Andy Cole and Adam Armstrong both emerged from Newcastle's youth set up. Their career trajectories to date have been very different. At 23, Cole was easily one of the best and most feared strikers in the Premier League and had been for three or four seasons. At 23, Armstrong has just developed into one of the best and most feared strikers in the Championship and for the past three or four seasons it looked like it might not happen for him. I really hope Arma continues the remarkable development he has enjoyed in 2020. Some strikers do develop relatively late - look at Vardy. Brereton could be a similar case in point.

Will be really interesting to hear how far Nick pulls back the veil on what he knows.

I would go so far as to cancel all sport where mandatory testing is not carried out.

I was remembering the Cup game and going there when we drew against the odds. Also went there for a horrible defeat when they scored against the run of play and went on to thrash us. Ricky Hill got at least one for them. Time to register that win then. We have reversed some horribly long barren runs - notably at Eland Road.

Which Fletcher are we talking about? Paul Fletcher was more than useful for the Dingles.

That alleyway to get to the turnstiles! We have a pretty good record against Luton or did until last season's extreme charity. Game seems an eternity away. Horrible feeling we are going to see the worst Rovers line-up yet. Not because of a Mowbray brain freeze but because of Covid. All four analysts got it- what do they do all day? Sit in little booths with each of our players. Kominsky got it so it is a pretty fair bet the entire Rovers playing squad has been infected.

Never even remotely seen anything like that before!

"I am sick and tired of, IMO, all the 'slow build, evolution, on a journey' cr@p from Mowbray that sadly some, including our owners, seem to buy. IMO, it's merely self preservation stuff from Mowbray." Mowbray has said enough in the past two years for me to understand the slow build up was to delivering a promotion drive this season. He has been given incredible time and support from Pune so he has to deliver starting at Luton - that is assuming we don't wake up a week on Saturday to find 15 players in quarantine.

Likelihood is he caught it at Rovers. The entire squad and staff should be tested.

Rovers games averaging 3.06 goals per game so far.

I am not looking at 2001. I am looking at today. Our season starts at Luton as fingers crossed we will only have 5 absentees as opposed to being without double figures of players in all our most recent games. We don't know whether this squad is good enough when at anything like full strength. All we do know is that with a rotating half a first eleven out we have generated W4 D2 L5 F21 A15 and kept in touch with the leading pack. Based on performances to date, if we play Luton, PNE and Barnsley in the remainder of this month with essentially our first eleven minus only Dack and Travis, we should be looking to collect a minimum of seven points and when those two are back we SHOULD be looking at promotion. Reading Mercer's post above we are pretty well saying the same things. The only difference is I am sitting in my shorts, teeshirt and flipflops.

Glad to have sparked a debate. I said he could- not he would. There are perhaps half a dozen 17/18 year olds in world football you would rate ahead of Harvey today. You will be really struggling to name more.

In business, you have to ignore sunk costs- it is money that is gone.

Brockhall getting a deep clean and the analysis staff all quarantined. I would certainly do a blanket test before anyone is allowed back this week.

I desperately hope we will be turning to making one or two signings capable of keeping us in the Premier League by the time January comes round. The present squad really ought to be in the too good for the Championship category now but I wouldn't put any of our current players today automatically in a top half of the Premier League starting eleven whereas you might select one or two each from Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich. But I think our squad overall is top end of the Championship quality if we get our enforced absences down to five or less per game. Translating that to names, it would mean being without Travis, Dack, Bennett, Butterworth and Evans (apparently it is a bad hamstring injury) for Luton and welcoming back availability of Ayala, Bell, Douglas, Holtby, Vale, Downing - have I missed anybody? Having Travis and Dack back at their very best should put us in too good for the Championship level on the field if not in the dug out... The huge advantage is our players are predominantly young- Saturday's starting eleven averaged 23 years of age and was the youngest in this round of the Championship. Thoughts?

It is true. A lot of us were nervous about Brad when he signed. Clearly a significant upgrade but Brad had had a few horror shows in his Anfield days.

I just want Dack back at least as good as he was before the injury. In this benighted season, odds are there won't be a selection problem fitting him in because of covid/injuries/suspension unavailabilities.

Hopefully Bradley Dack taking one of the 11 starting slots squeezes Evans further away from getting picked. If Evans manages to push all except two of Travis, Johnson, Rothwell, Holtby, Trybull, Buckley, and potentially JRC, Elliott and even Brereton (as an alternative to Rothwell) out of the first eleven, good luck to him!

Matter of opinions- I am projecting the rate of improvement forwards, not a plateauing of where he is now.

Elliott has both the ability and nous to be cute. Watch him, he doesn't have that much body to body contact with the opposition because of his speed of thought, anticipation and breathtaking ability on the ball plus range of passing and intelligent running off the ball. An unbelievable talent who will go on to be among the top half dozen player in this country and perhaps become a globally important player.

I am sticking my neck out. But I think the league is going to be very competitive all season. Norwich, Bournemouth and Watford for sure have players who were very comfortable in the Premier League but then other clubs have outstanding individuals too. We have played two of those plus Reading, Swansea and Boro with at least 8 players Mowbray should be able to call on in the reverse fixtures unavailable and we have certainly not been embarrassed. Video footage of the other clubs above us doesn't frighten me either. And if we are unhappy with our position, what about the much fancied, PNE, Cardiff, Forrest and Derby below us. OK here comes the rub- It is going to be as big a challenge making 2nd as 6th. If we are genuine contenders for the play-offs, I think that will by default also mean we are challenging for automatic promotion as well because I can see there being a bunching up at the top this season rather than a top two parade. The gap between 2nd and 7th is currently 3 points with a quarter of the season gone.

If he doesn't follow up with the ball gettable, Kaminski would get rightly criticised. The QPR player was cute in how he positioned his body and most times the officials won't see it as a foul in the resulting melee.

On the current rate of progress 1) Ben is finally playing with confidence and self-belief 2) In a fully fit Rovers squad with everybody available, he certainly gets on the pitch in the 14 players used and I would start him in every game against a bottom half team likely to park the bus against us. 3) Come next summer, it is now easy to foresee Ben having a market value at least the equal of what we paid for him. All we need to do is call them the BEA or BAD and based on Brentford's experience the £20m+ offers will come rolling in... If that's your thing.

We have just got Brereton to the level he is in the Skybet Team of the Week and then contracted to sell him...