It would have been impossible for us to pay any transfer fee before today as the transfer window closed before we made the deal. One assumes money will be transferred over imminently with the window now reopening.

One assumes we're currently paying his wages, but as far as the transfer fee it's somewhat shrouded in mystery. All we know is that in theory we've agreed to pay at least £7m, although nobody knows how that is made up in terms of bonuses, add ons, etc.

Graham has never been about pace. He didn't have any when he arrived so nothing has changed in that regard. His role is to hold up the ball and bring others into play, whilst scoring goals if/when the opportunity arises. He does that pretty well. In Tony's system you'd be looking to the likes of Armstrong, Palmer and Brereton to be using their pace to exploit the opposition defence.

He was purchased by Lambert. Same with Bennett. You may or may not remember that Rev has an irrational hatred of anything Paul Lambert related

If anything we seem to struggle more against ten men so it probably made it harder.

Sheff Utd the only team in the top six to win today.

Travis probably should have been brought in last season the same way Nyambe, Raya and Lenihan were - by having him start regularly whenever fit. Particularly in the second half of the season when Smallwood's form evaporated. It'll be more difficult for him to acclimatise in a higher division. That said, today's performance against one of the top teams in the division suggests he has what it takes, so get him into the team and let him prove himself.

I'd obviously prefer a win against Millwall, but they've won three on the spin now and the Den is not an easy place to go. For me a draw would be acceptable as long as we then got three points from Ipswich.

He's got a contract until 2021 so he'll be leaving some money on the table if he does. Plus you can only walk away from a club after failing so many times before interest in your services from decent clubs vanishes.

Credit to Tony today, tactics and subs appear to be spot on. Bringing on an experienced head in Conway was probably a good idea considering our recent capitulations, whilst bringing off a player who - whilst very important for us - had just proven himself to be a liability defensively.

Hopefully. Obviously he may not be with us much longer anyway, so it may not mean much long term anyway!

Bennett is coming off a nasty injury and was good for us before then, so maybe a little harsh to be so critical of him. Especially when the likes of Nyambe, Bell and Williams have all recently contributed to conceding goals through bad positioning/defending. The main issue with Bennett is that he's increasingly a jack of all trades but master of none. He's probably looked his best for us in CM last year, but considering the standard of opposition it's difficult to judge whether he'd be effective there at this level. There's also a lot of competition in CM these days so unlikely Bennett would find himself in contention for that position.

I can't disagree with that, I just thought his reaction was interesting as I haven't seen that before from any players during Mowbray's reign.

Ipswich looking doomed at this point. 1-0 up at half time against Millwall at home, then threw it away and ended up losing 3-2. Now ten points adrift so it's looking like mission impossible. I wonder if Lambert will stay on for their League 1 campaign, or decided to once again move on to pastures new?

Positives: The result - obviously unexpected and a much needed three points after a dismal run of form. I was expecting us to get hammered today so fair play to the manager and the players on getting a very good win. Holding onto the lead - something we haven't been able to do recently. Travis - if he performs like this in the next two games then there is no excuse for bringing Smallwood back into the team. Whether you agree that Smallwood's challenge deserved a red or not, the fact is it came about because of his own stupidity with a needless tackle. He only has himself to blame for losing his spot and Mowbray needs to be strong and make him aware that stupid actions have consequences, as he did with Travis last season. Negatives: Not many, but... Self-destructive tendencies still apparent - considering our recent run of form, giving away a needless penalty after going two goals up is just unacceptable. This idiocy needs to stop. We managed to hold on today but giving WBA a lifeline with half an hour still to play was totally unnecessary. Dack's reaction to being subbed - in one sense you'd say it's good that he wanted to stay on, but on the other hand it makes you wonder whether some of the players are starting to get fed up with the manager's decisions, particularly when it comes to substitutions. We won the match today so ultimately you have to say Tony's decisions were correct, but it's still a bit of a concern to see a player having a strop when being taken off the pitch. A little less pressure now for the Milwall match, a draw there now wouldn't be the end of the world as long as we beat an Ipswich team who are dead in the water at this point.

Another match where we enter the final minutes with only a one goal advantage.

Looks like we've started really well. That only makes me more nervous though.

That was my assumption, just couldn't remember reading about it.

Is Williams injured/suspended, or has Mowbray totally bombed him out of the squad?

Looking at that team just makes me realise how lucky we are to have the points we have. Fingers crossed for a WBA off day.

Possibly, but if so then he needs to completely abandon this idea of using inside forwards and set us up with a much more traditional formation using proper wide-midfielders/wingers. People keep asking why he's bringing in strikers to play out wide, but I think the reason is that in his mind they shouldn't be playing out wide, they should be tucked in alongside Graham supporting the attack in the middle of the pitch. I'm not convinced this can work with our current personnel and mentality.

What's frustrating with Mowbray is that I think I understand what he's aiming for, but the way he sets the team up at present doesn't come close to achieving that. I think his preferred tactic would be a 4-2-1-3 when we're attacking and a 5-3-2 when we're defending. What we're currently seeing is a static 4-2-3-1 that forces our inside forwards out wide as ineffective wingers who aren't providing enough cover for our full backs. For his preferred tactic to work we would need at least one, if not two better centre halves alongside Mulgrew at the back. Nyambe/Bennett might be passable at RWB but we'd need a massive improvement on Williams/Bell at LWB. We also need a box-to-box midfielder alongside either Evans or Smallwood who can support the attack when we're going forward but get back to provide defensive support when we're defending in our section of the pitch. I don't think we have anybody at present who could fill that role. Possibly Reed but as he's only on loan at present he isn't a long-term answer unless we bring him in on a permanent. We would also need proper back up/competition for Graham as the target man. I can understand having the likes of Brereton, Armstrong, Palmer, Rothwell, etc slotting into the inside forward roles in theory but it only works if they aren't constantly ending up out wide as wingers. For Mowbray's ideas to work going forward I think we'd need a change in mentality to be braver going forward, but the formation would also need to look something like: Raya Nyambe/Bennett - NEW - Mulgrew - NEW Reed - Evans Dack Brereton - Graham - Armstrong Evans would spend most of the game sitting back with Mulgrew and our other centre half. Reed would push forward when we're on the attack but be able to get back when we need to defend. The full backs would also need to push up the pitch to support the attack as otherwise the pitch becomes too narrow and there are no spaces for Brereton or Armstrong to exploit, meaning they have to drift out to where our wing backs should be. It's a pretty bold set up and, from what we've seen so far, very much at odds with Mowbray's extremely cautious approach.

Mowbray's ideas on football are, imo, totally opposed to his natural disposition. The inside forward tactic he wants to employ does indeed rely on high pressing, but Mowbray's cautious nature means the team is instructed to sit back too often making the idea of inside forwards and wing backs completely ineffective. Mowbray would be much better off with a Big Sam/Tony Pulis mindset of percentage-based, counter-attacking, direct passing style football. That's generally how cautious managers set up their teams. Instead we get this weird hybrid of a team in theory set up to attack from the front but who either aren't instructed or aren't able to produce the high pressing football necessary to make that tactic work. If TM genuinely thinks we spent last season pressing teams high up the pitch then that is concerning as that is not even close to what most of us saw.

I don't even agree with him on this. I saw almost every game we played in L1 last season on iFollow and I do not recall us "pressing high" on a regular basis at all. Most of the time it was exactly the same as we see now, directionless passing between players around the centre circle and defence eventually leading to a punt up the pitch. There's a reason our results dramatically improved once Graham came back into the team - he actually worked as an outlet in a way the likes of Samuel didn't.

I wouldn't say 'stole a point' is an entirely inaccurate description of the first match. They had 20 shots to our 9 and Reed worldie aside we never looked like scoring. Wasn't that the first game we tried the ineffective Dack up top experiment?