And another signing. Mind you, keep this bookmarked when the inevitable second signing happens as soon as I press “publish”…
So once again, we raid St. Evenage for another player – this time Dean Parrett. He’s a midfielder, he’s ex-Spurz, and by the sound of it he was out of contract.
He knows Darius and Whelpdale, which helps matters, although one senses this is more of a NA Academy-esque signing. To quote:
“I’ve liked Dean ever since he was at Spurs,” added Neal, “He used to play against my academy and I rated him highly then. He went on loan to Yeovil and went off the radar for a little while, but having seen him for a couple of years at Stevenage I thought that last season he was the player I saw before and rated so highly.”
Although to be fair, it seems we weren’t the only ones in for him:
“It was a last minute snatch from the jaws of a different club and a big club at that, so that was nice as it’s happened to us a few times!”
Guess the money we’ve saved from Akinfenwa’s Nandos bill for this month is already (literally) paying off.
What it’s proving is that the weakness of our midfield is finally getting sorted. I don’t know how good/bad Parrett is, although he’s been earmarked as a “powerful midfielder, who joins in and gets forward and creates things and works hard for the team with or without the ball” (his words, not mine).
Obviously we hope he does well, and gives us something that we haven’t really had for a good while. More importantly at the moment, it shows things are starting to happen.
It’s July 1st, where contracts expire and there is a lot of surplus talent looking for their next pay cheque. We’ve now got three of the six we needed in, and before pre-season training starts again as well.
The teams who were in the playoffs are either returning Monday (us), today (Plymouth and Millwall) or a couple of days ago (Barnsley), although I’m not sure if we’re playing catchup or not.
One thing I hope NA isn’t planning this time round is a total change in tactics. Remember MTM last year, when he tried to sound all evangelical about his new formation yet ended up sounding like Michael Gove instead?
We got away with it in League Two. We won’t in League One.
It’s been mentioned before about getting promoted still not fully sinking in, but this is when it starts getting real again. Our first pre-season is over a fortnight away, and Wembley can end up being a distant memory very quickly.
One player we won’t be seeing next campaign is Will Mannion, who has gone to Hull. To be honest, I don’t blame him for wanting to go, because anyone that age would want to be involved in a PL setup.
From our point of view, it’s a double-edged sword. Yes, we all want the conveyor belt of talent from the WFC era to be back, but it does mean losing your promising youngsters if they’re any good.
Most importantly, we’re going to get some money for him – although as we can’t agree a fee, it’ll be a tribunal.
I have to admit, I thought we would lose more players from the FA Yoof squad than we actually have. Maybe we still will do, although chances are they’ll see a route into the first team with us as better for them.
Anyway, the fact that we’re even talking about this kind of stuff proves that close season is over, and pre-season is back. It hardly seems any time, and in many ways it isn’t.
Still, it will be good to return, even if the bus parade on Sunday does feel like it’s about a month too late. I just hope it doesn’t look too wanky…