Transfer Dealings

Chris Taylor is a very good player at this level, if a little injury prone. However, Millwall were trying to get him to stay so, on a free, that's a pretty good coup.

Alan Judge has talent, I didn't want him to leave in the first place so it will be interesting to see if he can step up in his second spell at the club.

No idea about the keeper, though. That seems like the cheaper option rather than signing Sandomierski, who I reckon will only come if Robinson goes.

Although I do reckon we're aiming at downsizing somewhat after the crazy spending of last summer so I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few more free/ very cheap younger players coming in with a few to offloading a few of the higher wage players like Robinson, Murphy and Etuhu. Possibly with one big money signing depending on how our transfer window goes.

Still, I'd rather have Bowyer with barely any money than Kean with £15m.

Final note, Nuno Henrique, Fabio Nunes, Diogo Rosado, Paulo Jorge and Edinho Junior were all 2012 signings.

I would add Nuno Gomes to the list but, in all honesty, he was one of the better signings we made and, probably, should have played more. Although there may be a valid reason for why he didn't get more game time.

Well its almost impossible to argue against someone's subjective opinion of how good at player is. Against Rovers I thought Taylor looked solid but seemed to rely more on being dirty than being particularly good. Will he get away with the physical approach for Rovers when every ref in the country seems to have it in for us? Kazim-Richards never seems to. Regarding the other 2, well never seen them play so can't comment. That's all my subjective opinion though, which has as much chance of being wrong as yours does.

The objective stats about them though are what really worry me. Taylor has only played 22 games above League 1 at the age of 26. Judge has never played above League 1 at the age of 24. And Eastwood was in the Conference North the season before last. It doesn't make good reading in an objective sense.

Jordan Rhodes had never played a game above league 1 when we splashed out £8m on him. Free players are worth the risk.

Scratch that, he had indeed played 10 games for Ipswich, still, not what I'd call proven.

But he was 22 and had scored 73 in 124 games for Huddersfield. Basically he was the best player in League 1. True though they are free so its not like we're losing anything, I just hope there are better signings to come.

I agree with all the sentiments on this article so far.

I am mildly optimistic about Taylor and Judge, I think they have a chance of being really good options (either 1st or 2nd) on the wings for us which would make the free transfer a bargain and, if they don't do too well, at least they'll be a free transfer on low wages.

Having said that, I know nothing about the new keeper and I do think he's just a cost saver which makes me question why we didn't just make Usai the 3rd string keeper unless we're planning on selling off Robbo.

Overall, though, a promising start but I agree with B&WH about hoping for better signings when the transfer window officially opens.

If we get our manager and backroom staff sorted early and they can get the players they want in with plenty of time for preparation before the start of the season, I see no reason why we couldn't have a decent attempt at the play offs.

In other news, Nuno Gomes has pledged his allegiance to the club. To be honest, I am not sure how to feel about this one.

On the one hand, he started last season well and proved himself to be a capable finisher which is important to have.

However, his goals all came very early on under Steve Kean and he hasn't featured much since then so, if he's not going to play and he's not scoring, he's a very expensive bench warmer; I think he's on up to £25k a week.

What are your thoughts on this? Good loyalty from a useful player or a man looking to hold on to his payday? Or both?

giving a player of Gomes's age a 2 year contract was sheer stupidity. no one else would have offered him that so that's why he chose us. he'll stay with us because he has no other offers.

same with Murphy.