Too late for that. The only difference between us and Bolton is that Venky's haven't turned the taps off yet. Wouldn't matter if we spent £100k or £100m at this point, if Venky's decide enough is enough and refuse to let the club go without getting their money back then we are sunk as nobody is going to pay that.

You didn't make that clear though. Now you have, so fine, but your post read as if Nyambe was a new signing when he isn't. Don't really care how Downing looked against Rangers tbh, the fact remains he is not a defensive player and never has been. If we are planning to use him in that capacity we take a huge risk and I seriously doubt many people would have been happy at the end of last season if we'd been told Downing was going to be one of the defenders that were coming.

Yeah, but the person you quoted specifically said new signings. The problem with seeing Downing as a defensive replacement is that he really has no history of being a defender. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/stewart-downing/leistungsdaten/spieler/4063/saison/2018/plus/1#GB2 Going by this he either played as LM, RM or AMC last season for Boro, there's nothing about him playing in defence. Are we really going to try and convert him at 35 years old? Absolute madness if so.

We'd still concede at least two.

Eh? Nyambe was already here so he's not a new signing. Downing was played as a winger so until Mowbray plays him in defence we can't call him a defensive signing. Tosin is our only proper defensive signing to date.

Seen it before tbf. One win and they'll be right back to normal.

If they could turn back the clock I doubt they would ever have purchased us to begin with.

Now that would truly be the ultimate admission of failure.

Wee Stevie is still available. I wouldn't put bringing him back past them. "You know, Madame, we were 3rd when Steve resigned..." Not even going to go further with that. The very thought makes me shudder.

Sadly I think you're right, I don't think LB is being given high priority at all. Which is a shame as I consider it as weak as CB and weaker than RB, where we at least have Nyambe.

Well, obviously, but I bet Gladwin and Whittingham were on a decent wage for League 1. Relatively speaking if Olsson was willing to drop his demands, which he may well do if he's without a club and recovering from a serious injury, then why not give it a shot? I'd certainly make contact at the very least to discuss it.

If we were going to go for any unattached player with a bit of injury risk then I'd be fine with it being Olsson. The lad knows the club, has pedigree at this level and plays a position we are critically weak in. I doubt he'd be asking for crazy wages at this point either. Unfortunately he fails two major criteria: - Not British - Hasn't played for any of Tony's former clubs So he's probably not even on our radar. But even so, if we can give the likes of Gladwin, Whittingham and Caddis multi-year deals then why not offer Olsson a 12 month deal to see if he can get back up to speed and give us a useful option on that side? Maybe we already have and he isn't interested in what we're offering, but I haven't seen anything to suggest we've even considered it.

Well, your first paragraph is the ballsed up the transfer window option, so yeah. Saying "we just missed our targets" with a shrug isn't good enough. Not when Bennett and Bell are starting on the flanks. I consider relegation unlikely, but before the Charlton match kicked off most of us were harbouring ambitions for at least top ten if not an outside shot at sneaking into the playoffs. I'd consider both highly unlikely without defensive reinforcements.

There's no probably about it imo. Our current defence isn't Championship standard. Mowbray stated exactly this at the end of last season, so he's either changed his mind since then (and if so he is wrong), or he's ballsed up this transfer window and likely wrecked any ambitions we had for the forthcoming season short of staying in the division.

We only had two shots on target so yeah, we'd have needed a 100% coversion rate to draw.

We can only conclude that we're paying a bloody massive loan fee for this City lad.

Pretty sure current day Baresi, Maldini and Costacurta are still better than those three at defending.

Should that be the case then I'm sure Mowbray, being the honest and transparent man that we are told repeatedly he is, will enlighten us on why we've been able to spend £5m on a striker - despite already having quite a few on the books - but were unable to spend anything on the one area of the pitch that desperately needed it and that he assured us would be addressed. "Defensively we're alright" doesn't cut it.

"Celtic finished Wednesday's defeat with six strikers on the field"... why does that sentence not surprise me in the slightest?

Successful clubs get it done Chaddy. Losers make excuses, winners make it happen. We need a new mentality at the club if we really want to push on.

A lot of people still wanted to believe that Mowbray would ultimately make the right call. I expected the line up he presented, bar Gallagher/Graham, but being prepared didn't mean I was any less angry when it was confirmed. I genuinely would rather have seen Nyambe/Lenihan/Tosin/Wheelie Bin as our defensive lineup. Couldn't have been much worse than what we got.

For me the line up on Saturday was far more infuriating than the result. I can accept an opening day loss - the first day of the season always throws up some strange results. Granted with us it's never a win, but that's another story. But to see Bennett at RB, Mulgrew at CB, Bell at LB and 35 year old Downing on the wing whilst the likes of Nyambe, Brereton, Graham and especially Rothwell sit on the bench was just incredibly disappointing and killed a lot of the good feeling on here before the match had even kicked off.

Thanks, that pretty much answers my question. Although I hope Tony doesn't look at that scenario and think "if Corry and Richie had been on the pitch, that never would have happened".

It's strange to me how in the build up to the first goal one of the Charlton players has acres of free space in the middle of the pitch to run directly towards our penalty area. Where exactly have our central midfielders disappeared to at that point? Bennett is literally the only one anywhere near the guy, and he's a right back. Why has our shape completely dissolved?

Thanks, although I'm kind of sad it's mostly just discussing ways the current manager annoys me ? I'd genuinely love to have a pint with Mowbray and get some insight into his thought process, particularly with the playing strikers on the wings method. Although I get the feeling the conversation would ultimately end with "you're really overthinking this, Tony".