swfcGibbo

Agreed. I thought he may have been used as a backup central midfielder under Röhl after we decided to loan Byers out.

The chat at 18 mins between Windass, Palmer & Bannan highlights why continuity is so important. You keep the nucleus of the playing staff, move on the fringe players and improve on top of the current batch who ended the season vs wholesale changes.

Most of the out-of-contract players who started yesterday probably should get another year if acceptable to them. The key is to then move the rest of the squad on and improve upon the current fringe players so the starters yesterday become backup options. Our loan signings in the early part of the season actually weakened the first team vs improving it whereas Beadle, Poveda & Ugbo massively improved things. We have a huge raft of out-of-contract squad players who will be moved on (Bakinson, Wilks, Gregory etc) and a bunch of loans who won't be coming back (Hendrick, Fletcher, Diaby etc) as well as some who are just surplus to requirements (James etc). If you can improve on these who are essential bib fillers in training with first-teamers then you slowly improve the squad while keeping the nucleus of a team. The problem with last summer was we tried to change too much and ended up defaulting back to the guys who got us promotion with a couple of quality loan additions.

Our new head of recruitment seems to know his onions.

Works perfectly with a player like Ugbo up top.

One of the best things about Danny is he's confident in his conviction. He will be planning for next season already and Chansiri will have to take note. He's certainly been quieter since Danny got a grip of things.

Iorfa surely gets another deal if out of contract. Versatile and just about to hit his prime year's for a defender. Bernard is a no brainer. Bannan, Vaulks, Palmer and Windass another year. Although I think Windass will go stateside.

Poveda managed 10 games on loan at Blackburn before injury, 26 at Blackpool and just 10 here so far. In the same period, Ugbo has played 18 games. Don't get me wrong he looks like he's a class act but we just need to be mindful of signing players who are injury prone. He's managed 83 games in his career at the age of 24. Compare to Musaba who is 23 and has played 175. Ultimately I'd like to sign him but we need players who are fit and play week in week out. You just have to look at the impact that losing quality players for a sustained period (Windass, Bernard recently) has on our overall performance.

Hopefully Sunderland defend like Preston did last night. Watch Vardy's second goal it's pure 'on the beach' defending.

Only 23 and has never played this amount of games and intensity in a season. Has been a really good signing and has serious resale value.

I appreciate he's done well for us but he's also been part of a defence which has shipped a sh*t ton of goals. Don't get me wrong he looks a good player but this is the first season he's managed over 30 games above League Two standard. Last year he only managed 10 games for Portsmouth in League One. If we stay up surely he'll sign a new contract? Perhaps not if we are relegated but I think we are selling ourselves short if we think Bernard is a cut above us.

100 pages by close of play Friday.

It did take a bit of a bobble but he made a right hash of the second attempt. Looks like he has form too. Made quite a few mistakes and only played a handful of games. All gone a bit pear-shaped for him.

Suprised Bambo went off yesterday. Only looks like a little scratch

Röhl has done a decent job here with an absolute fruitcake as a Chairman. He won't be short of suitors from elsewhere. He was desperate for a managerial position so Id be stunned if he took a number 2 job even if it's Barca. I imagine if he goes anywhere it'll be another club as manager.