Site-Wide Activity

Just submitted my WDSA Pundits Poll entry to Rob. I’ve put us down (a little pessimistically) to finish 14th. I went with the logic that I’d be happy with some improvement on last season!

Lucky trialists not to have to attend camp in…Wales. Crikey, whatever happened to A Place in the Sun? Odd to hear about the deal whereby we try and sign a player, Milwall re-sign the player, and then we sign the player on loan. It’s not bleedin’ Wall Street is it? League One fitba! No wonder the managers and admin staff don’t have time to…[Read more]

Triallists not good enough according to NA on radio interview and won’t be going to the pre-season camp in Wales for a few days.

Still looking for a midfielder and a striker, but not much in the budget to attract them.

Within 10 days my mood has gone from one of deep concern to one of guarded optimism.

Firstly, my apologies for wishing Jimmy Abdou ill. I have no idea how this particular ‘deal’ has been structured and the way the news came out was pretty poor, but I am happy to see that NA has recruited his fifth “first choice” signing, even if it is only a…[Read more]

So Neal did land his “first in the teams get” central midfielder – welcome Jimmy Abdou. Rather odd turn of events, seemingly have failed to get him when he re-signed for Millwall – but if we can keep him for the whole of the season long loan, this is fantastic news. A depth of experience – 200 games in the Championship, 120 in League One including…[Read more]

Pretty shabby behaviour, Rob, but something we have come to expect from the modern footballer. Let’s hope that he rots on the bench for the season and is then released!

I’ll be going along today and should post some thoughts on Sunday. I’m pretty concerned with how our ‘skeleton’ squad will cope with the Premiership quality of Watford,…[Read more]

Further your last Singapore Don, understand Ardley thought he had signed experienced midfielder Jimmy Abdou. Abdou trained with the Dons, agreed a deal this week then took it to Millwall and signed a better deal with them. Other words it appears we were played off. Think Ardley may have had Abdou in mind when he talked of a first-choice…[Read more]

Another week has passed, and still no central midfielder signing. NA promised us a week ago at the MTM session that we’d get a “first name on the team sheet” CM signing, and I can’t help but wonder if he wasn’t banking on Millwall’s Jimmy Abdou – a free agent after refusing to sign a new contract at Millwall who has now gone and signed that new…[Read more]

“Could be a top 8 finish”? Now that’s optimism 🙂

Looking forward to the start of the season. With the new pitch should be good to play good football on it. The players that have come in look good with the possibility of some more to come in hopefully could be a top eight finnish. COYD

Agreed, fantastic insights! If the Gaffer remains this articulate, he will surely prejudice his chances of moving on. One of the reasons that the likes of Poleon may have brewed discontent is that he burst onto the scene when the club were in a malaise, and did what he was supposed to do, which was score some goals and contribute to results. At…[Read more]

10th July 2002. Yes it was 15 years ago today that I walked down Gander Green Lane on a sunny evening, not knowing what the next few hours would bring. Let alone the next 15 years. So as we moan, groan, and mutter about our chances this season, try to remember this truly remarkable journey of ours. It is special, and should get us through even the…[Read more]

Many thanks Windlesham and Singapore for your much-appreciated efforts from the MtM. No doubt we are all much wiser for your insights/takeouts from the night. You take a look at last season’s signings: Clarke, Barnett, Whelpdale, Parrett, Whelpdale, Kelly stacked up against the list (so far) Appiah, McDonald, Oshilaja, Long, Kennedy and it’s…[Read more]

Big thank you to Singapore and Windlesham for the detailed reports. It’s when I read stuff like this that I am inclined to feel a little guilty of lambasting NA so much, especially over the last six games and during this closed season.
Apart from Shea (which I confess still niggles… a lot, and whose stats will be observed and compared intently…[Read more]

Great stuff Windlesham, thanks – you really covered the MTM session superbly. As you said, the overarching impression for many was how lucky we are to have such thoughtful, honest, articulate and passionate manager of our club. Perhaps the one other question raised and to report was could we lose him any time soon given his appeal? No seemed to be…[Read more]

And finally from me…
5. The Coming Season – Last Christmas when NA had a good idea that Tom was going to leave the club started looking around for target men. However, there were none that we could afford and so NA decided that we would simply recruit the best strikers that we could acquire. With the arrival of Kwesi and Cody McDonald Neal…[Read more]

4. Last Season – Neal gave an amazing insight into last season from his standpoint, where once again his honesty shone through. He admitted that he made mistakes in his recruitment after the playoff final (and TBH with the list of new recruits reading Ryan Clarke, Chris Whelpdale, Dean Parrett, Dom Poleon, Sean Kelly and Tyrone Barnett it would…[Read more]

3. Transfers – I got the impression that Neal was disappointed at the fans’ reaction to our recruitment to date. He mentioned that we should be ‘dancing around our living room’ when we signed Kwesi Appiah. He belives that Kwesi and Deji Oshilaja are Championship quality players – it was also mentioned that Cardiff wanted to keep Deji.

In the…[Read more]

2. Lack of Academy Opportunities – Several questions were asked regarding our perceived failure to play any of our youngsters in the first team.

Neal pointed out that there is a vast difference between seeing kids play in the youth cup and seeing them up against League 1 adults. All of the gifted academy youngsters train with the first team and…[Read more]

1. Goalkeepers – Neal gave a comprehensive background to the selection of our new keeper.

Summarising, his view was that James Shea’s keeping had been variable over the last couple of years. His view was also that neither Shea nor Kelle Roos made enough ‘game changing’ saves. Several months before the end of last season NA had made the decision…[Read more]