Beaten by a team with better individual players today. But thought we competed well overall despite the big gap in quality. Really like the look of Carter the more I see of him. Think he's going to be a very, very good player. Clarkson looks good on the ball, I was impressed by him. Still not sure what to make of Buckley. He's got undoubted quality on the ball but games seem to pass him by. 7 points from 4 tough fixtures. I'd have snapped your hand off if you'd offered me that before the start of the season.

When you look at the clubs our departed players have gone to, it does make you realise what dross they were. Holtby gone to a club I've never heard of in the second division of German football and the rest below via Rich Sharpe. @richsharpe89 Of those released by Rovers in the summer: Downing (retired), Bennett (Shrewsbury), Mulgrew (Dundee United), Evans (Sunderland), Holtby (Holstein Kiel), Bell (Luton). Of the loanees: Harwood-Bellis (Anderlecht) and Douglas (Lech Poznan).

Not sure I believe the validity of the source. They've got a 50/50 chance of being right and they've clearly had a guess at 'no' in the hope of being the first to "exclusively reveal" that he's not coming here. It may well turn out that he doesn't come here but that source is just having a guess imo.

I personally hope that the Obafemi deal comes off. We're not in a position to sign proven players so we either take a punt on someone from the lower leagues or we take a punt on a young striker who hasn't quite made the grade at a premier league club. From the small number of times I've seen him play he looks to have a lot of potential - and great pace. You have to be half decent to be in and around the first team of a premier league club. In saying all of that, I'm not convinced he will want to move here. Will likely mean a drop in wages as well as a complete re-location. That's a huge thing for a 21 year old. I think he may end up on loan at a championship club based in London.

Nixon claiming it's essentially £15m + Obafemi (although Obafemi technically a separate deal to avoid any potential storm with Newcastle who may claim the deal is more like £20m). If that's true then we've had a blinder there for someone in the last year of their contract.

Well done to Adam Armstrong. He's worked hard, given everything here, and richly deserves his move to the premier league. I can't think of a single reason why he should stay here. I hope he does really well. I think he will. I'm not sure how pleased the Saints will be with the signing as he's nowhere near as good as Ings and is completely unproven at the top level.

I feel like Swansea are going to be like we were last season - style over substance. There's more emphasis on keeping the ball, passing out from the back, and playing nice football rather than actually winning football matches. Hopefully we've ditched that idea and focus more on being more compact and hitting teams on the counter.

Good first half. Buckley has been excellent. Liking the look of Pickering too, gets stuck in. Never been convinced about Dolan. Works hard and is a live wire but I don’t see a lot of quality there. Decent impact sub.

Brace yourself for the start of what will be a bumpy season. Suspect we'll lose today as we always do on the opening day. The academy players being able to step up is absolutely key to how we do this season. They look very talented so who knows. I'd rather give them a go than signing cheap journeymen to fill up the squad (a la Derby).

I welcome the open letter from the owners. It doesn't say anything significant but at least they are communicating, that's a start. They need to listen to the fans more but have closed themselves off from us for many years and therefore rely on their 'advisors' to relay fan sentiment. If the owners can develop a better relationship with the fans, that can only be a good thing. Do they even know, for example, that the majority of fans here don't want TM as manager anymore? TM himself, Waggot et al are not going to relay that kind of information.

A little uncomfortable with the TM links and the amount of power he holds across the club, but this appointment looks like a strong one.

Obefemi + money for Armstrong would be an incredible deal for us but I don't see it happening. I'm sure we'll ask for that deal but I think the Saints will politely tell us to do one.

I think we'll take £15m and add-ons for Armstrong. I'm pretty sure we'll sell him this window. We can't afford to lose him for nothing next summer. If he goes to Southampton it doesn't really suit anyone. We lose Armstrong and they replace Ings with Arma, which they won't be happy about.

He's the king at creating a frenzy over bog standard transfers. I remember many years ago when he was leading on us for weeks about a young player who could turn out to be a worldie signing...it turned out to be Franco Di Santo.

I'd say a "decent" signing if it comes off, nothing more than that. He's a standard Championship player and, sadly, that's where we're at right now.

Perhaps not low but I would say within our wage structure. He won't be getting the sort of money he was on at Sheff Wed, he has to be realistic about that.. I'd say it is relevant as there's a strong correlation between players signing for us who have NE connections.

Adam Reach being strongly linked again. Free transfer, low wages, ex Boro. Would put that in the very likely column.

If they're gone to Preston and Blackpool then I think it's safe to say they probably won't be mint. I would have both down as big relegation favourites.

I struggle to get excited by fixture release day. Ultimately everyone plays each other twice. I suspect a 'good' season for us this season will be one where we retain our championship status. We blew our big promotion chance last season when we actually had a pretty good team (but a dreadful manager).

Why is Brereton looking better for Chile than us? I think having the likes of Vidal slipping balls to you rather than Trybull, Evans or Johnson certainly helps.

Did we get promoted back to the Premier League last season without any of us realising? Presume the £36 games will be for the likes of City, Liverpool and Utd?

Ah thank you, that makes sense now.

Interesting that Benno thanks everyone but the fans in his leaving message.

A good guy off the pitch but he's a lge 1 player and has been for a while. Good decision. The decks have been cleared. We've lost a lot of players but all, barring Harvey Elliott, are low quality players.

Looking forward to our new Chilean International signing Brereton Diaz playing for us next season! From the highlights I've seen, he looked like one of their brighter players. It's only going to help him playing for the national team. He'll come back with that little bit of arrogance that you sometimes need to be a good player. If nothing else, it adds a larger price tag on his head, no doubt about that.