Signings - how ready are you for the season 2017-18?

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Accounting for current injuries, I expect this to be our line up on opening day...

Garratt

Ng - Nolan - Raynes - Pickering (Whose looked sharper than Zooms so far)

Cooper - Wintle - Walker - Ainley

Porter - Dagnall

SUBS: Richards, Bakayogo, Sass-Davies, Finney, Lowery, Kirk, Udoh

We look wafer thin with injuries. I believe we still need at least two more signings which will come in August and that'll be the side with Jones, Ray and Bowery out injured. Need some more quality out wide and another CB. If I was being greedy I'd want an experienced midfielder too to give us the depth and balance we need in all areas. But the budget might not stretch that far...

 

[jacobncfc]

Things coming along a bit more now for us, looking like:-

Collin
Tootle - Brisley - Duffy - Jones
Alessandra - Hewitt - Milsom - Grant
Stead - Ameobi

Hawkridge
Hollis
Forte
Dickinson
Thompson
Howes
Smith

Would still expect a central midfielder and a first choice striker to come into that XI, with Hewitt dropping out and the two old boys upfront rotating. We'll, presumably, sign a reserve goalkeeper at some point as well.

 

[SVH]

I'd be surprised if Cambridge were higher than mid table looking at that squad, which I suppose you'd be content with?

Haha, in the politest way Kenneth, fuck off.

As others have already said, we have missed out on the play off's two season in a row.

We had one of the best defensive records in the league last season but lacked a striker due to Barry Corr's injury. We've replaced Norris with a keeper who kept 19 clean sheets and was in league two team of the year and we've replaced Corr with Jabo.

Might look shite on paper to you because you may not know anything about the players we've signed but I certainly won't be content with a top 10 finish.

 

[Alan Partridge]

How have Coventry managed to get away with having a bird in their squad?

Dock them points.

 

[Kenneth E End]

Haha, in the politest way Kenneth, fuck off.

Charming!

Well, how do you define a mid table finish? Between 9th and 16th? Will Cambridge be 8th or higher? Considering how close the play off race was last season, definitely possible, but definitely not guaranteed.

As I've said before, Forde is one of the signings of the summer for me.

 

[shoddycollins]

Well here's our paper thin squad as things stand.

Senior Professionals

Goalkeeper
Jack Bonham (half season loan)

Centre Backs
Mark Ellis
Tom Parkes

Wing Backs
Gary Liddle (R)
Tom Miller (R)
Danny Grainger (L)

Midfielders
Luke Joyce (D)
Mike Jones (D)
Kelvin Etuhu (D)
Samir Nabi (A)
Jason Kennedy (A)

Wingers
Nicky Adams
Reggie Lambe
Jamie Devitt
John O'Sullivan

Strikers
Hallam Hope
Shaun Miller

Development Contracts
Morgan Bacon (G)
Jack Egan (M)
Jordan Holt (M)
Cameron Salkeld (F)

Of those, I'd say our FM-style star-players are Jones, Kennedy and Adams. They're certainly the only ones that I think most clubs at this level would want in their side.

 

[Si Robin]

It's apparently hit Gary Johnson, 10 days before the season starts, that "1 or 2" of the squad, which is already tiny, are not up to League 2 standard so a couple will be being told they can go,

We're also looking to bring 4 players in before the end of August. We need a right-back, left-back, target man and winger. We'll probably end up with another keeper and a centre-back who can play up front.

Nothing like getting your transfer business done early...

 

[Luke Imp]

We're in desperate need of full backs.

Habergham's going to be out for a little longer than expected. He's going to have/had a minor follow up op on his groin surgery and we have no other LB signed up.

Our only option at RB is Sean Long who isn't good enough.

 

[George Reilly's Hairpiece]

*Edit - After now signing Coulthirst, unless I'm missing someone, we currently have 32 pros on the books:

Stephens/Ross
Brindley/H Taylor
Johnson/Tutonda
Santos/Payne
Clough/Nelson
J Taylor/Watson
Weston/Sweeney
Campbell-Ryce/Vilhete
Bover/Shomotun
Coulthirst/Akinola
Akinde/Akpa-Akpro

McKenzie-Lyle, Kyei, Fonguck, Cojocarel, Nicholls, Mason-Clark, Smith, Day, Coker, Amaluzor

Goalkeeper and defence look good but we look light to the tune of at least one midfielder.

Jordan Lussey did well last night apparently and if we were able to bring in a ball winning centre mid and be able to move on Watson and Sweeney then the midfield would look good as well.

Coulthirst now in to replace Gash, Nicholls moving on, and some long loan spells for Amaluzor, Fonguck and Mason-Clark and we would be good to go.

 

[Boletus Edulis]

Well here's our paper thin squad as things stand.

Senior Professionals

Goalkeeper
Jack Bonham (half season loan)

Centre Backs
Mark Ellis
Tom Parkes

Wing Backs
Gary Liddle (R)
Tom Miller (R)
Danny Grainger (L)

Midfielders
Luke Joyce (D)
Mike Jones (D)
Kelvin Etuhu (D)
Samir Nabi (A)
Jason Kennedy (A)

Wingers
Nicky Adams
Reggie Lambe
Jamie Devitt
John O'Sullivan

Strikers
Hallam Hope
Shaun Miller

Development Contracts
Morgan Bacon (G)
Jack Egan (M)
Jordan Holt (M)
Cameron Salkeld (F)

Of those, I'd say our FM-style star-players are Jones, Kennedy and Adams. They're certainly the only ones that I think most clubs at this level would want in their side.

 

[Boletus Edulis]

Crikey, if that is your full squad you really are as thin as a crepe. I hope a) you don't lose a few to other teams and b) can get some loans in. Forget the quality, you are very vulnerable to injuries/suspensions just because of the numbers. Do your youngsters have potential to step up like Orient's did? I have to say playoffs look a long way off for you at the moment.

 

[shoddycollins]

Crikey, if that is your full squad you really are as thin as a crepe. I hope a) you don't lose a few to other teams and b) can get some loans in. Forget the quality, you are very vulnerable to injuries/suspensions just because of the numbers. Do your youngsters have potential to step up like Orient's did? I have to say playoffs look a long way off for you at the moment.

Orient's youngsters didn't really have to be promotion-standard to be better than their first team though, I don't think our youngsters are there tbh which is why I listed them separately. Only Salkeld has a tiny bit of competitive experience.

Since that list we have added Richie Bennett to our squad, a striker from Barrow who could be the next Charlie Wyke (albeit he's already 25) but there's been no word on any other additions besides a wing-back and a striker I think we still have on trial.

Our squad wasn't much bigger than that at the start of last season and probably about the same if you include the likes of Penn and Atkinson who had almost zero part to play, and we only brought in the one loanee until January, it's a problem, we seem to miss out on targets a lot, and players keep leaving us to move closer to their families, you'd think we were based in Alaska. I just hope there are still one or two gems out there available for us to snap up.

 

[The Reverend Skyblue]

Amazingly we had the youngest squad last season and we have the same this season.
One good thing about having not a pot to piss in, is that you have to push through the academy players, which I much prefer to buying ,or loaning in, journeymen who don't give a toss about the club

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/league-two/startseite/wettbewerb/GB4

 

[jacobncfc]

That's hugely misleading, to be fair. We've got the oldest average age by miles because the list includes Nolan, Edwards and Smith but not any of our youth team graduates, even though the latter are far more likely to actually play.

 

[mowgli]

I knew we'd be up there with Hayes,Akinfenwa and Tyson having a combined age of 102 ffs!

 

[SVH]

Charming!

Well, how do you define a mid table finish? Between 9th and 16th? Will Cambridge be 8th or higher? Considering how close the play off race was last season, definitely possible, but definitely not guaranteed.

As I've said before, Forde is one of the signings of the summer for me.

It's more of the content comment. We want promotion, no doubt about it.

If we don't finish in the top 7 then Derry will be out of a job. No excuses for him this season.

If we had a Hylton in our team we wouldn't have cocked it up. In fact, we'd have gone up automatically.

 

[Kenneth E End]

It's more of the content comment. We want promotion, no doubt about it.

If we don't finish in the top 7 then Derry will be out of a job. No excuses for him this season.

If we had a Hylton in our team we wouldn't have cocked it up. In fact, we'd have gone up automatically.

Rubbish.

 

[The Reverend Skyblue]

That's hugely misleading, to be fair. We've got the oldest average age by miles because the list includes Nolan, Edwards and Smith but not any of our youth team graduates, even though the latter are far more likely to actually play.

I do agree a little as apparently we have a squad of 34, even then we still have an average age of 22.9.
I'm sure they include the tea lady and chief toilet un-blocker, but given we have only one oldie Michael Doyle when the real squad is calculated it could be younger than that.
Robins wants a 24 squad max, we have a few out of contract players still to make their mind up

 

[Laker]

Rubbish.

If we'd had a centre forward who scored double figures last season, we'd have made the play offs. If we had one who scored 20 (ie Hylton or Corr or Ibehre) then there's a good chance we'd have been in the automatics. We finished 4 points off the play offs and 19 off the automatic spots despite the fact our top scoring striker got 6 goals and all our strikers combined scored 9 between them. One of our strikers scored 0 in 33 appearances.

Svh's assessment seems reasonable to me.

 

[Luke Imp]

Amazingly we had the youngest squad last season and we have the same this season.
One good thing about having not a pot to piss in, is that you have to push through the academy players, which I much prefer to buying ,or loaning in, journeymen who don't give a toss about the club

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/league-two/startseite/wettbewerb/GB4

We currently have a squad of 17 so I'm not sure where they've got 21 from.

 

[GTFCfish]

Jamey Osborne one of our most influential players, if not the most, has done his cruciate ligament in his knee and is out until Christmas.

Fuck.

Off.

 

[valefan16]

Tyrone Barnett out for a few months... bit of a blow although expected him to be back up to Pope and Pyke, might need to loan another striker for cover considering Anton Forrester is always injured.

 

[WH_Stag]

500K bid gone in for Omar Bogle... like he will pick us though hahahaha

 

[Son of Cod]

Can't believe Wigan have listed Bogle, hope he goes to another L1 club and tears it up.

Jamey Osborne one of our most influential players, if not the most, has done his cruciate ligament in his knee and is out until Christmas.

Fuck.

Off.

OH FOR FUCKS SAKE. So that's 1 of our 3 good players out. That's ruined my day. Any vague weak hope I had of us even remotely competing this season has been shot to shit with this news. Such a horrible injury, too. Really hope he can get fit again.

 

[Greenacres]

That is bad news for Osborne, we have had two players in the last couple of seasons do their ACL. Wedgebury was out for a year and Raccine expects to be side-lined for a similar amount of time. Clearly I haven't a clue how bad his injury is but, based on recent evidence, being back by Christmas seems very optimistic.

 

[Son of Cod]

That is bad news for Osborne, we have had two players in the last couple of seasons do their ACL. Wedgebury was out for a year and Raccine expects to be side-lined for a similar amount of time. Clearly I haven't a clue how bad his injury is but, based on recent evidence, being back by Christmas seems very optimistic.

Yeah that's what I thought. I didn't think there were varying degrees of doing your ACL? I just thought they were all painstakingly slow recovery periods and if you rush back you're likely to do way more damage.

 

[Greenacres]

My limited knowledge of sporting injuries, largely based on what I have done to myself (or have seen team-mates do to themselves), is that something that is muscular or broken bone related is often quicker to repair than ligament. That said the worst thing I did was tear the ligament that joins your rib-cage to your sternum, no less than three times, which makes it painful to even breathe for about a month and a half...let alone do anything sport or exercise related. Goodness only knows how painful it is when the injury is to a joint.

 

[Big Bird]

Has any player ever done their ACL and came back the same? Seems to be one of the worst injuries you can get.

 

[Son of Cod]

Has any player ever done their ACL and came back the same? Seems to be one of the worst injuries you can get.

I think you have to be Italian because the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are Del Piero and Roberto Baggio.

 

[WH_Stag]

Has any player ever done their ACL and came back the same? Seems to be one of the worst injuries you can get.

Matty Blair, we waited ages and patched him up, got him first class help at St.Georges park then he left on a free to doncaster and got promoted.