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A New Team
Written by bbg on Friday, 3rd Aug 2018 21:53

It was very obvious long before the end of last season we would be starting the season tomorrow with new management. However, as it gets closer to the transfer deadline next week, it is now looking possible that we could surprisingly also be seeing a team almost entirely changed from the previous year.

After what some might consider questionable previous managerial appointments the club found itself at the foot of the table and facing financial ruin with relegation to League One when the owner made what any objective person would now conclude to have been a very shrewd managerial appointment in Mick McCarthy.

While I cannot claim in-depth knowledge of our new manager and while his style and football philosophy might appear a lot different, I think the initial impression is that the owner has again made a very shrewd appointment.

The legacy left to our new manager is an established mid-table squad with only a couple of players over the age of 30, a very promising crop of young academy players being introduced early last season to first-team football and a financially stable club due to very shrewd dealing in the transfer market.

By the end of last season the previous management had according to Transfermarkt.com spent £5.5 million and recouped £18.5 million. To that we can probably add £3.5 million for Webster and a likely £7 milliom for Waghorn, leaving a surplus of anything from £13 million to £23 million.

While there may be couple of departures, there are a number of good quality players now returning from injury who missed the entirety of last season.

While both the owner and new manager have indicated that they would like to play a more expansive game, Ellis Harrison was quoted as saying Paul Hurst’s teams are horrible to play against, which suggests a more pragmatic approach than some might expect will be necessary in some games.

With the number of offers for players which now appear to be confirmed, it now rather surprisingly appears that we could also be looking at a completely new team. I hope this is done on a gradual basis.

It would be great to see and a big boost to the Academy if all of the team that played West Ham last weekend were given a chance to start tomorrow.

While Dozzell may be lacking in fitness, the understanding the midfield showed last Saturday could take many weeks to develop with new players. Certainly in hard-pressing, high-paced Championship games, they will all find it much more difficult than last Saturday.

However they will have benefited greatly from last week and a crop of young players have a much better chance of success playing alongside players they know, with a backbone of experience in Bart, Chambers and Knudsen. It is only very recently that Louis Van Gaal gave Rashford, Lingard and others the chance in a Manchester United team, which has resulted in two of them playing at the World Cup only a couple of years later.

Regardless of selection tomorrow and whether all of the possible transfers in and out occur next week, and regardless of football opinions which we are all entitled to, one hopes that the new manager and players will be supported in the manner they should expect, for as long as they are at the club and there will an end to the ridiculous scapegoating and demonising which we have seen in recent years.

Mob rule is disgusting in any walk of life and why 'supporters' feel the need to pour vitriol on their own players and management is a mystery to me and to anyone who loves the game.




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Edmundo added 22:17 - Aug 3
A new dawn, a new day, a new season for Our Club. COYB!
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KiwiBlue2 added 03:06 - Aug 4
Good blog, hopefully 3 points tomorrow.......
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