Completely disagree about Chapman. Signing him obviously wouldn't solve all our problems, it wouldn't turn Williams into something resembling a ledt back, it wouldn't make Lenihan, Mulgrew and Rodwell into hardened specialist centre backs, it wouldn't turn Evans and Smallwood into creative central midfielders, it wouldn't make Bennett capable of putting a decent cross in and it wouldn't knock five or six years off Danny Graham. it would however go some way to addressing the lack of pace and width in the side and if we signed a really good left back, a hard as nails centre half, a creative midfielder and a quality central striker at the peak of their game we'd look correspondingly better again. Trouble is, TM obviously doesn't think so. As Neal says it's insane to be talking about signing a player only to loan him straight out again. Especially when it's one who in imo should be walking into our side.

or e) "all of the above".

Nail, hammer, head. Normally I'd be full square behind the manager calling out the players after the last 2 performances but I think it's TM who needs to go "back to basics". Stop playing players out of position, stick with a formation and system they can buy into and get your best attacking players out on the pitch and give the opposition something to think about for a change instead of treating every game like we're playing Man City. Also, games last 90 minutes. It would help if occasionally we tried to tear the opposition a new butt hole and win the game in the first 20 minutes instead of coasting through the first half trying to stay in the game and then invariably having to go **** or bust to try and either win the game or retrieve a deficit after about 63 mins.

Wouldn't blame Dack tonight , he was having to come and collect the ball off our two converted midfielders masquerading as centre halves. Hope we've got enough credit in the bank already to limp to safety as we look like relegation fodder at the moment. The players look completely demoralised and demotivated by the manager's constant tinkering and bizarre team selections formations and substitutions. Tony did well for us last season but I'd be keeping a close eye on the situation right now, we don't want to allow the situation to deteriorate to the point where it is too late to get out of it like we did with Coyle.

Seen it all now. Rodwell what an idiot What a terrible signing. Bin the tosser off and get Scott Wharton back.

You may scoff but the season isn't over yet and it'll be one almighty slog to 50 points if the manager persists in treating every opposing side as if they were Man City. Smallwood and Evans are an appalling combination in midfield. Offer nothing either defensively or offensively.

Wow - didn't realise that. On checking it appears he made 18 Championship appearances for Forest in the 2016/17 season and 35 in the 2017/18. Not sure how many of those were starts or off thIe bench but I find it completely bizarre that the lad is apparently good enough to play for Forest regularly n the Championship at ages 17 and 18, but not apparently judged good enough for us at exactly the same level at age 19. Especially when we've agreed to pay £7m for him!

My gut feeling after the end of the transfer window was that it was a poor window but with the benefit of hindsight I'm not sure whether it was a poor window as I initially thought or a decent window but with the manager for some unknown reason refusing to show any faith in the signings he made. For me only Reed so far can be considered an unqualified success. And he isn't our player. Of the rest: Palmer: I like the look of him (in midfield) but seemingly the manager doesn't. Rothwell: As above but with the proviso that the manager seems even less inclined to pick him than Palmer. Davenport: What the hell has happened to him? Rodwell: Somewhat predictably has barely featured Brereton: Paid £7m for him and TM refuses to give the poor lad a start or play him in his natural position. Armstrong: Very disappointing this season but again like Brereton probably needs to be playing down the middle. I do think all of the above players have talent, however at the moment we're not getting much out of any of them bar Reed so unless that changes it has to go down as a poor window for me.

This comes across as a really tacky plea to try and boost disappointing half ST sales to me. It seemed as though there was a really healthy uptake of half ST sales last season but then again we were involved in an exciting promotion battle. This year the likeliehood is that it will be mid table security at best and imo the entertainment levels at Ewood this season have been poor, (Leeds and Brentford apart) so I would imagine that for the neutral or floating fan a half season ticket is a somewhat harder sell than at the same time last year.

We might have lost the game because we were out of it after ten minutes on Saturday, hence why I said the players need to be up for it from the start on Wednesday. However imo the reason we couldn't get back into it on Saturday and the reason we struggled away at West Brom was because we lined up without a natural striker. Not sure why you can't see that most basic of points.

If it is that I'd expect us to get absolutely battered and I wouldn't have thought there would be much point turning up. 8 defensive players plus Dack with Graham completely isolated. You might as well replace Dack for Travis on the basis that playing the former would be too expansive!

Timid Tony doesn't need seem to need much encouragement to err too far on the side of caution so I hope he isn't reading that pile of old guff. If we're going to teams at a similar level to us hoping to park the bus and at best scrape a 0-0 we'll soon start plummeting down the table. I agree with Mercer on this, after a horror show like Saturday the players need to be let off the leash and given the chance to redeem themselves and show what they can do. It shouldn't be too difficult, make sure they're up for it from the start, play players in their correct positions and get our best attacking players out onto the pitch.

Yup, that would be my preference although Id probably go Smallwood over Rodwell. Either way it needs shaking up a bit. I would give Dack one more chance but I wouldn't object if we did start with 2 strikers up front in Graham and Brereton either. I've often wondered why TM won't try that to give the forward men more support, even usually going like for like, replacing one striker for another when we're chasing a game.

I find that explanation somewhat baffling. On first sight Brereton looks a big powerful lad and there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason from his stature and physique why he couldn't be starting on his own up top. I find it bizarre that any Championship Club would spend £7m on a player and not attempt to make them the main man. When all other alternatives are out and midfielders are put there in preference it becomes incomprehensible. I'm starting to wonder if BB wasn't a Mowbray signing and TM is leaving him out deliberately to make a point to the owners that he's the boss. Either way I feel very sorry for Brereton who in his last 3 cameo appearances out of position has managed to contribute 2 assists and a decent finish arguably wrongly chalked out for offside. If he isn't the answer up front after he's played there, so be it. But give the lad a chance for heaven's sake.

Probably the fact Williams is shocking at left back and opposing players run in behind him at will. Bell is by no means perfect but by far the better of the two imo. Unfortunately Williams appears to be one of TM's favourites and he can't seem to bear to leave him out of the side.

I'd say we are still much the same as last year. An ordinary set of players then there is Dack. If he's on his game he can make a fairly ordinary bunch appear better than they are. If he's off it, which he has been for a while, we usually look hopeless. I'd also disagree re: Palmer. I think potentially he looks a very handy player indeed, unfortunately TM appears unable or unwilling to place much faith in any of his summer signings apart from Reed.

Not sure the quality of the signings is so much of an issue per se, the problem for me is that TM views them as merely bit part additions to the squad that won promotion, and is too loyal to the llikes of Graham, Conway, Bennett, Evans etc. There's no room for loyalty in football and if the manager feels the team can be improved by bringing in someone else then that's what should happen like when King Kenny sacrificed Speedie for Shearer. What we ireally needed were two or three big signings to go straight into and improve the team and replace the likes of Graham, Evans Bennett etc instead of a bit of messing about around the edges to add to the squad depth. That said our current position isn't terrible but I hope that isn't as good as it gets this season and that we don't start to slide backwards at a rate of knots.

Not entirely surprised by this performance and result as imo the manager has been picking the erong starting line up for a while and been attempting to put square pegs in round holes, We've also been playing fairly poorly on the whole but scraping results up until today. That can't go on forever. I'm not sure if Dack thinks he's moving in January but he's been really poor for a couple of months and looks overweight to me. Armstrong has been generally very disappointing this season and would no doubt prefer to play down the middle. Brereton also needs a chance playing down the middle and will never progress until some faith is shown in him and he gets said chance. Williams is an absolute liability when playing at LB and I've no idea what the manager sees in him in that position. The team desperately lacks pace and width on either flank and the bizarre experiment of starting without an out and out striker be it Dack or Palmer simply doesn't work. Apart from that it wasn't too bad......?

Good post. However I think Nyambe would need tying down to a new big long term deal before he was worth megabucks. Not sure what his contractual situation is but if he hasn't had a suitable upgrade recently it should be a priority. Same applies to Raya.

I would have thought our hands would be tied on this to some extent by the fact a release clause was probably written into his latest contract. If there was such a clause, hopefully we were prudent enough to pitch it at an absolute minimum of £20m and hopefully higher. If not we can demand telephone numbers should there be any interest as philip says.

Bit harsh on TM. Whilst there is the possibility TM could become a more experenced version of Gary Bowyer when he was here and whilst I have some sympathy with Mercer's view that he might have kept up up had he not gone too negative, and despite the fact he is too cautious and pragmatic for my likiing, overall he has done a great job and appears to be a man of genuine integritty which was exactly what we needed after Lambert and Coyle. Have to agree with Parson on Lambert, in the absence of anything to the contrary I remain to be convinced he wasn't simply in it fot himself to boost his bank balance for 6 months. Who takes a job and inserts a get out clause? At the time of his appointment the squad was at tipping point with some players getting over the hill and the others we wanted to keep having their contracts running down. We needed someone to come in for the long term and stick around and sort the playing squad out, not someone who buggered off as soon as results didn't go his way. Whilst not wanting to be an apologist for Coyle who was clearly the wrong appointment and who couldnt set up a defence, he had his work cut out for him by Lambert who left the squad in a right state and without a single striker under contract and the owners who sold Hanley and Duffy immediately after his arrival.. Anyone would have found it a challenge.

How can anyone say he's not ready? He hasn't been given an opportunity to play down the middle yet so no-one knows. If he had been played there and failed to imprress then that view might have some validity.

Graham should have been hooked yesterday well before he may or may not have picked up an injury.

Yes I thought Rothwell was poor when he came on as well, possibly too eager to impress, which is maybe understandable given the lack of opportunity he has had despite looking impressive on the rare occasions he has featured.

Frustrating result yesterday but an infinitely better performance than the shocker against QPR and over the two games four points is probably a fair return. Not sure what Brereton has to do to earn a start. In the last two games he has been brought on too late for a couple of ten minute cameos, but still created a couple of goals and generally looked threatening and direct even stuck out of position on the flank. By way of contrast Graham has had the odd really good game this season but nore often than not has looked completely past it. The roles of Brereton and Graham need to be reversed imo, Brereton needs to be starting and Graham could come on to try and hold the ball up etc and take the pressure off us in the last 20 when hopefully we have a lead to protect. Dack has also been completely off the boil for the last four or five games as well and I didn't think he was any better yesterday again either until he scored then it was like a light had been switched on and he looked a completely different player for the final few minutes. Let's hope that's the end of his barren spell. Elsewhere I thought Nyambe was sensational when he came on and showed what we've been missing in his absence. Smallwood for me had one of his best games of the season beforr being sacrificed and I thought Palmer and Bell looked promising although the latter let himelf down with poor delivery after doing really well to get himself into dangerous positions on a number of areas. Overall at the moment we look more likely to finish mid table than in the play off positions for me, we just aren't quite there yet. That's not terrible after being promoted but you feel it could be even better if if Brereton came in up front and were to be a hit and were to bring in at least one wide genuine man in in January and Tony iwere to be a bit more adventurous with his selections and let the players off the leash for 90 minutes as opposed to 45 minutes per match.