This season’s transfer business (so far)

Walker seems the pick so far. His creativity will be pivotal, Pym's experience compared to the keepers we've had last 3 seasons could make a real difference. They all look like improvements to last season's squad but gonna stick my neck out and say Kabila is gonna be signing of the season for us. Gives me impressions of a young Mcatee. Full of running, can create something from nothing and already looks like he knows where to be at the right time. Done everything right in pre season so far except score and he's been really unlucky with that. His movement caused an own goal on Tuesday though and adds something different up front with his pace.
All signs looking good so far. We could be the quiet underdogs to challenge the top this season

Be interesting to know what it’s done to the weekly wage bill. We’ve shed some big earners from last season and brought in a mixture of younger talent from lower leagues but also a few proven winners in Walker and Pym. Wonder if that’s allowed us to build some more depth to the squad.

I’d like to think that having retained the core and top performers from last season, will allow us to integrate the younger, NL lads in steadily. Turi and Burns will be like new signings but with the benefit of a full preseason. Walker and Pym are immediate upgrades and give us that experience we lacked at times last year, on top of the experience that last years team gained from such a long but overachieving season.

Would still like to see another RB and another forward at least as well as a few loans to build out the rotation and depth. But Artell has shown he can develop players and has an eye for talent so happy to trust he knows what he’s doing with the NL players brought in.

The interesting thing for me is that of the squad that took us so close to making the play-offs last season, we've only really lost Hume who played a major role across the season (with honourable mentions going to Barrington, Luker and Obikwu, the latter of which would likely have been key for us had we managed to get 30+ games out of him).

I like to look at it like this. Pym would have to have comfortably the worst season of his career to be anything less than a monumental upgrade on last season's goalkeeping situation - that's a major, major box ticked. I don't want to underplay the loss of Hume, I think it's a big one, but we've managed to at least replace him with a player who's recently won League Two and played plenty of League One football in the time since in Sweeney; I think that softens the blow significantly.

If we think about Walker as an effective replacement for Davies then by all accounts we have a player who is likely more talented, and even with a chequered injury record would hope he should be good for more than the 8 starts we got out of the former.

Of the rest, they're relatively unknown quantities at this level but only have a very low bar to clear to offer more than their predecessors did last season. Staunton looks a straight replacement for Carson, who barely kicked a ball, and you can argue Kabia replaces Wilson who had little more time on the pitch. Gilsenen replaces Ainley, who for all his efforts in bouncing back from serious illness, was limited to short cameos last season, and Amaluzor comes in for the waste of wages that was Rekiel Pyke.

You even can make a similar case for Turi, even if he's been here a few months already - he's unlikely to be able to contribute any less than Thompson was sadly able to last season (though it's important to note how big a role he played in keeping us the season prior).

If anything, it illustrates perhaps just how well we did last season with so many of our higher earners contributing so very little. But it's very hard to envisage a scenario where we go backwards this season, especially with a squad core that has had a season to wrap their heads around the way the manager wants to play. Famous last words, but I haven't been this optimistic about a forthcoming League Two season since the summer of 2009...

We’ll only ever know once the season gets going.

There’s definitely a lot to be happy about with our business this summer, particularly the experience we’ve gained. That said there is a fair amount of risk that goes with some of the others that haven’t played in L2 before. All signings are risky though, so time will tell how good the window has been but as it stands I’m fairly happy.

If by some miracle, Vernam stays fit then he's also like a new signing.  We can't possibly have the injury issues we had last year, can we?  

We will also have players like JDS (when fit) who were new to the team last year but should be able to fire on all cylinders from the start this year...

I think it's fair to say that the general consensus last season was that our weaknesses rotated around the following themes:

Lack of a commanding goalkeeper who can use his feet.
Too many soft goals given away in and around the six yard box.
Suspect defending down the left flank.
Lack of depth/player availability
Lack of pace
Lack of attacking options
Lack of creativity from attacking midfield areas.

In one way or another, we've probably addressed all of those.  The one that hasn't directly had an intervention is the second, it's still the same score of defence that remains.  But I'm confident that having a goalkeeper who has an authority about him makes some serious inroads onto that.

Sweeney won't create chances like Hume did, but he'll shore us up a lot more.  That's not a criticism of Hume either, that's just his game.

The deadwood is gone, so straight away we've got more depth and it's clearly a measured approach to bring in players who are available more often than not.  

Walker brings a different dynamic to our attacking intent from deeper that isn't Kieran Green running himself into the ground until he collapses.  Gilsenan will probably need a bit of time but his pedigree is too good to not get excited about.

But it's the pace that I think really improves us.  We were static last season and predictable because we had no way of mixing things up.  This year our options are so much greater.

As it stands we're still probably a bit light in outright attacking options.  I think Gilsenan has been signed as a forward rather than a midfielder, but that still leaves us with 3 inexperienced attackers (Kabia, Gardner and Gilsenan) to support Rose.  Not expecting a guy with 200 goals under his belt but someone to lighten that load a bit would help, as discussed on another thread - Obikwu?

Quoted from diehardmariner

I think it's fair to say that the general consensus last season was that our weaknesses rotated around the following themes:

Lack of a commanding goalkeeper who can use his feet.
Too many soft goals given away in and around the six yard box.
Suspect defending down the left flank.
Lack of depth/player availability
Lack of pace
Lack of attacking options
Lack of creativity from attacking midfield areas.

In one way or another, we've probably addressed all of those.  The one that hasn't directly had an intervention is the second, it's still the same score of defence that remains.  But I'm confident that having a goalkeeper who has an authority about him makes some serious inroads onto that.

Sweeney won't create chances like Hume did, but he'll shore us up a lot more.  That's not a criticism of Hume either, that's just his game.

The deadwood is gone, so straight away we've got more depth and it's clearly a measured approach to bring in players who are available more often than not.  

Walker brings a different dynamic to our attacking intent from deeper that isn't Kieran Green running himself into the ground until he collapses.  Gilsenan will probably need a bit of time but his pedigree is too good to not get excited about.

But it's the pace that I think really improves us.  We were static last season and predictable because we had no way of mixing things up.  This year our options are so much greater.

As it stands we're still probably a bit light in outright attacking options.  I think Gilsenan has been signed as a forward rather than a midfielder, but that still leaves us with 3 inexperienced attackers (Kabia, Gardner and Gilsenan) to support Rose.  Not expecting a guy with 200 goals under his belt but someone to lighten that load a bit would help, as discussed on another thread - Obikwu?

Gilsenan could be a really good option off the bench he looks above the level (Blackburn fans thought he could play higher than Champ even ) and could run some tired defences ragged . Hoping we keep him fit and he gets 20/30 mins regularly that would be a good outcome for me from someone who has been injured a lot of his pro career .

I watched a video the other day showing an interview with Gilsenan while he was still at Blackburn, which I think was sometime around the second half of last season.

In it he stated that his long term injury was always treated in rehab but this year they decided to try surgery to hopefully fix it for good,  He showed a picture of his leg with a long strip of plaster down the middle of his thigh.   One other thing he said was although he is back on the grass training, he can't see himself starting a game this year or the 24/25 season, I'm not sure which as it wasn't made very clear.

Quoted from Ruuger

I watched a video the other day showing an interview with Gilsenan while he was still at Blackburn, which I think was sometime around the second half of last season.

In it he stated that his long term injury was always treated in rehab but this year they decided to try surgery to hopefully fix it for good,  He showed a picture of his leg with a long strip of plaster down the middle of his thigh.   One other thing he said was although he is back on the grass training, he can't see himself starting a game this year or the 24/25 season, I'm not sure which as it wasn't made very clear.

er, the 24/25 Season has finished......