Tombwfc

Is 28 games 'loads'? Why didn't Hull or any other Championship side keep him? It's surely relevant that at the end of their respective loan spells one has gone to the Premier League as one of the most expensive goalkeepers of all time, and the other has signed for us on a free. Look, on paper he's about as good as we could hope for, but it's surely time to stop digging when it comes to Trafford's abilities.

As a group, I'd take Trafford, Bradley, Nlundulu (or Victor) and Randell over the four you've mentioned and it's not even close. If Baxter and Cogley give us 60% of what we had with Traff/Bradley they will have been very good signings.

Sure, but we haven't signed any creative players either. Usual caveats apply - it's only July, Evatt knows best etc. - just seems a bit odd.

Because they have zero interest in commemorating them and are just using these tragedies as a way of talking Matt LeTissier level 'mAKeS u tHink...' style absolute bollocks.

It is a bit odd that the very first thing Evatt said after Barnsley knocked us out was that we didn't score enough goals. We've added no players to that part of the team and the most recent suggestion was that we're targeting a centre mid and another wing-back. We scored 20 less than the four teams above us (40 less than Ipswich). You'd have to be very optimistic about JDB's fitness or Victor/Dan coming good to think we're going to make that up.

Presumably the same is also true on here. Anyway, I don't agree with anyone saying it's a non-story that a household name was sending a barely legal, vulnerable girl tens of thousands of pounds for pictures - even if not criminal it's certainly newsworthy and very fucking weird. But turning it into a national whodunnit is only making the story 10x bigger, and it'll all come out soon enough anyway.

I think that's a slightly odd definition of 'cover', but ok. They're not really covering for anyone if they're important players playing every week.

How does that change anything in relation to a discussion on whether other strikers are going to get minutes?

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, which may even prove right in time. But it is pretty funny how things have gone for the 'Traff is overrated and no better than Accrington's keeper' brigade. £19m transfer to a Premier League club, six clean sheets and a last minute penalty save to win England U-21s a championship. In the mud, as the kids would say.

I didn't say that signing a player for a fee makes them better, or that they'd start more games than the players you've mentioned. I said we didn't pay decent fees for 'cover', and that Dan/Forrester would feature in the majority of our games. Dion Charles played 85mins or more 8 times last season. Jon Dadi has done it four times in the 42 games he's played for us. If we sign no other forwards from here, Nlundulu will be playing every week in some capacity. And with us having five at the back and Jones possibly going to the right, there's every chance Forrester will too.

How many players have we signed in the past five years for more than we've paid for Dan and Forrester? I don't think they're here to be just cover, I think there's a good chance they'll both feature in the majority of our games.

It's steep, but Trafford's ceiling is being one of the best goalkeepers in the world. Hope he reaches it.

Weird career. Probably had less than 20 good games but one of them was in the FA Cup final. Like a higher end Clough.

Can't really have it both ways. If the Aussies are shite then England can't be much good either. England have missed some opportunities and it should probably be 1-1. But Australia are playing away from home, have lost the toss twice, had the worst of the conditions, their best batsman hasn't scored a run and they played the bulk of this game with 10 men. Two very good teams, two brilliant games.

Which is where I'm at. I get that in June it's more exciting to sign someone random who could be anything, but realistically a relatively young player with bags of physical ability who Evatt rates highly is a good bit of business.

Allardyce has talked some shit in his time, but he was 100% right about the snobbery towards English managers.

I agree. But it was madness he didn't start vs Forest.

Jones-Santos-Toal are nailed on to be the first choice back three. It's arguably the one area where we are stronger than everyone else in the division, especially with GJ to rotate in where necessary. Don't see that being messed with. We'll sign another RWB. Randell and Iredale can battle it out for the other side.

Because playing in Europe is brilliant, and this gives more fans the opportunity to experience it. It is the Papa Johns but instead of Leeds U23s you go off to Cyprus/Denmark/Belgium to play teams you've never played before. If we stop 'rewarding failure' you end up with only Man City in the Champions League and that's that. Sounds shit.

Yep, the Conference League is brilliant. One of very few bright ideas to come out of UEFA in recent years.

I think that's a bit overlooked - being out for a year and then coming back part way through a season. He did well enough to keep around anyway, but I think we'll see the best of him next season.

The fact Leicester are back where they were 7-8 years ago is irrelevant really - football is about moments. If you're not being bankrolled by an oil-state you're going to lose more than you win, so it's the moments when you win which are important. For them they had the biggest highs imaginable. I think generally to be engaged as a football fan you need something to hope for. Last time we were heading out of the PL it had gone a bit stale, but I'd love to see us get back there with Evatt, Sharon and some of these players (Luton have a winger who's been with them since non-league). To answer the question, the reality is there's yet to be a fanbase reject limitless investment... so I'm sure we'd have people rocking up at the stadium wearing headscarfs and spending all day on Twitter justifying our owners human rights abuses. It surely gets a bit dull once you get to the stage City are though.

This is massively underrating some of our players. Even our shittest players would be the stars of 'average' teams at this level - Vic probably would've been POTY at Burton, Randell did win that award at Exeter (albeit they were near the top of L2 at the time). Jones, Johnstone, Santos, Toal, Morley, Dempsey and Dion are plenty good enough to get automatically promoted. We just need to fill in the gaps and score some goals.

I hate to break this to you but... “I suppose you just have to take one look around at the stadium and facilities that this club has, and I needed no second invitation to sign for a massive club like this.” https://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/news/2022/june/conor-mccarthy-interview/#:~:text=“I suppose you just have,UEFA Champions League qualifying rounds. "I’m delighted to get a chance to come to a massive club like this and get the opportunity to play." https://wiganathletic.com/news/2021/august/Joe-Bennett-I-m-delighted-to-come-to-a-massive-club-like-this-/

Wigan have an FA Cup and four League One titles since 2000. Rovers have a Premier League and League Cup. Where does that get them? Bigger than Tottenham? How does this help us sign players in 2023?