roversfan99

Thats factually incorrect. Only Pukki, Abraham, Maupay, Gayle, Sharp, Rodriguez, McBurnie, Adams and Bowen scored over 20. To compare, Dack and Graham our front 2 got 15 goals each. Derby got in the play off final and their top scorers were Wilson on 15 and Waghorn on 9. Leeds top scorers were Roofe with 14 and Pablo with 12. Dont get me wrong, we need a new striker, but calling Graham consistently average and suggesting that (especially due to Graham not scoring enough for your liking) that Brereton should start is absolute madness.

Cant profess to know any Derby fans but hes been an ever present practically for 4 or 5 years for a consistently top 6 challenging side. His style is a little ungainly and whilst hes ungainly, he can bring the ball out as shown in the build up to Marriotts winner at Leeds in the semi final. Hed be an excellent signing but totally unrealistic. Agree on Keogh but totally disagree on Conway being very good whenever hes been on the pitch. His goal contributions have been a consolation goal at Sheffield Wednesday and a corner to set up Lenihan v Leeds. The 2 good games hes had this season (Sheffield Wednesday and Derby) have been followed by injuries which have become increasingly common. As great a servant as hes been, if we cannot find someone who can be an upgrade on present day Conway then we really are struggling.

Think historys being re-written somewhat, we didn't just get promoted, we got promoted with a impressive points haul, comfortably by 9 points as @Bigdoggsteel said, with 2 games to spare and thats baring in mind in the first quarter of the season we were well off the pace (12 points) due to a long adaptation process, we made a lot of signings, the likes of Dack and in particular Graham took a bit of time to get going, and we had players like Caddis, Ward and Whittingham slowing things down. Also, the same team with very little improvement (due to Mowbray blowing most of his budget on a one goal striker admittedly) finished comfortably in mid table in the Championship. I still think we would definitely have got promoted from League 1 this season. I stand by the assertion that a great season would have been winning the league, and that Mowbray was totally out of order by publically discounting its importance. But whether anyone else could have got us promoted is irrelevant, it was still a good achievement and he still deserves credit for it. I also think the Sunderland job was a much harder one, there was less to work with in terms of the existing squad for Ross, and also it seemed from the outside to be a far more rotten core in terms of the atmosphere at the club; Mowbray didnt save us from relegation but there was a noticeable boost in terms of us under Mowbray compared to under Coyle, as youd expect. People mention the money spent on Grigg but he lost his top scorer in Maja.

He has clearly been mentally and physically fit then considering his excellent statistics. If hes not fit then he really is some player.

Talk about United and Everton is fantasy but 15 goals and 7 assists for a team who finished 15th suggests he is not overrated at all. Parachute payments enable clubs who come down to support their high wage bill in the main. Its not just a booster of transfer budget.

His value is zero, a value is what he is worth to someone but he no longer belongs to a club.

It certainly wont be for a 600k fee as stated in the article as hes out of contract.

Very good, proactive business by Stoke. Adam Davies would have been a very good signing for us, Powell a no go (doubt hed come and we have Dack) and Gregory would have been decent but not groundbreaking. Sheffield Wednesday are apparently signing Bidwell on a free, he would have been a very good upgrade on Bell. The free agent market is always key at this level, especially for clubs like ourselves. Unfortunately, the best ones tend to be snapped up fast which is at odds with our system of making the manager wait to fly out to India a couple of weeks after the season before he can start to do deals.

Its either that or talk about tumbleweed.

The announcement was purely confirming that his initial loan has ended. Local media in Norwich suggests that they are strongly considering an extended stay. Latter 2 certainly not good enough.

No, made the big error v QPR, was generally terrible coming for crosses, and as @Oldgregg86 said, was really slow to get down, as shown for Norwich's first goal and also McBurnies header. The problem with bringing in "an experienced Championship keeper in to put pressure on" Raya suggests that the new keeper will not be first choice and thus isnt as good as Raya. Whats the point bringing in a player who isnt an improvement?

Leutweiler adds nothing to that scenario. Hes a goalkeeper who almost certainly wont feature, even being in the 18 will be be rare, and crucially he has already proved that if he was needed, he isnt up to it.

To suggest that hes handicapped by a poor defence in front of him is misleading, he is much as fault as anyone back there. Many of his errors are due to poor decision making coming for crosses etc, thats his main flaw, and it wont just go away by signing a defender or two. The poor kicking that you touch on is quite a small part of whats wrong in his game, its the constant errors leading to goals that is causing the problem. You mention the Brentford game, but the times hes won points have been very infrequent compared to his costly mistakes. If you had said you can see him becoming a good keeper, maybe even a Premier League one, fair enough. But youve suggested that he may not only be capped for Spain, which I would suggest itself is incredibly unlikely, but to become number one. Even if we are saying that there will be a window for him to do so post David De Gea (5 years senior), that would imply that a goalkeeper whose place at a mid table Championship side has become under massive scrutiny due to consistent errors, and one who is being linked with other mid table Championship sides, that his progression will accelerate at a rate that will see him push ahead of a goalkeeper only one year difference in age, who is a 70m signing and regular for Chelsea, and who barring his antics in the Cup Final, has put in regular, consistent performances for a team who finished 3rd in the Premier League and are in the Europa League final, and got to the League Cup final. Not to mention La Liga goalkeepers that Raya will also have to get ahead of.

I'd rather have Raya!

Do you genuinely believe he will become Spains number 1 one day? A goalkeeper as far as im aware never played for the Spanish youth teams, who is struggling at the moment to convince he is a competent Championship goalkeeper, whilst in terms of competition, he is up against Kepa, a 70m keeper playing regularly for Chelsea who is one year older, and even De Gea (admittedly after a bad season himself) who is only 28.

Its not that he makes mistakes, it is the regularity of them.

I think our main difference of opinion is how highly we rate Raya, he certainly isnt one of the best goalkeepers in the League at this moment in time and we definitely need an upgrade rather than "experienced back-up to push him" as he is not at this moment in time capable of playing a starring role in a side with the ambitions that Mowbray claims we have. You mention the defence and undoubtedly that is a handicap but with his regular errors and inability to command the defence, he is as big a part of that as anyone. Over the course of a season, not just a couple of months, he made error after error, yes he is capable of some superb saves but all goalkeepers are. I would disagree with the notion that he won us more points than he lost. I would agree that in an ideal world, we could have Raya competing with a good quality experienced keeper, but being a little more pragmatic and realistic, with our idiotic and eccentric owners, as well as the threat of FFP and 7m already pissed up the wall on Brereton, the resources available to Mowbray will be finite and if sacrificing Raya is required to get us a number 1 good enough to push for the top 6 (the likes of Frank Fielding need not apply) then it would be something worth seriously considering, academy graduate or otherwise in my opinion.

Don't think the Cairney comparison is accurate at all. He was sold for cheap primarily as we was going into a transfer embargo, that was the summer that a few went and the likes of Guthrie, Akpan, Koita and Delfouenso all came in. As far as we know, at the moment we are not under such restrictions. Also, Cairney had won player of the season here, he was undoubtedly at that time a strong aspect of our side, with potential, rather than a weakness with potential. Rocky patch in my opinion doesn't accurately summarise his performances over the entire season either for me. I also never have felt he is unbeatable. He definitely has a quality reflex save in him (which keeper doesnt) but his overall game is very questionable, and crucially for a goalkeeper, he makes far, far too many mistakes to be relied upon. Of course he may improve, and ideally we could have him and a quality experienced keeper at the same time, but I wouldnt be gutted to see him leave I dont think.

You are reading far too much into it I suspect. The lack of importance/effort placed by Mowbray on a potential League 1 title, I share your frustration in. But playing Reed wide was something he did because as he said, Evans and Smallwood "played the position better." Something I disagreed with at the time, but I put it down to over-cautiousness and over-loyalty to those 2 in question rather than trying to lower expectations, that seems incredibly far-fetched. The shackles did come off once relegation was mathematically impossible, notably the defensive winger nonsense was knocked on the head, why would Mowbray even give the supporters a glimpse of a potentially both more exciting and more effective side when nothings to play for, only furthering the evidence of those who felt that he had made incorrect decisions earlier in the season, if he was primarily managing expectations? By doing that at the end of the season, hes left himself wide open to judgement. If at the start of next season he returns back to old ways, defensive wingers, Smallwood and Evans etc, then we really can worry.

All 5 players have been released for financial reasons, with Swansea having spent all of their time since relegation trying to cut the wage bill down wherever possible. Nothing laughable about it. Archer has been mentioned more than once and I find it very strange, a goalkeeper released by Millwall. All the talk about Rayas age is very well but for me hes made far too many mistakes this season. There has been a lot of talk about Raya going into next season as number 1 but with a more "experienced" keeper pushing him. You'd presume someone like Fielding would fit the bill for that role but for me it would be a complete hash of our goalkeeping situation to go in with 3 keepers, none of whom are particularly good (in Raya's case, potentially for now, we dont know) and in essence, would be a case of quantity over quality, you dont need 3 senior goalkeepers. If sacrificing Raya enabled us to get a better upgrade then I wouldnt be against the idea. The Leutweiler deal however will never make sense.

Wayne Routledge is 34 and has lost much of the pace he had earlier in his career. Olsson has been injured for a while with an achilles injury.

The player we should be looking at here is Aribo.

They shouldnt have been offered new deals was my point. Its not conjecture, hes been offered a new deal. Im not even considering rumours about his personality, pissed up rants etc. Hes not started a league game in 2 years of paid employment, when he did play in the cups his attitude was terrible, so ultimately we owe him nothing. But as a decent club, by all means let him use our facilities to get back to fitness. A paid contract out of pity makes a mockery out of our constant and understandable desire to bring costs down and work to a budget. Downing, like Leutweiler, Gladwin and Conway is not good enough, the reason people havent criticised the decision to not offer him a new deal is because he shouldnt be offered one either.

Technicalities, Gladwin and Conway have been offered new deals then which they shouldnt. When Gladwin did play he didnt look like he could be arsed. Allowing him to use the facilities to recuperate is a kind gesture, paying him to do so is absurd and a waste of money. Samuel it was a response to a quoted paragraph, I wasnt inferring that we should or can release him. The best season hes had is the last one in terms of reputation. Hes not good enough and should be offered around for free if anyone wants him. If the reasoning behind Luetweiler (a player not good enough) is in case during the whole summer we cant sign a keeper then its absurd. It also highlights the flaw of discovering a budget only after the retained list needs submitting.