Im sure you was supportive of a potential loan spell to Holland but ok.

Why are they?

Hirst!

Interesting alternative view point and one that falls in line with what @J*B mentioned about monitoring training.

We could do with some consistency in selection. No one knows going into each game what the team or formation will be. 4 at the back is my preference in a 4-2-3-1. Suits our squad.

Yes, I went... He can make things happen it seems from the very little we have seen of him. His chance more comes from many others offering so little.

Its totally unfair to assume that Dack must not be applying himself to explain his absence. He has shown great resilience to come back from injuries and certainly didnt display any discontent last night at being chucked in the kids team on the back of being ignored the night before for the majority of a game in which we didnt have a shot on target in. He also applied himself in second string cup selections. There could be one or indeed a number of factors that have led to a lack of starts. Tomasson's judgement is not necessarily perfect with a number of strange selections already. Maybe he is also under pressure to involve Szmodics due to his price tag. Maybe he is under pressure to try and phase Dack out due to his high wages, or maybe he wants to phase out an experienced player who is more likely to question decisions along the way, or to make a bold call to try and stamp his authority. Maybe a bit of further bad fortune with his injury in pre season knocked him down the pecking order. There are so many possible reasons, but whatever it boils down to, I dont see how he can currently justify utilising him so sparsely considering the poor performances of other attacking players.

Can Morton operate under pressure? The winner on Tuesday night came from him dawdling on the ball. I am against the idea of constantly flipping between formations, it goes against the hope of building familiarity and consistency. We didnt have a shot on goal on Tuesday so to make the team even more defensive seems counter productive. Dack has to start and Markanday has a very strong case too.

Regardless of formation, we don't have any other senior players really in midfield aside from the underperforming Travis who have a tackle in them.

The fact that Tomasson is "Denmark’s Champions’ League-winning record scorer" from his playing days has little relevance really, there isn't the strongest correlation necessarily between playing ability and managerial ability.

I found it telling how easy a ride Tomasson will get over the issue in that the local journalists asked him the other night why Dack didn't get on, and he said that he didn't want to use his 5th sub too early in case of injury. On what planet when Szmodics and Hirst start and when a central midfielder, right back, Dolan and Gallagher are the first 4 subs is Dack behind all of them, in a game where we didn't have a shot on target? Players like Dack might become less and less common in this age whereby data is everything and players who run further and play more sensible but accurate passes are the ones that everyone wants.

I don't think he stood out but it is hard to really come to a conclusion about someone playing left back in such a game. To me, it feels like a loanee that will play the odd game and go back and be forgotten about, but I am glad that at least we have back up to Pickering that is not the inept Tayo Edun.

Enjoyed todays game, the under 21's (albeit half were first teamers) certainly didn't play the same boring football that Tomasson is asking the first team to try and play. I am certainly aware of how kids football is inevitably not comparable in competitiveness and therefore any conclusions are limited. Dack however was clearly the stand out player on the pitch, some of his passing was outstanding as was the composure for the goal. It is an outrage that he isn't a regular in the first team, especially when the reason often given is his inability to press when the whole first team doesn't press anyway, but physically he looks the same as he did pre injury. Markanday is an interesting player, he can be quite sloppy at times but in the rare glimpses we have seen him, he really makes things happen and has loads of natural ability. His volley was superb and he also hit the post and won a penalty, I would think Especially Dack but both of these could potentially give us alternative goal threats which we sorely lack. I can't help but feel that neither probably show up well on the data compared to the likes of Szmodics, Gallagher, Hedges, Dolan and Hirst who probably run a bit more and try less risky things in the final third, and perhaps that is the way that football is going, but I would fancy either to score and assist more over a season, especially Dack. Elsewhere, if Kaminski goes to the World Cup and Belgium get far, we are screwed. Garrett impressed me, Buckley was poor and Vale could have played all night and not scored.

I suppose he would say that he was first choice whether he was or wasn't. "George wasn't our first choice but with numerous other targets being unobtainable, we have had to settle for him" perhaps wouldn't have gone down too well!

Imagine what the other targets on the list were like if Hirst and Szmodics were number 1 choice for each positon!

Cutting off our nose to spite our face by rejecting it. As you said, no business planning. £10m is a massive amount of money, especially considering the FFP excuse people love to mention, it gives us much more scope within that and in itself it is a lot of money, a profit on the purchase and it is over double what we spent in the summer which was described as a "healthy" budget.

Assuming that Ayala signed off last night for his winter break: Kaminski Brittain Hyam Wharton Pickering Travis A Wharton Markanday Dack Dolan Brereton Subs: Pears, Carter, Mola, Gallagher, Buckley, Szmodics, Hedges Travis a reluctant pick with our lauded summer recruitment leaving us massively short in central midfield. Markanday deserves a game, Hirst isn't needed in the squad.

Absolutely shocking, embarrassing performance again last night yet again, nothing to cling onto. These stupid tactics of playing it out from the back (we were more direct on Saturday) again lead to numerous ch Hirst is absolute crap, a useless lump, Morton (foul or no foul, he shouldn't run towards his own net like that) and Szmodics was crap, an outrage how Dack can be left on the sidelines with players like that ahead of him. Travis, Scott Wharton and Hedges all had shockers too. Or an alternative outlook is to ignore the various constructive questions regarding the questionable tactics, questionable selections, questionable signings etc and just put your fingers in your ears and repeat "its all part of the journey, time and patience."

Out of interest, what changes have been made as a result of what you said to Waggott? I didn't realise that we are only allowed to complain about things once we have taken the time out to have a meeting with him.

Not worth the time of day. Tells you what you want to hear without making any actual changes.

I think a more obvious conclusion is that managers all tend to come out with the same cliches and soundbites in press conferences and maybe we shouldn't take them so seriously.

I feel like it is too early to say that we are "well led" but even if that is specifically praising Broughton/Tomasson, ultimately a club is led firstly by its owners so we will never be well led until that changes. Regarding the expected push next season, we will be massively set back by the loss for free of Brereton before you consider others.

You could argue that data is similar to VAR in that it is still reliant solely on the people using it.

There seems to be a growing trend of our fans thriving in making the general fanbase seem to be an angry mob. Lots of it on social media in the last week.

Dyche is unfortunate in that he has a perhaps unfair reputation in regards to his style of play which was a case of making the best of what he had at Burnley, and also in this current climate whereby clubs would usually gravitate towards someone who has little say in off the field matters. Bournemouth would seem like a perfect job for him in being a Premier League club that has started well but will likely be very much in a scrap over the course of the season. As it is, I suspect that they will make the common mistake of giving it to the caretaker manager in O'Neil who will then struggle to maintain those standards. In normal circumstances, West Brom would be beneath his standard but with the above factored in, maybe it would be possible.