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I think it is obvious mistakes have been made in the recruitment process, and the fault of that lies mainly with the financial circumstances due to covid.

However, it is good to see that those mistakes have been recognised, and we might have to start again in January, but this time with light at the end of the tunnel we can offer proper contracts.

I hope this is the case anyway, and not just trimming the squad for further cost-cutting.

Personally I thought the directors of football clubs were there to invest in the clubs and support them financially in difficult times, in order to enjoy the better times but I am a bit old fashioned like that.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

Personally I thought the directors of football clubs were there to invest in the clubs and support them financially in difficult times, in order to enjoy the better times but I am a bit old fashioned like that.

John Fenty has done that (even coughed up so we could travel and stay at Wembley FFS) but we then female dog and moan about his 'benign' loans

Would imagine loans cost us less than our own players although finding takers for some of our players may be trickier than cancelling a loan.

Quoted from davmariner

Hanson (with a heavy heart)
Green
Scannell
Moshni
Bennett
Morton
Gomis

Surely the prime candidates?

Didn't Ollie give Scannell a two year contract, cost a bit to pay him off now.

Buckley left in the summer

Quoted from Stew0_0

Can see Morton, Gomis having their loans cut short.
Curran, Buckley, Starbuck, Spokes, Battersby moving on.

I personally would like to see Green go too. Would be a useful wage freed up for an exciting striker.

Hope Jackson Jnr gets a few run outs to prove himself before January

Battersby needs a loan and to get a run of competitive games. Starbuck is a young lad and needs similar. Same applies for Spokes and you can probably add Jackson Jr to that list.

Curran hasn't stood out when I've seen him play 4 levels lower. Last time I checked, he wasn't even playing for Spalding.

Buckley left last season.

In terms of trimming I think Mohsni will probably go. Scannell might be on his last chance given the recent disagreements. Öhman may go back to Sweden as their season starts February time.

I suspect some of the loan players may depart too.

Quoted from Ipswin

Add Spokes to that list but keep Green (to advise and bring on the young kids) and I think you're pretty close

Come on Matt.... you've had enough chances. Time to call it a day buddy and move along

We do have a history of paying to release players from their contracts, or moving other players on. This is a waste of valuable money and the end-product of poor recruitment in many cases.

I think you'll see trimming but not mass clear-out……. I's evident we need one of these but not sure at this stage which one.

I do think it’s a positive to see a manager actually recognise his mistakes, that’s usually the most difficult thing to admit and follow through with.

Quoted from jamesgtfc

Curran hasn't stood out when I've seen him play 4 levels lower. Last time I checked, he wasn't even playing for Spalding..

I saw Curran and Painter play for Spalding v Clee Town, and Josh Venney outperformed them both. Khouri's promotion to the first team squad doesn't bode well for Painter, and I'd be shocked to see Curran stay tbh.

Speaks volumes that I forgot about Morton, and agree with idea of loaning Starbuck and Battersby.

UTMM

Hopefully it means we'll be starting with a more consistent eleven. Even more important I hope Olly has realised he's in a relegation battle and the current squad isn't good enough

I suspect this is as much to do with motivating players for the next game or two as it is about giving his plans for January.

Surely it would be a case of trying to loan some players out rather than paying people off? That and cutting short a few loans.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

I think it is obvious mistakes have been made in the recruitment process, and the fault of that lies mainly with the financial circumstances due to covid.

However, it is good to see that those mistakes have been recognised, and we might have to start again in January, but this time with light at the end of the tunnel we can offer proper contracts.

I hope this is the case anyway, and not just trimming the squad for further cost-cutting.

Personally I thought the directors of football clubs were there to invest in the clubs and support them financially in difficult times, in order to enjoy the better times but I am a bit old fashioned like that.

I don't think mistakes were made, I think that IH had his list of players he wanted to sign but for multiple reasons, they signed for some other teams and turned us down. IH does not have a God given right to get the players he wanted, other clubs were in for them too.

Sounds like Ollie is trying to free up money to get someone in that can score goals in the January window, it's not like we aren't making the chances is it.

Quoted from Davec

Surely it would be a case of trying to loan some players out rather than paying people off? That and cutting short a few loans.

Could be wrong, but I think we can only sign one more player on loan. Isn't 8 the limit? We're on 7 now.

It felt at one stage, that if Tom from the Sunday League Pub Team had offered Holloway a player he would have taken them.

Id be interested to hear Holloway's reasoning and the method in the madness, to see if I can understand what he is/was trying to achieve, because I cant see anything.

If we offload any of our permanent signings that will require a pay-off.  If we pay-up and effectively release someone now, they can't sign for anyone else until the window opens.  Added to that it's going to be even more difficult than ever to find a club, especially when you're deemed surplus to requirements at a struggling League Two club.  The only way from there is down and clubs in the National League and lower are absolutely dying on their feet.

I would have thought if Holloway hasn't told these players yet it can only be loan players as the mutual termination of a contract is just that, mutual. Surely?

But.....Preston, Edwards, Morton, Taylor, Gomis, Windsor, and Bennett (basically all of our loan players!) are all on season long loans, happy to be corrected on this but I think we can only end the loan in the transfer window.

Puzzled by this.  Can't see any player agreeing to have their contract paid up and we're not able to terminate any loan deals yet.  Don't even think loaning anyone out is an option either, don't think any National League sides would want our players and the levels below have shut down.

Odd.

Quoted from Ipswin

John Fenty has done that (even coughed up so we could travel and stay at Wembley FFS) but we then female dog and moan about his 'benign' loans

Lew doesn’t speak for everyone. I for one don’t want to see any more directors’ loans. So I’ll carry on bitching.

Are they taking their information from the rant he gave live on skysports news?

Scrap that!

https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/holloway-grimsby-january-transfer-window-4720483

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

Personally I thought the directors of football clubs were there to invest in the clubs and support them financially in difficult times, in order to enjoy the better times but I am a bit old fashioned like that.

thats harsh, no income since March, Im surprised we have stayed afloat to be honest, unless this is a dig at Holloway, then I can understand where you are coming from.

The idea of returning one or more of the loanees all depends on the loan deal that was struck. The loan agreement can include a clause so we cannot send the player back early.

I certainly think a few contracted players who would be out of contract at the end of the season should be got rid.

In fact Ive just found a list of all the contracts and the following players are out of contract in May 2021

Battersby, Hendrie, Hewitt, Ohman, Mohsni, Pollock, Waterfall, Spokes, Tilley, Green and Hanson.

Either way if Ollie chooses to lose a few, he still has a serious number of new contracts to wangle for those he wants to keep, and more importantly those who want to stay.

Loanees are Preston, Morton, Taylor, Bennett, Edwards, Gomis and Windsor

Quoted from 123614

I don't think mistakes were made, I think that IH had his list of players he wanted to sign but for multiple reasons, they signed for some other teams and turned us down. IH does not have a God given right to get the players he wanted, other clubs were in for them too.

I thought he said they'd walk through fire and over broken glass to play for him again just like Billy Clarke........oh hang on.....

I'll be amazed if we pay off any under-contract players. Really don't know why or how people are expecting us to offload some of the names banded about here that are under contract.

I think any squad trimming will be early cancellation of a few loans we've got in, and some of our own younger players possibly going out on loans.

Quoted from 123614

I don't think mistakes were made, I think that IH had his list of players he wanted to sign but for multiple reasons, they signed for some other teams and turned us down. IH does not have a God given right to get the players he wanted, other clubs were in for them too.

He shouldnt have kept banging on about all those players who couldn't wait to come play for him.

Bit of northern wisdom Mr Holloway ''buy cheap buy twice''

Quoted from Ipswin

I thought he said they'd walk through fire and over broken glass to play for him again just like Billy Clarke........oh hang on.....

Clarke lives in Bradford, quite a daily trek to Grimsby, and we clearly as a club made the decision not to pay the level of wages that Clarke clearly wanted and/or expected so he chose the wise option whereby he gets more pay and less travel pretty much what most us have done in our working career however much we might like our respective Managers.

Clearly, from Ollie’s interview today, plans are focused on 2021/22 with efforts already being made to identify who we want to recruit in the summer and no doubt his discussion last night with Day and JF gave the green light to these plans. Given this it is more and more like this season was always about sur

Quoted from Lincoln Mariner 56

Clarke lives in Bradford, quite a daily trek to Grimsby, and we clearly as a club made the decision not to pay the level of wages that Clarke clearly wanted and/or expected so he chose the wise option whereby he gets more pay and less travel pretty much what most us have done in our working career however much we might like our respective Managers.

Clearly, from Ollie’s interview today, plans are focused on 2021/22 with efforts already being made to identify who we want to recruit in the summer and no doubt his discussion last night with Day and JF gave the green light to these plans. Given this it is more and more like this season was always about sur

(Apologies pressed wrong button)

.... survival, both financially and league wise, the priority. Thus it appears Ollie took a punt on a number of non league players hoping to find the odd diamond along with some seasoned professionals to see us through. As we know it’s looking like the recruiting this season is not what we hoped but in all fairness we are still waiting to see our strongest eleven take the field and I remain optimistic that we will not be in a relegation battle.

Finally, unless we have a Slade/ Jolley run of results over an extended period Ollie is definitely here for the foreseeable future and I personally am happy with that as history suggests a longer term approach will eventually bear some fruit. Whilst it always appears to be jam tomorrow maybe on this occasion we have to accept that is the case and hope we see the first shoots of the new dawn soon.

In a recent interview with Matt Dean, when asked about incomings in Jan, Mr Day said it would be 1 in, 1 out.

It's obvious we need more firepower, so it makes sense to shift the underperformers. It's anyone's guess as to who that will be, but there are plenty of candidates. Some will cost money to shift and some won't, so it will be partly down to what we can afford I would imagine.

Quoted from Lincoln Mariner 56

Clarke lives in Bradford, quite a daily trek to Grimsby, and we clearly as a club made the decision not to pay the level of wages that Clarke clearly wanted and/or expected so he chose the wise option whereby he gets more pay and less travel pretty much what most us have done in our working career however much we might like our respective Managers.

Does this mean we are only going to recruit players either from within walking distance of Blundell Park or those who are willing to play for sod all . I thought we'd already done that

I am more disappointed with Scannell and Mohsni than the young non league lads and the young loanees who are out of their depth as they can't be expected to be up to scratch (or Holloways tactics but then no one can) compared to experienced professionals.

Having them, (plus Green and Hanson) on the park or the bench on matchday should have been beneficial. Is it juist a fitness thing or are they just happy to collect the money and do nowt for it?

Look at every club at the top of this league and you will see three things in common with them all. They mostly kept last seasons squad, have a large squad and recruited early. With the workload at the start of the season and IH losing so many players we was always going to be in this position. He had to recruit in mass and try find quality a long the way. He lost out on many targets as he previously stated which would of set us back even more. I imagine we'll be seeing the back of Mohsni as I believe he was offered a deal on the basis he could get fit, Hanson will more than likely not get another year and I suspect Green will be another senior pro that's gone. Other than that I suspect the rest of the players leaving will be loans/cancellation of current loans.

Quoted from Ipswin

Does this mean we are only going to recruit players either from within walking distance of Blundell Park or those who are willing to play for sod all . I thought we'd already done that

No it does not. I know you like to be contentious but your no idiot and surely you can accept that certain players will be willing to travel, Hendrie and Hanson, whilst others will not. Clearly Hendrie and Hanson, whilst accepting a pay cut for COVID, have in place an existing contract Clarke did not and obviously chose to join a club closer to home with better pay. As I said a decision most of us will have made at some stage in our lives.

I have to accept that neither Clarke nor Vernam have been suitably replaced, Ollie has made some mistakes but all Managers do when recruiting the real show of strength is how quickly they recognise their mistakes and make changes. Today’s interview suggests Ollie has made that recognition and changes will be forthcoming, unfortunately, this will not really unfold until the summer but it just culminates what has been a crap year all round and maybe 2021 will give us the improvements we all want.

Olly states that he intends to have talks with players who he hopes to sign in June. Surely you can't do that without permission from their clubs.

Quoted from golfer

Olly states that he intends to have talks with players who he hopes to sign in June. Surely you can't do that without permission from their clubs.

How can he when we don't know what division we will be in, who knows we could get promoted ;)

A shame Nathan Arnold's not here still. ;)

Quoted from Ipswin

John Fenty has done that (even coughed up so we could travel and stay at Wembley FFS) but we then female dog and moan about his 'benign' loans

JF's current investment is 1.5m in loans and 650k in shares (plus 250k shares gifted from the Trust). That total sum is 2.15m over twenty years at an average of around 100k per year, but this reduces to 32k per year if the loans wre to be paid off right now, so even less per annum at any time in the future. Is this enough for complete controlling interest of a club in League Two for that length of time? Of course it isn't. look at the state of the club pre-Covid re progression and infrastructure. You can't hold onto the reins of a football club by throwing what is a significant personal sum into the coffers but at the same time is a comparatively insignificant amount for an EFL club and be automatically absolved from responsibilty for the total lack of investment into GTFC over the past two decades. It's glaringly obvious that JF's control freakery due to his investment which is now well over a decade ago is becoming more of handbrake on any progression. When the loans are paid off one person is going to have had total control of the club for less than 30k per year. Bloody good value for that individual and awful value for the club especially as it's regressed massively compared to its peers over that time. Glaringly obvious the club has been underfunded.. and wasn't JF paid back the hotel bill once the temporary cashflow shortage was over anyway? In his self-appointed role, it's the least he could do. Admire him for investing the original sum but haven't enjoyed all of the negative consequences over what seems nearly a football supporting lifetime..

Quoted from promotion plaice

How can he when we don't know what division we will be in, who knows we could get promoted ;)

Only quoting what he said in todays statement

Well.......totally concerned now. Holloway was very persistent that he would only sign players that were right , that wanted to be here, would buy into the project and play the way he wanted.....etc etc

has turned into..

“I won’t need as huge a squad as I’ve got, so I’ll have to cull that coming up to January , Anybody I don’t like, I haven’t used or haven’t done as well as I want, I can move them out, and that’s what’s going to be happening over the next couple of weeks "

His press releases and comments are bouncing all over the place at the moment and that worries me, support the team, the players are playing great, how have we not won that......awful, worst i have had a team play, going to get rid of those i dont like or arent good enough.

Trim the squad on one hand..... yet sets on a new scout to replace those going out...so in effect you are not actually trimming the squad are you ??

I get that awful deja vu feeling.

Quoted from moosey_club

Well.......totally concerned now. Holloway was very persistent that he would only sign players that were right , that wanted to be here, would buy into the project and play the way he wanted.....etc etc

has turned into..

“I won’t need as huge a squad as I’ve got, so I’ll have to cull that coming up to January , Anybody I don’t like, I haven’t used or haven’t done as well as I want, I can move them out, and that’s what’s going to be happening over the next couple of weeks "

His press releases and comments are bouncing all over the place at the moment and that worries me, support the team, the players are playing great, how have we not won that......awful, worst i have had a team play, going to get rid of those i dont like or arent good enough.

Trim the squad on one hand..... yet sets on a new scout to replace those going out...so in effect you are not actually trimming the squad are you ??

I get that awful deja vu feeling.

Life is bouncing all over the place. Football is no different. I decided long ago not to judge this season against others. Only a fool would do that. Things change very quickly and circumstances change too. Never in my lifetime would I have thought that a contract would have a virus clause in it for starters. How we went into this maybe very different to how we come out of it. I have faith.

The website Transfermarkt.com
values James McKeown at £45000 right now and indicating that his current contract finishes in June 2021.
A valuable asset.

Quoted from chipsandgravy

Life is bouncing all over the place. Football is no different. I decided long ago not to judge this season against others. Only a fool would do that. Things change very quickly and circumstances change too. Never in my lifetime would I have thought that a contract would have a virus clause in it for starters. How we went into this maybe very different to how we come out of it. I have faith.

I am not worried about the season as such , always appreciated it was going to be a weird one....but i am concerned that even in these times, we are already looking at starting up the merry go round of players YET AGAIN ....we havn't even had a quarter of the league season and we need a "cull" FFS.

Have all of the players condemned as not good enough by some been given a fair crack of the whip? Players often take a long time to settle, especially young ones. I am not saying every player will be fantastic given the chance but like any new job, it takes time to find your feet and hardly anyone has had a settled run in the team. I always remember when IH took the job he said he was good at getting the most out of players. Has he done that? Not yet in my eyes but well, it's early days for him too, to use my own logic.

I would imagine the players leaving would be the loan players not getting much game time and the experience players who can not get a game.

Apologies - James is committed to Town and will not the playing out short to players in the edge of the box - costing a goal. Isn’t it Ollie ?,
Persevere / nurture Jackson and Gibson. Williams will turn us - quality - as I Windsor.
This is a management exercise and a test of Ollie - I hope he can mould the talent signed into an effective team
UTM

I could see gomis, morton and possibly bennett going back p.d.q. wouldn't surprise me if preston went back, supposing that holloway finds a competent left back who is out of favour somewhere.
If he can sell pollock then all sorts of possibilities are opened up

Quoted from forza ivano

If he can sell pollock then all sorts of possibilities are opened up

Sadly I think that's a
distinct posibility, he's the only one who's worth anything anyway

Yes Forza I see those three as definite candidates, I would have thought Preston would stay though even if we bring in another left back, unless of course Hope has moved closer to first team readiness.

It did sound from the interview that numbers will come down quite a bit though, so there may be quite a few made available for transfer.

Gomis, Sissay, Morton, Jackson, Mohsni, Green I think are definites to be released, either sent back to their respective clubs, released or loaned out dependant on individual circumstances.
Bennett, Preston, Windsor, Edwards and Taylor will be kept, Gibson potentially loaned out.
I do think Holloway eluded to fluffing out the squad due to the shortened season and compressed nature of the games but now with 5 substitutions permitted he can, and rightly so, sort the wheat from the chaff.

Quoted from Swansea_Mariner

Yes Forza I see those three as definite candidates, I would have thought Preston would stay though even if we bring in another left back, unless of course Hope has moved closer to first team readiness.

It did sound from the interview that numbers will come down quite a bit though, so there may be quite a few made available for transfer.

I'm sure with hope /hewitt/hendrie/idehen/Clifton any short term emergencies could be covered

Trouble with your last point is; who would take them having failed at GTFC? People like scannel, mohsni, hanson and green aren't going to get a sideways move at the same money. Also I'd be surprised if he got rid of the young ex non leaguers after 3 months. Maybe he reduces numbers further by getting Jackson, Sisay and spokes out on loan to conference or conference north teams?
Ps forgot to say well done to Khouri for his promotion to the first team squad. Looks like holloway has confidence in him, idehen and starbuck following in the footsteps of pollock, Clifton and wright

Dont know why anyone thinks Matt Green will go? He’s started the most games out of any of our strikers.

The young lads from non league should be given a season to get used to pro football. They’ve all had a massive step up in standard and deserve a fair crack . We’ve all been saying for years that we need to be finding young talent instead of getting players on their downward spiral . Players like Moshni are the ones I’d be booting down the road

Quoted from Hagrid

Dont know why anyone thinks Matt Green will go? He’s started the most games out of any of our strikers.

He’ll be on a decent wage and if we can get rid and free up space for another then we absolutely should. Green is not up to football league standard anymore unfortunately and in all honesty he wasn’t from the day we signed him.

But ollie rates and plays him. So regardless of what you I or anyone else thinks, i dont see it happening

Quoted from Hagrid

But ollie rates and plays him. So regardless of what you I or anyone else thinks, i dont see it happening

Does he? Or does he not have any better options? When given the chance he plays Hanson ahead of him and likely Windsor when we have the wide options.

No matter what anybody thinks, 2 goals in 36 league appearances is simply not good enough and it’s not as if the general performances make up for the lack of goals either.

Quoted from diehardmariner

If we offload any of our permanent signings that will require a pay-off.  If we pay-up and effectively release someone now, they can't sign for anyone else until the window opens.  Added to that it's going to be even more difficult than ever to find a club, especially when you're deemed surplus to requirements at a struggling League Two club.  The only way from there is down and clubs in the National League and lower are absolutely dying on their feet.

I would have thought if Holloway hasn't told these players yet it can only be loan players as the mutual termination of a contract is just that, mutual. Surely?

But.....Preston, Edwards, Morton, Taylor, Gomis, Windsor, and Bennett (basically all of our loan players!) are all on season long loans, happy to be corrected on this but I think we can only end the loan in the transfer window.

Puzzled by this. Can't see any player agreeing to have their contract paid up and we're not able to terminate any loan deals yet.  Don't even think loaning anyone out is an option either, don't think any National League sides would want our players and the levels below have shut down.

Odd.

For all we know there could be break clauses in the riskier signings (Mohsni, Scannel) contracts? Time will tell I guess.

Quoted from Ipswin

John Fenty has done that (even coughed up so we could travel and stay at Wembley FFS) but we then female dog and moan about his 'benign' loans

Maybe because he's presided over the worst 15 years in the club's history?

Quoted from Hagrid

But ollie rates and plays him. So regardless of what you I or anyone else thinks, i dont see it happening

How many strikers does he really have to choose from? Most are inexperienced and none show signs yet of being strong enough to be a game by game regular. Green has experience and he has some physical presence. He’s a grown up. He may lack ability but he’s all that Ollie’s got.