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Watson's interview about the first week of pre season and recruitment. Interesting comments about bringing players in to start in the first team and that the goalkeeping situation is close.
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I play with wingers, not wing backs (n/t) on 22:21 - Jul 10 with 2000 views
As others have said, I think we currently would line up with:
GK TAR (Moss) Maguire EEL Beckwith (Bilongo) Petit Gilmour (Jenkins) East (Francis) Rodney(Henderson) Hayes (Hannant) Mani
Which, obviously goalkeeping issues aside, only really leave us short depth-wise in a few places. I think there will be an expectation within the squad for players such as Francis, Bilongo and to some extent Hannant, to really step up this season and offer meaningful competition for places. A strong Francis could enable East to play in the 'Barlow' role or Bilongo performing could free Beckwith to play more centrally, suppose we'll get far more clarity over the next few weeks.
I suspect he'll try and tie up at least one keeper before we fly off, whilst also presume a centre back and centre forward will be the other two he tries to bring in before we go. Other than that, wouldn't be surpised to see the management team hold out until later in the window in the hope an NML/ Dawson style player becomes availbable.
[Post edited 10 Jul 22:36]
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I play with wingers, not wing backs (n/t) on 06:16 - Jul 11 with 1709 views
I play with wingers, not wing backs (n/t) on 22:21 - Jul 10 by SaxonDale
As others have said, I think we currently would line up with:
GK TAR (Moss) Maguire EEL Beckwith (Bilongo) Petit Gilmour (Jenkins) East (Francis) Rodney(Henderson) Hayes (Hannant) Mani
Which, obviously goalkeeping issues aside, only really leave us short depth-wise in a few places. I think there will be an expectation within the squad for players such as Francis, Bilongo and to some extent Hannant, to really step up this season and offer meaningful competition for places. A strong Francis could enable East to play in the 'Barlow' role or Bilongo performing could free Beckwith to play more centrally, suppose we'll get far more clarity over the next few weeks.
I suspect he'll try and tie up at least one keeper before we fly off, whilst also presume a centre back and centre forward will be the other two he tries to bring in before we go. Other than that, wouldn't be surpised to see the management team hold out until later in the window in the hope an NML/ Dawson style player becomes availbable.
[Post edited 10 Jul 22:36]
The interesting thing will be to see how the players make the transition from the National League back up to the EFL, or for the first time in some cases. I don't buy into the notion that there isn't much difference between the leagues and i expected us to bring in more players tried and tested at that level, of course there is still time for that to happen. There might have been mitigating circumstances why our form dropped over the final third of last season but some of those performances against Morecambe, Tamworth, Boreham Wood in the final and others were miles away from what will now be required and they have me a bit worried going forward. How many have further improvement in their game and how many have hit their levels or are on the decline?
I think it will be season two before we can properly judge Watson, he will have had time to shape his own squad by then and those not performing will have been replaced.Cameron Ogden expressed a desire for us to target a return to EFL1, he made no secret of that. To do that Watson will have to be constantly looking to improve the quality in the squad during each transfer window. We have a big affection with the current crop of players but the reality is some of them will be surplus to requirement as we move forward, for a variety of reasons. It's normal in football. The manager has inherited a tight squad of players though who can never be questioned when it comes to battling qualities and togerthness, he's very lucky in that respect. I'm going early with my hopes and expectations/ prediction...a 14th place finish, consolidation. The number of points required to avoid relegation seems to have dropped significantly over recent years, the minimum standard used to be around the 50 point mark. There could be numerous reasons why that's happened.
[Post edited 11 Jul 7:19]
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I play with wingers, not wing backs on 08:37 - Jul 12 with 1126 views
Interesting to see that Barrow aren’t playing keeper Wyll Stanway in preseason at the moment due to transfer interest. Probably putting two and two together and making a lot more than four but you never know.
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