Rene off

[CP Gull]

Good news IF Brassy is (finally!!!) on board and same with Downesy too. No surprise that Rene is off we already pretty much knew that but very disappointed that Knill hasn't been able to persuade Saah to re-sign as I would be quite surprised if Cheltenham (rumoured to be where he is off to) would be able to offer him much more than we are.

We can only hope that all this talking that Knill is supposedly doing is going to eventually pay off as I would be lieing if I didn't admit to being a little concerned that in all the time he has been with us he has so far only managed to recruit just two temporary players (Labadie and Chapell) despite it seems quite literally approaching loads and loads of others, both during the season and since it ended ... without any real tangible success so far. Not only that but three players he seemingly wanted to keep (Howe, Jarvis and Saah) have all decided that their future lies elsewhere. It's probably fair to say that if Ling had of been in charge we would almost certainly have kept Saah and possibly Jarvis too, so it really is all down now to how good those contacts are that AK is supposed to have.

The problem as I see it is that given the make up of the squad we are left with there are literally only a handful of players that you would expect to be first teamers under Knill I.e. Poke, one of Nico/Cruise, Downes, Mansell and probably Bodin ... the rest I pretty much see as either squad fillers or development players. So it very much is a case of bringing in SIX or SEVEN guys who will be starting for us next season, there is absolutely no point in bring in anyone who can't hit the ground running in League 2 next season.

Hopefully, as Roadrunner suggests, things will start to hot up ver the next few weeks as you would have to say that given our finish last time out and given the players we have lost, our squad as it stands at the moment must surely be one of, if not the weakest in League 2!

[ROADRUNNER]

i can assure you cp that he is working his socks off to get players in, jordan chappell being one of them, he is also talking to two strikers and has made benners an offer, he will bring in the players he needs and he knows what he wants, i think we will be in a far better position than last season with him in charge.

[Plymouth Gull]

CP, Cheltenham have one of the bigger budgets in the division. Even with their average attendances, some of their players are on a fair whack for L2 level.

[CP Gull]

CP, Cheltenham have one of the bigger budgets in the division. Even with their average attendances, some of their players are on a fair whack for L2 level.

You may well be right Nick but not sure how they do it on their attendances, they only averaged 500 or so more than us despite making the play offs again and given the restrictions imposed by the Financial Fair Play system capping the amount the can pay in wages at 55% of turnover. I know they have a seriously wealthy backer though ( Baker?).

[wivelgull]

I agree with Brucie; neither Saah nor Howe will be much remembered (if at all) in the future.

[Plymouth Gull]

You may well be right Nick but not sure how they do it on their at tendencies, they only averaged 500 or so more than us despite making the play offs again and given the restrictions imposed by the Financial Fair Play system capping the amount the can pay in wages at 55% of turnover. I know they have a seriously wealthy backer though ( Basket?).

I'm not sure how they do it either. Cup runs in the last two years have seen them up against Everton and Spurs though so that will have brought some money in.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Good news IF Brassy is (finally!!!) on board and same with Downesy too. No surprise that Rene is off we already pretty much knew that but very disappointed that Knill hasn't been able to persuade Saah to re-sign as I would be quite surprised if Cheltenham (rumoured to be where he is off to) would be able to offer him much more than we are.

We can only hope that all this talking that Knill is supposedly doing is going to eventually pay off as I would be lieing if I didn't admit to being a little concerned that in all the time he has been with us he has so far only managed to recruit just two temporary players (Labadie and Chapell) despite it seems quite literally approaching loads and loads of others, both during the season and since it ended ... without any real tangible success so far. Not only that but three players he seemingly wanted to keep (Howe, Jarvis and Saah) have all decided that their future lies elsewhere. It's probably fair to say that if Ling had of been in charge we would almost certainly have kept Saah and possibly Jarvis too, so it really is all down now to how good those contacts are that AK is supposed to have.

The problem as I see it is that given the make up of the squad we are left with there are literally only a handful of players that you would expect to be first teamers under Knill I.e. Poke, one of Nico/Cruise, Downes, Mansell and probably Bodin ... the rest I pretty much see as either squad fillers or development players. So it very much is a case of bringing in SIX or SEVEN guys who will be starting for us next season, there is absolutely no point in bring in anyone who can't hit the ground running in League 2 next season.

Hopefully, as Roadrunner suggests, things will start to hot up ver the next few weeks as you would have to say that given our finish last time out and given the players we have lost, our squad as it stands at the moment must surely be one of, if not the weakest in League 2!

This is a brilliant point CP as was the one above about Knill failing to attract players despite being in for loads of them. I have thought this ever since we released all the players we did and now Saah and Howe are going leaving the squad pretty much decimated. Goalkeepers are fine, defence is a massive worry because not only has Knill got to bring in an established centre half but this player has to gel with Downes too. Plus if any of these two get injured we currently have Kirtys MacKenzie as cover so in reality we need to add 2 decent centre halves. Cruise can fit in at one side at full back but we have nobody for the other side and no cover either. In midfield we need some creativity but it's not too bad, my only concern here is that if Bodin bombs again as I expect him to then we will be extremely short of creativity and need 2 or 3 players here also. Upfront we have Yeoman should we not sign Benners and even if we do we need a couple of decent attackers. So all in we are going to need 6 or 7 decent players who can slot straight into league 2 football PLUS some cover and Knill has 6 weeks in which to do this and get them prepared.

I am concerned and perhaps other people are too and that is why the lack of transfer activity is beginning to make some of us anxious. As I explained on another thread, many of us panicked when we lost the play off final and Bucks left as we were really behind on preparations and only appointed Ling mid June. Well we're at mid June now just about and we don't seem to be any further forward now than we were then. Of course Alan is expected to have many fingers in many pies but I just hope that he includes his thumbs too as we're going to need that many players to come in within a few weeks.

I'm not sure Knill has worked with such a small budget before and not being able to rely on bigger clubs nearby for loanees. If he gets this summer all wrong then, well, only time will tell. I have the faith so I trust Knill to be playing a perfect waiting game and bring in some real decent players. He has to because we only have half a squad at the minute.

[gullintwoplaces]

There is certainty now, which is good news. I am confident that Alan Knill will find players to build a decent squad. Howe and Saah were both members of a team that was effectively a failure for a significant part of last season, so how could their leaving be bad news? I thought that Downes contributed far more than Saah in the games that I saw, and Rene was AWOL on the pitch for the second half of the season.

[ROADRUNNER]

andy i understand people being worried but we have to trust him to do the bussiness and im sure he will, he is working hard to get the right players in, like i said he is after two strikers who he has been talking to and a big midfielder simaler to labadie, chappel is on his radar and a cetre half and right back and cover for some positions, he could panic buy but what would be the point the players have to right for him. we have to remember that arygle have only made one signing so far and there are a lot of clubs like us who are talking to players.
we have to trust him, im sure he knows what he is doing, im looking forward to seeing an attacking side next season instead of the tripe we put up with until knill showed up, let him bring in his own players and im sure we will see a better tufc.
as yeovil have proved you dont need stacks of money to succeed. the players will come in over the next couple of weeks.

[AustrianAndyGull]

I trust him completely RR. There is no rush to bring players in I know that, I just worry because, like CP says he needs to bring in 6 or 7 really decent league 2 players AND some players as cover and it must be a huge task for Alan for which I have some sympathy with him. He must make this team his own now and there is still a lot of work to be done but I've no doubt he's working his arse off behind the scenes trying to get players in.

[Plymouth Gull]

On the flip side you could say that is good because it allows him a half clean slate to work with and stamp his own methods on the squad. Like when Buckle came in, we had 4 players so he had freedom to sign several players.

I'm looking forward to next week when the fixtures come out as that seems to be when things really start rolling!

[ferrarilover]

I agree with Brucie; neither Saah nor Howe will be much remembered (if at all) in the future.

You might as well have this as your footer.

Matt.

[Southampton Gull]

You might as well have this as your footer.

Matt.

Leave the bromance alone

[royalgull]

with Saah confirmed as gone and Rene almost certainly gone we now need 7 players as a minimum and preferably 8.

It's clear Knill wants a CM as Labadie was one of his first deals so there is 1 new player needed, with Saah gone we need a new starter central defender, that's the 2nd new player needed, with both RB's gone that's the 3rd new player and I would say ideally the 4th new player would be a centre back who is comfortable playing right back as well in an emergency.

Stevens, Macklin and Jarvis all going means we need a minimum of one but I would suggest 2 new wide players to fill those voids so that brings us up to 6 and as we only have 1 striker on the books we need a minimum of 2 new ones.

We are looking at needing almost a whole new team, which in my opinion is good news. We needed to dismantle the side from last year because it was awful, the easy bit is done now comes the hard bit of rebuliding a whole new squad on little money. Good luck.

[Dave]

Not sure Royal we are going to see 7 new players come in, Alan Knill has already stated he is looking for a squad around the 15 mark backed with youth and loans, think it will be closer to the 4-5 mark.