Any Topic Going formerly Transfer Rumour s

If you are aiming for promotion what does a successful pre-season look like? Well, not like this. We can hope, which we are bound to do given that we are supporters of the club, but nobody looking at it objectively would say we are building a squad to challenge for promotion.

I suspect it's by design rather than incompetence. Take a year off to save money and cut losses, then there will be a fair few players out of contract next summer that they can release and do a full rebuild of the squad. Stuart must know what's going on, but he has to think about morale and keeping the team motivated, in the back of his mind he's got to be thinking that mid table would be a respectable finish given the resources he has to work with.

Saying that I suspect we might find a few quid behind the sofa if we struggle in our first four or five games.

 

He's not "cropped up" yet......

 

If, IF said player came tomorrow or even by next thursday I'd be relaxed about it. But 6 bloody weeks to a premiership club kids that can't get a game. And it isn't just one player we need. Even a blind man can see that.

 

Well we did it in the early rounds and got to the final. We left players out last year

 

I'm not disagreeing in principle with that quote taken in isolation it's not a good comment when fans are clinging to every word that comes out of the club, but the full quote was "within the next six weeks or so" maybe there will be movement before the league two season kicks off.

 

Whenever we eventually sign these mysterious loanees you can 100% guarantee that they'll say it was the one we waited for all along.

It will likely be just as true as when we claimed Vaughan wasn't leaving without a significant fee.

 

We can't afford to leave players out this season, we've hardly got any.

 

Problem is they won't go straight into the team. I know Bowyer had his idiosyncrasies and erred on the side of caution but none of his arrivals played until about the 3rd match after they arrived. Playing someone straight after they arrive would be a risk so it's not even 6 weeks, it may be 7 weeks before they get in the team if they sign around the deadline.

 

That season Phil Parkinson was very loyal to the players who got us to Wembley in the Capital One Cup.
Even Phil's starting line up at Wembley was not his strongest starting 11, not that it would have mattered on the day

 

Last minute.com

A true Julian Rhodes way of doing things.

 

We need four new signings minimum it’s a buyer’s market so why are we waiting on loans ?

 

Cos we don’t have the proverbial to do the proverbial in!

 

Even given these extraordinary times, our recruitment just doesn't ring true. Like "The Norf", I think it's by design. This season has probably been written off. Let's face it, looking at the news tonight and the chaos in in the travel industry, I can see similar problems with football. The season could be disrupted to the extent that the fixture list is not completed anyway. Why load your squad with players on big bucks ( eg pre salary cap contracts), when the whole squad could end up self isolating on a regular basis, as odd cases keep cropping up, and the backlog of games mounts to an unmanageable level?

So, I'm not worrying about lack of signings because, at the end of the day, it'll have no relevance if the season is abandoned.

 

Does anyone actually believe this?

Bolton have now signed 16 players and say they are well within the salary cap...

 

To be fair most of their signings won't have been on much at their previous clubs. E.g Andrew Tutte was released by Morecambe, he's probably on a low wage. Then you have players like George Taft, Ricardo Santos, Gethin Jones...all average lower league players. Doyle and Sarcevic were signed before the salary cap came into force so their whole wages don't count.

 

I'm afraid they've made a rod for their own back by stating so publicly they were against the salary cap. Everything they've done this window suggests the exact opposite, so unless they manage to pull a few quality rabbits out of the hat before the window closes, they will deserve all the criticism they are likely to get.

 

Squad of 26, 10 of whom are 21 or younger, big earners signed pre cap

 

This

 

Mccall has spoken about previously relying on favours from contacts and recommendations from them etc, in the days of the cosmispolitan premier league with all the foreign coaches and their own backroom staff, just how many contacts will he still have at that level?

 

I am normally quite positive but it is a bit silly now. we can’t seriously go into the league with this team. We have struggled to score and signed no one that will provide goals and gave away our top scorer. We don’t have a full defence and we have a couple of players that are injury prone.
we were agains the salary cap and we can’t even get near it, it’s pathetic