Pre-season 2023-24

[Worthy4England]

We signed JDC from Tranmere. He’s lucky to be here. Of course we need a rwb in front of him. Lad will be decent cover but he’s not a starter in a team looking to win league one automatic promotion from what I’ve seen thus far.

What do you reckon to LWB, mate? We good there? As in we should see plenty of decent service? I think Williams has improved since his early appearances, but I'd want to see as much decent service from LWB as RWB...

[officer_dibble]

Williams looks a lot fitter and is ex championship- I’m more confident he is going to do the business than JDC.having said that Kane Wilson has probably played most of his career below the championship.

[boltonboris]

I think JDC will be fine. I hope we can keep him fit, because Sadlier is an enormous downgrade going both ways.

The 2 wing backs give us a nice balance and with Morley another year more experienced, Sheehan looking much fitter and stronger and Dempsey finding his feet in a more advanced area, that middle section looks good for now. Maybe 1 more box to box type midfielder needed for some choice away games

[BWFC_Insane]

We signed JDC from Tranmere. He’s lucky to be here. Of course we need a rwb in front of him. Lad will be decent cover but he’s not a starter in a team looking to win league one automatic promotion from what I’ve seen thus far.

What do you reckon to LWB, mate? We good there? As in we should see plenty of decent service? I think Williams has improved since his early appearances, but I'd want to see as much decent service from LWB as RWB...

I’m not massively enthused given Williams as you say is improving but we haven’t seen enough and Evatt clearly doesn’t like John who has the best left foot of the lot. Ashworth it’s too early to say but doesn’t look like he will rip up trees there for me.

But being realistic the right side needs more than the left right now.

[Prufrock]

I'm all for speculation but there's no way Conor is coming back.

He's been involved for Liverpool a lot in preseason and done well. Also rumours Southampton want him as they're expecting to lose Livramento. At the very least he'll get a top end champo loan.

[boltonboris]

I'm all for speculation but there's no way Conor is coming back.

He's been involved for Liverpool a lot in preseason and done well. Also rumours Southampton want him as they're expecting to lose Livramento. At the very least he'll get a top end champo loan.

Liverpool fans expecting him to challenge for RB spot as TAA will play Midfield this season

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

We signed JDC from Tranmere. He’s lucky to be here. Of course we need a rwb in front of him. Lad will be decent cover but he’s not a starter in a team looking to win league one automatic promotion from what I’ve seen thus far.

We often have different worldviews, but I know precisely what you mean here.

I was thinking just this morning that Evatt has gone through some wingbacks - Hickman, Gethin, Kioso, Fossey, Bradley, JDC (and that's just on the right) - and it can be argued that there's surprisingly little overlap in "types". Obviously the available talent pool was shallow, we're still not exactly throwing money around and it's a difficult skillset for even top teams to fulfil, but a moment of hats-off to the coaching for making it work with different types of players.

That said... with hindsight (if not always at the time!) you can see clear development in that list of names... but it's a tall order to hope JDC will be better than Bradley. I suspect he will be a good squad player and hopefully might have more end product, but Bradley is a Premier League player in waiting and if JDC is, at 27, then clearly our scouts have x-ray vision compared to their rivals.

I don't think that's a reason not to sign him, or a stick to beat him with, but I do think it makes perfect sense that JDC was the muscular back-up to the creative Kane Wilson. The latter move broke down (wage? fitness? both? does it matter?) but that doesn't mean we weren't interested, and unlike last summer when Evatt insisted Bradley was his No.1 choice over Fossey, there's been no such insistence this time.

We came into this summer knowing we needed to replace Trafford and Bradley - our two best players - as well as strengthening in other areas. Traf has been replaced numerically with perhaps the best keeper we could get and a solid-bloke backup, although those descriptions are as ever yet to be proven. Bradley has been replaced by a 27-year-old from League Two. Seems a decent sort but it's not an upgrade, and he's probably not Bali Mumba, whose assists from wingback last season were among the reasons Plymouth got promoted.

On the left... well, I wanted John replaced by an upgrade. John's still here so we're pinning hopes on Randy (who, judging by pre-season, seems to be threatening the sort of second-season improvement previously shown by Dempsey among others).

We've signed several players, all of whom could be good. But in terms of the main summer-restructure jobs, the jury's still out. Proof of the pudding's in the eating, but I daresay folk will start to declare after the first couple of mouthfuls....

[KeyserSoze]

IE doing a 606 tonight

[Prufrock]

It looks like I'll be missing the Everton game tomorrow, so I will try to catch it on Wanderers TV.

I know we're supposed to be getting a fancy, full TV style experience for that one, but I thought I'd ask what the previous broadcasts were like. Who is commentating? How's the video quality? Is it better than iPlayer?

.
Derek is a good commentator, if perhaps a little biased towards us – always convinced a goal's imminent. Also has his linguistic tropes, as commentators do - "took a sore one," header as a verb, that sort of thing - but he's knowledgeable and on top of his game. I just hope they can hook him up with monitors/replays, as he was always forced to commentate "blind" - which leads to dislocation of sound and vision, always a potential drawback of dual-purpose commentary for radio (which needs more description) and TV (which doesn't).

His sidekicks, however, were hopeless, adding nothing of interest bar poor mic technique, poor takes and an asotnshing lack of analysis. When Vic Wakeling was hiring for Sky Sports he told co-comms like Andy Gray to "tell me the things I couldn't know unless I was a pro". Lately this sage advice has been dispensed in favour of stating the obvious and blatant cheerleading. I was often reminded of Chris Morris's The Day Today response to correspondent Peter O'Hanrahahanrahan – "Peter, you've added nothing" - and I genuinely preferred the games when Derek commentated on his own. Whether this will improve with "former players" remains to be seen.

Been introducing the missus to Partridge, and Patrick Marber appearing on KMKY led us down a Hanrahole and I'd forgotten what that line comes from.

The most beautifully tasteless three and a half minutes there has ever been:

[HMX]

Peter, you've lost the news!