Guess I ought to bitch about our lack of signings a bit more often… 😉
So, welcome Warren Cummings, who got released from Bournemouth this summer, and who spent time on loan at Crawley at the end of last season. He’s from Aberdeen (hence the punchline above) and he’s a left back. And according to Steven Gregory on Twatter:
@wcummings28 congrats.. il take 10% lol. You will enjoy it there mate. I don’t think@simonbass10@SMooro15 are ready for your banter!
Before I go on, I will happily support this country becoming a hardline Islamic state if they could make the use of the word “banter” punishable by death.
The OS is coming up with the usual platitudes that any new signing will get, of course. He’s got a sweet left foot, plays the style of play we want to play, everyone speaks highly of him, usual stuff. The proof will come when he actually plays, needless to say.
Reading around, he doesn’t appear injury prone which sadly seemed to do for GG. Needless to say, he will do his ACL against Reading, and we’ll be phoning GG for him to return. Unlike Osano, the oppo fans generally do seem to have positive things to say about him, but one suspects we’ve signed our new Jamie Stuart.
Which for this season and under current management, I’m fine with.
He is “vastly experienced” – the words of the OS, not mine – and to be honest I wish we’d made a couple more of those signings in the past. We do badly, urgently, need more players who know something about the Football League, and Cummings could be a useful addition on that score alone.
Which does put a bit of a question mark over who we’re going to sign next. It looks like we’ve given up on Sam Wood now we’ve signed WC, although I’m trying to think of what other positions we need to fill. Two centre backs and somebody in midfield? I’m not convinced we’re short in just two positions, and I expect as usual we’ll end up signing about 3/4 “promising” youngsters.
I would much prefer one experienced CB and another experienced one in midfield. At the very least they would know what to do in situations we had last year from October onwards. Half – OK, most – of the reason we slumped so badly was that we had both players and management who didn’t know what to do when the results were going against us each week.
(Actually, I’d also like an experienced goalkeeper who is prepared to sit on the bench and is looking to go into coaching, and will act as a mentor and backup to Seb. He needs to up his coaching and it will save us having another Jack Turner type stropathon to deal with).
No, the likes of Cummings won’t take us into League One, but for the next 2-3 years the club doesn’t need to do that. It’s nowhere near ready for such a step up. For the next couple of seasons, a solid mid-table side that doesn’t even look remotely like going down will give the club the chance to catch up off the field. Being an Aldershot isn’t going to affect us too badly for a little while.
True, if a promising youngster does come about, then by all means look at him, but with the smaller squad let us get a bit more proven quality in the most important areas first. We’re going to get the usual triallists coming in and out before you’ve had a chance to spell their names (ref: the Pole we had last pre season), and you can bet we’ll be dipping into the loan market come September anyway.
Anyway, pre-season training starts Monday, and at least we do have another player to give a bib to now. Those planning to go down KM this weekend won’t need their boots after all…