making, I was talking about the common recurrence of people demanding that academy graduates/permanent players are picked over loanees, it should be solely based on getting a result hence why Nyambe, Lenihan and Rothwell should play too. Downing actually said that the subs bench was regularly rotated, not the starting 11. He sometimes missed out on the bench because Mowbray used to rotate the subs bench to keep the whole squad happy, which I agree was counterproductive.

Contractual situations should be a total irrelevance 11 games into a season, I don't understand the obsession about loanees. Whether they are on a long term deal like Dolan, a contract with an option for next season like Brereton and Burns, are into their final year like Butterworth or are on loan like Khadra and Poveda, the decision should purely be made on ability and performance levels. Permanent, loan, long term, short term, old, young, just pick the best to win the game.

You are comparing 2 totally different situations. There were a fair few games towards the end of the season where an inability to make the top 6 nor be relegated were either mathematically confirmed or at least confirmed beyond reasonable doubt, at which point I was very critical of Mowbray for playing players who wouldn't be here this season, I agree with that point made. We are 11 games into a season now though, so now the sole focus should be on putting out the best side to win each game. Only if and when the above scenario plays out again should we again then solely focus on the following season. Fans don't pay £400 per season or £30 a game to watch development football, with the primary purpose being long term development, and indeed I think that if we did start choosing based solely on next season and beyond, then we would soon become embroiled at the bottom. Out of interest, with Nyambe, Lenihan, Rothwell and numerous others out of contract at the end of the season and unlikely to renew, would they be jettisoned now if you was manager in favour of players who are contracted into next season?

So one solitary, presumably pissed up knobhead shouting a few things at him? An idiot who no right minded person would condone the behaviour of, but hardly a witch hunt. In the main, he has been supported at games, would you not agree? He may well play in the top league, but as I said, I don't think judging him as an individual based on his first 2 years, that where he is at the moment and how regular the goals are coming would have been the case so soon. Regarding young players, of course they should be allowed game time, but they should only be selected if they warrant it on an individual basis in the first place, in the first 2 years for example Brereton was not showing flashes to warrant more game time. His development has been fairly sudden on the pitch, and I think is down to a number of reasons. We aren't challenging for promotion no but results still matter, we are 11 games in. Results do matter still and are more important than anything else, whether that be player development. Expecting a totally sanitised environment in which no one ever shows frustration and in which every young player is played regularly regardless of performance with development prioritised over results (I know you haven't said that, just a point I making separately) is unrealistic and will never happen, nor should it. Whether we are aiming to sneak into the play offs or even to fend off relegation which could happen if results nosedive, results are the most important thing.

Moans and groans are occasional, natural shows of frustration that you will find at every single football ground, up and down the country, and have nothing to do with the questioning support. A footballer should be able to have the mental strength to deal with occasional moans and groans as a direct consequence of poor performance, which based on Brereton in recent months, he very much could. It is unrealistic to expect a totally sanitised environment free of natural human emotion. Abuse is a whole different ball game, and something I personally have never witnessed, what have you seen that you would describe as abuse? What people predict on here is again nothing to do with support, and he was hopeless for 2 years. What he is doing now couldn't realistically have been anticipated and constructively predicted so soon after those performances. But anyone who predicted things like that are merely wrong, their prediction hasn't come to fruition, and contrary to popular belief, I am sure that they will be happy to see him doing so well.

The 7 million fee doesn't automatically mean he was worth that amount, Gallagher cost 5m, Grabbi cost 7m, Friedel was free, Dack was less than a million, I could go on. And plenty of players worse than Brereton have played for the England under age sides, Lowe was captain of the under 21s wasn't he? I have seen a lot of desperation to paint fans in a bad light, in stadiums he has been given plenty of support, and I personally do not recall those shoots of promise in the first 2 seasons, merely putting him in the "young player who will get better by playing" category is not sufficient, he didn't warrant game time. His transformation has been as unexpected as it has been great to see, IMO. Those who did back him to come good 2 years ago didn't themselves predict what we see today, or necessarily say "he does this well" etc, it was more of a stick to bash with fans with for criticising a player who was playing poorly. Not really relevant, not all young players will get up to the required standard so each case is individual. But Rice I don't think is a top class central midfielder but he is 100% a deserved and guaranteed pick for England and has personally developed well over the last year. Mount still needs to do more to warrant a similar role, he is behind Foden and Grealish for me, but he is a talented player for club and country. Brereton is not comparable.

It wasn't a slight on Chile in particular, my point was more that it is impossible to know until if and when something like that happened.

And even if it was, there were no real shoots of promise in the first 18/24 months, he didn't warrant more game time because he struggled to avoid tripping over his own feet. His last 15/18 months were not predictable by anyone prior, no matter how much people try to make out as such based on a desperation to paint our supporters as villains.