Isn't Darikwa Wigans captain as well? Would be an odd move indeed unless they see him as a centre half for them

Well its looking like Sharpe has shot his load prematurely again on the head of recruitment being announced, getting a bit late on a Friday ain't it? Next week really ought to be a busy one or even chaddy will have a turtles head probing his kecks

Nearly lost my job at the time cos of it. Queued up in the early hours under the Blackburn end to secure a ticket. Nobhead of a boss refused my holiday request. I went anyway. Away leg was eventful, half the pubs near the ground wouldn't even serve us for the simple fact we were English. The game itself I just remember us dominating without scoring tbh, I'd had more than a few ales though. After the game plenty of morons trying to goad us with their usual IRA nonsense. I'm fond of Scottish people in general, but Celtic can fuck off, they belong in the same cess pit as Burnley and Liverpool

Van Hecke is a signing literally everyone would get behind and would go some way to lifting any gloom on here. Re-sale potential would be huge too, if we're gonna break the bank (by our standards) then this is exactly the player it should be on.

In September last season after 8 games,we were top 6, as were Stoke, Coventry and West Brom... In contrast forest were bottom of the league and sheff utd 15th, Luton in 13th. The rest as they say is history......

Do we want to sign players to improve us though or just get bodies through the door? I'm as frustrated as anyone that no players have signed, but seeing some of the dross that has been signed by other teams I'm also glad we've swerved some of them players too. HUGE week coming up though, we simply cannot dilly dally now.

Erm who have Blackpool signed? Birmingham 35 year old John Ruddy. Placheta from Norwich on loan? QPR lost a load of players and signed Kenneth Paal on a free from Zwolle (no idea on him) and Clarke-Salter on a free (again no idea on him apart from he's spent his career at average clubs on loan), Tyler Roberts - could be ok, time will tell. Huddersfield have lost a manager who performed miracles and got a centre half from Cheltenham, Connor Mahoney who's done nothing since leaving us, Kasumu from MK Dons and a giant who's spent his career in the national league. Burnley is an interesting one. Twine I'd liked to have taken a punt on. Harwood Bellis was decent for us. The rest I've no idea on really but almost certain they're big downgrades on the departures and they're still likely to lose a few more. Watford lose shitloads and have signed Bayo who's had a good season in Belgium, might be ok though and Manaj from Barca, no idea on him but from decent pedigree. So in summary, how many of these players mentioned are you dazzled by?

Ask a Preston fan what they thought of him and they'll tell you he's the best defender that ever walked the planet - 136 appearances As a Liverpool fan and they'll say "who?" - 0 appearances As a Sheff Utd fan and they'll give mixed reviews. The negative ones will suggest a lack of confidence at times - 23 loan appearances (he's the one who scored the late winner against us BTW) I know PNE fans can be tits but their opinion can probably be relied upon the most I would say.

“You need to have volume, have intensity, and we’re training extremely hard, which is something new for a few of the boys with regards to intensity and they need to work.” Interesting comment from JDT and adds weight to the viewpoint that it was a bit of a holiday camp for some under Mowbray

You have to bear in mind JDT came into the job not knowing who pretty much all the players we class as first team are, let alone the kids. A clean slate for everyone and a change to impress as he keeps saying. Absolutely the right thing to do. The frustration comes for us because time isn't on our side. Our business is going to be done late, we're gonna have to hope the incoming players have some game time under their belts at existing clubs. They're not gonna have much time to integrate with our existing players. BUT I doubt JDT will piss about with any new players getting them used to 'the way we play' like Mowbray did. A very different team will start on Saturday, last chance to impress for me then its time to draw a line under it and get the new faces in next week.

The Allsvenskan is anything but laid back from what I've seen. High intensity and aggression is rife! Some of the challenges I see flying in and slightly more lenient refs make it a good watch.

They never did have, bizarre how many people lapped that 'rumour' up

On this obsession with 2 left footers at centre half, I remember this debate during last years euros around Spain playing Laporte and Torres. Someone actually went to great lengths to dispell it as a load of bollocks statistically and said it didn't matter.

Forest splashed put on Taiwo Awoniyi, can't see them being interested, willing to bet their fans definitely won't be either.

Shane Long my arse, as previously suggested a slightly younger, more prolific, out of contract Lewis Grabban would be a far better option. The only potential stumbling block could be wages, 25k a week at forest but at this stage of his career would surely lower expectations and join on am incentive based deal.

I know a few rovers fans who go watching Stanley, mainly when we're away or don't have a midweek game. I can see why though, it's a decent day out. I'd probably go and watch them during an international break to be fair but that's about it.

He made 1 appearance at Cardiff so not sure that's the best spell of his career to judge him on.... His record elsewhere in his career looks good.

Would anyone take Grabban on a freebie? Turned a contract down at Forest, I'd be up for that...

Even based on that, get the other Wharton in the first team, looks a class above. After that I'd just like to comend Stanley on the setup, absolutely light years ahead of us. Madri on tap the icing on the cake.

I doubt Ayala put much effort into getting 'fit' to play for a manager with 0 enthusiasm to be honest. Which he shouldn't really need as he's getting paid handsomely to play regardless, but you never know, he might miraculously make himself available more for JDT.

I wonder if anyone far more imaginative has some new songs lined up for today. If not I'm sure JDT will enjoy his first live airing of Barmy Army 😕 Looks a lovely day far it, I'll never forget the absolute monsoon last time we played them. I knew it was gonna happen so went in the covered home end. The open terraced away end must have been half full after 20 mins of constant rain and everyone retired to the crown 😆

The parachute payments most certainly need binning off. Poxy little clubs like Bournemouth are able to throw money at promotion to secure it. Yes there probably is an element of jealousy and bitterness in my opinion

Yeah there's loads of free parking within a short distance unless you're particularly bone idle.... A better idea is a bit of a pub crawl though, weathers looking decent for it 😎 Looking forward to welcoming the new gaffer.

No element of I told you so on my part, my point was that there's no way you can make a comparison on ability purely based on the little game time Zeefuik had for us, especially when the nobhead in charge played him out of position for part of his time here. The only thing we can say is he's either a crock or had bad luck. We'll never know unless someone can be arsed to follow his career from now onwards.

Not even in Nyambes class based on 6 appearances, half of which were sub appearances in stupid positions? Give it a rest. He wasn't much use to us but none of us are in a position to say that based on ability.