surely all the existing contract dealings would have been done before the players have gone on holiday ie now ? - in order that its less time for the likes of Morro,Poyet and Gomez (i know he cant sign til mid-month)to be tapped up! Just seems that urgency isnt in RDC's dictionary.
In actual fact, after watching Gomez yesterday, i would suggest the best signings would be Poyet and Gomez. It would give us a real chance of pushing for a play-off place with those two in our team plus 1 or 2 decent strikers. Or the other option is scratching around the relegation zone again.
I would prefer for things to be a bit quiet and for the business and contract negotiations going on in the background. Much better than the shambolic open negotiations and communication regarding the Jan window and emergency loan windows. That did my head in.
Katrien Miere said that they have been working on targets at the end of season, when was it ? back in Feb / March 14. I am hoping that the new head coach can be confirmed, contracts negotiated and new players brought in, in fairly quick order. The proof of the Roland pudding is how they do their business over the next 2 to 3 months. Lets hope that the strategy is good and the team is strong and competitive.
I will admit to being edgy (on Riga & Poyet's positions in particular) with no news yet but I do recognise that, at this stage, it's unreasonable to have heard anything.
If we get to the end of June with paucity of concrete off-field progress then I'll be worried.
Personally I think things are probably well under way and we are in for a positive close/pre season. RD knew most of those players were out of contract, and of those players, he needed to see what division we were going to be in before deciding who to keep. We only just achieved safety less than 2 weeks ago, and the season finished last Saturday. As mentioned elsewhere, players will now be on holiday. I think the club will probably offer Riga the job full time and have identified a number of players they want, but as we also know, tons of clubs are probably in a similar position to ourselves with players out of contract and FFP. If Riga gets the job full time, I expect us to get 3/4 new players outside 'the network', 2/3 from 'the network' and another 2 will come up from the youth team. Add to this I think we will keep Morro and Dervite, possibly Sordell if he realises the money he's on at Bolton is way above what he realistically should be earning. Our team could look like
Pope + new GK Solly, Wilson, Morro, Dervite, Wiggins, Fox, Nego + new CB (not sure Cort will stay, although would def like him too) Jackson, Cousins, Poyet, AA + 2 new wide players and another new central midfielder Church, Reza, Sordell, plus 2 new strikers.
You can add to that the youth players coming in. Being honest I don't know which ones are ready because I haven't seen enough of them, but I think RD is a big fan of developing young players, so he'll push Riga to give some of them a try. I forgot to add Harry Lennon to that list, he'll also be in the squad I think.
I don't have anything to base this on, but think it is quite a balanced view and might not be far off
Personally I think things are probably well under way and we are in for a positive close/pre season. RD knew most of those players were out of contract, and of those players, he needed to see what division we were going to be in before deciding who to keep. We only just achieved safety less than 2 weeks ago, and the season finished last Saturday. As mentioned elsewhere, players will now be on holiday. I think the club will probably offer Riga the job full time and have identified a number of players they want, but as we also know, tons of clubs are probably in a similar position to ourselves with players out of contract and FFP. If Riga gets the job full time, I expect us to get 3/4 new players outside 'the network', 2/3 from 'the network' and another 2 will come up from the youth team. Add to this I think we will keep Morro and Dervite, possibly Sordell if he realises the money he's on at Bolton is way above what he realistically should be earning. Our team could look like
Pope + new GK Solly, Wilson, Morro, Dervite, Wiggins, Fox, Nego + new CB (not sure Cort will stay, although would def like him too) Jackson, Cousins, Poyet, AA + 2 new wide players and another new central midfielder Church, Reza, Sordell, plus 2 new strikers.
You can add to that the youth players coming in. Being honest I don't know which ones are ready because I haven't seen enough of them, but I think RD is a big fan of developing young players, so he'll push Riga to give some of them a try. I forgot to add Harry Lennon to that list, he'll also be in the squad I think.
I don't have anything to base this on, but think it is quite a balanced view and might not be far off
I will admit to being edgy (on Riga & Poyet's positions in particular) with no news yet but I do recognise that, at this stage, it's unreasonable to have heard anything.
If we get to the end of June with paucity of concrete off-field progress then I'll be worried.
I'm generally positive about RD so far but as we all know he's not pulling the strings in player acquisition and contracts because he's not hands on at the club. We currently don't have a manager / coach doing that job and I doubt that either Dyer or Matthew would be significantly involved. With the greatest respect to Katrien I can't see her being qualified to do this either. It does beg the question of who is.
Comments
Just seems that urgency isnt in RDC's dictionary.
What a pool that must have been if we picked those two.
Katrien Miere said that they have been working on targets at the end of season, when was it ? back in Feb / March 14. I am hoping that the new head coach can be confirmed, contracts negotiated and new players brought in, in fairly quick order. The proof of the Roland pudding is how they do their business over the next 2 to 3 months. Lets hope that the strategy is good and the team is strong and competitive.
If we get to the end of June with paucity of concrete off-field progress then I'll be worried.
Pope + new GK
Solly, Wilson, Morro, Dervite, Wiggins, Fox, Nego + new CB (not sure Cort will stay, although would def like him too)
Jackson, Cousins, Poyet, AA + 2 new wide players and another new central midfielder
Church, Reza, Sordell, plus 2 new strikers.
You can add to that the youth players coming in. Being honest I don't know which ones are ready because I haven't seen enough of them, but I think RD is a big fan of developing young players, so he'll push Riga to give some of them a try. I forgot to add Harry Lennon to that list, he'll also be in the squad I think.
I don't have anything to base this on, but think it is quite a balanced view and might not be far off