I tend to think steering away from former league players on their way down the pyramid is a better option. A lot of them think its a cake walk and beneath them and they soon find out it isnt.
He's got good experience of this level tbf. Also we'll see in time, but I like the character these players have shown in interviews. It works the other way too, it's known that some of our players couldn't cope with the expectation last season, having only previously played for clubs with fewer supporters. Got a good feeling about the current mix Say we sign Khan and Dalby, that'll give us 19/20 players who'd fancy themselves to get regular games. Of those 20, you've got Garner (36), Gardner (34), Norwood (33), Raglan (31), Caprice (31) and Fondop (30), so yeah, a fair chunk, but I think that's also valuable experience. Like I say, I like the mix
Do think Oldham miss a bit of a trick by not just poaching all the best players from the smaller local clubs. There’s some gems at Radcliffe, Curzon etc Bury would jump at the chance to join Oldham They seem to just want to sign former league players
Think development squads are on the agenda but all on the back burner until we can get the efl protection back. If they arr ready for the first team fair enough but think we got burnt by signing willoughby.
Was a strange signing anyway imo. We binned him off because he wasn’t up to it. Not sure why a club like yours would then be in for him. There will be plenty of players playing below this level though would easily do a job here and those sort of players would run through brick walls to play. Thats my take anyway
Think it was inexperience on the clubs part. Owners had only just come in. Unsworth was new to the level and we needed instant results. They saw he was banging them in for fun at chester and signed him. Along with a whole host of other garbage which has since been binned off. Of unsworths signings few remain. Only norwood raglan and hobson will play any major part this year. Kitching will probably be in the squad. As will lundstram. Reid will be lucky to get a sniff if he remains. Its a learning curve, and imo we are three years into what will probably take 5. Dont think we will win it this year. Playoffs are a lottery, but we are improving incrementally
He had quite a few injuries but when he was fit he was rock solid and a mainstay, don't know a fan of ours that didn't rate him highly. Proper centre half who is absolute nails.
Not heard of him before - anyone know what we can expect? One striker through the door to compete with Kabamba and I think we are in a very, very strong position squad-wise.
We lost a bunch of loanees and a fair few squad players were released. Our starting XI isn't going to massively change. We do this pretty much every summer and it doesn't hurt us
Fair enough. If the fans are happy its usually a good sign. Only ask cos latics fans are used to a summer overhaul every year so its been refreshing only bringing in 6 or 7. Although somewhere between 15 and 20 have left, none can be seen as a loss and pribably needed to go.
Nah not overly. Not a huge number of them will be immediate starters - most of them will be on the bench/options for rotation or feature in the huge number of games outside of the league 46. Most of them came very early in pre-season too so they should all be familiar with each other, especially with the number of preseason matches Brennan has organised. A few of them are also more signings for later in the season/next season - eg. Grimwood and Rye. Always comes with a risk of course, however Brennan identified the gaps in our squad last season and closed those, in addition to all teams needing larger squads anyway.
Hartlepool lad is why I'm overly fond of him, but he's never played below League 2 level before, was #highlyrated but suffered with some fitness and injury worries, think he'll do very well this season down here.
