Kargbo looks genuinely properly good. Fast, direct, great ball control, low centre of gravity so hard to knock off the ball. But that was a terrible dive

Pleasantly surprised with Dennis, Ribiero and Kargbo - all look sharp and up for it. I'd expect them to tire quite badly but for now not too bad

That's a protest line up surely - 'here's what you gave me, you say they are up to the task, let's put that to the test' We'll lose comfortably. I'm in the Forshaw can do a job as free emergency cover but should barely make the team camp, but against premier league opposition he's going to get torn to shreds.

There are always PL clubs not worth their salt.

Dolan is a highlights player - looks good doing a stepover on a reel, does get the odd impressive goal or assist. A lot of fans of other clubs I talk to assume he's our first name on the teamsheet kind of player. Someone will definitely take a punt on him on compensation - he might even go to a bottom half prem team, was it Mahoney who did that? He'll be found out as soon as he gets there, it's just a case of how much salary he rinses them for in the process.

Rhodes and Gueye up front, let the battering ram cause the chaos and tap the ball in when everyone else is on the deck and it breaks in the six yard box? (not serious before anyone jumps on, though this is more or less the role I think we should play Ohashi in)

Buckley has such a weird skillset, you get him in the right position, the right formation and with complimentary players around him and he looks a good championship player. Ask him to play the wrong role, in the wrong bit of the pitch and he looks lost. You basically need to build the team around him to get him at his best, but he doesn't really justify it.

Hedges has played left back before, and is left-footed. Right back might be a stretch too far. A few years back we actually played Buckley at right back (I think?) in a similar injury crisis and the consensus on here after the game was basically that he did surprisingly well but lets not do it again. Dolan works hard enough that he should be able to play as a makeshift full back but we tried it once and he looked completely out of his depth. After that I guess it's a kid from the youth teams.

When we were, you know, competent we used to take a certain amount of pride in picking up players other teams hadn't managed to get a tune out of and turning them around. I think that it's pretty telling though that the moment we get linked with someone semi seriously so do a few other championship clubs - I think there are a lot of teams that don't have much money to spend and quite a small pool of realistic signings that they are all competing for. That's usually when you end up paying over the odds or ending up with a Gallagher as your highest wage earner for five seasons.

The weird thing there is that 'out of the blue persuade Barry to spend a chunk of money on a young British striker' is about the only bit of transfer engagement that occasionally does seem to work - but it tends to be basically an impulse buy and utterly divorced from any kind of plan or coherent thinking. To this day I'm convinced that we spent £7m (or whatever it ended up being) on Brereton simply because the manager/backroom team were caught completely offguard that V's were willing to spend that kind of money on anyone and just kind of went 'yeah, alright'.

Three of our former strikers struggling for game time in the premiership relegation zone - you'd guess that Southampton and Ipswich want to hang onto them for the championship next season. Might be a cheeky loan available to keep them fit and get them up to speed in this league again... Wishful thinking, I know.

Middlesbrough lose, Sunderland and the other lot get draws.

He's not the worst striker we've ever had.

have we got anyone on the bench who could even slightly play RB? edit - just as I posted - get in!

Cantwell must be really unfit, this seems like the sort of situation where his x-factor could unlock the game.

I still don't think Baker is a winger, if it's unchanged from last week, can't help but feel Dolan right, Hedges left Baker through the middle has a better balance to it, I have to say I'm looking forward to Cantwell getting up and running Hard to complain after the last game, I'd probably start Gueye but you can't drop Yuki after those goals... When was the last time we had that kind of striker problem? Trying to fit Rhodes, Gestede and King in the same lineup?

I'm not sure success at Villarreal was ever really on the cards, they barely gave him any game time. Pulled the football club equivalent of picking something up on Freecycle and immediately listing it on marketplace for a profit.

Give the kids some minutes, lets see Tyjon, Duru and Duberry for ten minutes

Cantwell on

Plymouth winning, we're a point off the top!

Yeah his game isn't perfect but what a bargain Ohashi is, grafter, goal scorer

Give it until 60 and give Cantwell and C-D half an hour?

Must be Carter at right back, unless we are running something really weird like Pears Carter Batth Hyam Hedges Tronstad Beck Travis Baker Dolan Ohashi Which would sort of work if JRC was playing instead of Hedges? Even in our normal formation it's hardly our strongest lineup, but having Weimann, Cantwell and potentially Cozier-Duberry to come off the bench is pretty exciting, there's goals and creativity in that (I'm choosing to believe C-D is good until proven otherwise)

Pears is a keeper who is OK 90% of the time, and pretty bad about 10% of the time. He can and does make a few good saves and have the odd game where he looks actually pretty decent, but most of the time he is either fine but not exceptional or at risk of a serious error. Realistically he would be a keeper who could sit on your bench for years as an understudy to a first choice no 1. - probably not going to kick off about playing time and alright in a pinch if called upon. There are absolutely teams who would pay 200k for that and think it cheap.

Good pedigree at youth level and international caps for Tunisia, played CB and in midfield. Hasn't exactly pulled up any trees at senior level though. Bit of a family connection, didn't his brother play a few games for us on loan?