Agreed. If what Dyche did was so easy everyone would do it!

He also had better players through better recruitment. The likes of Danny Ings, Andre Gray, Sam Vokes and at times, Charlie Austin and Ashley Barnes all gave them a consistent goal threat. They scored 72 goals in each of their last seasons in this division. This season, even with Dack, we have scored 1.29 goals a game. Without Dack, that will only decrease you would think. Burnley were scoring 1.56 a game. We need to improve at both ends of the pitch, and we need to recruit to do that IMO.

Its unrealistic to expect to keep clean sheets in every game, you have to be able to score more than one goal.

I dont understand why you are so desperate to rubbish any thoughts of decent players arriving assuming that you genuinely believe that money is there. Why are we now unable to compete with Forest, especially considering that they already have a good striker so it will be more difficult for him to get regular football there? And if Wigan want Rhodes, which I am skeptical about, then hed surely rather come here. Gallagher has played up front more often than not, and has been absolute dog shit. Lets just hope he has a sudden transformation into a competent Championship striker. Sadly I am not sure we will see regarding Curtis as I suspect the cost will be beyond our means. We will see anyway. Hopefully you are right and we do have money and make numerous additions. And also Id love Gallagher, Rothwell, Chapman etc to all start scoring goals regularly all of a sudden but id be amazed if they did.

He burst onto the scene in that Arsenal game, I had personally heard of him as I am sure had anyone with a decent grasp and knowledge of Championship football. That being said, I think anyone with an ounce of scepticism would realise that any player can have one good game and make a name for himself. It was his "Emerton v Wolves" moment.

Transfer window time, ie time for Alan Nixon to suggest that an unnamed player who he cannot name might or might not be coming. Can't be proved wrong (or right) and possibly talking out of his arse to get people to desperately beg him for clues. No name and no information, not a talking point! Regarding your point about attacking players, like I maintain, there is absolutely no basis or historical suggestion that some of our attacking players are suddenly going to start scoring and assisting with regularity. When we didnt score enough with our best player, without him we are impotent. The main 2 are Armstrong, who cannot be expected to cover the goals he was AND Dack was all of a sudden, and Graham, who seems to be on the wane. We dont score enough with Dack, never mind without him. Rothwell has no history of scoring and assisting really, Downing is a good player but is not going to do anything more than chip in with a few, Holtby is a good player but has never scored many goals, Gallagher has a shocking goal record, Brereton is Brereton, Samuel is crap and potentially leaving, who is going to step up. This Ronan Curtis has good numbers albeit in a Lower League, if we could get him in and a striker, someone like Neketiah or Rhodes on loan, then we would look a lot better but I sense that our window is going to be quiet and disappointing and if it is our season is set to fizzle out. You cant expect people to just take that word as gospel though, its not fact, its a theory that will now never be proven or disproven. No chance that Gallagher would have suitors for that sort of fee, considering that he is probably one off if not our highest earner so a club would have to take those wages on. If that was the case, we would be foolish not to cut our losses now, but I suspect that even if we waived a fee there would hardly be a queue forming. This isnt aimed at you, but people keep banging on about a really bang average season he had here previously as if he was prolific, and also using the fact that he is sometimes on the wing as a suggestion that hes been hard done by, when indeed he has played more games up top and has been just as dismal.

Gallagher wont score goals, I think that is clear. I think you are expecting something to happen which the current set of players have proven themselves incapable of. We were not scoring enough goals even with Dack playing. To expect a set of attacking players to just "step up" is incredibly naive considering they arent up to it.

Yeah most people had definitely heard of him. From what Mowbray said about him impressing in a game Forest even didnt score in, the signing seems to have been very poorly researched and there is no excuse for that. For me, especially with FFP and obviously with a finite budget, the signing of him coupled with the Gallagher deal has to result in a P45 for the manager. I dont think he could have purposely spent the money in a worse way.

Who replaces Armstrongs goals, even if Armstrong suddenly scores at Dacks level? Even with Dack we didnt score very many.

Would love Maddison and Rhodes, would be 2 key additions. Armstrong might post ok numbers, with Graham rarely featuring, Gallagher and Brereton crap, and Downing and Holtby being clever players but no regular scorers, them 2 would give us a far more tangible threat. If we are outbid by Charlton or Birmingham then we have problems.

No it is a rumour and nothing more. We will see if we spend much but I wont hold my breath.

It seems a pretty safe assertion based on everything Mowbray has said so far that we have very little to play with financially at this time. Also, I am not convinced that we have particularly closed any gap on Preston since promotion, they just seem to be that little bit ahead of us despite having spent far less. Obviously we came up with a side containing Dack, (now injured) Lenihan, Nyambe, Graham, Evans and Armstrong who of course we have made permanent, so we had much of the team we have now. Apart from that, the main player that I look at in terms of how we have built towards the future is the emergence of Travis. We have obviously lost Dack for a year to serious injury and Raya who we have replaced by a shoddy replacement which will leave us with no senior keepers in July. Our main signings that have worked out and improved us have been short term and/or loan deals, Downing and Adarabioyo. The main money has been spent on players who are liabilities to us. I really hope you are right and we can finish above them. I dont think they are anything special but they have a few players in Pearson, Browne, Johnson, Davies, Barkhuizen, Fisher etc who have proven themselves as good consistent top half players capable of being around the play offs and the additions of Sinclair and Bauer undoubtedly improve them. They have a poor keeper like us and lack a prolific goalscorer like us minus Dack. Theres not loads in it but short term and towards next season they are a little ahead sadly.

I agree that we need to get the best out of Holtby and I like him, he has to play regularly as a number 10. I regularly want him in the team. He was well liked at Hamburg as was Sinclair at Celtic. But I was correcting that PNE fans have been noticeably more excited due to lower expectations because their thousands of pissed up fans in a poor game wanted to bring on their new attacking player with a proven track record as a potential matchwinner, just as the Blackburn end sings for Graham, Rothwell etc every game and compared to our fans practically stalking Holtby in the build up to his signing! Obviously Hamburg are a very prestigious club (as are Celtic) but I dont think it makes sense for PNE to have lower expectations than us (sadly their squad is ahead of ours with our money wasted, as much as it pains me to say) I dont think they got more excited than us regarding these signings and I think its foolish to suggest that Sinclair would have been anything but a superb signing here and I wish we had gone for him. Would love us to sign Maddison too. Lets hope we dont sit on our hands and wait for Marvin Emnes to come available for 5m.

But Brereton has played 4 times, 2 starts in which he was hauled off before 70 minutes, and 2 sub appearances, one for 3 minutes. Even when he does play he contributes nothing. We wont miss him, same with Smallwood, he wouldnt need replacing either. You was recommending him right through the process of us being linked with him. Its quite hilarious how as soon as he didnt join, your opinion on him changed in a flash. Hes spent all season impressing in a defence slightly better than ours, you talk as if he is not up to it.

Id be quite surprised if he got regular football there. Then again, they are right near the bottom and have recently signed a young kid from Boro with only brief loan spells low down the pyramid, and are close to signing a young lad from Leicester for whom all but one of his 20 odd senior appearances came in the Belgian second division.

Hes not better than Lenihan. Statistically it is proven that Lenihan is the biggest miss.

Last season, he got 9 goals and 3 assists in the League, and 17 goals and 6 assists in all competitions. The season before, 9 goals and 10 assists in the League, 18 goals and 17 assists overall. I think he will be a good addition but as a direct rival in our supposed play off ambitions lets hope he isnt. Whether he goes onto have a long career in the PL or not is totally irrelevant because it wont be for us. Sadly, all that matters is how good his career is within the 2019/20 season as far as we are concerned. And like I said, I am not necessarily saying that one is better than the other, one is far more cultured and technically good, whilst the other is far more dominant aerielly and battle hardened. Bauer has like I said been part of a better defence this season, just about. I would probably say that Adarabioyo is better suited to playing next to Lenihan, but come August when we are going to be starting another Championship season, Bauer would have left us with one less spot to fill. Both are good Championship defenders and it would have been ideal to get both. When Lenihan was out Adarabioyo looked a shadow of the player with Williams next to him because neither bring the aeriel prowess of a Lenihan or a Bauer.

To be honest, I am unconvinced that we even need to replace him before we let him go, he has offered nothing at all and I am incredibly skeptical that he will do anything in the Dutch League. It seems quite naive to expect him to go there and become a different player scoring goals but we can only hope. Its quite embarrassing that 18 months in, we are having to shift him temporarily out of the back door and I would welcome any offer to get rid for good.

Because the game was incredibly cagey and hard to watch, and they had a player sat in waiting who is proven to score goals. Our fans regularly sing for Danny Graham and Joe Rothwell when they are subs. I am not sure Holtby is a far better signing based on his career. He has struggled to match the expectations people had of him when he emerged at Schalke, struggled to impose himself at Spurs and then Fulham, and has since been at Hamburg, getting relegated in the process before being released. Undoubtedly there is talent and reason to be excited when he signed, and behind Downing he has probably the best CV at the club, but Sinclair scored 40 goals in 105 games up at Celtic, a very healthy goal return from a wide position, tangibly producing on a consistent basis. As I said, our fans were stalking Holtby and his agent's social media accounts on an hourly basis, pestering every journalist that would listen and trying to piece together what ferry he was on, what motorway he was on, what flight he was on, how he would be announced by the club, its a different kind of excitement but it was bloody intense nonetheless! If they have lower expectations than us then sadly they are going to be even more satisfied as they are ahead of us on the pitch even though we have spent miles more money. If we had not pissed £12m up the wall maybe that would have been different. At the start of next season, we are only going to have Lenihan and Williams again. Bauer has been part of a slightly better defence, I have seen him a similar amount of times to you and hes not the most articulate of players but he knows how to defend. It is difficult to compare who is better IMO, him or Tosin, chalk and cheese but Bauer has impressed there and conceded less than we have.

You are perhaps re-writing history somewhat on Holtby's signing, on here we had people stalking his social media, speculating about ferries he was getting on and road signs he was going past, people searching for pictures and locations that his agent had posted, commenting on a random member of staff following him on social media, it was pretty incredible and on the border of requiring a restraining order for one or two! Sinclair should be a brilliant addition sadly and one I would have loved to see here. His numbers of goals and assist at Celtic from the left wing were incredibly impressive and made him a fans favourite up here. Holtby has the added mystique of coming from abroad but whilst his CV has reason for optimism he had just been let go by a second division German division side and hadnt been snapped up by mid to late September. Its a little remiss to suggest that Bauer wouldnt have been a good signing either. Preston have conceded a couple less goals but ultimately, with different styles, I dont think there is much in Bauer v Adarabioyo but the former would have been a permanent addition and we wouldnt have faced the same issue again this summer.

Because quite simply, massive money blown in the past leaves us lumbered with 2 terrible players and also leaves the kitty massively depleted in terms of adding further. And in relation to my point, make it very difficult to justify how the manager can continue in his job and be the man to take us to the next level. Why would Gallagher come into your thinking when picking a team? About as useful as a chocolate teapot. And who is on the right wing? We can afford players that have spent their season playing at Gillingham, Blackpool, Morecambe or not really playing at all potentially, but seems we are working under restrictions based on what Mowbray has said. Dack managed to score plenty of goals considering that so many figured us out with him as a 10 in a 4231!

Walton has been directly responsible for a fair few goals, 2 at Forest, 1 at home to Huddersfield, 1 at PNE, 1 v Sheffield Wednesday, a shocker v Barnsley, 1 away at Stoke, I doubt Raya has made that many mistakes considering Brentford as a team have only conceded 21. I dont recall any performances that Walton has put in where he was outstanding like Raya was at Ewood either.

Very true. My points about Armstrongs favoured position, Mowbrays position, our lack of attacking threat and our transfer position both past and future were more for general discussion though. The only reason I quoted chaddy was about his Waggott comment.

Dont think for many, his excuses and reasons why supposed (and unnamed) targets didnt sign make any difference. A manager is judged on who he does sign, and the keeper he did sign is a downgrade on one who was fairly error prone himself, not players he wanted that didnt come. If you sell a talented but at times error prone goalkeeper and loan one of a similar age with slighly less talent and possibly an extra error or 2 thrown in, no matter what happened between them 2 transactions, the manager doesnt come out in a favourable light. If Mowbray was telling the truth on us having a similar budget last summer to the one before, then surely the Raya proceeds for a sale done after the Gallagher purchase should be waiting to spend right now?

Ive seen so many Championship games like this lately (obviously many with Rovers in) and they are horrendous to watch. Quality and entertainment totally lacking.