Nuwtfly

Hope: Stay up safely. No real worries over relegation towards the end of the season. 15th upwards.
Expectation: An absolute fight for our lives all season long.
I really want Warne to succeed here and it to go well for him, his team, and Clowes. I'm delighted he got us promoted last season.
But I'm also not going to pretend that last season's performances were any good. I think in the majority we were pretty ugly. We got the job done, but it didn't look like we would at times. 
We can't play like we did last season. We will go straight back down. Rock bottom. Warne needs to be backed to get better players in, but he and his coaching team need to get us playing better football.
If we're rock bottom in November I won't pretend that I'm not going to be calling for him to go. 
We have to stay up. If it's looking like Warne won't deliver that, he can go.

@Ambitiousyou are making a really fair, sensible and reasonable point here - and nothing you are saying is incorrect
But at the end of the season the EFL don’t turn around and let you stay up because you had a lower wage budget than everyone else.
Hopefully Warne will have much more success in this division with us than he did with Rotherham, but I don’t think you can get too upset with fans essentially looking to his past performance in this league as a metric to judge him by.
After all, he was judged to be the man to get us out of League One on his time with Rotherham too, right?

Am starting to get a little concerned that we’re not going to have a new forward, centre half or goalkeeper ready in time for the Blackburn game.
Hopefully some more info will come out today from Warne as to where we’re at with new signings…

Behave you drama queen 😂 
 
‘an embarrassment’ never seen owt like it haha in our recent history we’ve literally had players crash and leave their captain in the car and run off but some fella with less than 500 minutes for us is the embarrassment. 
 
Honestly there’s always a clamour for us to do a Brentford etc but we’ll never manage it with fans like this that write someone off at the drop of a hat. 500 minutes. 
 
If you still feel that he’s underperformed at the end of this season with loads of minutes under his belt then fair enough but he still wouldn’t be ‘an embarrassment’

No, of course not. We're not projecting how Warne will do with a budget a quarter of other sides though. I just find it as a lazy narrative because it knowingly disregards the circumstances that he was working under. 
This will be the first season Warne has ever had a competitive budget (for survival) in the Championship but he's shown when given a competitive budget (for promotion) in League One that he's achieved every full season he's been manager. 
In respect, he has achieved/exceeded to the level of his budget every season he's been in football management. How many managers can say that, an incredibly small minority. 
Football managers, no matter how good they are, ultimately rely on the players they put on the pitch. The players they can put out on the pitch are ultimately tied to how much the club can/will pay. Rotherham knowingly and willingly never committed to being a Championship-sized club. They were barely committed to being a top 6 League One club to be honest - he had a third of the budget Ipswich did in his last promotion from League One with Rotherham (for example).

@Ambitiousyou are making a really fair, sensible and reasonable point here - and nothing you are saying is incorrect
But at the end of the season the EFL don’t turn around and let you stay up because you had a lower wage budget than everyone else.
Hopefully Warne will have much more success in this division with us than he did with Rotherham, but I don’t think you can get too upset with fans essentially looking to his past performance in this league as a metric to judge him by.
After all, he was judged to be the man to get us out of League One on his time with Rotherham too, right?

Agreed - after their goal and up until he made all the subs - we looked much better. Lots of good signs from the players you’d expect to be in our starting XI come Blackburn.
I think though that, again, we’ve seen why Warne wants another 5+ signings. Some of our options are poor.
I mean I really want CBT to do well, and apparently he’s impressed in training, but he is just so off it at the moment. And the defensive options we currently have are worrying. Cashin…not sure what the problem is but he’s come back looking cumbersome and sloppy. 
There are green shoots and rain clouds, but I’m happy to wait until the transfer window is closed before I start to really fret. 

Agreed - after their goal and up until he made all the subs - we looked much better. Lots of good signs from the players you’d expect to be in our starting XI come Blackburn.
I think though that, again, we’ve seen why Warne wants another 5+ signings. Some of our options are poor.
I mean I really want CBT to do well, and apparently he’s impressed in training, but he is just so off it at the moment. And the defensive options we currently have are worrying. Cashin…not sure what the problem is but he’s come back looking cumbersome and sloppy. 
There are green shoots and rain clouds, but I’m happy to wait until the transfer window is closed before I start to really fret. 

Agreed - after their goal and up until he made all the subs - we looked much better. Lots of good signs from the players you’d expect to be in our starting XI come Blackburn.
I think though that, again, we’ve seen why Warne wants another 5+ signings. Some of our options are poor.
I mean I really want CBT to do well, and apparently he’s impressed in training, but he is just so off it at the moment. And the defensive options we currently have are worrying. Cashin…not sure what the problem is but he’s come back looking cumbersome and sloppy. 
There are green shoots and rain clouds, but I’m happy to wait until the transfer window is closed before I start to really fret. 

Agreed - after their goal and up until he made all the subs - we looked much better. Lots of good signs from the players you’d expect to be in our starting XI come Blackburn.
I think though that, again, we’ve seen why Warne wants another 5+ signings. Some of our options are poor.
I mean I really want CBT to do well, and apparently he’s impressed in training, but he is just so off it at the moment. And the defensive options we currently have are worrying. Cashin…not sure what the problem is but he’s come back looking cumbersome and sloppy. 
There are green shoots and rain clouds, but I’m happy to wait until the transfer window is closed before I start to really fret. 

Agreed - after their goal and up until he made all the subs - we looked much better. Lots of good signs from the players you’d expect to be in our starting XI come Blackburn.
I think though that, again, we’ve seen why Warne wants another 5+ signings. Some of our options are poor.
I mean I really want CBT to do well, and apparently he’s impressed in training, but he is just so off it at the moment. And the defensive options we currently have are worrying. Cashin…not sure what the problem is but he’s come back looking cumbersome and sloppy. 
There are green shoots and rain clouds, but I’m happy to wait until the transfer window is closed before I start to really fret. 

Yeah so when does the Swedish keeper arrive?
flipping ‘eck 

How many goals have we conceded in pre-season?
Defence really needs addressing.
There were definitely improvements tonight and good things to take away from the game, but there is a lot to be concerned about.

Definitely jinxed him here haven't I

Fantastic 1-2 between NML and Yates, the latter plays a perfect pass through to NML who buries a neat finish.
Loads of subs now. 

The Good: Kenzo, Ozoh and Yates all looking pretty sharp. Like what I've seen from them. Ozoh is a bulldozer and Kenzo makes things happen. He's going to be a great player for us. Elder had a shaky start but has grown into the game. NML and Jackson, too. Formation I think is a good one.
The Bad: Cashin and Bradley. Yikes. No surprises really from the latter but the former? What is going on with him? Sloppy. The quality of the final ball, and the passing in general, is still pretty poor. We're giving away way too many fouls again, too. Vickers? I think everyone else has summed it up.

The Good: Kenzo, Ozoh and Yates all looking pretty sharp. Like what I've seen from them. Ozoh is a bulldozer and Kenzo makes things happen. He's going to be a great player for us. Elder had a shaky start but has grown into the game. NML and Jackson, too. Formation I think is a good one.
The Bad: Cashin and Bradley. Yikes. No surprises really from the latter but the former? What is going on with him? Sloppy. The quality of the final ball, and the passing in general, is still pretty poor. We're giving away way too many fouls again, too. Vickers? I think everyone else has summed it up.

Seriously, what is going on with Cashin?
So off it - again!
1-0 Barnsely. You could say Vickers should have done better but how is he getting a shot away there? Poor.

Seriously, what is going on with Cashin?
So off it - again!
1-0 Barnsely. You could say Vickers should have done better but how is he getting a shot away there? Poor.

It’s probably 1.5m in total. Not as an upfront fee.
I’d imagine there’s lots of performance based bonuses in the contract that could take it to 1.5m eventually. 

Hope: Stay up safely. No real worries over relegation towards the end of the season. 15th upwards.
Expectation: An absolute fight for our lives all season long.
I really want Warne to succeed here and it to go well for him, his team, and Clowes. I'm delighted he got us promoted last season.
But I'm also not going to pretend that last season's performances were any good. I think in the majority we were pretty ugly. We got the job done, but it didn't look like we would at times. 
We can't play like we did last season. We will go straight back down. Rock bottom. Warne needs to be backed to get better players in, but he and his coaching team need to get us playing better football.
If we're rock bottom in November I won't pretend that I'm not going to be calling for him to go. 
We have to stay up. If it's looking like Warne won't deliver that, he can go.

If we weren't to sign any players between now and Blackburn, our team would probably be: Vickers; Nelson, Bradley, Cashin; Wilson, Adams, Osborn, Elder; Jackson, Mendez-Laing; Collins
When comparing with our end of season team, we've essentially replaced first choice options in Wildsmith and Sibley with their backups in Vickers and Elder. We've also replaced Smith for Osborn (an improvement) but lost Bird for Jackson. Overall, our starting 11 is currently weaker than last season.
It's still obvious we're 5 starters short of where we want to be. We just need to hope we get most of those sooner rather than later

I was/am hoping it had more to do with us obviously needing better options at centre-half, at this level, than Sonny Bradley 
As it stands it has to be Nyambe - Nelson - Cashin for me. 

I agree that we shouldn’t get too negative about our chances but TBF to Nuwtfly if you compare the four he mentioned to the other championship teams, we look a little weak.
Elder and Collins are journeyman players whose best years are behind them. They could just about hack it in League One. Bradley played quite well at the end of the season and it’s to be hoped that he remains a good squad player but we already have better central defenders.
Vickers is okay, but not as good as Wildsmith who is going to be a number two at a championship club.

We interrupt the river based puns to share another loosely translated Swedish news article;
Jacob Widell Zetterström, 26, has been in England to meet Derby County.
Now it is clear that all the details for a transition are in place. “JWZ” will sign The Championship newcomer.
The transfer will be official shortly and even if Djurgården IF does not get what has been the goal, the money is a little bigger than previously known.
According to my information, a deposit to Djurgården's account of around 22 million kroner in basic sum, and another around 5-6 million kroner in bonuses is waiting in the short term.
A maximum sum of around 28 million is a similar level to Hammarby with Oliver Dovin and Coventry.
Djurgården's goal with sales was originally around SEK 35 million.
The replacement can now be the previously mentioned Jacob Rinne, despite FD's information that he snubbed a first offer.
Jämte Rinne, I also have information that Brommapojkarna's Filip Sidklev has been an option - but that Dif is now looking at other names in addition to Rinne's.
Jacob Widell Zetterström was brought up in IFK Lidingö and joined Djurgården at the beginning of 2019. The goalkeeper has made 113 competitive matches for the Blue Stripes.
At Derby County, he will compete with, among others, the Arsenal-raised goalkeeper Josh Vickers.