Has anyone challenged / said “no” to Stockwell? Because this looks like another mess…
Second
Assuming Norris and MVS are off.
Thing is neither of these guys look great, decent maybe but not great.
Both are much older than MVS so is that a change of policy?
Incoming news: Will Norris dies in bizarre gardening accident
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All players need to be comfortable on the ball inckuding the keeper, if we want to be successful longer term. Yes, lincoln were less posession focused, but Cardiff were very posession focused. Id expect Cardiff to be better prepared in the Championship.
We have really good midfielders in Morley, Henderson and CBM, who can pick the ball, pass it and move it. They are all posession based players. We have 2x CB in Anders and DC who can play the ball.
We do not have a squad for long ball direct football. We need pace though.
We played quite a high line last season, especially when we were playing at our best. I would be slightly disappointed if we suddenly throw it all out of the window for some sort of direct long ball football.
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So whats on our shopping list for the rest of the window?
Striker x 2
Wingers x 3
Right back to challenge Grimmer
Yep. Fred is either running his contract out or talks are going down to the wire. I suspect the former now, unfortunately.
So I would say we need at least two wingers minimum, a lefty and a righty.
Whilst not ideal, if we were struggling to get a left side winger before the season starts, Allen / Harvie could both play in the more attacking role, but obviously far from ideal.
Two centre forwards.
Huggins, Bell and Lowe all available. I guess it’s been left to Duff to execute on do we go after any of them or hunt down fresh ideas.
I would genuinely love to see Bell and Lowe return, proven goal scorers and performers for us.
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Depends if Vidigal and Onyedinma stay but we need four wingers and only currently have Junior. So at least one winger (possibly three).
Unless you count Mullins I don’t think we have a No 10 so two of them needed.
I think we need two centre forwards.
And a back up right back.
Bizarre start to the transfer season. Offered contract to Norris, so management must know he’s not going to accept it. Clearly Duff has seen enough of Van Sass and doesn’t rate him. Taylor obviously the No 3. All very strange and not very inspiring.
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Doesn’t seem strange to me. Sorting out the most important aspects first - defensively - which we have. Has inspired me.
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Ps I don’t think we will see a situation where we are so underprepared for the season again we will play players out of position.
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Goalkeeper has been by far our biggest positional issue of the last 18 months. We’ve quickly addressed it. The success of our attempt to address it remains to be seen - I don’t think either of the new signings are standout goalkeepers for this division on paper - but I’m delighted Norris is going, especially after it looked like he might stick around.
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A reminder that the transfer window is not yet officially open. Another reminder that this time last year we had not signed anyone and the signings we did make were brought in in a haphazard way.
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Having a back 3 or 4 with the GK’s that’ll be with us for the whole season throughout the pre-season is only a good thing. Last season, we had Norris, then van Sas then back to Norris which just unsettled the set up.
Not sure anyone knows what is or isnt going to ve a standout at this level. Lincolns keeper had zero league experience before joining them. The Stevenage keeper last season had one loan at Crewe.
Its all a bit hit and hope.
How many keepers did we have on the books last season? 4 wasn’t it? 3 at the club and a 4th out on loan.
Assuming Norris is off as he is OOC, we now have 4 at the club and i suspect MVS will have a loan move found for him.
The question I have is if any of the 2 keepers we have signed are a significant improvement on Norris or NBTWAG. I can’t answer that but if they aren’t maybe we need to sign a 3rd keeper this window….
I suspect we will have nearly the 10 new players people have suggested we needed incoming this window, which seems absolutely mad and could turn the start of the season into another one of those inconsistent starts where the manager won’t really know his best team until October.
Another transitional season for us then.
The players are back in training in 2.5 weeks on Monday 29th June.
Would be great to see some outfield players signed and others released/sold before this date to give Duff a proper pre season.
I suspect the main work being done is at the academy and recruiting well for the youth teams, the first team is secondary and I can’t see us signing more than 2-3 outfield players that are not already at the club.
I expect to see a minimum of 3 outfield players signed before June 29 - and probably 6 or 7 in total!
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As said before we have our first choice starting “back 7” and aside from a back up right back a second choice “back 7”. So I can’t see any “gelling” issues this time around.
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I sincerely hope not.