Unprotected chair shots to the head just aren't necessary. Most of the time they look stupid anyway as the guy has ample time to get his hands up but just stands there like a lemon and takes the hit. You don't need chair shots to the head to be edgy or successful. Moxley Vs Janela at Fyter Fest didn't have a single chair shot to the head. WCW at its peak didn't have anything like that either. It's crass shit that appeals to the lowest common denominator. A shock stunt to get a surprised pop. If you want to be successful and edgy do it by having cutting edge storylines and wrestling, not hardcore bullshit.

Considering how quickly this seems to have moved in the past few days you have to assume we're confident of getting somebody in pretty quickly. We absolutely do not want to be starting the season with Leutwiler between the sticks, as we don't exactly have an easy start to the season. We need somebody who is going to be able to come in and hit the ground running.

Raya was fortunate to come into the team at a time when we were at our lowest ebb in terms of GK quality. We'd just come off the back of Jake Kean, Simon Eastwood and Jason Steele. He didn't exactly have big shoes to fill. He has some decent attributes and some poor attributes, about what you'd expect for a lower-mid table Championship goalkeeper. I agree that he came into the first team too early in his development and it may have hurt him a little bit. He's not the first young player who has suffered from being thrust into the first team without enough development time elsewhere - Henley and Lowe immediately spring to mind - but genuine top players thrive in adversity and become better through making mistakes and learning from them. I'm not sure Raya ever has. That may say something about Rovers' coaching though, and it'll be interesting to see if Raya improves on his weaknesses at a different club with different coaches. I think Raya was treated harshly by Mowbray at the end of last season with some unnecessarily blunt public comments which may have reduced his value. If Raya plays to the end of last season and Mowbray continues to back him as a top young prospect in the press maybe we get more for him than the reported £3m he's been sold for. I imagine TM was aware by that point that he wanted to replace Raya, so there was no need to attack him publicly and shine such a bright light on his weaknesses. Anyway, one assumes TM already has a replacement lined up and we can move on. It shouldn't be difficult to find a keeper that is at least on par with Raya, although I'm hoping for better.

I haven't watched Impact in years. I watched TNA fairly regularly from about 2006 - 2012ish, but once Bischoff and Hogan got there it started going downhill pretty fast. Then when AJ, Joe, etc started leaving that was the end for me. I've followed TNA/Impact insofar as reading about what's going on with the company as a whole, but that's about it. I think they will always struggle to overcome the stigma they created for themselves, especially between 2010-2014. Best period of TNA was the early days (2005-2007), although I did enjoy the Main Event Mafia stuff too. I still remember the excitement of the "new monday night wars" and that first night, Jan 4 2010, when TNA got a 1.5 rating. A shame it all went to shit very quickly afterwards. Raw and Smackdown are definitely better quality-wise in the last few weeks. A stable with AJ, Finn, Anderson and Gallows would be awesome. They could have Finn come back and feud with AJ over being the "real leader" of the club (as both were at different times leaders of the Bullet Club) then have Finn turn on whoever was helping him out and turn heel. He's a solid babyface for sure, but he's so bland and boring, just like pretty much all of WWE's babyfaces. Whilst turning Balor heel and having the club as a proper stable would be awesome, they'd run into the same problem they always have of the heels being far cooler than the faces and therefore getting cheered as a result. WWE can't create a cool babyface to save their life. It's almost always a cool heel who turns face and then loses all his momentum as he becomes a bland character with no real motivation beyond "I'm a good guy and I do good guy things". It's something that Heyman and Bischoff desperately need to change, if they can.

If we were paying £2-3m then it wouldn't be so bad, but for £5m we could surely get better value elsewhere if the scouting was up to par. I'm not going to pin the blame on Mowbray for this as it shouldn't be his job to set up and oversee the scouting department - there should be somebody at the club in charge of that - but I'll be disappointed if he agrees to spend £5m on Gallagher. I'd rather just loan him again tbh, although I'm guessing either the player or Southampton want a permanent deal instead.

I agree, but it just shows we're shopping in the wrong market. Look at the top goalscorers (20+ goals) from last season in the Championship: Pukki - free from the Danish Superliga Abraham - loan from the PL Maupay - £1.6m from French Ligue 1 Gayle - loan from the PL Sharp - circa £700k from the Championship Rodriguez - £12m from the PL McBurnie - £350k from either League 1 or League 2, can't be bothered to check Adams - £2m from League 1 Bowen - £0, youth product The only one who cost any significant money was Rodriguez, who was bought when WBA were in the Premier League so is an outlier. £5m for Sam Gallagher is lazy and bad scouting imo. If you want players from the PL it seems clear that loaning is generally the way to go, rather than paying silly amounts just because the selling club is in a different financial universe.

I don't think Gallagher has really achieved more than Adam Armstrong did before joining us, and we got him for something like £2m potentially rising to £3m. I'd say that is about right, maybe slightly more for Gallagher but not much more. I'd be disappointed if we signed him for £5m up front as I think that's too much - if our budget is the same as last year then that would be essentially half of our entire budget on Gallagher, which seems unnecessary.

In fairness I don't think it's that season people are worried about, just the rest of his career so far. If it is a £5m fee then I'd hope it's at most £2m up front with everything else in instalments based on targets to be hit.

As it stands Bennett, Evans, Mulgrew, Johnson and DG would push our first 11 up into the late 20's in terms of average age, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as you are ideally looking for a mixture of youth and experience. It's also possible Evans won't be starting although I don't think that's as sure of a thing as others seem to. Mowbray has always been a cautious manager so IMO we're more likely to see Johnson/Evans than we are Johnson/Travis.

Johnson seems like a good signing, if he's to replace where Reed would have been alongside Travis. I think it's more like to be Johnson/Evans personally, which wouldn't be so good, but we will see. Evans will still be one of the highest earners at the club and only got given a new contract a few months ago so I don't see him being used as a bench option. It seems clear that Mowbray doesn't rate Raya. He made some very harsh comments at the end of last season and benched Raya for the final few games. Can't imagine that did much to help when it came to trying to negotiate a fee mind. I have a feeling based on last season he doesn't rate Nyambe too highly either, although I don't anticipate him leaving the club this summer. Either way if Raya goes it will add to a growing list of desperately needed defensive reinforcements. Hopefully we're ahead of the game on that one as we certainly don't want to be starting next season with Leuts in nets.

Even if he did, who's buying? Nobody wanted Evans even when we were relegated. Then we go and give him a new contract.

Our only successful summer window was one where we did business unusually early. Granted we were the big fish in a lower division, but even so, to spend £750k on Dack in mid-June means we had a budget and plans in place well ahead of time. Seems it's now all back to normal, making no significant signings until the window is practically shut. The obvious drawback to waiting late and hoping for "better market value" (how's that working out with BB by the way?) is that the player will not have a pre-season with his team mates and be expected to hit the ground running. Should they fail to do so they get stuck behind the favourites until we hit a particularly bad run of form and get thrown in out of desperation. That's basically how Rothwell got his shot last season despite calls for him to play much, much earlier.

If it is true than Mowbray and the owners are on different wavelengths regarding transfers than it is just proof that our operating model is dangerously out of sync and needs adjustment. In my view the manager should have no say in the budget he receives - he certainly shouldn't be advising the owners to spend more or less. That conversation should go on between the owners and the board. Consulting the manager on expectations is fine but that's as far as it should go. The board should then tell the manager what his budget is and what the targets are based on that budget. This should all happen very shortly after the season ends - although in truth if the club isn't in danger of relegation or in contention for promotion it could easily be done before the season is over. It isn't that difficult. At this point depending on the model employed you either have a DoF or equivilent working with the manager on transfers, or the manager and his staff create targets and work with the club to make the deals happen. Why is it after 9 years we still appear to be operating under such an incomplete model which requires the owner to go out to India post-season and have a chinwag with the owners about issues that shouldn't even be a part of his job specification?

He's at Boro tbf, which does seem to be a major part of our scouting network.

Just watched through Fyter Fest - overall really enjoyable. Didn't watch the Buy In, just went straight to the main show. Daniels Vs Cima - decent enough opening match. Sakazaki Vs Riho Vs Rose - another good women's match, the women's division is shaping up to be really solid in AEW. Page Vs Jungle Boy Vs Havok Vs MJF - another solid match. MJF is a really good heel - not playing for cheers, just a straight up heel. Cody Rhodes Vs Darby Allin - I had no idea who Allin was before this match, but I really enjoyed this one... until the match ended. The post-match chairshot to the head was total bullshit. I don't believe for a second that the chair was gimmicked. They did this on purpose to create buzz and put eyes on the product. I guess it worked in the sense that everybody was talking about it afterwards, but this left a really sour taste in my mouth. I won't support a company that does shit like this, and it had better be a one off. Omega & The Jacksons Vs Fenix/Pentagon/Kid - a great match, as expected. Everybody got time to shine and the finish made sense. Moxley Vs Janela - OK, first thing's first, the whole idea of "unsanctioned" matches is really dumb to me. So it's "unsanctioned", but you're showing it on your PPV, letting the wrestlers use your referees and having your announcers call the match. Exactly what part of that is "unsanctioned" ? That nonsense aside, this was just a brutal, ECW style death match. Both of these guys took some severe punishment. Moxley's back was a mess after being slammed into the barbed wire chair/tables and Janela walking on the thumb tacks in bare feet made me cringe. Insane stuff. The Omega attack at the end set up the match between him and Moxley at All Out nicely. So overall it was a solid event and a good watch, but I really do take issue with that chairshot to the head. Really disgusting stuff and if they continue on that path I'm definitely "all out". Other than that the match quality across the show was very good and the crowd was totally into it. Production looks good, commentary was spot on (good call on removing Marvez) and there wasn't any part of the show that dragged. A good effort tainted by the unnecessary chairshot.

People talk about Samuel like he's some kind of youngster - he's 25! He's scored 20 goals in his entire career and next season he's going to bag 10-12? Come on now. There's optimism and then there's madness. If Samuel plays a significant part next season then we will have failed in our recruitment.

I agree there is no point in panicking now, but I can't blame people for being pessimistic either. Based on past history (including our two most recent transfer windows) it's logical to assume we are going to be underwhelmed by the time the window shuts. If not then it'll be a pleasant surprise.

Maybe so, but you can't expect people to be placated by the old "judge at the end of the window" mantra. Fool me once shame on you, fool me sixteen or so times shame on me.

Not a dig at you Kamy but we've heard this almost every window for the past eight years and almost every single one has ended in disappointment. In fact the only time I can remember this line not being repeated over the course of the window was summer 2017 and that's because we did a lot of good business before or at the start of July. What a concept.

I've been testing my new laptop with the Oculus Rift and watched the new FFVII remake trailer in the virtual cinema. It was even more amazing. Can't wait for this.

Our scouting seems to be the equivilent of going into your transfer history on football manager and cycling back through seasons to see if any previous loans or sold players are now available.

Agreed, I don't think Mulgrew is the type of partner Lenihan needs at the back. In fact I'd go as far as to say Mulgrew has never been a particularly good CB for us. Even in L1 he was exposed fairly often, but it didn't matter so much as teams either didn't have the quality to take their chances or conceded more than they scored. Mulgrew's popularity largely stems from his direct set piece prowess. When a player scores often it generally endears them to the fanbase, masking the things they don't do so well. He's also got a decent pass on him and is quite composed. He would have made an excellent DM for us in his younger years, but unfortunately CB seems to be the only spot for him now and he's simply never been that good of a defender for us. He'll still go down as an important player for us over the past few years and rightly so, but I really wish he was moving on as I think his race here has been run.

Absolutely no need to do chairshots to the head in this day and age, gimmicked or not. I can remember TNA doing it a few years ago and getting major flak for it - I hope AEW are held to the same standard.

His demeanour when we concede goals is the opposite of what a captain should be, and 0 assists last season suggests his set piece deliveries aren't great. Direct and on target, sure, he scored 10 - but we barely won any games he scored in so not really worth much in the grand scheme of things. I'd certainly have Mulgrew out the door before Raya if I had the choice.