The Squad for 2018/19

[Ian]

Would any team be brave enough to sign Alabi ?

 

[drwhoman]

Cammell Laird might be interested? (LOL!).

 

[aldoes mustache]

yes i am i feel for the fans who have paid stupid amounts of money to watch a team who played crap . oh well its not just us who makes a mess of things at times . if steve goes gotta give the arm band to NORWOOD . he is so energetic on the pitch and can be heard having goes at his team mates . thats what we need . think jay will be back in the nat lg with someone like salford or wrexshit .

 

[aldoes mustache]

i would pay to get rid of alibi . me dont like . send him to wrexshit

 

[Boz]

There wasn't a great deal of enthusiam on here when we signed Alabi and in his limited time on the pitch, he did little to change minds. However, he should be good enough to play at NL level, going on his time at Chester.

McNulty is a really hard call. I'd have no issues offering him a one year deal, possibly with an option to extend if he's made a certain number of appearances by the mid point. We don't have any other obvious candidates in the captaincy role, Sutton perhaps and Ellis' apparent weakness is that he's not an organiser at the back. Set against that it's 2.5 years since he last played at L2 level and over the whole of last season Sutton was probably the better central defender and I'd have reservations about offering him a 2 year deal. The same applies to Harris, though we really do need an ankle-biting tackling midfielder if he moves on.

I agree it would be great if Norwood could extend his deal, especially after the way he dragged us over the line to the FL, though he'll have looked at what's happened to Cook and thought about whether he could do better for himself. However strikers by nature are selfish and I don't see him as captain on a regular basis.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

I think offering McNulty a one year deal was the right decision and in a sense I am pleased the club won't be held to randsom. I agree with ONGP that is strange that Mac has not signed up as he would surely be offered a contract by a Conference club next summer, even if he we don't give him an extension.

 

[aldoes mustache]

well think he will end up with a conf team unless he is on his jollies . then could and should find out this week . think it will be the same with harris think we will get him sorted this week .

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

Putting my optimistic hat on, assume we give everyone a two-year deal. Then, what if we get promoted again next season? It's not ridiculous as FOUR teams go up from League Two, doubling our chances. We would then have most of the team which struggled to get out of the NL playing in League One - and a couple of years older. Micky would have less money to strengthen the team. So, maybe we need to think carefully about contract lengths.

 

[bigmart]

BBTC, if we went up our funding from the football league would increase quite significantly along with bigger gates so also more money from merchandise, food and drink etc so there would be more money to strengthen the squad

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

BBTC, if we went up our funding from the football league would increase quite significantly along with bigger gates so also more money from merchandise, food and drink etc so there would be more money to strengthen the squad

Good point, Mart. But we might still be stuck with players not up to League One level. Mind you, we are used to having deadwood in the squad.

 

[Cowshed Kid]

Sorry BBTC,
This team only struggled to get out because we finished second. Most of them twice.
I think the players that have been given the two year contracts deserve it.
I do think the top third of NL is better than than bottom third of L2

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Sorry BBTC,
This team only struggled to get out because we finished second. Most of them twice.
I think the players that have been given the two year contracts deserve it.
I do think the top third of NL is better than than bottom third of L2

Yes, it is a bit harsh to suggest a team that finished second two years running, with 95 and 82 points respectively, 'struggled' to win promotion. In any other division in the pyramid we would comfortably have been promoted twelve months ago.

All the players that have been offered two year deals are capable of playing in the League and deserve them.

 

[aldoes mustache]

yes it is harsh . if we had only started the season the way we finished it we prob would have 100 pts . but who cares we got the job done and made dreams come true and had a massive party to boot . still bloody buzzing and the fixtures are out in less dan 4 weeks crackers

 

[Boz]

I'm a bit conflicted between the two viewpoints here.

BBTC is correct to say that we struggled to get out of the NL this year and it's fair to say that the general consensus amongst NL fans was the league this season was amongst the weakest in recent years. It's been commented on here on the apparent gulf in class between the sides in the L2 play-offs and NL teams. I've seen few L2 football highlights, so don't know if CKs assertion about the top third of NL being better than the bottom third of L2 is correct, though have my doubts due to the poor standard of the NL we escaped from.

In terms of 2 year deals, I've no issue with the one for Connor Jennings. Scott Davies had probably his poorest season for us, but still did significantly more right than wrong and in his early 30s is at the peak age for a keeper, so on balance no issue with him either, though we do need to get a back-up keeper, who the management have confidence in, should the need arise. Banks probably wouldn't have joined so quickly for a shorter term and if he returns to the form of his loan spell will also be seen as good business. Perhaps the reason McNulty and Harris haven't signed on the dotted line is that they've only been offered a year, which I think is right for their circumstances.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

I'm a bit conflicted between the two viewpoints here.

BBTC is correct to say that we struggled to get out of the NL this year

I don't believe he is. We finished second, which would guarantee promotion in the Football League, and we were comfortably better than any of the other play off sides. Whether the division as a whole was stronger or weaker than previous seasons is irrelevant in my view.

I think BBTC was arguing we should be planning two years ahead in the event that we have another promotion. I would argue that it is unrealistic for any manager to take a view as long term as that in an era when clubs at this level can only afford to offer a two year deal at maximum. We need to plan for League Two rather than hypothesising about events that might never happen. I think the squad will continue to evolve naturally in the next couple of years depending on our status and we should not get too far ahead of ourselves.

I think all your player assessments are spot on though.

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

Wow. I hadn't expected my last post to generate so much heat. I stand by my assertion that we struggled last season, even though we got there in the end. Remember the first quarter of the season. And the play-offs were not exactly a breeze either. We did remarkably well to recover from that very poor start and showed great character in the play-offs, but this season's performance overall was significantly worse than last season and we were lucky that the general playing standard fell.

BTW, Boz makes my case better than I did, although I would like to see Pilling as our reserve keeper next season. If he can get a call up to the full Wales squad, he is surely worthy of a place on our bench.

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

Changing the subject, are we able to claim compensation from Fleetwood for Eddie Clarke? Or do the rules which apply to the EFL not apply lower down? If that's correct, it's not just our academy players who can be stolen.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

I still don't understand how we 'struggled' last season. After the slow start, our form from November onwards was phenomenal, we comfortably finished second, scored more goals than anyone else and achieved our objective.

Given that we had our first tangible success in 27 years, I hope there are many more struggles to come......

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Changing the subject, are we able to claim compensation from Fleetwood for Eddie Clarke? Or do the rules which apply to the EFL not apply lower down? If that's correct, it's not just our academy players who can be stolen.

Yes, I think we can.

 

[Ian]

Overall we had a good season and scored a lot of goals but the form was a bit patchy especially in the early stages when people where calling for MM head.

In terms of the playing squad we’re not going to know whether the squad is good enough until they start playing. Very difficult to gauge when you step up initially.