Good question. The interesting thing is, most people aren't looking at the defence as a priority which is surprising given that we had one of the least watertight back lines in the division.
I think we need attention across the park. In terms of central defenders I think we're reasonably okay, we have Michael Turner who's fantastic, and Anthony Gardner put in some impressive performances when he was fit. Zayette potentially could deputise, while we've just acquired Steven Mouyokolo, a young French defender who apparently Arsenal were tracking in January and who is probably best known in the UK for his Ibiza floor filler Sing It Back. We could do with recruiting a quality right back though, to keep Ricketts on his toes. At left back we should be okay, we have Dawson, Kilbane and at a pinch Ricketts who can play there too.
Moving onto our midfield, creativity wise I reckon we're okay with Geovanni and Bullard, who's set to make an Autumn return. We do need a good ball-winning midfielder... Boateng is getting on now and looks to have lost his pace, and Ashbee isn't getting any younger either – and it remains to be seen how well he'll come back from his current injury. The aforementioned Zayette could perhaps fill this role, though. So far as the centre of midfield is concerned, Kevin Nolan is a player whose name has cropped up a few times in the past week – certainly Brown knows him well from their time together at Bolton and I wouldn't be surprised to see us go in for him.
I think the wings are where we need to spend some money – we need a player on each side who is fast and can deliver a good ball. Our forwards failed to impress last season and that's due in part to the fact that we weren't getting particularly good delivery into the box, and this is something that we need to address quite urgently.
Which brings us quite neatly onto our goalscorers, who generally forgot last season that one of their primary roles is to, er, score goals. When your joint second highest scorer is a central defender who ambles forwards for corners, that's probably a sign you need a new striker or two. Someone with a bit of pace, a bit of intelligence and good composure infront of goal please.
I reckon that should do it. Ultimately, if we can find a better option for any player – unless he wears a big '6' on his back – we ought to take a look and see if he'll improve on what we have already.
