Squad Upgrade - League 1

[SaintJames]

I saw some great footage of Jevani celebrating with a rather big bottle last night. Perhaps the ideal opportunity to have presented him with a new improved and extended deal tht he signs without waiting till the cold light of day for. Biggest pieces of business for me to be done are extending Jevani and Stubbsy's deals which only have a year remaining. The Head of recruitment (Marcus Flitcroft?) has I am pretty sure identified the list of no hopers that will be castigated as total garbage already
There will be almost universal agreement on the list of players released (mainly younger fringe players plus Nigel A and Colin D). The recruitment again of a top quality GK and two forwards is unarguable. I thought at the start of the season we had over recruited and had a bloated squad. However, the season showed that having such a large squad enabled us to cope with injuries at regular times

 

[Rosencrantz]

I've no idea what pool you'll be fishing in this summer, but the retained lists of many L1 clubs should be out early next week as the last games of the regular season are on Saturday lunchtime. You would imagine there will be plenty of value about in general, with lots of club having lost money hand over fist due to the pandemic.

I guess there is no chance of us getting George Hirst on loan now . He seems to have hit a good spell after we first discussed him back in January. Do you think you can get him again next season, on loan or permanently?

 

[MJP_Exeter]

Of our loanees...
Dawson - as said already, would love to keep, but it's very unlikely given his wages.
Podge - not good enough for L1.
Phillips - will return to Huddersfield.
Zanzala - If his wages are low, I'd give him a contract for next season (we're never going to have 3-4 high earning strikers).

I'd release (assuming their contracts are up):
Atangana
Ray
Daniel
Grounds
Seymour

That leaves:

GK
S Brown
Lee

CENTRE BACK
Stubbs
Diabate
Hartridge
Sweeney
Pond

FULL BACKS
Key
Caprice
Sparkes

MIDFIELD
Collins
Rowe
Kite
Dieng
Taylor

FORWARDS
Coley
Jay
J Brown

STRIKERS
Nombe
Cox
Zanzala (if available and cheap)

There are some other youth/development players around the fringes but I don't know enough about them to comment.

Looking at the list above however, I think you could make an argument for one extra player in all 6 "departments". So specifically, I'd want a GK, a left sided centre back, a first choice left back, a defensive midfilder, a forward who can play wide, and another back up to Nombe.

I thought Alfie Pond was a Right back?

I mean that squad looks a really basis to build a good solid league one side for next season. As you say probably 5-6 players needed but Atangana, Ray, Daniels and Ground's would free up some reasonable wages as would Dawson (Although really want him to stay as he is the best Keeper we have had at the club for 13-14 years).

 

[SEA Grecian]

I saw some great footage of Jevani celebrating with a rather big bottle last night. Perhaps the ideal opportunity to have presented him with a new improved and extended deal tht he signs without waiting till the cold light of day for. Biggest pieces of business for me to be done are extending Jevani and Stubbsy's deals which only have a year remaining. The Head of recruitment (Marcus Flitcroft?) has I am pretty sure identified the list of no hopers that will be castigated as total garbage already

Josh Key is the other notable player out of contract at the end of next season. I'm not sure too many of our players are ready to jump up to the Championship so hopefully we can persuade the likes of Key and Hartridge that the best thing for their progression would be to spend a season in League One with us.
And while we are worrying about players being out of contract after next season I think I read somewhere that Kane Wilson is out of contract at Forest Green which is a reminder of what a good jub City have done getting our players on long contracts.

 

[SEA Grecian]

Where have I mentioned Podge in any of this? At 34 Podge knows he's going to be a squad player. Podge's body isn't going to let him play week in, week out even if his mind thinks he can. Wheeler on the other hand is two years younger. He knows this is probably going to be his last season before he falls into the Podge bracket.

I don't understand the problem of signing someone like Wheeler who will expect to play regularly. Are we going to drop Dieng now he's in his 30's because he might be blocking the path of a promising youngster? For most of the last few seasons we've had an impressive core of young players but have often lacked the senior players to complement them - 2016-17 being a perfect example. The difference this season is that while we have regularly had a very young team with lots of academy products, the senior players (Dawson, Sweeney, Dieng and Brown) have stepped up and been our best and most consistent players. I assume that we will need something similar to happen if we are to stay in League 1 and someone like Wheeler could be a perfect fit.

 

[STURTZ]

Wibble.

 

[andrew p long]

I thought Alfie Pond was a Right back?

He isn't. He's a central defender who was shoe horned into playing right back for the men's team on one (?) occasion. His progress through the youth teams has been in central defence.

PS he isn't a midfielder either, despite what the ECFC official website says!

 

[Banksy]

Wibble.

 

[Alistair20000]

View attachment 8393

Was he a Tisdale signing ?

 

[Banksy]

Was he a Tisdale signing ?

Maybe this one?