A lot of out goings in the summer transfer window. Emmanuel Diesurevwe left for Chester for £10,000, he never featured under me after being out for 7 months injured and he was one of the highest paid players on £825. Another departure was Zaine Francois-Angol, another player who rarely featured, I wanted a defensive full back and he didn't fit the criteria, another high paid player off the wage bill as he was on £1,000 a week. I tried to renew Will Hoskins contract but he wanted £1,000+ a week and I thought we could find a better replacement for cheaper. Elton Ngwatala was another departure although I did try and renew his contract but he was adamant he wanted to leave. Another high paid player who didn't feature for me that left was Stambolziev, who was pocketing £600 a week.
Now for the players that we've brought in...
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Goalkeeper was a priority as Hornby returned to Burton after his loan expired so in came James Talbot, the ex Sunderland goalkeeper looks a great acquisition with no real weak areas to his game.
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Callum Grogan came in on a free, he is back up to centre halves Lowe and Williams, some impressive defensive stats for a 20 year old playing his trade in the Conference North especially for a 19 year old.
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Charlie Dunkerley came in just to give Hazeldine and Gnahoua some healthy competition, he will be in and around the first team and for an 18 year old, he has some promising stats with bags of potential.
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Peter Kioso, again he wont be expected to start but will give healthy competition to Jared Hodgkiss at right back as last season he was our only natural right back. At 17 years old, I expect a big feature for this lad.
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Will Hatfield, I was trying most of the summer to bring in Hatfield, the ex Leeds academy graduate will start in the attacking midfield position and will hopefully get a hand full of assists and goals this coming season.
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Bradley Clayton, released by Brentford in July, we acquired Clayton to give healthy striking options. Again Clayton doesn't seem to have a real weakness to his game and will improve with age.
2 wins and 3 losses. Tough preseason fixtures playing 4 teams in leagues above us including a strong West Brom side. Made sure we played a weaker team before kickstarting the season to ensure we finished on a positive, confident, winning start.
The bookies have us favourites to go up this season at 5-1 and I agree, anything other than promotion this season is definitely deemed a failure.
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This is how we will line up. A flat back four that focus predominantly on defending rather than anything else. Two central midfields in Truslove and Croasdale looking to support both attack and defence with Hedley sitting in the middle as a ball winning midfielder breaking up opposition attacks. Hatfield ahead of them looking to find the holes and link midfield and attack. Gnahoua and Hazeldine up front as defensive forwards and poachers. We will play standard and flexible and look to exploit the middle due to the numbers we have in the centre of the park and due to the lack of wingers of overlapping full backs.