Anybody heard anything about Bury? Last time I checked we were their only pre season fixture and their staff were being told to stay away from Gigg Lane. Could that one be in doubt?

Well we will find out this season. If the defence continues to leak like a sieve then I'll be blaming the manager and coaching staff rather than the multitude of players through the doors. Mowbray's had plenty of time and cash to do what he needs to do to improve the goals against column, let's see if he does. It was our Achilles heel all last season. Lets just say I'm not particularly optimistic given his record elsewhere of this happening. My view is that Mowbray thinks getting a couple of million in for Raya who can be replaced by a free agent or loan will impress his bosses, bring in a bit of cash and potentially add to his budget to sign players elsewhere. As before the developing players to sell for profits concept is fine if selling for good money to higher clubs but selling for little to rival Championship sides does concern me.

Not a chance will Brentford be committing themselves to that sort of money for a goalkeeper IMO. There could well be a hefty sell on percentage coming our way but initial guaranteed payment I reckon 2 million at the very most. Suspect Rovers will attempt to head off any unrest from supporters by announcing it as undisclosed and putting stuff out in the Telegraph to make people believe we're getting a bigger amount than we actually are.

He won't be going to Brentford for 4 or 5 million. I'd be surprised if they would go to 2 million.

Leutwiler was brought to the club to make up the numbers and sit on the bench every week, and given his previous clubs i suspect he's on peanuts compared to most goalkeepers these days. Happy days all around then. Happy to sit on the bench without causing any aggro and happy to take his salary which will still be a considerable increase on what Shrewsbury were paying him. I'm not criticizing Leutwiler for that, nor am i questioning his professionalism. No surprises that we're happy to hand him another season. Boxes off the worry of a back-up keeper being needed without upsetting any apple carts or adding more to the wage bill. Of course if we really want to get anywhere we need to be doing better but it seems the focus here is more on financial concerns and avoiding bringing in anyone who 'might' upset the camaraderie.

Gallagher in and Nuttall out would be a positive step in my opinion. It would be an improvement. I'll be on the whole pleased if we get him in on a permanent quickly. Get him up to speed and ready for regular games. The crux then from an attacking point of view is going to be keeping Dack and protecting Graham. Then focus our energies on defence and midfield where more serious work needs to be done.

Not seen many Villa fans in uproar about 'selling' their historic ground to their owners to circumvent the rules and win promotion. Nothing stopping their owners from selling it back for a pound now they've got where they want to be. Some just want to hide behind the rules, others find ways around them.

Apparently his girlfriend didn't like being Up North so on that basis his career will be restricted to clubs in England south of Birmingham. Will be a shame for the lad if Everton or Man Utd offered him a deal but he had to turn it down. As with 99% of professionals if we make the right offer he's available. Think we can safely say that's the issue.

When your manager is describing Middlesbrough and Stoke as huge clubs to try and compete against and presumably relaying that attitude back to the Indian idiots and we are keeping Leutwiler and Gladwin whilst selling Raya to Brentford it's hard not to have low expectations. We'll do well to survive without significant improvements.

Anyone expecting a 'big fee' by selling Raya to Brentford is mistaken. Brentford don't pay big money or wages for players so I have to say I'm perplexed by this one. I'm not too fussed about losing him but fail to see where there's any serious benefit from our point of view. If we want to strengthen the GK position surely we get rid of Leutwiler and have Raya competing with a new arrival. And yes, Brentford tend to be very good at picking up players and making them much better so it wouldn't surprise me to see him thrive under better coaching. Presumably Mowbray's solution to our pitiful defensive record is to sell Raya, bring in someone on a free or loan, make a small profit whilst leaving the defence largely intact. Easier and cheaper than upsetting more experienced players who won't attract serious interest from elsewhere.

I suppose it depends with Gallagher. There's clearly something to work with there and he ticks a lot of boxes. He did quite well in our relegation season, knows the club, should be entering the best years of his career. If we are buying him outright he could be an asset for us and we might be able to build around him moving forward. However, if it's just on loan again it just feels to me like we're just kicking the can down the road. All this talk about scouting and there's no evidence anything has actually happened. All our rumoured targets are either Mowbray's mates or ex players. If he's arriving imminently at least he should get pre season under his belt and be ready to play from the word go rather than last minute.com as in previous years. Fully expect Mowbray to decide he should be playing in midfield and spend the season converting him mind.

I see Newcastle have gone with a new strip with their Crest on the middle of the shirt. Never really understood why we haven't done that before. Would be a nice change, make the shirt more symmetrical, drum up a bit of interest.

No pre season games, no season tickets, hardly any players and coaching staff don't know if they'll be there. Still no news on a punishment for not playing Brentford when the fixture was set or then rearranging it. More points deducted surely.

I was surprised when O'Neill got the Forest job given their owners reputation and past. It seems the owner felt getting a club legend in would galvanise them and win over the supporters but it hasn't really happened. He's probably finished in management now. Suspect there was a bust up of sorts with Keane leaving last week or he knew the axe was coming. All good for us IMO. Another club unstable and chaotic to go with Birmingham, Hull, Charlton, soon to be Derby. Inexperienced managers at Fulham, Huddersfield, Middlesbrough, Swansea could go any way. Great opportunity for a stable well run club to come through this season and challenge. Will that be us? Doubt it unless there's a radical change in approach.

If we signed Cristiano Ronaldo tomorrow these pages would be full of very happy people even though the window would be open for a while to come. Quite rightly people would express their delight. As we've done very little business and the manager is now seemingly backtracking people are voicing their concerns, quite rightly in my view given the tragic defence we had last season. Only one way to stop that - sign some decent players who will improve us!

Like most stuff they come out with at those meetings I think they get a rush of blood when surrounded by supporters and with a microphone in front of them. Most supporters are quite easy to please and talk about new players etc. will send many home from the meeting happy and looking forward to the future. Unfortunately it has become a theme at this club for there to be lots of talk about what the owners, manager and others want to do but ultimately when it comes down to delivering the goods it's a different story. I agree that we are now seeing a gradual scaling back on expectations. In my view Venkys will have told him to sell someone if he wants serious funds and will probably be asking why he needs new defenders having dished out new deals to Williams, Mulgrew, Lenihan and Nyambe in the last few months.

As expected the link to a young midfielder on loan from a Premier League club's academy appears. Cheap, easy, low risk and short term. Ticks all the boxes. Liverpool more than happy to send him here for a season so he can play Championship football and it avoids the need for us to commit to a fee or large wages. I wouldn't mind if it had ever worked for us but every time we do this it fails and we end up with the same faces in the team. Harper, Palmer, Samuelson, Byrne, Hendrie, Barrow, on it goes yet some get carried away because its Liverpool or City. News flash- our u23s are as good as theirs so if we're so keen to bring younger players in why not do it with our own rather than helping another club out?

We can buy all those players if we want to. That's 7 new arrivals and we've already let 3 go from last season and should be looking to offload another two or three like Smallwood. We got Dack for less than a million whilst spending 7 million on Brereton so good business can be done. The trouble is we don't seem to have any serious desire to improve on those already here. All the talk at the moment appears to be around padding out the squad, filling gaps rather than getting rid of some and getting better ones in.

For Rangers? Doubt they'll have sold 1000 in 2 days, probably just run out of online sales and need to add more, or an error with the website. If they do manage to shift 1000 there will be more made available, provided it isn't a couple of days before the game.

I'm a little uncomfortable with the concept that we are pursuing players as 'back up' to 'maybe earn a spot'. As far as I'm concerned whether you are Man City or Accy Stanley every player you bring in should be with a view to that player being good enough to play in the team regularly. Clearly Man City can afford to stockpile a collection of players who will sit around doing nothing whereas lower clubs won't be able to take such risks but the principle should be the same - any player the club pursues should be seen as good enough and as a first teamer. Only when he's in the building and training does a decision then get made on who starts games. It's a similar thing with this bizarre Brereton deal. We're supposed to believe that he was a 'project' signing and that we paid out millions of pounds on a player that was never expected to seriously contribute last season and was some sort of pet project for Mowbray or others to polish up and then presumably prove a point down the line by him being worth more than we paid. It's all just nonsense and is unheard of at other Championship clubs. You sign players who are good enough and ready to play. Enough of this back-up, squad filler, making up the numbers or development project stuff. Just sign some players who are ready to play who are better than those already here! If Mowbray was unconvinced about Bauer's capabilities and never saw him as a starting CB then he's wasted a lot of time and energy talking about him and pursuing him. It will also be shown to wrong if Bauer now plays every week for North End and is a central cog in a stronger defence than ours. I wasn't against the Downing signing given he was a regular at Boro recently but already we're seeing it - he hasn't gone to Austria with the squad so next news is he won't be ready for friendlies as he won't have had the intensive training, then next news is he'll be playing catch up fitness wise and he'll be struggling to break into the team from that point on. Seen it before.

My expectation is that the money men, having agreed to no sales in the last two windows, are now hoping or expecting a sale or two to keep things ticking over. Naturally we then look at who out of our bunch would attract serious interest and cash and we're down to a couple. The cornerstone of Mowbray's tenure as manager has been an obsession with increasing player values ahead of hypothetical future sales. It is clear that is the vision he has sold to the owners or they have instructed him to follow. Some might say that's a good policy to have, and I agree insofar as recruiting sensibly and ensuring value in the squad, but not if that comes before getting the best players for the job or development of assets comes before results on the pitch. It wouldn't surprise me if Mowbray had gone to India hoping for a pat on the back and a chequebook to build again only to meet owners reluctant to stump up another 5 or 10 million without a sale or two to plug the shortfall over the last few years. They'll be expecting a sale or two sooner or later to offset their losses, so why wouldn't it be this summer? Mowbray isn't going to kick up a fuss because he's in a good position on a good number so will do as instructed from above.

Going into a season assuming or hoping that youngsters are going to step up, improve and perform at this level is a big ask, especially when we're talking about 4-5 of them in Chapman, Davenport, Brereton and the u23s who between them have so far done very little at Championship level. On the other hand Graham is getting on and I think it is inevitable that sooner or later his body will start to break down and it would be extremely foolish to try and depend wholly upon him.

Not happy with that personally. Too many questions and concerns. GK position unchanged. Question marks at full back. Still reliant on Dack and Graham. Question marks on Chapman, Rothwell, Davenport, Butterworth and Brereton in terms of capacity and capability to play regular Championship football. Essentially weaker than last season without Reed and an older Graham.

I suspect he's been on the radar for some time now. We wouldn't pay for him last summer whilst he was still on Huddersfields books so now he's free its more appealing to us. Plus he's probably been knocked down a peg or two after getting relegated with Bradford and will be happy to 'fight for his place' which seems to be the requirement of any new signing these days. If we'd have kept him last summer after promotion I'd have been happy, but 12 months on it feels quite lazy/desperate and backward looking to bring him in. I quite like the lad and think we could do worse but I'd have hoped for a bit more imagination than that really.

I'm not sure the age issue is a factor. Warnock is in his 70s yet manages to put together a side to succeed and players buy into it. I'm more of the view that sitting around a table with Ridsdale and Neil providing clarity, coherence and a proper offer and answers will have won the day over waiting for Mowbray to arrive back from India then having to wait for India to authorise any deal etc.