Careless with possession(s) as well, by the looks.

Really enjoyed the day yesterday. Overall encouraging. Some visible weaknesses, albeit forgivable at this stage of the season and the new regime. I’ll go against the consensus and say that I was really impressed with Vale. Wasn’t a revelation but his linkup play was of a good standard. He’s not got enough nous currently to lead the line but as a part of this “fluid front four” he’ll definitely be able to contribute. Somewhat staggered by the decision to only field one sub when five are now available. A couple of players were spent by the end.

Szmodics is an interesting one. His age and where he plays aren’t dissimilar to Dack and there are aspects of “threat” that each provides with some overlap but I think they’re not identical players. If it’s to provide cover or competition to the 10 role, who’s viewed as the better option? Do we have a strong central striker for either to play off? If it’s to light a fire under Dack’s arse, what’re the performance objectives for him for the season? Is he now viewed as super sub/rotation option? Can’t quite get my head around the logic and I hope I’m wrong but it seems a lot for a player without a huge amount of pedigree and at the beginning of their peak years. Are we panicky about Dack and alternatives? Food for thought, anyway.

A thousand fans Google “how to make snowballs in May.”

By comparison with Sparks’ no-doubt illustrious career, who wouldn’t be a rookie?

Heading home for the weekend especially to catch this and I suspect others will be travelling from equally far afield. Head is 1-1, but last time I was up was Sheff Utd at home, so let’s hope for a repeat of that.

Have you been watching a lot of The Wire, recently?

Totally agree here, I’ve raised q’s on Pickering’s physicality before. Depends how they’re prioritising, though, which we won’t find out ‘til the window shuts, I guess. Again, would love to see him join.

Genuine chance that Barnsley want a fair wedge for Styles (he’s an international and that’s fair enough), so if we don’t think LWB is too much a weakness, we look elsewhere and don’t want to splash out on that position. Think he’d be a really promising signing, but just my two pennies.

Deeply impressive stuff. Both content and to nail the questions and recounting it after.

Tricky one to understand, is Tayo. I think he can fill in at LB/LWB (although not sure he has good enough positional awareness when playing LWB), but I think he should be encouraged to challenge for a midfield battler role. Lefty CMs with a defensive leaning are tricky to come up against and if there’re right-footed opponents used to running the show from the middle, he would definitely be useful to disrupt that. Can’t see Trav being permanently dislodged but if Edun wants to push on in his career, he has to prove himself. I think either a first-choice LB/LWB or someone to push Pickering would allow the above. I have my doubts on Pickering, not convinced by him physically and the press may expose that side of his game.

Unfortunately, a salary cap would put any promoted teams at a severe disadvantage in the PL and probably consign a lot of clubs to permanent Championship status. Higher frequency of chancers blowing a load of money on promotion pushes that then leave the clubs bankrupt when the cash runs out or they lose interest. Dangerous game. Really, we need greater solidarity payments from the PL to the rest of the pyramid on an ongoing basis and there should be greater fees and solidarity payments to clubs that have their assets poached by clubs in a higher position. Levelling the playing field (even somewhat) is easy, it’s just that the major players have no interest in doing it and will yank the ladder up at every opportunity.

I think you’re confusing what’s reasonable to expect with what you want to happen. It’s not unreasonable for you to demand a level of communication from the club, but you’re setting yourself up for disappointment and the point I’m getting at is that it’s really not Broughton’s job to be running 20-minute interviews with club media or local media every week. The nature of JDT’s role means he’ll face the media a minimum of twice a week (pre- and post-match, assuming at least a game a week on average), but where else do clubs put their execs out to speak to media on a similar basis? If we’re not competitive on wages - whether structure or capital to blame - then what other way do we categorise our position in the market? To suggest Broughton has brought nothing as yet, itself suggests you’re not paying attention. The consensus so far has been he brought the manager in, unless I’ve missed clarification on that. I’m not excusing Waggott, who’s clearly behind the times and the commercial strategy (which he’s ultimately responsible for) for the club speaks volumes. However I would excuse Broughton on the basis that he’s mere weeks into a job and the reason I initially commented is that it’s thoroughly unhelpful to stoke a fire of blame towards individuals this early, not least when beating them with an irrelevant stick.

With respect, that’s nonsense. As a commercial endeavour, BRFC is a product with an addressable market. Communicating the offering is a marketing job. Fans are owed communication by those responsible for comms. That isn’t Broughton’s remit. I think it’s bad practice to put the message out that we’re brassic to the market he’s addressing, which is players and their agents. Why turn them off from a conversation at all? I’d be alarmed if we were being entirely transparent with our approach to the transfer market, it doesn’t make sense to be when it’s so competitive and conplicated. I think he has to be left to execute and judged at the end of a complete cycle, which is a season. Once we get into talk of 4 or 5 windows, I’d be very concerned on the execution front.

We shouldn’t be hearing anything from Broughton during this period. If he’s leading the recruitment drive, he has a lot to be getting on with and - in my experience - you tell stakeholders about what you’ve been getting on with, once you’ve completed it. No point engaging in a post-mortem while the matter is still live. I suspect we as fans aren’t privy to the strategy that Broughton has agreed with the club and if you think back to his interviews, he wasn’t especially forthcoming on that. There’s clearly a long-term emphasis on youth, so while we probably all agree that we need bodies in, what we think is a sum total of requirements could be somewhat at odds with the agreed strategy. We have to wait and see, but we shouldn’t be expecting weekly interviews with media from recruitment dept. Very few other clubs would have it that way and I’m of the opinion that if he was spending time engaging with media, he’d have very little else on.

Just as an aside, but I think Leeds would be a good move for Ben. Wouldn’t begrudge him the move, either. EDIT: I have Covid and having thought about this for a mere moment, that was the illness talking.

He scored a goal in the Euros final against Italy last year. I don’t think he’s ready for the drop to mid-table Championship (as we currently are) just yet.

Always find who a club puts in promotional materials as somewhat telling of any transfer stuff. Not nailed-on either way, but you’d imagine someone may say, “yeah, he doesn’t look likely to stay beyond the summer, best leave him out.”

I laughed!

Yeah, agreed but I think that’s something to do with composure, etc. His shots can be quite weak from distance, especially at the end of a long run. That can be trained away from him. If he works on awareness, etc, his attributes suggest an (admittedly not as good) Sterling-type player, making space for himself in the box and sneaking in from the far side for goals in the six-yard box. Playing to the byline and firing across balls like that could see him at the level of goals I was suggesting.

Dolan will come good, I think. I think he could be a 10-15-goal-a-season player. Just needs to work on his decision making and his awareness. The rest comes with exposure to first team football.

With all the talk of decisions being made for the team and the expectation of hard work, etc, Cantwell doesn’t seem to fit that. Undeniably a very talented footballer and capable of individual brilliance, but not what we need, especially when JDT is probably spending a lot of time working on team cohesion, understanding and developing a culture. Seems way too disruptive, to me, but if Broughton knows him well enough, maybe he can contribute to getting the best out of him.

I saw the Dack thing and didn’t enjoy it so much, but we’ve no idea what happened immediately before or after, so I don’t think there’s much value in reading into it at this stage. it’s very much up to Dack how much he contributes this year. If he’s kept fit and commits to the pre-season, there’re many uses for him, even if he’s not exactly the same player he was. Ironically, Dack’s quite similar to JDT as a player: not the quickest, keen eye for goal, clinical finisher, excellent off the ball movement. If there’s anyone who can help him remould himself as a player, it’s this manager.

Rothwell has burned his bridges, you’d think. Looks like he’s en route to Forest.

Glad to see the optimism on the board about this, feels a while since we’ve had that feeling! Trying to take in the glut of info around it all, but it lead me to check out the progress of Malmö since he left. New guy has them in 5th, five points off top with 11 games gone. Not exactly definitive, but adds some credence to the idea that JDT was instrumental in their recent success. I fully expect him to need time to get his ideas across to the squad. Timing of the World Cup break could be very useful for that, perhaps. Hopefully he gets the backing needed from the owners and the FFP cycle allows the club to invest in the playing squad