Stickied League 2 Transfer Rumours/Confirmed Transfers 2024/25

[Judge Dredd]

I think we need an attacking midfielder and now probably a holding center mid to replace Doyle since his injury and we're done. Shaping up nicely.

Can't see us bothering with a new defensive midfielder, Doyle played feck all role under Jones anyway and the gaffer has come out and said even pre-Doyle injury that he sees Rea being our first choice DM this season now that we have Mullins and a fit calamity Cuthbert to play alongside Sheehan. Jones seemed to like Olly Lee in the deepest midfield role too (for some reason which I can't quite fathom, still the only Jones decision I don't agree with so far). Then there's Smith, who I wouldn't describe as a holder as he is undisciplined positionally, but he's more defensively minded (at least in the sense that he can't pass and 9 times out of 10 can't shoot either). Isn't Bakinson meant to be a holding player too? Never seen him play but I remember Jake Howells describing him as someone who sits very deep and sprays passes around.

I think we should definitely still be in the market for a central midfielder, but I'd prefer more of a creative passer than an anchor man with the squad as it stands. Pelly can dribble with the ball, McGeehan can score goals, Rea can tackle, Smith can run around aimlessly... Lee is the only real passer we have on the books and he needs to do a lot more to assert himself on games regularly IMHO.

Wouldn't mind another striker too although not a pressing need, Pigott wasn't exactly well-loved here and understandably so, but his goal record was vastly superior to every striker not named Jack Marriott. Obviously we have Hylton now too but with CMS out for the foreseeable (and way past his best anyway), Benson gone, McQuoid an enigma, Banton unproven and seemingly developing into more of an attacking midfielder than an out-and-out striker... I think there's room for another goalscorer if one becomes available.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Interestingly in his first interview Cook has emphasised that he wants to play through the middle either as a striker or #10, and Jones has said we will look to play him in his preferred position "but we also know he can do a job elsewhere so his versatility appealed".

Can see us being pretty narrow this season playing either a 4-4-2 diamond or a 4-3-3 with Marriott and Cook either side of Hylton, neither will want to stay out wide much. My concern is how much demand that places on the full backs bombing forward; suits O'Donnell, but if Potts is our first choice left back he'll need to massively improve that side of his game.

 

[Kenneth E End]

Think our squad at the moment is very much an unproven one - taking out our long term injuries, outside the defence the squad seems inexperienced, albeit one with a lot of potential.

Squad summary:
27 professionals on the books
17 outfield "senior" pros (so definitely scope for at least a couple more) + 1 first team goalkeeper
3 long term injuries to these senior pros.
7 "development" players
2 on the transfer list

 

[Hatter86]

I don't see us buying another striker. I think a lot of the time we'll play 3 up top with wing forward. So presumably Hylton through the middle with Marriott, Cook, Banton, McQuiod and Mackail Smith when fit either side. Then you are going to have 3 midfielders, probably two sitting deeper who will be Rea, Smith, Lee, Pelly and Bakinson. Then you really only have McGeehan who can play the advanced midfield role now that McCourt has gone and Green is injured long term. Ok, Pelly can play there however I'd prefer to play Pelly deeper and have both him and Cam playing than having to take one of the other.

In a way I sort of hope we don't sign anyone else who can play deeper as it would mean he would have to give Bakinson a decent crack. Most exciting player to come through the youth team in a long time.

 

[Kenneth E End]

Interestingly in his first interview Cook has emphasised that he wants to play through the middle either as a striker or #10, and Jones has said we will look to play him in his preferred position "but we also know he can do a job elsewhere so his versatility appealed".

Can see us being pretty narrow this season playing either a 4-4-2 diamond or a 4-3-3 with Marriott and Cook either side of Hylton, neither will want to stay out wide much. My concern is how much demand that places on the full backs bombing forward; suits O'Donnell, but if Potts is our first choice left back he'll need to massively improve that side of his game.

I'm still not convinced being narrow will work this division. Against the more physical and inferior sides, you need to try and stretch the play.

I can see Alan Sheehan being the preferred "Number 3" this season, with Cuthbert and Mullins marshaling the defence, unless we're going to play 5-3-2.

 

[Hatter86]

but if Potts is our first choice left back he'll need to massively improve that side of his game.

Personally I'd like to see us line up Sheehan-Cuthbert-Mullins-O'Donnell at the back. You sort of lose Sheehans brilliant left boot when he plays in the center and there has to be a decent player somewhere inside of Scott Cuthbert. Plus this way, with Rea pencilled in to play DM, it makes Frankie Musonda as next choice of center half, which I'd like to see.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I think it is definitely possible that Sheehan will end up at left back, but I think Potts will get first crack at it for sure. Sheehan has made it very clear he wants to play centre back and Jones has also repeatedly emphasised that he prefers one left footer and one right footer in the centre halves.

 

[TimeyWimey]

Our tippy-tippy football is a bit of a myth these days tbf.

Fairly happy with the signing, just not entirely convinced it is necessary. A defender of similar quality and experience is far, far more important. Lowe & Dagnall (+ one of Udoh or Saunders, I presume) up front is a fairly solid attack though and so can be no excuses on that front.

Just not sure why there's never any concerted effort to improve our defence. I've been waiting over a decade.

 

[The Terminator]

Chris Dagnall signs. Decent signing by our standards. Few concerns, namely no goals in the Scottish Championship(L1/L2 standard?) for Hibs in the 2nd half of last season, but he was money for Rochdale when he was last in L2 and he's scored against us a few times. Also did well with Orient in L1.

Happy with this, him and Lowe should be a potent strike force and if the likes of Saunders and Udoh can chip in, we should have enough firepower to keep us well clear of danger and maybe even somewhere around mid table. Who's getting the balls to them will be the issue now.

A good signing IMO for any League Two club, he works extremely hard for the team and chases lost causes no end. He was fantastic for us in his 18 months here.

My only criticism, would be that he misses alot of chances. When he was with us, he played in a team who's strengths were going forward.

We tried to sign him again in Janaury but he went to Hibs instead.

He spent the first half of last season in India, the problem with that is that the season ends in early December and players then tend to come back to Europe and celebrate Christmas with their families - before finding a new club in January, the month off I find has left players playing catch up in terms of fitness. Another good example I can think of was Peter Ramage, who did similar last season with Coventry and ourselves - he came back from India halfway through the season, after a month off and looked a yard off the pace.

So with a preseason under his belt, Daggers may get his form and fitness back.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

I'm still happy with the signing of Dagnall despite the legitimate concerns pointed out on here. He's a proven goalscorer in the third and fourth tiers and it's a far more attractive proposition to see him and Ryan Lowe up front as opposed to a disinterested Marcus Haber up front on his own. As for the bad spell at Hibernian, he played in the nowhere near as physically intense Indian league as a first choice striker before going to Scotland and realising he was competing with eight players for a starting spot so maybe that could be a logical explanation as to why he didn't work out at Easter Road. At Crewe he's up against Lowey (1st choice), Udoh (non league prospect who will be used sparingly I'd imagine) and Saunders (who has been total gash despite the hype of 2-3 years ago) so he could be a player who thrives off regular game time.

 

[joethegill]

Always rated Dagnall, tidy player.

 

[antn1.b]

Eric grimes and Michael crowe on trial from Leeds and ipswich don't know a great deal about either keeper

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Our tippy-tippy football is a bit of a myth these days tbf.

Fairly happy with the signing, just not entirely convinced it is necessary. A defender of similar quality and experience is far, far more important. Lowe & Dagnall (+ one of Udoh or Saunders, I presume) up front is a fairly solid attack though and so can be no excuses on that front.

Just not sure why there's never any concerted effort to improve our defence. I've been waiting over a decade.

As long as Steve Davis is manager our defence will never be given the obliteration it well and truly deserves.

 

[ambernuts]

Happy with Jordan Cook. We definitely needed a wide player, although I agree I thought we'd go for a natural left winger.

I think we need an attacking midfielder and now probably a holding center mid to replace Doyle since his injury and we're done. Shaping up nicely.

I hear Keith Keane is going to make a comeback. He and his missus were also taking a look around my Uncle's house in Luton recently.*


*only one of these is true, I'll let you decide which ;-)

 

[TimeyWimey]

To be fair, Davis isn't half as baffling as Steve Holland spending his grandmother on Calvin Zola, Joel Grant and Anthony Elding after conceding 70 odd. Just think a proven experienced centre back would win fans over more. I suppose there is a case of Ray and Davis bed blocking (cos they're academy players and they always bring in a fortune, honest).

 

[Crewelad87]

Chuffed with Dagnall. Seems abit of a strange one. A big target man was suppose to bd the target. But if wd can kesp Lowe and Dagnall fit they should score bag fulls at league 2 level. Over 300 career goals betwedn them. We just need to find a creative midfield player, a pacey winger and a dominant centre half and we have the makings of something half decent.

 

[JJH]

Curtis Nelson and Reuben Reid leaving Plymouth. Am I just being a bit slow on that one?

Looks like us playing them first day of the season could be a good time to play them.

Reid didn't feature much last season did he? Surprising really, he had a fantastic two seasons prior to that.

Where's he off to anyway? You'd think he'd be worth a punt for any L1 club.

 

[JJH]

Lewin Nyatanga looks like our back up option after missing out on Knight-Percival.

Uh oh.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

To be fair, Davis isn't half as baffling as Steve Holland spending his grandmother on Calvin Zola, Joel Grant and Anthony Elding after conceding 70 odd. Just think a proven experienced centre back would win fans over more. I suppose there is a case of Ray and Davis bed blocking (cos they're academy players and they always bring in a fortune, honest).

Could actually happen in a year's time but I'm expecting Ray and Davis to be given contracts to 2019 by Christmas in all honesty...

Hopefully rumours of Walsall wanting Harry Davis become true though I doubt it.

 

[JJ1532]

Our tippy-tippy football is a bit of a myth these days tbf.

Fairly happy with the signing, just not entirely convinced it is necessary. A defender of similar quality and experience is far, far more important. Lowe & Dagnall (+ one of Udoh or Saunders, I presume) up front is a fairly solid attack though and so can be no excuses on that front.

Just not sure why there's never any concerted effort to improve our defence. I've been waiting over a decade.

Whilst I don't believe for one second we'll ever play attacking football under Davis and Collins, this is how Dario used to run things. Balls to the defence, concentrate on the attackers. Make them the best part of your team. Its how it used to be at the Alex(see Holland signing a bunch of attackers. They were shit, but he focused on the right areas) and I hope thats how it'll be again.

The defence has been shit since we formed back in the 1800s. We've never had a decent defence bar the odd season here and there. If we have a strong attack and a shit defence, rather than a shit defence AND a shit attack, I'm all for it. Give me the Crewe of old where we used to win games 3-2 and 4-3 over any of this turgid low scoring bollocks Davis has turned us into in the last few years.

I think this signing was absolutely necessary. Behind Lowe, who did we have in the squad that was proven in the goals department? Udoh, Saunders, Cooper, Jones, Ainley, Kirk etc, all guys with bags of potential, but I think they have about 8 goals combined between them. Both Dagnall and Lowe should be good for 10-15 each and we'll need them to be, because I have a hard time seeing any of the youngsters doing it. Yeah, I'm sure a couple might step up, but we need proven guys and we've got 2 of them.

I do agree somewhat that an experienced CB is vital, but then so is a tough tackling/creative midfielder. So is a creative winger who can supply the strikers with consistent service. So is a management team that knows how to select a team properly, knows how give them the right tactics, knows how to train and develop young players etc. Getting a decent strike force was one of about 5 crucial moves the club needed to make to make them respectable again. Hopefully they've done that by adding Lowe and Dagnall. Now they just need to make the other moves and we might start moving back in the right direction.

What I will say though is, if we have a reasonable season, fans and media guys will bang Davis' drum. There will be all this stuff about sticking with him being the right call, about how he always was going to turn it around, all that bollocks. But in fact, whats actually happened is we've signed a handful of decent players and they are the ones that have turned it around. Unless we actually make a promotion run, I won't give Davis and Collins much credit this season. What I do find interesting though is that with Lowe and Dagnall signing, if we have a poor season or even a poor start, Davis has got to go. This team as it is is a 12-16th placed team imo. If we end up anywhere near the relegation zone, it will be a massive failure on his part. No excuses for another shit start/shit season.

 

[FrankTheTank]

Reid didn't feature much last season did he? Surprising really, he had a fantastic two seasons prior to that.

Where's he off to anyway? You'd think he'd be worth a punt for any L1 club.

Bristol Rovers probably with Taylor on his way and Reid being from the city, think he still lives there.

 

[PaulHaddock]

Apparently he failed a medical at Rovers?

 

[ProfessorGreen]

Reid didn't feature much last season did he? Surprising really, he had a fantastic two seasons prior to that.

Where's he off to anyway? You'd think he'd be worth a punt for any L1 club.

Injured for the majority of last season, reportedly failed medicals at a few clubs (including Gas). For his wage demands and now serious fitness problems and couple of seasons probably behind him, I don't think many would want to take the punt to be honest. Will be interesting to see where he ends up.

 

[DearneValleyRover]

Paul Green is training with us, not sure about him now, great player for us in the past but by all accounts his legs have gone.

 

[TimeyWimey]

Whilst I don't believe for one second we'll ever play attacking football under Davis and Collins, this is how Dario used to run things. Balls to the defence, concentrate on the attackers. Make them the best part of your team. Its how it used to be at the Alex(see Holland signing a bunch of attackers. They were shit, but he focused on the right areas) and I hope thats how it'll be again.

The defence has got significantly (or consistently) worse since Dario retired, with even less investment. I think in the last ten years we've paid a fee for one central defender - Danny O'Donnell? Says it all. Up until his last couple of years, when the Championship was getting stronger, Dario actually kept it in a reasonable state for most of his time that meant his gung-ho style was allowed to be effective. The likes of Macauley, Walton were always in there, the types of centre backs who are few and far between at the club these days. Not to mention he is a coaching genius who is in another universe to Davis when it comes to coaching attacking football. Now it's just a given that we'll concede over 70 goals and it's just a hurdle we'll have to get over.

I think you kind of hit the point though and the club would now loathe to spend money (inc high wages) on a defender cos, well, we are Crewe. Can't tarnish the reputation.

Next couple of signings are the ones which will make or break it for Davis now. The calibre of that midfielder we missed out doesn't fill me with hope. Hopefully the club see with the Dagnall signing that pushing the boat out just a tiny bit gets fans on their side.

 

[E10rifle]

Injured for the majority of last season, reportedly failed medicals at a few clubs (including Gas). For his wage demands and now serious fitness problems and couple of seasons probably behind him, I don't think many would want to take the punt to be honest. Will be interesting to see where he ends up.

Somewhere desperate. Crawley or Oldham.

 

[FrankTheTank]

Apparently he failed a medical at Rovers?

This summer or previously?

 

[PaulHaddock]

This summer or previously?

This. As ProGreen says, there's several clubs that he's failed medicals at. Would suggest he's almost crocked.

 

[Judge Dredd]

This. As ProGreen says, there's several clubs that he's failed medicals at. Would suggest he's almost crocked.

Where have those rumours originated from? All I've seen is twitter talk so far, maybe I've missed an official comment somewhere.

 

[JJ1532]

The defence has got significantly (or consistently) worse since Dario retired, with even less investment. I think in the last ten years we've paid a fee for one central defender - Danny O'Donnell? Says it all. Up until his last couple of years, when the Championship was getting stronger, Dario actually kept it in a reasonable state for most of his time that meant his gung-ho style was allowed to be effective. The likes of Macauley, Walton were always in there, the types of centre backs who are few and far between at the club these days. Not to mention he is a coaching genius who is in another universe to Davis when it comes to coaching attacking football. Now it's just a given that we'll concede over 70 goals and it's just a hurdle we'll have to get over.

I think you kind of hit the point though and the club would now loathe to spend money (inc high wages) on a defender cos, well, we are Crewe. Can't tarnish the reputation.

Next couple of signings are the ones which will make or break it for Davis now. The calibre of that midfielder we missed out doesn't fill me with hope. Hopefully the club see with the Dagnall signing that pushing the boat out just a tiny bit gets fans on their side.

I don't think the defence has gotten worse, well save the last 3 seasons. Our defence has been intrinsically linked to the calibre of the manager we've had. It turned into a laughable shambles under Steve Holland. It improved briefly under Thordarson, but that didn't last long and neither did he. When Davis stepped in, the defence that had been a shambles under Dario suddenly looked ok. First season in L1 was also fine, but then it descended into farce as did the whole team and the management.

We've paid fees for a few CBs and a number of defenders, though, surprised you've forgotten all the players we've signed. Since Dario first "Retired", we've signed John Brayford(£130k), Billy Jones(2nd, £60k), Kelvin Mellor, Carl Martin, Mark Ellis(somewhere in the region £75k wasn't it?), Jon Guthrie and Anthony Stewart for fees. Not sure if we paid anything for Patrick Ada or Thierry Audel as well. I don't think we are loath to spend high wages on a defender, we've done it a number of times over the last few years. We don't even need a top quality player, just another Dave Artell, a bang average L2 defender who's been around the block a few times and can hold his own at this level. I don't see the defence improving all that much this season, I can't see Davis, Ray or Turton moving and they need to for us to improve. None of the defenders we have signed up should get extensions for the next 12 months. They should all this season be playing for their futures. Take the lumps this season, blood in the likes of Ainley, Kirk, Udoh etc and really go for it in 17-18.