Right so there is only 32 days till the season beings, about 9 till our pre-season beings and I am seriously worried about the lack of signins.
After not doing anything for weeks we finally get 5 players and everyone seems to be a bit happier, but is a stupidly small amount of players.
Last season after almost every game King moaned his squad wasnt big enough for this league. We've lost much more than we've brought it so we will have an even smaller squad which cant be good.
If we didnt have a big enough squad last season then surely we needed about 5 extra players on top of a replacement for each player that left.
Effectivly we have lost all of the below players
Book
Heywood
Reeves
Duke
Igoe
Hewlett
Robinson
Smith
Howard
Parkin
Loan Guy
We have brought in no replacement for Book, so I guess we will be going with the cheap option of Matty Bulman. Rhys wasnt at his best when he had Steve Book 'challenging' him is he even going to bother when the only thing behind him is Matty Bulman for christ sakes? In my opinion Rhys will try much harder this year purely in order to earn a move away
King has said Reeves wont feature in the first team and Matty Heywood has gone. To replace these two we've brought in some 19/20 year old youngster from Bolton with no first team expirence what-so-ever, dont get me wrong he could be and probably is a fine player but good enough to replace the hole left by these to, no chance, could do with another defender with expirence.
Duke was very good for the large majority of last season I thought, he could play many different positions and chipped in with alot of assits. Its seems this Jack Smith is a very Duke like player with regards to versitility and he has glowing references from the Watford fans. Decent replacement.
Igoe has gone, he added a bit of expirence and an adver column. Going on last season form he shouldnt be hard to replace, hopefully Shakes will be young and full of energy and will hopefully turn out like fat bastard howard did in his first season
Hewlett, Robinson, Smith, Howard none of which have been replaced. We have no ball winning midfielder, we have no free scoring midfielder, we have no left winger. These are big gaps we didnt have enough midfielders last season as both SeanO, Jenks & Roberts ended up there, so we could do with another 5 midfielders
The massive Parkin void has be attempted to be filled by Cureton and Thorpe. I just hope these two put in the effort and dont end up being wasters like fat bastard howard and little shit igoe.
Almost through out the entire season we had a guy on loan, Henderson, Mitchell, Jenkins, Holmes, Slabber, Yeates etc this was at least an extra body so we could do with a decent season long loan and another one possibly short term so we can chop and change depending on who/what we need.
So, to have a decent squad I reckon we are still 1 keeper, 1 centre back, 5 midfielders and 2 loanees short
This is a hell of a lot, I know King is trying to fill the gaps and I know his hands but be terrible tied but last season our squad wasnt big enough. It wasnt big enough to cope with our injuries/suspensions and it wasnt big enough to add competition for places, too many players under performed but couldnt be dropped.
If we are to improve on last season we need a bigger squad, however it is pretty clear our squad will be even smaller. Hell, in three years I expect we'll only have a squad of 12.
The 5 new signins was a nice boost, but I still think we are very short of a squad (not starting 11)good enough to compete in this league.
What next then King? we've heard talk on a loan defender & 2 midfielders.....not enough is it
Am I being over negative here again?!?!
Yes I think you're being over negative, one thing you haven't factored in is the youth players making the step up. Lapham and Pook are capable backups, Robinson only played a handful of games last year anyway - Pook can replace him.
Reeves actually played only 6 games last year so we haven't really lost much from him, if we are that short I'm sure he'd be called upon again. Player for player the defence would seem to be about the same and possibly better if we get another experienced defender.
Our attack looks very healthy indeed so Roberts could be played in midfield if necessary.
Midfield we need a couple more players if Duke and Igoe leave but King has said if they do we will sign a couple more players.
Robinson, Hewlett, Igoe, Howard - did any of these really do much last year anyway? With a couple of signings the midfield certainly wouldn't look any weaker than last year.
Overall the team has positive and negative differences with last years team, one of the main positive points being far more options in attack - last year we began with basically just Parkin and Fallon.
If we are to improve on last year we don't necessary need more players. Look at the team we started 2003-2004 with - about 20 players and that's including Stevenson, Young and Herring who played about 5 games between them.
Sure King would love a bigger squad if he had the money but he can work with what he's got.
