Stickied League 2 Transfer Rumours/Confirmed Transfers 2024/25

[spireite]

Yeah, but you wouldn't want 17 like the spirite said, I'd be very concerned especially with the loan window not being what it was.

You don't really need 24 bona-fide squad players, that's just being silly.

 

[hellogregory]

Just had a quick browse on stagsnet out of curiosity to see who may be next on the Mansfield conveyer belt.

Names being mentioned include James Collins, Ivan Toney, Adam Armstrong and Steve Morison.

 

[AdamStag]

You don't really need 24 bona-fide squad players, that's just being silly.

We'll have to agree to disagree, you'll find most sides going for the top 7 will have 22-24 players next season.

Maybe you're just lowering the expectations already

 

[The Jovial Forester]

FGR and Cheltenham BATTLING to sign Sean Newton from York.

He's under contract anyway, I think.

Not heard of our interest, local paper reckons it was just Cheltenham after them and the journo has good contacts with us: http://www.stroudnewsandjournal.co....r_York_City_defender_Sean_Newton/?ref=mr&lp=2

 

[AmberRich]

Just had a quick browse on stagsnet out of curiosity to see who may be next on the Mansfield conveyer belt.

Names being mentioned include James Collins, Ivan Toney, Adam Armstrong and Steve Morison.

Adam Armstrong to Mansfield,
I thought the rumours on the Cambridge Message board were bad.

 

[Flaxman's Alibi]

Just had a quick browse on stagsnet out of curiosity to see who may be next on the Mansfield conveyer belt.

Names being mentioned include James Collins, Ivan Toney, Adam Armstrong and Steve Morison.

Daft guesses by clueless characters on biased forum shocker.

 

[Flaxman's Alibi]

Stags fans, what's Ben Whiteman like? Looks like we are taking him on loan next season.

He's got tons of potential and can chip in with a goal or two. He's too good for League 2 and it's a natural move for him to go to a good club in the division higher.

If he's nurtured properly he'll have a future higher than League 1.

 

[DearneValleyRover]

Like what stringy said, he's still a little a young, best next to a commanding midfielder who could guide him a little, I'd have loved him here again next season

He will play alongside Luke McCullough so fits the bill given Jordan Houghton is out until January

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

James Alabi set to sign for us from Chester at some point this week, 17 goals in the National League this season and one we've had our eye on for a very long time.

 

[Conker]

Think we had him on loan before, he got sent off in his first game and that was that.

 

[WH_Stag]

Adam Armstrong to Mansfield,
I thought the rumours on the Cambridge Message board were bad.

It wasn't a rumour in the first place, just players people would like to see play for the club..

 

[Kenneth E End]

Adam Armstrong to Mansfield,
I thought the rumours on the Cambridge Message board were bad.

Someone was obviously watching the U20 World Cup yesterday. He will be playing in the Championship next season.

 

[RavenBish]

after Mansfield sell him in January?

 

[WH_Stag]

This tops it for me. Lincoln are actually deluded

"We have not only the Cowleys' but the med team, sports scientist, the stats team.
It's a championship level team, I think we will storm L2 it's not always about the money but the quality of the team"

So because they have a sports scientist and a stat guy and a physio.. they will walk the league. Hey Lincoln, thats a pretty standard set up for most clubs in this league, also worth noting that hartlepool had all that too. We had it under murray and without a decent squad it achieves nothing.


Back to the point i was going to make, Billy Waters is crap.... bottom half/conference is his level. He will fit in nicely with Arnold and Rheady.

 

[valefan16]

This tops it for me. Lincoln are actually deluded

"We have not only the Cowleys' but the med team, sports scientist, the stats team.
It's a championship level team, I think we will storm L2 it's not always about the money but the quality of the team"

So because they have a sports scientist and a stat guy and a physio.. they will walk the league. Hey Lincoln, thats a pretty standard set up for most clubs in this league, also worth noting that hartlepool had all that too. We had it under murray and without a decent squad it achieves nothing.


Back to the point i was going to make, Billy Waters is crap.... bottom half/conference is his level. He will fit in nicely with Arnold and Rheady.

We've had a sports scientist for years!! Sure it's pretty standard these days.

Lincoln maybe getting carried away after the cup run. Raising your game in front of thousands against Burnley or a couple of decent performances against weakens Championship sides in front of a full house is totally different to doing it on a cold January night at Accrington.

Could go either way with them but if they think they have a Championship level team there won't be much left of it once it's all been taken apart by clubs at that level come August if it's that good!

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

This tops it for me. Lincoln are actually deluded

"We have not only the Cowleys' but the med team, sports scientist, the stats team.
It's a championship level team, I think we will storm L2 it's not always about the money but the quality of the team"

So because they have a sports scientist and a stat guy and a physio.. they will walk the league. Hey Lincoln, thats a pretty standard set up for most clubs in this league, also worth noting that hartlepool had all that too. We had it under murray and without a decent squad it achieves nothing.


Back to the point i was going to make, Billy Waters is crap.... bottom half/conference is his level. He will fit in nicely with Arnold and Rheady.

We have arguably the best training facilities in the league (paid for with revenue we acquired when in the Championship over a decade ago), we have a Category 2 Academy, a history of bringing young talent through and a history of developing coaches too (just look at Steve Holland at Chelsea).

Does that mean we're gonna be promotion contenders every season? Absolutely not. In fact since 1998 we've finished in the bottom half in every season bar 3 despite these lavish facilities.

Fair play to Lincoln for having a great season this year but what exactly did they achieve for the past 15 or so years I've been watching football other than bottling the playoffs five times in succession? Diddly squat. It appears that one season of success has gone to some of their fans heads...

I also remember a certain manager in non league work wonders with a tiny non league side by taking them to the FA Vase and back to back promotions, narrowly missing out on a third. That same manager then got an underachieving Crewe side promoted before winning the JPT the following year. That "highly-rated" manager then presided over three and a half years of shite which has now left him out of work and a huge risk for any club in this country to appoint him as manager due to a variety of factors.

Danny Cowley may have had a good few years at Concord, Braintree and Lincoln, but the Football League is a different level. I fancy him to do well and have a long and successful career but he's still an unproven manager at league level and this is where his knowledge of players may falter. Lincoln fans are foolish if they think they'll storm the league. It's the most wide-open it's been for years on paper but there's some pretty tough competition here and they'll soon find out for themselves...

 

[That Fat Centre Half]

You literally say that exact same sentence every single time a new-name no-history poster pops up with a made-up rumour on Outlaws.

He'll be posing the Hector Sam rumour next, I mean that's too random to be true right?

 

[Kenneth E End]

He'll be posing the Hector Sam rumour next, I mean that's too random to be true right?

I heard Juan Ugarte and Chris Taylor are also in talks.

 

[WH_Stag]

after Mansfield sell him in January?

Were st

We have arguably the best training facilities in the league (paid for with revenue we acquired when in the Championship over a decade ago), we have a Category 2 Academy, a history of bringing young talent through and a history of developing coaches too (just look at Steve Holland at Chelsea).

Does that mean we're gonna be promotion contenders every season? Absolutely not. In fact since 1998 we've finished in the bottom half in every season bar 3 despite these lavish facilities.

Fair play to Lincoln for having a great season this year but what exactly did they achieve for the past 15 or so years I've been watching football other than bottling the playoffs five times in succession? Diddly squat. It appears that one season of success has gone to some of their fans heads...

I also remember a certain manager in non league work wonders with a tiny non league side by taking them to the FA Vase and back to back promotions, narrowly missing out on a third. That same manager then got an underachieving Crewe side promoted before winning the JPT the following year. That "highly-rated" manager then presided over three and a half years of shite which has now left him out of work and a huge risk for any club in this country to appoint him as manager due to a variety of factors.

Danny Cowley may have had a good few years at Concord, Braintree and Lincoln, but the Football League is a different level. I fancy him to do well and have a long and successful career but he's still an unproven manager at league level and this is where his knowledge of players may falter. Lincoln fans are foolish if they think they'll storm the league. It's the most wide-open it's been for years on paper but there's some pretty tough competition here and they'll soon find out for themselves...

I think our academy is now category two, someone will correct me on that, And our youth team has become the first in history to win their league two years in a row apparently, thats what we've been told. Our new training facility is being built this summer and will be like a mini St.Georges park for Mansfield. Again were not going to achieve much just because of that.

Lincoln are this years Cheltenham.

 

[Boletus Edulis]

Surely there is no magic number when it comes to the size of the squad. 17 men could be ravaged by injuries or 22 men could lack match fitness when needed. There are too many factors at play here.

Last season we had 17/18 seniors, and it all went wrong once injuries and suspensions kicked in. This year we were nearer 22 and we rode the injuries better. However, it was not just numbers the quality was better as well. Further, the additions in Jan were a step up. So numbers is important, but if you are serious for play-off plus then increased quality of that greater depth is required. It keeps the players on their toes.

 

[Boletus Edulis]

This tops it for me. Lincoln are actually deluded

"We have not only the Cowleys' but the med team, sports scientist, the stats team.
It's a championship level team, I think we will storm L2 it's not always about the money but the quality of the team"

So because they have a sports scientist and a stat guy and a physio.. they will walk the league. Hey Lincoln, thats a pretty standard set up for most clubs in this league, also worth noting that hartlepool had all that too. We had it under murray and without a decent squad it achieves nothing.

Back to the point i was going to make, Billy Waters is crap.... bottom half/conference is his level. He will fit in nicely with Arnold and Rheady.

Sports scientists, stato and a good coaching team is worth nought in mid winter at Newport and Cheltenham. Barnes Wallis would be of more use to work out the trajectory of the bounce.

 

[GodsGift]

Lincoln are this years Cheltenham.

So we keep being told.

 

[Gladders]

This tops it for me. Lincoln are actually deluded

"We have not only the Cowleys' but the med team, sports scientist, the stats team.
It's a championship level team, I think we will storm L2 it's not always about the money but the quality of the team"

So because they have a sports scientist and a stat guy and a physio.. they will walk the league. Hey Lincoln, thats a pretty standard set up for most clubs in this league, also worth noting that hartlepool had all that too. We had it under murray and without a decent squad it achieves nothing.


Back to the point i was going to make, Billy Waters is crap.... bottom half/conference is his level. He will fit in nicely with Arnold and Rheady.

Got news for you, we don't have a sports scientist or stats guy, went through three managers and had Clements in the middle of the park and still managed to finish just behind the stags.

Point is don't get too cocky, Lincoln will do far better than Cheltenham did even without strengthening, but I'm pretty sure they will do, they won't do as well as that cocky post sugfests but pretty sure if the Lincoln fans could be bothered they could find plenty of stupid posts from stags fans saying similar things on stagsnet every season.

Every club has them.

 

[GodsGift]

Well said Freelaf.

I don't think you can really blame a section of our support for getting a bit carried away after having the best season in our history. We have the best management team we've ever had (bar maybe Graham Taylor) and a good £3/4m in the bank.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Don't even think Lincoln's squad (as it is) is anywhere near the quality required to get promotion.

Believe only 9 teams in the history of promotion and relegation have ever gone up back to back. Can't speak for Darlington (1990 and 1991), Wycombe (1993 and 1994) and Macclesfield (1997 and 1998) as they were before my time and there was a lot less money in the game at the time but of the others.

Doncaster - 2003 and 2004 - Bankrolled by John Ryan and would later reach the Championship thanks to a money-spinning new stadium.

Carlisle - 2005 and 2006 - Successful season in the Conference (where they were one of the big spenders and understandably so) saw the Cumbrians get huge gates (around 8,000 average) which made them big players in League Two upon promotion. Almost carried that momentum straight into the Championship before the squad was broken up after 2008.

Exeter - 2008 and 2009 - The Grecians weren't huge spenders but had a talented core to the squad managed to get Exeter up two divisions and many of their players would play at a higher level (the likes of Paul Jones, Matt Taylor, Danny Seaborne, Matt Gill and Ryan Harley come to mind.). Also must remember that Exeter had been in the playoff final in 2007 so despite losing that, they had an obvious winning mentality over a number of years and managed to keep most of the key players of that squad together until they got to League One.

Stevenage - 2010 and 2011 - Momentum and a winning mentality under Wacky Westley complete with an experienced core to the squad (Mark Roberts, Jon Ashton, Chris Day, Ronnie Henry) coupled with great talent in Lawrie Wilson, John Mousinho, Michael Bostwick and Scott Laird saw them grow throughout the year and go on a run where they got a deserved promotion. Again they'd bottled the playoffs in 2009 and would come very close to making the Championship under Gary Smith too before that side was broken up as well.

Crawley - 2011 and 2012 - Bankrolled and managed by Fatty McFatFat. After Swindon, they were comfortably the biggest spenders in League Two that season and got promoted with an incredibly strong squad for the league.

Bristol Rovers - 2015 and 2016 - Take nothing away from Darrell Clarke resurrecting that club from out of the gutter, but they had two huge budgets (and rightly so they're well supported) to get the correct personnel in which has given them the momentum to become a top-half League One side with Championship aspirations this season.

Lincoln are probably similar to that great Exeter side of the late 2000s, and they have a great chance of emulating their successes should they make the correct additions to the side. But the questions need to be asked and answered. Can the Imps keep all their star players? What budget will they have? How well do the Cowleys know this level of football and can they adapt? Are the Cowleys one season wonders at this level? Despite the money in the bank, I can't see Lincoln spending big next year because the Cowleys will want sustained success and stability rather than being bankrolled like the vegan villagers.

Certainly will be an interesting season for them that's for sure, but I do expect them to do miles better than Cheltenham did this season.

 

[Luke Imp]

This tops it for me. Lincoln are actually deluded

"We have not only the Cowleys' but the med team, sports scientist, the stats team.
It's a championship level team, I think we will storm L2 it's not always about the money but the quality of the team"

So because they have a sports scientist and a stat guy and a physio.. they will walk the league. Hey Lincoln, thats a pretty standard set up for most clubs in this league, also worth noting that hartlepool had all that too. We had it under murray and without a decent squad it achieves nothing.

Back to the point i was going to make, Billy Waters is crap.... bottom half/conference is his level. He will fit in nicely with Arnold and Rheady.

To be fair it's 3 sports science guys, 2 stats guys and 1 performance analyst.

A very good generalisation over one post, though. It's hardly earth shattering that some posters continue to feed off the positivity of a very good season both on and off the pitch for a newly promoted side and one who's smashed all sort of long standing club records to boot. Let's not forget that you, like us, also had to start from scratch on relegation and have had your difficult moments. I'm sure you had and have your own fair share of posters on Stagsnet who were similar on your return to the FL.

When we got relegated, our budget went from £1.6m to £500k. We had to get rid of our training ground. Had to get rid of Club houses. Couldn't hand two year deals out and were handing out 10 month ones instead. Our highest earners were around £500/week. We were a FT team with a slightly higher than PT budget. We couldn't afford overnight stays. We couldn't afford an assistant manager. Fans had to dig into their pockets to get a bit of cash into the Club (ironically enough, the guy you quote has actually raised over £70,000 for the Club this season in addition to the £35,000 the year before (although the total fundraising for 2014/15 was about £140k IIRC) and that's just from his bits and pieces).

Now we're in a position where we can re-build and get it back to what is was. Training ground starts soon, we're nearly there with the new site for the Stadium etc etc. And the best thing about it all, is that, bar a £350k investment to get the Cowleys on board last May, we're building with money that's down to our on the field success and fundraising - not anyone throwing money around. Everyone feels as though they've had a part of play in it all.

So having had the Club change so much, so quickly, it's hardly a surprise. We've basically won every week for a whole season.

Sports scientists, stato and a good coaching team is worth nought in mid winter at Newport and Cheltenham. Barnes Wallis would be of more use to work out the trajectory of the bounce.

You ought to try it at Dover, Braintree and Barrow!

 

[Luke Imp]

Don't even think Lincoln's squad (as it is) is anywhere near the quality required to get promotion.

Lincoln are probably similar to that great Exeter side of the late 2000s, and they have a great chance of emulating their successes should they make the correct additions to the side. But the questions need to be asked and answered. Can the Imps keep all their star players? What budget will they have? How well do the Cowleys know this level of football and can they adapt? Are the Cowleys one season wonders at this level? Despite the money in the bank, I can't see Lincoln spending big next year because the Cowleys will want sustained success and stability rather than being bankrolled like the vegan villagers.

Certainly will be an interesting season for them that's for sure, but I do expect them to do miles better than Cheltenham did this season.

No, of course it isn't. No-where near.

It's going to be crucial that we spend the FA Cup money wisely and the Cowleys have already said that you've got to build the infrastructure of the Club as well as getting it right on the pitch and not to expect silly money being thrown around.

What gives the fans hope is that the Cowleys have a track record of overachieving. I'm not saying they'll it this level because they've always been in the NL as players and managers and they know that scene like the back of their hand. It's basically a money ball system they operate and everywhere they've gone they've improved players and competed on much smaller budgets. It's always been a case of, much like Keith Alexander, of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. They took Braintree from 14th to 3rd and us from 13th to 1st - both with similar squads, or at least a similar core of players.

If you had told me last season that Farman, Wood, Waterfall, Hawkridge and Power, for example, would be part of a title wining team then I'd not have believed you. They've turned Rhead into a number 10 and we went the whole season without even having a proper striker or midfield partner for Woodyard.

They have this knack of refusing to implement wholesale changes when they arrive at a Club and working with what they've got, improving existing players and getting that little bit more out of them. First and foremost, they're coaches, and that's where their teaching backgrounds shone through last season.

First season is all about consolidation IMO. We know we'll not be big spenders (certainly not the lowest). I don't think anyone genuinely expects a promotion challenge.

 

[Urban]

We have arguably the best training facilities in the league (paid for with revenue we acquired when in the Championship over a decade ago), we have a Category 2 Academy, a history of bringing young talent through and a history of developing coaches too (just look at Steve Holland at Chelsea).

Does that mean we're gonna be promotion contenders every season? Absolutely not. In fact since 1998 we've finished in the bottom half in every season bar 3 despite these lavish facilities.

Fair play to Lincoln for having a great season this year but what exactly did they achieve for the past 15 or so years I've been watching football other than bottling the playoffs five times in succession? Diddly squat. It appears that one season of success has gone to some of their fans heads...

I also remember a certain manager in non league work wonders with a tiny non league side by taking them to the FA Vase and back to back promotions, narrowly missing out on a third. That same manager then got an underachieving Crewe side promoted before winning the JPT the following year. That "highly-rated" manager then presided over three and a half years of shite which has now left him out of work and a huge risk for any club in this country to appoint him as manager due to a variety of factors.

Danny Cowley may have had a good few years at Concord, Braintree and Lincoln, but the Football League is a different level. I fancy him to do well and have a long and successful career but he's still an unproven manager at league level and this is where his knowledge of players may falter. Lincoln fans are foolish if they think they'll storm the league. It's the most wide-open it's been for years on paper but there's some pretty tough competition here and they'll soon find out for themselves...

Just because I'm a dick and I pick up on things like this... but I believe we have the best facilities outside of anyone in League 1 and 2

 

[hellogregory]

Why doesn't someone start a training facilities thread?

 

[hellogregory]

This tops it for me. Lincoln are actually deluded

"We have not only the Cowleys' but the med team, sports scientist, the stats team.
It's a championship level team, I think we will storm L2 it's not always about the money but the quality of the team"