Stickied League 2 Transfer Rumours/Confirmed Transfers 2024/25

[Redfox]

Have we still not signed anyone??

We will struggle next season if this keeps up!

 

[GodsGift]

Grimsby sign Sam Kelly, a winger who was released by Port Vale at the end of the season.

 

[valefan16]

Grimsby sign Sam Kelly, a winger who was released by Port Vale at the end of the season.

Poor Grimsby....

Doesn't like the physicality of League One so will struggle with it in League Two. Can dribble the ball a bit and can score a wonder goal (all be it 3 in 2 years) but other than that most fans were chuffed to see him released.

Will be remembered as much for inexplicably booting the ball into the stand in a mardy whilst the ball was still in play late on in a game we were losing by the odd goal.

 

[Conker]

A list doesn't come out, does it? I can't think of anyone that could conceivably come close, to be honest. Maybe Luton or Swindon or someone, but I doubt it.

Hardy's not particularly rich (by football club owning standards, anyway) but we should be around 6th/7th biggest just on the strength of our crowds. In fact, we'll almost definitely be higher in the average attendance table than the playing budget table. Does this mean we can claim to be well run!?!

I'm sure a list comes out, it goes to every club but only gives out your budget position in the table.

It's clearly going to be a top end budget but it's too early to say it's the biggest. During our conference title winning season it turned out that ours ended at about 1.6m which is our biggest budget to date but it was boosted by the Liverpool cup tie.

 

[Richard Cranium]

I'm sure we will be in the top 3 budget wise, A good chance it could be the top 1 but I imagine Coventry, Swindon and maybe Luton would be up there too. I'm not too worried about our budget with Evans in charge as he knows what he's doing with it as proven by his promotions in the FL. We are in good hands with Radford, and for a welcome change we can trust our owner.

Chris FGR Evans and Raynor are both still pretty dickish on the touchline. I think in Evans first 5/6 games for us he had the referee talk to him about his behaviour (Bar towel gate up at Carlisle) They've both been sent off once between them though. I'll accept it if one of them headbutt that prick at Wycombe next season mind, or at least pull his hair out.

 

[valefan16]

Our budget doesn't look too bad now, £650,000k from Smurf + Any Self generated income so should be £1.5-2 million. ST sales seem to be taking off since the price reduction. Not sure if the Grant/Alnwick money is in the 650k or on top mind! Hopefully Jordan Hugill gets sold by PNE too as we have a nice sell on clause in that.

Not sure where that would put us mind.

 

[mtfc26]

All of the signings apart from Hunt have a decent pedigree from what I can see but none have been for big fees. No firm word on Angol fee as yet.

Think our budget will be up there but not ridiculous.

 

[darren gregory]

Grimsby sign Sam Kelly, a winger who was released by Port Vale at the end of the season.

Dear oh dear, what a god damn excuse of a player, amazed he not gone non-league. As weak as a kitten and the heart of a butterfly.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Chris Porter hopefully set to sign for us this week from Colchester.

16 goals last season at this level so a very decent signing for our forward line!

 

[valefan16]

Dear oh dear, what a god damn excuse of a player, amazed he not gone non-league. As weak as a kitten and the heart of a butterfly.

Grimsby Telegraph reports "He is a physical presence" which has amused OVF this afternoon.

 

[PaulHaddock]

Poor Grimsby....

Doesn't like the physicality of League One so will struggle with it in League Two. Can dribble the ball a bit and can score a wonder goal (all be it 3 in 2 years) but other than that most fans were chuffed to see him released.

Will be remembered as much for inexplicably booting the ball into the stand in a mardy whilst the ball was still in play late on in a game we were losing by the odd goal.

A lot of our fans are expecting a pacy, left winger...

 

[les.gtfc]

Dear oh dear, what a god damn excuse of a player, amazed he not gone non-league. As weak as a kitten and the heart of a butterfly.

Jon Nolan was slagged off by fans of his previous clubs but turned out to be a great signing for us. I'll reserve judgement until I've seen him in the black and white shirt a few times.

 

[Moomin]

Chris Porter hopefully set to sign for us this week from Colchester.

16 goals last season at this level so a very decent signing for our forward line!

Would be a good addition. Surprised Colchester aren't doing more to keep him?

 

[Hamez]

Crewe are slowly building up a decent looking squad. Could be an outside bet for the play-offs if they keep it up.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Grimsby Telegraph reports "He is a physical presence" which has amused OVF this afternoon.

Almost as amusing as when we played them at Blundell Park in September and our team of kids and old man Lowe and Dagnall were deemed "too physical" for Grimsby...

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Crewe are slowly building up a decent looking squad. Could be an outside bet for the play-offs if they keep it up.

Our club will never admit it to deter agents from getting big fees out of us but it's fairly obvious that our budget has been increased slightly for this season.

We've sold 3 times more STs than we did under the fraudulent Davis because people believe in Artell's vision for the club and add to the fact that we've got upwards of £3 million from transfer-related income in the last 18 months (£800K for Ryan Colclough after Wigan were promoted to the Championship, an initial £1.1 million sell on for Grant Hanley which has increased after Newcastle were promoted to the Premier League and an initial £1 million sell on for Ashley Westwood signing for Burnley which has increased upon them staying up in the Premier League). Couple this with the fact a lot of players whose wages we were paying have left the club this Summer (Davis, Guthrie, Turton, Nugent, Kiwomya, Cooke, Saunders, Hollands, Bingham) and the fact we're gonna replace some of those with cheap £400-£500 a week Academy graduates as we always do and we have significant funds available to add proven experience and quality to the squad for the first time in a good 8 years or so.

Of course, this never happened under Steve Davis because he was too busy tying down his favourites and his own son whilst shunning experience because most our experienced players tended to disagree with him and his methods.

Once you offset our losses, pay for the Academy and keep paying Davis' severance pay till January, there's still a good £1 million surplus or so in the bank so we're in a very healthy financial position to fund a promotion push but we've learned from our past mistakes of spending it all in one go. Still, we have a few other players in the leagues above who we have sell on clauses for so we're hoping another one moves as well.

I'm so glad it's Artell spending the money and not Steve Davis because I dread to think of the crap what Davis would spend on. He'd have probably put his own son on a big 3 year contract as well!

 

[GTFCfish]

Almost as amusing as when we played them at Blundell Park in September and our team of kids and old man Lowe and Dagnall were deemed "too physical" for Grimsby...

Yeah but we got our revenge when we played you at Gresty Road and played you off the park before losing to 5 lucky goals......

 

[Youpies]

Rob Milson re-signs. If we can keep him fit, he's a cracking player.

 

[spireite]

Who's stating we will win the league??
I don't read any fellow stag bleating out dominance?.. I'm stating we will have a good chance or at least be contenders, who can deny we have been a number for far too long not to enjoy our chairmans investments for our beloved club!.

The bookies are, actually. Mansfield currently 5/1 favourites to win outright

 

[Clarkey_GTFC]

I can't say I'm overwhelmed by any of our signings so far but we can only judge once the season starts. We've already got a handful of really good players, we just need a couple more solid ones to see our squad start to take shape. One thing for sure is that we'll have a completely different looking team to last season as it seems we're focusing on pace, not something we've had a lot of.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Yeah but we got our revenge when we played you at Gresty Road and played you off the park before losing to 5 lucky goals......

Funny you should say that, when we were in League One and got absolutely destroyed at home by a rampantly brilliant Coventry, Dull Davis said at full time "Take out the 5 goals and there was nothing between the two sides."

Big Dave did warn you we had "better players than Grimsby" before the game though!

 

[jacobncfc]

Rob Milsom has signed a new contract. Really good news for us, was our player of the year and is a very consistent holding midfielder with a couple of promotions to his name.

 

[PaulHaddock]

Cooper and Dagnall both seemed to have MOTM performances against us, in both games.

In terms of our signings, can't say they're brilliant. Our fans are trotting out the 'let's trust Slade's judgement' and 'Jon Nolan' cliches. The Jon Nolan cliches only work in about 1 in 10/15 cases. Can see this guy being quickly displaced by Osborne/Browne/the other million midfielders we already have.

 

[GTFCfish]

Funny you should say that, when we were in League One and got absolutely destroyed at home by a rampantly brilliant Coventry, Dull Davis said at full time "Take out the 5 goals and there was nothing between the two sides."

Big Dave did warn you we had "better players than Grimsby" before the game though!

Haha, I was just pleased you took pity on us in the second half and only scored the one more.
I can remember a worst first half than that though, in our League 1 relegation season we played away at Oldham and were 5-0 down at half time. They also took pity second half with just the one more same as you lol.

 

[Fuzzyvalefan]

A lot of our fans are expecting a pacy, left winger...

Well he is a left winger and he isn't slow.

He also has a heart and brain the size of a raisin.

Spent most of last year on the bench, I spent most of last year hoping he wouldn't come on and getting pissed off on the odd occasion when he did.

 

[valefan16]

Well he is a left winger and he isn't slow.

He also has a heart and brain the size of a raisin.

Spent most of last year on the bench, I spent most of last year hoping he wouldn't come on and getting pissed off on the odd occasion when he did.

He generally comes inside a lot most of the time... then leaves the left back completely exposed as he doesn't get back. Looked ok at the start of the time with us but was diabolical last year.

 

[hellogregory]

Have we still not signed anyone??

We will struggle next season if this keeps up!

The season finished less than 2 weeks ago. Signing no players isn't going to "keep up" til august!

I agree, this current squad is relegation material, but getting into a panic because we haven't signed anyone 2 weeks after the season finished is over reacting.

 

[TimeyWimey]

Our club will never admit it to deter agents from getting big fees out of us but it's fairly obvious that our budget has been increased slightly for this season.

We've sold 3 times more STs than we did under the fraudulent Davis because people believe in Artell's vision for the club and add to the fact that we've got upwards of £3 million from transfer-related income in the last 18 months (£800K for Ryan Colclough after Wigan were promoted to the Championship, an initial £1.1 million sell on for Grant Hanley which has increased after Newcastle were promoted to the Premier League and an initial £1 million sell on for Ashley Westwood signing for Burnley which has increased upon them staying up in the Premier League). Couple this with the fact a lot of players whose wages we were paying have left the club this Summer (Davis, Guthrie, Turton, Nugent, Kiwomya, Cooke, Saunders, Hollands, Bingham) and the fact we're gonna replace some of those with cheap £400-£500 a week Academy graduates as we always do and we have significant funds available to add proven experience and quality to the squad for the first time in a good 8 years or so.

Of course, this never happened under Steve Davis because he was too busy tying down his favourites and his own son whilst shunning experience because most our experienced players tended to disagree with him and his methods.

Once you offset our losses, pay for the Academy and keep paying Davis' severance pay till January, there's still a good £1 million surplus or so in the bank so we're in a very healthy financial position to fund a promotion push but we've learned from our past mistakes of spending it all in one go. Still, we have a few other players in the leagues above who we have sell on clauses for so we're hoping another one moves as well.

I'm so glad it's Artell spending the money and not Steve Davis because I dread to think of the crap what Davis would spend on. He'd have probably put his own son on a big 3 year contract as well!

Best of all, there's no evidence of the bull crap we've had for the last few summers where the manager has promised the earth but come August failed to deliver anything but excuses (and a new contract for Ollie Turton). DA has got on with it, moved quick and got players in and it's bloody nice to see.

New signing to be announced any minute.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Would be a good addition. Surprised Colchester aren't doing more to keep him?

They offered him a new deal but he wanted to move back up North.

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Best of all, there's no evidence of the bull crap we've had for the last few summers where the manager has promised the earth but come August failed to deliver anything but excuses (and a new contract for Ollie Turton). DA has got on with it, moved quick and got players in and it's bloody nice to see.

New signing to be announced any minute.

As I've been saying all along, the size of the budget was never a problem.

It all comes down to three factors.

1 - It was the way Davis spent his budget that hamstrung us for years. Yes we had a low budget for League One but we had a squad that would've easily got relegated out of League Two let alone League One whilst we were there. Paying over the top wages to one of the worst defences in professional football hamstrung us for years only for us to constantly rebuild in all areas except that back line. Had Davis stayed in charge, we would've had Harry here till at least 2019...
2 - Players clearly didn't want to sign for the uncharismatic wetbag that is Steve Davis. Raynes' interview struck a chord because he praised the influence and vision of the manager for selling Crewe to him.
3 - Those players we did sign in in the Summers of 2014 and 2015 were spineless yes men with no heart or bollocks. The last player Davis permanently signed who had bollocks (apart from Dagnall) was Anthony Grant who was binned because he disagreed strongly with Davis' methods.

Amazing what binning off mediocre footballers on inflated wages does to our wage budget though, look at the quality we can finally bring in. Mind you even if we did well next season, some people will cry because we released Ollie Turton and we can't sing his shite song anymore.

Really optimistic for a promotion push this campaign and hopefully we can sort the two voids out in CM and RB as soon as possible. In Artell we trust.