Thetownend.com

Trialists' identities emerge
           
           


  THE identities of the trialists currently training with Swindon Town are rapidly coming to light.

           

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/10507377.Trialists__identities_emerge/?ref=rss
           
           
           

I know it's only a trial, etc etc, and whilst it is somewhat ridiculous to pass judgment on a player without having ever seem him play, the general level of the players that we're looking at has got to be a little bit worrying.

Yes there's a minute chance that you might find an Austin, but there's usually a reason why a player gets released from Macclesfield or hasn't found a club higher up the pyramid than Banbury.

Agreed, one or two are worth a try though - which is all we've signed. If that becomes 4 or 5 then I'll be more worried as I would have thought it too risky to pad the squad with so many question mark players.

As DRS pointed out yesterday we currently have a fair bit of experience on the books. I'm still seeing gaps in the spine of the team myself - centre back, centre midfield ( and wide players).

The worry is some of the experience will be off.

But as BR (Flashh') said, its only June. We'll see over the next week or three if Jed's twittering of 'expecting us to compete for promotion' was honest or if he's full of shit.

I really dont get the panic thouh tbh.If we sign these lot then lets worry but we have always gone this route with trialists,was there this much uproar with attiku kerouche commazi for example

I have no problem trying to pick up decent players from the non-league, in fact I think it's an excellent model, assuming you select appropriate players, for a club like ours, but running the rule over players from Banbury has the ring of convenience about it rather than the concerted effort of scouting the non-league far and wide for gems.

No there wasn't as much of an uproar because many Swindon fans thought Paolo was a better talent spotter than KMac.

Turns out Paolo signed more than his fair share of duffers, I hope KMac signs better quality long term signings that we dont sign on 2 or 3 year contract then release them paying them up after a few months potentially ruining the club and using up vast amounts of the playing budget for the season.

I think 3 or 4 good quality signings and we will be set up well for the season.

Yes its convenient but wouldn't Jed be a bit stupid not letting KMac have a look at 3 of Banbury's better players (assuming they are)?

They're on trial which means that's all we're doing - looking! If Kmac thinks they're worth a punt then maybe one or two may sign but I'll be amazed/worried if it's all 3. If a Banbury player turns out to be the next Charlie Austin we'd be pretty fucked up with Jed for having missed out on him I know.

Also......who is saying we are actually signing these players? maybe Jed is saying to some of the better players there to come along and experience pre season training at a league club to get them fitter for Banbury next season as a thank you to them for playing well for Banbury last year, just a thought.

We, and pretty much every club up to the Championship, give trials to 20+ players of this sort every summer.

Simone Matterazi came on trail from FC Zagarolo (AFC Wimbledon look like AC Milan in comparison) last season and I don't remember that being a sign that we were scrapping the bottom of the barrel.

Thank fuck someone has put it in perspective.

20+?  Don't think so.
The apparent low standard of trialist wouldn't matter if it was coupled with other signings of quality. As of yet that ain't happening though.
Time will tell of course but we can only make judgements on what is happening currently

Agreed - And add to that the fact we've lost several proven L1 standard players..

Trialists are rarely of a high standard - especially at league one level. That's why they are "on trial". I don't think this year is any different in that respect.

Until we've seen the new signings play I'll reserve judgement on their "quality" too.

But neither of you have seen the new signings play so you dont know how good they are, nor do you have any idea of the potential they have with a coach who seems to have quite a knack of bringing through younger players through.

All we can do...the Board, (and I include Power in this although apparently not yet on the Board), have set out their strategy...it's obviously going to be in their interests, that some of these lads become marketable, so let's hope KMac is up to the job.

Oh and judgement should be reserved for about 25/30 games, not just a handful.

Who remembers Darren Dykes and Ben Martin?

There's not a lot wrong with taking one of these punts a season...history shows they more often than not fail, but if you do unearth an Austin every so often it more than pays for the dross.

You don't really want more than one though...

I always liked that policy of gambling on non league players,  wasn't Martin related to Kingy somehow?

He was the son of a mate...we've sort of had it recently in the Samsung thing...

All clubs do it of course..it's a bit like panning for gold.

Would you have mentioned Banbury if there had not been a connection to Jed?  We have to trust KMac's judgement on these matters!!  Personally the jury is still well into deliberation over KMac in my personal opinion, trying to alter a tried and trusted way of playing over the past 1.5 seasons was a big mistake, let's hope he has learnt from it.

Oh Jesus! Are we back to this? Really? Keeping the same team and playing the same way as Dicanio had the team playing throughout the season wasn't an option, as a chunk of the team that had made a success of playing that way weren't available to him. 

Honestly, why do you think the sainted Italian one left? Because the new board missed some kind of arbitrarily imposed deadline for his new contract or because he could see the way things were shaping up for the future and realised that he was really up against it to complete the season successfully in the circumstances he was going to have to work?

He still had the players to play 4-4-2 had he wished, particularly at home where we were pretty pathetic with 4-5-1. He did what was asked mind, get to the playoffs. The semi against Brentford was pretty much a coin toss.

The jury is quite clearly out. The man hasn't had the opportunity to build his own team as a manager yet. Hope he's not too hamstrung by budget and given a fair crack,  as I doubt many will see past results regardless.

I think its more to do with them having exotic sounding names, some foreign player from that abroard is always going to be better than a player from Macclesfield.

Harry Agombar has got an exotic name and he comes from Macclesfield

So how often did that happen?

I'll tell you. We played a whole 65 minutes of 451 at home against Oldham. That's all. Just the once, and not even for the whole game. In addition to that there were just two away games when we played that formation, Doncaster and Franchise.

This formational change thing is a total red herring. We started with two up front against Sheffield United four days after we lost 2-0 to MK and the result was exactly the same. Truth is the squad that we built very expensively just wasn't good enough without Ritchie and the loan talent that we were using earlier in the season.

That's not factually correct.

What isn't?

Exactly. We needed to get a few bodies in for the start of pre-season, bearing in mind KMac said we only had 14 players on Monday. A bit of 6-aside.

Relax, we won't be signing anyone from Banbury... I fucking hope...

I think we should relax a bit on the trialists front....one of the stated intentions of Jed's was to (re)start and U21 team.  It is at least possible that some of these trialists are being looked at with a view to getting that up and running; and that more viable first team additions will be known once we get to next Monday.... just a guess!!

I'm pretty sure (despite there ostensibly being two strikers on the pitch) we played 4-5-1 every game under Macdonald up until Franchise away, when the atmosphere started getting nasty and Kmac capitulated to the demands of the terrace.

I think it's easy to forget it was a reasonably successful and well implemented formation for a number of those games: Coventry away, Brentford first half, Yeovil away, Notts County at home (battered them for 90 minutes without scoring). The standard of football was certainly higher. Even the first half at MK wasn't all that bad, though lacking in goal threat.

I think the game that really did for the 4-5-1 was Doncaster away, an utter catastrophe of a performance on every front, even if we were, by all accounts, just as bad playing a 4-4-2 away at Sheffield United a couple of weeks later.

Will be interesting to see if we revert to 4-5-1 next year, as its clearly Macdonald's favoured formation.

One correction - we were poor until we switched until 4-4-2.

Last season when we played 4-4-2 we didn't play to our strengths. And don't get me started on playing the Spurs players en-mass from the off in place of better players on the bench, though Byrne had to come in and Luongo was OK (but Ferry shouldn't have been moved to accommodate).

In any case its all irrelevant now. And reaching the playoffs was probably where we should have got to given the upheaval.

I really don't care what formation we play next season if its successful.

  If we have the players to play that type of formation I have no problerm with it, but if we are just going to see the ball lumped up the middle to the sole striker there will be a lot of concern from the stands!