We have a GK, I think we have a good back 4, and backups, Skura can cover RB.
We have CBM, Morley, Henderson, Scowan, Mullins as CMs with Leahy aswell. Its probably the most talented batch of midfielders weve had.
Just need pace wide and a CF.
Gelling really shouldn’t be an issue.
Unless Duff really wants to rip it all up.
I’m failing to see how GK is our biggest positional issue when we’ve got far more of them than we’re actually allowed to field, and yet no strikers at all.
What do you think our biggest positional issue has been in the last 6/12/18 months?
Interim Chairman
LOL!
I think I mentioned that in the post. The fact that we started more than one game this past season without a striker on the bench or the pitch puts it higher up for me.
We’ve got a lot of them, but hopefully ONE of them will be able to actually look like a competent League 1 keeper on the pitch!
I think you should keep your powder dry until some more players have been signed. All we have done is sign players for one position.
I suspect it will be a hybrid of playing through the lines as well as being more direct with more powerful players up front.
A lot of top flight teams have moved away from the Barcalona model and even Man City go long with long goal kicks far more frequently now.
In any case judging Duff’s plans purely on this weeks signings is a little knee-jerk if you ask me.
I think “bizarre” is a little strong.
Why not wait until it starts taking shape before you make judgement ?
6am central time and we still haven’t signed a keeper today? Unacceptable!
On a serious note, I don’t know anything about the players we’ve signed, but I do know that neither Norris or Van Sas are up to it. So I’m glad we’ve started to do something about it.
I am hoping that we will get the Northern Ireland international and Championship version of Hazard rather than the dodgy League 1 version, If we do, we will be fine. If we get the latter, as we seemingly did with Norris, we might need to think again.
According to Wikipedia, Macey was released by Colchester, so must be strictly a bench warmer.
Have we got enough keepers though. With MVS, Norris, Moore, Defraine, Pettit and Keller, that’s only eight we have on the books, alabeit the latter three are academy players.
Are we only allowed to play one keeper at once? I feel like we might be planning to sneak an extra one on.
It’s been a problem, but striker is probably a bigger issue isn’t it, since Kone went?
Plus as people rightly said, under Bloomfield we had a strong 6 that could interchange between the 3 forward positions, to instead barely having a strong 3, and having a mess of loanees and high priced prospects.
If we could have two keepers, I’d be designating one of our strikers as the second keeper. He wouldn’t be there to field crosses or make saves, just to fall down under minimal pressure and win freekicks in attacking areas of the field - imagine the amount of penalties we would get.
I think we will see around 10 new faces in the squad, maybe more.
However, I expect 2-3 of those to come from the Academy unless they are going to be loaned out to L2/National League for a seasons worth of experience.
From what I have seen so far the standout is Arthur Gregory, he will be 19 in September and think he should be elevated into the squad. I would put him ahead of Taylor Allen as a left back in a back four but not necessarily as a left centre back in a back three.
For me Stones, Olabiyi, King and Macallum are the other standouts. Macallum looks really good and think would benefit with L2 or National League season on loan, given our current midfield options.
If I had to pick players to keep for the LG1 squad this season rather than loan out it would be Gregory, King and Olabiyi.
Goalkeeper(s) - done.
Strikers and wingers now please.
I think striker has been an issue, but slightly less damagingly.
Lowe did fairly well in patches. Woodrow did fairly well in patches. Onyedinma did fairly well in patches. Bell had spells in a central role, either as a lone presser or in a double striker shape.
Fink was the big money disaster that we couldn’t resolve.
Whilst I absolutely agree that the striker position has not been adequately replaced after Kone, the non-Fink striking options - many of which as last minute panic additions (Woodrow; Bell) or square pegs in round hole (Fred) - have been half decent.
What angers me is that we knew Norris wasn’t up to scratch in summer 2025. We could’ve let him go then. We didn’t. We then gambled on a total rookie in Van Sas. We then worked out very quickly that he wasn’t up to scratch. It’s now winter 2026. It’s now quite easy to get a Premier League loan goalkeeper that’s performing well at a League 2 side. It’s also quite easy to get a Premier League loan goalkeeper that’s still at their Premier League club. Instead, we kept the faith in two goalkeepers that were very obviously out of their depth.
I’ve even neglected to mention that the most capable goalkeeper of the lot was on loan up in Scotland.
We wasted an entire year wholly unnecessarily. An absolute mess. I can understand the striker approach knowing we acted very quickly to bring in Woodrow and Bell. I cannot understand the goalkeeper approach. A massive waste of time and both goalkeepers probably cost us 10-15 goals that were very easily preventable by an average L1 goalkeeper, let alone a good one.
Norris wasn’t out of his depth, he had played 54 games for Pompey and been selected in the 23/24 League 1 team of the season. With us, he was either past it, lost interest in playing football generally or didn’t like it at Adams Park.
Is it me or do we always seem to play Farnham as a preseason friendly?!?
