Summer Transfers - Rebuilding
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The team whilst not void of quality has look fairly barren in the depth department. Through the season I've pretty much had only one set of players able to play as the rest at the club were just not of any decent quality and I think that's where most of our problems lie.
In January I evaluated the squad behind closed doors and tried my best to offer out contracts to all the guys I thought worthy of staying on next season. Among these players are as follows.
Shaun MacDonald and Luka Nakov in the goalkeeping departments.
Ben Wynter and Kyle Cameron so far the only defenders that will be at the club next year due to most of the current ones being on loan like our best player Joe Lewis - I want to extend his loan.
In Midfield, Armani Little and Moroyin Omolabi earn extensions due to their performances.
Finally, Kevin Kalala, Ben Whitfield, Jamie Reid and Olaf Koszela extend their time at the club.
So there's going to be a lot of upheaval and we're going to be bringing in a lot of new players as we'll only have 10 players at the club by January 1st so lets delve straight in and see who joins the club.
Armando Broja joins on a free transfer after being released by Chelsea at the end of the season. I'm told Broja is already as good as our 23 goal a season striker and has the potential to be much better, I feel suitably prepared now in this area of the field and he'll fit right in on the bench filling in for Reid when required.
Broja's physical attributes were what attracted me to bringing him down from London. I can't stress how important I believe physical attributes to be this far down the leagues and I'm very happy with this acquisition.
That's right, not much to say on this one. Our player of the season had it not been for Jamie Reid's goal haul. Joe Lewis returns from Swansea on loan and will be the first defender on the team sheet once again. Welcome back Joe!
Our left back spot was filled in last season by 18 year old Daniel Ojo on loan and Liam Davis. Safe to say that this just wasn't good enough and had to be rectified. So Bailey Clements who looks like he could already be the best left back in the league joins us on loan from Ipswich.
He's got potential to be superb in every aspect of the game and I can't wait to see how he fits in with the rest of the top quality back for that I'm building.
Brahimi, yet another loan coming from Blackburn has joined too. Helping us fill out the centre of midfield Brahimi is a natural attacking midfielder but will slot in most of this season just behind next to Armani little to offer even more creativity just above the back 4. Another top top quality signing that will surely put us ahead of the rest.
Stanley is another player that comes in from a big Premier League club. Having came through the Birmingham youth system he managed to get a free move to Man United, unfortunately not making a single appearance he was released and so we capitalised.
Connor will add vital back up on the right wing for our current first team Regular Kevin Kalala. He'll add great competition too being such a fantastic winger.
More quality backup in Pascal here. Moroyin was our defensive midfielder last year and I plan on keeping faith in him to help us gain promotion next year. Estrada adds even more quality back up as and when needed, I assume there'll be a lot of rotation this year so expect these new back up signings to feature quite a lot.
James Yates is definitely (Sorry for this mate) the worst of my summer signings, it was more of a panic buy to try and get some back up for Wynter at right back. He's not bad but he hopefully won't feature much (Sorry again James)
This is probably the only position I'll be potentially looking to improve during the season depending on what situations unfold on our right flank.
Lucas Defise is also like Brahimi a natural attacking midfielder but he too comes in as back up for our star man next to Armani Little. He's a good player, with great determination and potential so lets see how much he can improve in the future!
As soon as I saw Max's stats, I knew he was the one to sure up our back line with Joe Lewis. I don't know what they're smoking at Salford to come the conclusion that he should come on loan to us but the important thing is he does come in.
That makes it 4 loans for the year which we'll obviously rely on heavily, we've room for on more and I'm looking around a lot to try and make sure I get the best out of the opportunity to bring someone in to push us forward.
Morgan Boyes is another fantastic full back. I initially brought this guy in from Liverpool before Clements showed up on the loan market and the plan was to start him next to Broughton on the left in support of Whitfield behind but unfortunately for him I couldn't pass up on the opportunity to bring in a player like Bailey Clements.
The difference in this deal though, is that Clements is out of our price range for a permanent deal and Boyes has the chance to stay at the club for next season provided on performances this year.
The last signing was Tom Grivosti. We have a lot of defenders in on loan and it's always nice to have a back up plan in case something happens and a player is recalled or something along those lines happens. So Tom provides solid back up from the bench and is currently considered better than Kyle Cameron who was a regular at the back last season.
Overall I'm so so happy with the work we've put in this summer, a complete rebuild of the squad has occurred and I can't wait to begin pre season and see how everyone gel's together - The main thing for now is this is how our dynamics look already despite 11 new players joining.
Perfect.