Pre-Season 24/25 - Preparing for the Premier League
As mentioned in the previous post we have a healthy budget but I have still had to stretch it to its limits with installments etc. to bring in quality across the pitch.
And I'm extremely happy with the results....
CONTRACT RENEWALS
No new contracts have been given to the existing group despite a number of players getting wound up by this.
I stood firm as the wage increases some of them were asking for were ridiculous. For example, Nathan Sheron is a good player and did brilliantly for us in the Championship but his request for his £2,800 p/w wages to be increased to £18,000 per week is nonsense.
Lots of the team have benefited from a 50% promotion clause but this didn't impact our budgets too much. I have stood firm and none of the existing team's wages exceed £10k p/w, even after the 50% bonuses. The highest paid of this bunch is Diego Batista, who after the increase now picks up £10k p/w.
We extended one player's loan for another year - and that man was our right winger speedster Stewart Riley. Wolves have kindly allowed him to stay here and we continue not to pay his salary despite our affiliation terminating after reach the same division.
DEPARTURES
Not many outgoings and not really anyone that we will miss.
I no longer needed Akin Famewo and we make a healthy profit of nearly a million on him in a year. Yannick Toure was mouthing off about a new deal and after various Swiss teams showed an interest I agreed to let him on for over 10 times the figure we paid for him a year ago. Adam Roberts will get some experience in L2 with AFC Fylde. Vidal retires to pursue a management role and Zach Dronfield never looked capable of playing above L2 level so we release him.
NEW SIGNINGS
Perhaps the final pre-season that will see such a big turnover of players as we don't need to go up any more divisions.
I tried my best not to overspend on any one player and to spread our budget across the pitch, as I felt we were over-performing with our squad in the Championship and desperately needed to add quality to give us a chance in the Premier League!
I missed out on a fair few really good players because of work permit issues - including an amazing Belarusian attacking midfielder playing for BATE who is Belarus' best player! He would have only cost us £425k and could have been sold on for £50m+ he is that good!
I have used installments to pay for most players so I imagine that will impact on our budget next year and I have gambled on very low relegation release clauses for most new players - so if we go back down we are screwed!
Here are the 13 new faces (excluding Benes from the last post):
Big cheques for the Czechs! Our new £9m club record signing is only at the tender age of 19 so it is a big risk placing faith in him to be our new 1st choice striker, but we know that we have the experienced and reliable Clarke-Harris to provide backup. I think Petr Koci has the potential to be top class and he is a very intelligent and technical striker. His PPT of 'looks for pass rather than attempting to score' is slightly worrying for a striker though...
Our other big money new boy hailing from Prague is Jaromir Hajek (who looks nearly identical to Koci!). Jaromir is described by the media as a wonderkid and he has some amazing mental stats at 19 y/o: anticipation -15, decisions -17, vision 15. I will look to him to pull the strings in midfield. When Petr Svejnoha arrives next year we will have a trio of Czech wonderkids with Koci, Hajek and Svejnoha!
I feel I may have somewhat overspent on Oumar Solet and I feel slightly bad as he is quite similar to Nathan Sheron. But he is a good ball playing CB who can do a job in CM when needed, and has room to grow further.
Curtis Jones is a total bargain at £5.25m! He has spent the past 4 years smashing it in the MLS for DC United and I was very pleased to snag him. We had been lacking an effective creative player on the left wing and he can be that for us, and will probably start most games.
What a find Jamie Horne is from the SPL! He had been playing brilliantly for Hearts, the club where he started from, and we felt that we needed to offer him his big break in the EPL. Again at £5.25m he is a bargain, and can improve a lot. What a moustache too, btw!
I can't say that I had known of Yann Gboho but he is a very solid midfielder that can play in CM or as a n.10. I think we got him at a reasonable price and a low salary.
I got around the work permit issue here as Cristian Gascon is part Spanish as well as Argentinian. For just £3.5m he will provide cover at right back for years to come.
Jay Dasilva is our new 1st choice left back, coming in for a bargain £2.8m after being transfer listed by Burnley. He looks well suited for being our advanced full back on the left, but I am concerned that he is only 5'4 tall as a defender...
The third former Benfica B player now to have played for Blyth (+Batista & Gouveia), Gerson Sousa comes in on the cheap and on very low wages and will play as a backup and hopefully can improve during his time here too.
What a bargain! Pawel Bochniewicz (easy for you to say) is a no frills defender but is very good for the £1.1m we paid Lechia Gdansk for him. His early season performances have tipped him for his first Poland international cap!
I have signed Ricardo Colombini on loan from Juventus until the end of the season with the mandatory future fee of £3.6m at the end of it. He is Argentinian/Italian so no work permit needed and he looks a real handful. Should give real competition to Stewart Riley and Curtis Jones for starting spots on the wings.
I think technically Nedeljko Djergovic is the best player in our squad! PSG hoovered him up from BSC Young Boys in Switzerland and we have managed to land him on loan in little old Blyth! I didn't think Ronan Darcy was good enough to start regulalry in the Premier League and Denis McCarthy wasn't ready yet - but Djergovic is certainly more than capable of dominating in the n.10 position!
Finally we have brought in Ki-Jana Hoever from Liverpool to play as our more defensive full back on the right hand side. He will probably start most games but has competition from Cristian Gascon so will need to play well. Having said that, he looks very good!
PRE-SEASON FIXTURES
For no real reason I decided to play a pre-season exclusively against fellow clubs that play in green. And we did pretty well! Lots of confidence going into the new season in football's richest league.
I hope that most of the new players brought in will turn out to be successful and I'm confident they will. Crucially most of them were between 19-24 so even if they struggle I'm sure we could turn a profit on them. And if they succeed, we either keep the good players or accept some monster bids further down the line!
Let's go Spartans! - And I will keep the sign off as "Blyth-on-Trent" until the board move us back home to Northumberland and Blyth
Howay Blyth-on-Trent!