Players out of contract in June 2023 including Retained List

Gillead and Smallwood again in central midfield.

What could possibly go wrong.

 

More of the same. Bar loans, it doesn't seem as though we have a lot of wriggle room.
Clayton/Songo'o will need replacing in CM
Possibly another CB.
Then 3 AM.
1 CF if Cooke leaves.

Maybe 6 to come in unless we can ship some out.

 

Blood hell Fordy, you're spot on! I need a lie down....

 

The loan signings we made (apart from Banks) really need to be improved. This is my opinion of why we struggled, they did not perform so we ended up with what we had and this increased the pressure on the remaining players. The lads from Burnley, West Ham and Luton struggled and this limited our options. I’m not surprised by who is staying but I am sure come August things will look totally different.

 

What has he contributed? 10 goal contributions in 156 appearances for a supposed attacking midfielder is a disgrace.

 

On paper Costelloe & Perriera looked excellent. It just didn't work though.

 

We might. But I’d have taken the opportunity to move Gillead on and create another opening. With Smallwood and East, moving Clayton and Gillead on would have opened 2 central midfield roles. Thats the sort of change we need.

 

I don’t remember anyone waxino lyrical about Donny. Stockport are in the playoff final, they’ve done what people expected. Salford always spend big, Wrexham will spend big, Notts County have backing, Gillingham have backing too. It looks a tougher League 2 to me.

 

Ha ha ha you do that mate.

 

You don't usually have two coming up from NL with over 100 points. You also don't usually get an MK Dons coming down, with their resources.
Gillingham and Donny have said they will have a spend. Mansfield won't be hit by the same number of injuries again, They will be better. Salford will have a big budget.
Looks a tough league this time.

Hopefully Stockport can go up. With Stockport/Wrexham/MK Dons in the league I fear it will be play-offs at best for us.

 

And you haven’t mentioned any Div 1 club that have come down.

Plus Mansfield, Donny or Crawley.

 

Fans really need to start calling out Sparks and Rupp to spend and go for it.

 

ah touché, bit of a bird in the hand sort of situation though. I do expect him to become the next sutton I.e comes off the bench sort of player - players that actually are quite hard to sign in the first place as they always want to play.

get one 'marquee' signing in that will do me nicely. but as you touch on does mean that one player has to be quality

 

Its not just about spending. Its about spending well, to a strategy and with a manager who knows how to get us out of this league. If we just do what we did last year but spend more, we'll fail.

 

Maybe so. And right now, I'm still pissed off and miserable at our limp playoff showing. But its deeper - our limp, backfoot and safety first football was evident most of the season. I fully expect more of the same next season. It all feels like such a wasted opportunity. We have a decent budget, by far the biggest crowd. A properly sized squad with a little more quality, more energy and pace and with a more direct style could take this league by storm. Since we came back down to this sh*t hole league, have we ever had a single season where the fans really bought into what we're doing and used to create momentum? Not to my mind. The players last season were more likeable and I think they cared. But the playing style was far too dull and pedestrian. Teams enjoyed coming to VP much more than they should be allowed to do.

 

There will be at least Wrexham, Notts, Gillingham, Salford, Mansfield, Swindon, Donny, MK & City and one of Stockport or Carlisle, all of who it's either obvious will have money to spend of have publicly said they have a larger budget to spend this season. Plus theres always a surprise team that get in the top 7 from midtable obscurity the year before, maybe a Tranmere, Crewe or Walsall if they recruit well.

Honestly going to be 10 or more teams that will realistically go into the season and think they can/should make the top 3.

 

It doesn't inspire me if I'm honest. Even with a 30 goal centre forward I didn't believe this squad was good enough.

If Cook leaves or regresses, who is taking up the slack?

Let's see who we bring in but at this stage I think we're still at least 5 genuine starters short of seriously competing for top 3.

 

I would like to hope that Hughes has learnt from this season and we will be in a much better position next season.

 

He's not an attacking midfielder now so what he did in a past spell doesn't matter. What matters now is the job he does in midfield either as part of a 2 or a 3 and this season he's done well but also there are areas for improvement.

 

What does he do well? Serious question.

He's weak at tackling, rarely wins high balls, positionally tends to get caught the wrong side a lot, he's very negative in or around the box and drifts that much in games he's barely noticed for large periods of it.

Yes he has energy and stamina. Is that really enough though?