Dread !!!!!

I don't know about the rest of you but I see the approaching season with dread, after the Lerner years the Doc seemed to be a breath of fresh air, but we all now know that things have got worse not better. Because of the situation we should hopefully see more of our younger players, but teams that were around and about us last year are strengthening and I see us just being the whipping boys for them, even when we went into the old 3rd division I wasn't so concerned, but things have changed so much in football now, I hope i'm wrong and the squad play like giants but I still think we need new blood at the top. UTV: suicide:

As it stands I don't think the rest of the Championship looks that strong, and there are no teams who you'd look at and think they're clear favorites to get promoted. Not many have strengthened particularly as of yet either, with Forest being the obvious exception, having had the help of Mendes to bring in a bunch of new players, but I don't think that means they're going to be the next Wolves.

When we lose whichever players we end up losing, I think we just need to concentrate on who's still here, rather than who's gone, when it comes to evaluating our chances for next season. More than likely we are we're still going to be able to field a pretty strong side by Championship standards.

Stoke are really going for it and may well end up with James Chester thus weakening us whilst strengthening themselves (I personally would find that even more stupid selling him to a direct rival but then the clowns at the top will no doubt do it anyway) Huth is training with them too apparently with the view to a contract at the end of it.

Pre season is a train wreck for us as we are preparing with a different set of players than the ones who will remain by the time the season starts. How exactly are you supposed to do that without things being disjointed when the matches begin?

I don't see Rowett as a good appointment for Stoke, I'm not exaggerating when I say his teams play worse football than Bruce's. That Etebo who they signed looked a good player for Nigeria in the World Cup though, and Afobe should be a decent signing as well, albeit he hasn't been as impressive since leaving Wolves the first time around. I imagine they will be there or thereabouts for a top six finish.

There's absolutely sod all we can do about it. Two years ago I hoped when we were relegated we'd take the opportunity to clear out the dead wood and build a squad around some key players (I seem to recall three of them were Grealish, Veretout and Gueye - what a midfield that would have been under a proper manager!) and a few from the academy. That didn't happen, we've added to the dead wood and not built a team to hit the PL with momentum. I still hope we can lose the likes of Whelan, Jedi, Richards and Elmo (although I can see Bruce playing the latter on the right wing instead of Blackett-Taylor) but, well, Bruce. For what it's worth I thought Tuanzebe looked really good and hope we can do a deal to bring him back.

If we want to remain in any way competitive, and I don't think Bruce would have stayed had he not gained some minor assurances, we simply have to replace those players who are likely to leave, albeit with cheaper options.

I think that you would probably find that Bruce is still with us because he can't find another owner stupid enough to pay him £3 million a year on a rolling contract, sod any assurances!

He's not on £3mill a year.

For some as yet unconfirmed reason that dread feeling has eased dramatically, bring it on, UTV