32 minutes ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

Good post. I think the difference under Coyle was we played with proper wingers - I think he scored about 12 that season and 4 or 5 were with his head. Another was that screamer of a volley! He's a better player than he's given credit for. 

Agree on the 'first touch', he isn't a natural with his back to goal like Graham was for example....Sharpe did make the point though that in pre-season he has dropped a lot deeper than he used to and has been linking up play on the deck a lot more than he did under Mowbray....that touch round the corner for the Vale goal was sublime!

Agree on his instinct to get in the box under Mowbray, he was often 5 yards behind where the ball ended up. Hopefully that was just a confidence/coaching thing and that he'll be more proactive under a more attacking coach. 

I think you're completely right about him being a better player than he's given credit for. Some very good finishes in the relegation season and his physicality (even though he doesn't make the most of it in my view, but that's a different issue) is still a challenge for defenders. His weaknesses (alongside maybe the teams/coaches weaknesses) are pretty bad ones, but I've always thought the 'Gallagher is rubbish' and 'Gallagher is good but played as a winger' views are both wide of the mark. 

I was thinking of mentioning Graham, so I'm glad you've done it for me! I think the only way that he could play as a lone striker is if we wanted him to score goals and not much else, because he definitely can't hold up the ball in the way that someone like Graham did. I don't think we'll be playing with proper out and out wingers under JDT, but we might be playing with wing backs who get crosses in, which we never really did under Mowbray for some reason, even though we often had the players to do it.

I think Pickering was the one who was really given a torrid time against Celtic. Carter struggled too, but was clearly out of position. We can't be expecting him to replace Lenihan or Van Hecke with the same quality, but with two successful L1 loans I'm happy to have him as an option to see how he does. On paper, he has established himself at a higher level than Wharton before he took his chance.

25 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

I watched him quite a bit and my assessment is above.  Not quick enough or comfortable enough on the ball to play in a 3.....

Almost all of my knowledge of him is from the handful of Rovers appearances that he's made and second hand reports of him from his loans. I'm surprised that you mention his lack of comfort on the ball though. Without claiming that he's Beckenbauer, I thought the consensus was that he could play a bit for a player of his size?

29 minutes ago, Sweaty Gussets said:

How many did he get under Coyle playing centrally in a shite team with a shite manager?

He spent a part of that season playing wide in a forward three too.

I think the Gally can't play wide thing is really overdone to be honest. He obviously couldn't be further away from a winger in a traditional sense, but the biggest issue like you say is that we don't get enough quality balls to him when he's in the box, which we can still do if he plays 'wide'. Big Sam used to do this all the time with Kevin Davies.

It's true that his weaknesses (esp. his first touch) are badly shown up in the ways that Mowbray set the team up, but I think that would be just as true if he played centrally. The slightly worrying thing is that we've had Douglas, Giles, Pickering and even Downing at left back who are all meant to be crossing specialists, and none of them really managed to get Gally into more scoring positions. This might be their fault, and it might be Mowbray's fault with how he saw their jobs, but it might also be down to Gally's lack of nous when it comes being in the right place at the right time, and if that doesn't improve then a change of system and better crossers can only do so much.

4 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Time for Broughton to show us what he's made of and that he has more about him than Waggott/Mowbray/Venus.

When do players have to be registered by to be eligible for Saturday?

You begin to wonder how Clubs in the lower leagues with a budget a fraction of ours  ever manage to sign any players as we seem to find it a mystical art completely beyond us.

Lower standards. Usually not paying significant transfer fees. A larger pool of 'acceptable' frees because contracts tend to be shorter at that level. 

The squad obviously needs substantial strengthening, but it's not a coincidence that most Championship clubs (at least those who don't have parachute payments coming in) tend to leave a lot their transfer activity fairly close to the window closing. The players who are easy to get are usually straightforward because nobody else is bothered about them. Cardiff have brought in 12 players, but I don't think many would make it into our XI on Saturday. 

2 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

According to Transfermarkt his market value is £900k, which means they'll pay more than that.

Personally I thought he was an infuriating player. Quick, skillful, but 7/10 made the wrong choice.

I think back to the Sheff U game at Ewood where he and Poveda were brought into the XI. Khadra, deflected goal aside, seemed to do nothing other than give the ball away for me. Poveda on the other hand looked a real player. Real shame what happened there.

He (Khadra) obviously has talent and I'd love it if we signed him on a four year deal. A bit of football intelligence and he could do some real damage in the prem with just a tad more experience - but the worry with players who have so much pace is that they never get that know-how because they can rely on their speed.

4 minutes ago, Hasta said:

Hopefully their keeper throws one in like he did for Khedra’s free kick last year. That was looking destined for 0-0 up until that point.

It did, but we were missing an unreal amount of chances on the way, first half especially. In the end we were a bit lucky, but had Rhodes still been playing for us we would've won 3-0. 

2 minutes ago, TimmyJimmy said:

Do we actually win season openers?

We did last year! 

Other than that though it was something like one win since Souness or something daft, so I take your point. 

10 minutes ago, JoeH said:

You can't have a pre-season like that and not get given the chance to go out and continue it. If it doesn't work in the league then fine, but I'd say it makes the most sense. Outside of him we'd need speed, Vale's great but not someone who's going to eliminate with pace. I think 3-4-3 is the system that suits our centre-backs the most, and obviously it suits Brittain. I think it gives Brereton his suited wide forward role. Makes the most sense in my head.

I think that's a fair comment (and being 21, he needs to be getting games now if he is ever to make his mark here).

That said, I'm cautious about reading too much into pre-season form. Might be a little risk averse but I think having Vale as our first option off the bench is a fair reward considering where he was in the pecking order last year. 

9 minutes ago, JoeH said:

3-4-3

T. Kaminski

H. Carter
D. Ayala
S. Wharton

C. Brittain
L. Travis
J. Buckley
H. Pickering

T. Dolan
J. Vale
B. Brereton Díaz

 

No Gally in the XI Joe? I can see the appeal of going to 343 now that Brittain is through the door, but I'd be surprised if both Dolan and Vale get in front of him (although I'm looking forward to see what Vale can do if given the chance). 

11 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Dack played an hour at the weekend. I don't think he will start but I don't see why he can't play another hour on Saturday.

He did indeed - that passed me by. To be fair if he's fit enough to deal with the intensity of a league game for an hour or so then I agree that he should be in there. I suspect we'll be seeing Dolan a bit more as a 10 this year though, probably starting on Saturday.

Feel a bit of trepidation about this one. I think we'll be fine over the season once we have a few more bodies in, but I can see why lots of outsiders would look at our squad at the moment and put us as lower mid-table. I'd take a horrible 1-0 right now. 

42 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Assuming no transfers between now and then:

Kaminski

Brittain Ayala Wharton Pickering

Travis Buckley

Hedges Dack Brereton

Gallagher

Subs: Pears, Carter, Edun, Garrett, Markanday, Dolan, Vale

I think that's our best team, but I'd be surprised if Dack starts with him only having 45 mins of pre-season. Would probably have Dolan as the 10 with Dack coming off the bench, and have JRC on the bench in front of Garrett.

1. Where will Rovers finish ? 

Caveated that I expect i) BBD to leave and ii) another four or so first teamers to come in, 12th. 

2. Who will be the Rovers (official) Player Of The Season ?

S. Wharton. Hopefully one of our attacking or creative players will prove me wrong and be consistently good enough.

3. Who do you think will be the breakout/breakthrough academy player this season ? (Let’s say under 23 at season start & fewer than 10 1st team appearances to be eligible)

Vale. Now or never. 

4. Who will win the Championship ?

Hard one, but I'll go for Norwich.

5. Where will Burnley finish ? 

5th. But could be literally anywhere from 1st to about 18th. 

7 minutes ago, tomphil said:

The Wigan move is odd but i suspect hes been offered good money for compared to here and as i said early i think he'll turn into a bit of a mercenary now.

For all we know someone else has said they want him but need to free up room first so he's been happy to take a short term deal elsewhere. These things happen in football the guy we've got now has obviously been on our radar a while but its only happened once Ryan has gone.

I think if he was on contract here but the club and himself made it known he wanted to move we could have at least got in enough to cover the Brittain deal.  That's how it's supposed to work if you want to go all Brentford.

Maybe, but the Wigan deal (which I agree is a little strange) suggests that he didn't have too much in the way of suitors at our level or above. If teams aren't making the effort when they don't have to pay a fee, presumably it wouldn't be straightforward to get decent money if we were trying to flog him.

I suppose when it comes down to 'protecting assets' - which we've been awful at - so much of it is successfully judging how players are going to develop and what they're likely to be worth down the line. If we think that Ryan, now in his mid 20s, isn't going to get much better then there's a logic in cutting our losses rather than paying him a good whack to stay a mid-level Championship right back.

7 minutes ago, tomphil said:

I think with the Nyambe thing we can now conclude there wasn't enough desire on either side to get it done.

Both sides at fault and letting it get to a that stage to lose him for nothing is criminal.  Once it's over though it's over the mutual love was dead and he'd definitely stagnated here over the last couple of seasons

Balls to him i hope he enjoys a bog standard Pie Crust season.

Even now, I'm not so sure. It's obviously galling in a way, but the fact that he can't attract anything better than Wigan even when he's on a free suggests that he's a long way away from being a decent sellable asset.

His strengths vs weaknesses have been done to death on here, but say we upped our offer to a decent level and he signed a new long term deal - that means we could be entering the territory of paying first XI wages to a player who isn't quite at the level we want to progress.

On balance I wish we convinced him to sign on but there's risk involved in keeping him on too.

17 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen Brittain play but reading their site he seems Nyambesque without the robust physique.

Barnsley fans having a go at him seem to be criticising his crossing more than anything else. That would be at least one difference to Nyambe because he never used to cross the ball in the first place!

Like you I'll wait and see before saying that he's an upgrade, but I'm pretty optimistic. He can obviously travel with the ball well, and if he can play in midfield you'd imagine that his all round game on the ball would be much better than Ryan's. Hopefully we don't lose too much on the defensive side.

4 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

Serious question, is Davies really all that?

I can’t say I’ve seen that much of him. Looking at the stats he managed 20 odd games for Sheff Utd last season. Is the fact Liverpool signed him to make up the numbers in training inflating everyone’s opinion of him?

I don’t think there’s be so much clamour to pay a sizeable fee and make him our highest paid player and captain if he was coming from PNE.

I was a bit shocked to see some of the opinions of Sheff U fans when someone posted a link to their forum. Can't have set the world alight there.

But he was very good at PNE by all accounts, and he's still at a good age, so I'd be over the moon if we signed him permanently. Him on a long term contract alongside Wharton and Carter waiting in the wings is a bit of decent stability at the back that we won't have had since at least Mulgrew and Lenihan, and even then we needed an upgrade at this level. 

5 minutes ago, Torgeir said:

If there are no takers then hopefully he’ll be willing to extend his deal for a further 12 months. Arma had a poor first season for Soton so that might scare some teams off too. 
 

Also like how frank JDT is in his interviews. Definitely putting pressure on GB and SW to deliver the goods, and letting the media and fans know who to blame if we fail to bring players in. 

That would be ideal - although to be honest I'd be surprised. I think the most likely scenario of him extending his deal is going to be through a lack of form this season if we don't sell now for whatever reason, which obviously wouldn't really suit anyone. 

17 minutes ago, Mellor Rover said:

It'd be a fairly poor business decision from both those teams imo. He doesn't dramatically improve either and he's had one good six month spell. 

If I were either of those I'd wait 6 months til Jan, and if he has another good spell, you'd be looking at 3-5 mil or for nowt in summer.

It's perfectly feasible that most (all?) of the links we've seen so far are Rovers trying to flog him. I'm just saying that IF we get more than two clubs who like the look of him, then we're not over the barrel quite as much. FWIW I think he's got more about him than Armstrong so it's not impossible, but we'll have to wait and see. 

10 minutes ago, Mellor Rover said:

If anyone (not aimed at you specifically @neophox) thinks we're getting anything anywhere near 25 million for BBD you're sadly mistaken. We'll do well to get 15 due to his contract situation. Another Armstrong.

Possibly. Thing that did for us with Armstrong too is that there was only one serious suiter. If both West Ham and Leeds (and/or others) genuinely want him, I think £20 million is achievable. 

1 hour ago, longsiders1882 said:

Rumours doing the rounds that Taylor is on his way out the door - not heard who to, just that he looks likely to be going soon. We could be playing a defence with an average age of around 21. A worrying lack of experience.

It's interesting - on the face of it you seem to be linked with lots of shrewd looking long term investments, but not really players with proven records of competing at the top end of the Championship. 

Don't know if that speaks to the financial situation at all, but with the noises that were coming out a month or so ago I would've thought there would've been enormous pressure to go back up first time (which you still might, of course!) so I'm a bit surprised that you're linked with so many players needing to make a step up.

9 minutes ago, Neal said:

Before anyone dreams of getting a permanent transfer of a Liverpool player, have a quick look at how much they sell their squad players for. They're masters at selling squad players for fortunes. Maybe this guy might be an exception, but I bet they're at least asking double what they paid for him. Personally I don't know how I feel about this one, we need good players in the door, loans are ok for good players but using our budget on players that aren't assets to sell in the future seems at odds with the principles of this new project. 

I think he will be an exception to be honest. A player who was never Liverpool standard bought in a panic and who hasn't made a single appearance for the club in 18 months, even during an injury crisis. They won't give him away if they can help it, but it's a world away from a promising youngster who hasn't quite managed to break through into a great side (who like you say, they tend to sell for big money). 

47 minutes ago, MarkBRFC said:

I imagine a permanent move would rule us out.

Liverpool seem to see him as totally surplus to requirements, so it could just come down to accepting the best offer that comes their way (including subsiding a big chunk of his wages if they're as high as some are suggesting).

That's obviously not to say that the best offer would come from us - I can't see us offering the same sort of fee that we supposedly were for the Bosnian lad seeing as there's little chance of getting a big profit further down the line. We might still be able to offer a semi-decent fee though, which might be enough with a bit of luck. 

1 minute ago, bluebruce said:

There is no way Nixon is right about us taking on Ben Davies' full wages. He's on 60k a week at Liverpool.

https://empireofthekop.substack.com/p/eotk-insider-opinion-ben-davies-wages

Good spot. Would be interesting to see what the overall financial package would be then, you'd have thought our absolute limit would be about a third of that if we're paying a fee on top. 

2 minutes ago, JBiz said:

I think people should realise how stupid they sound, pining for a 35 year old striker on a free when there’s 7 weeks of a window still open. 
 

It’s a strange desperation to come every single day to lament our lack of activity, but then also criticise a potential rumour including a decent championship defender, as a waste / another loan.

What did people expect with a new manager? Time has to be afforded, and those suggesting that the new people have been lied too about funds, surely you need more than a month to come up with that assumption? 
 

How about we kick a few balls first?

 

I wouldn't go as far as to say people sound stupid - I think when players have had good careers, it's easy to miss how much their star might have fallen in a couple of years. I'm certainly guilty of it. I think it's pretty natural to cast some jealous glances when we need to get so much business done and there's no obvious sign of progress.

But yes, I agree that given the circumstances we have to see going for Davies as a good thing. I'd like to think that us taking on his full contract and a substantial loan fee (if that's actually what is going on) might be with the view to a permanent deal next summer, but even if it's not, I doubt that I'd swap him for anyone that will be on Reading's radar this summer!

2 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Why's that then?

They overspent and were sanctioned, yet despite that have survived, still have a decent looking squad, haven't slashed costs right back and are signing players.

Speaking of 'only frees and cheap loans' what are you expecting us to do? Spend money? Think you'll be disappointed if so.

For what its worth we might as well be under a transfer embargo. Could still sign cheap loans / nobody which is what we are going to do without an embargo.

But they don't have a decent looking squad. They don't have a senior left back. They're even shorter on midfielders than we are! They might've 'survived' so far in that they narrowly escaped going down last year, but they're going into this season as one of the favourites again with a weaker squad and left scraping the barrel for everyone else's rejects to try and make a decent fist of staying up. 

I don't expect that we'll exactly be splashing the cash, but if we're going to bring Davies in, then that already is an example of a player who Reading wouldn't be able to get anywhere near because of the sanctions they're operating under.