The fixtures are out, there’s transfers aplenty and a shorter-than-expected close season upon us. It’s all happening in the weird and wonderful world of AFC Wimbledon.
So, where does SW19 start? With a picture of a game your editor was at on Monday, of course.
It finished Malmo 2 Kalmar 0 by the way.
Actually, a couple of things worth noting. If we really are looking at a new stadium, and not just the club paying some cruel token gesture to placate the fanbase, we could do worse than look at the Swedebank Stadion. It’s a new facility, it’s like a mini-Eastlands, and it has retractable terracing/seating. And the view is, as you can see above, pretty good. Beats anything at KM, although in the case of the JS even standing behind a brick wall offers a better view.
Secondly, and one for the AFCW idea bank in the future – you buy your ticket and you end up with one of these in your inbox. You can see our turnstile operators already having cold flushes. OK, you won’t want to do it at KM, but it makes you aware of what’s out there and how the club could save money long term. Besides, if only we’d had something installed like that when St Albans came down in the FA Trophy.
Thirdly, and most striking – Swedish football isn’t that good these days. The finishing in particular was on a par with some of the stuff you got in the Conference. OK, they were two midtable sides, and it’s relatively early on (although Malmo are the current Allsvenskan champions), but you looked at it and thought that you can’t ever see a Swedish side challenging much beyond the group stages of your favourite UEFA competition.
Of course, with the rate our transfers are going right now, we might need a Malmo reserve striker. On loan, of course…
The news a couple of days ago that Kaid Mohammed has now gone to Cheltenham wasn’t really a surprise upon reflection. Living in South Wales was always likely to work against him/us signing, although his subsquent comments yesterday are a bit eyebrow raising.
While one suspects the truth will lie somewhere in the middle, along with a massive weekly wage if one is feeling cynical, it raises one of two theories. Either we’re being negligent about dealing with transfers, or another player has come on the radar who we can/will get and effectively makes signing Mo redundant.
If you consider how we signed Yaks last year, then maybe the second theory holds more water than the paranoid first viewpoint. Lest we forget last year. Some centre back, whose name we’ve forgotten, went to the press and told everyone he was signing for us. A couple of days later, he was complaining how slow we were, then we signed Yaks and said centre back was never heard from again.
That deal happened because Yaks suddenly became available and he was on our list. Bearing in mind TB’s earlier comments about looking at “one or two strikers” (this before DK’s transfer request, more on that later), I would be very surprised if we didn’t have a couple of strikers in the pipeline.
Although if we didn’t, I’d also be pretty angry at our irresponsibility.
Still, having hardly any strikers isn’t a nice position to be in. Even if pre-season training is still a week or two away. I hope the first theory isn’t rooted in reality, and not getting Mo is exposing a faultline within the club of being able to keep “gettable” players.
That said, transfers break down for a variety of reasons, of course. It’s not always down to money. Relocating players isn’t always easy, and especially being in the South East isn’t something worthy of the expense in most cases. Think of how many transfer rumours you hear generally, which never happen – not all of them are made up.
Speaking of moving about, everyone has given their welcomes to Jack Midson now, and no doubt his blog and Twitter account will be followed like the Koran is around Ramadan 😉 You’ll already know he turned down a sizeable wedge (plus relocation fee) from Wrexham. That’s Wrexham, as in the club close to going under before the playoffs last season.
But he’s just one replacement of the three we’re likely to lose. Who can we get in who will be prepared to play for £3.50 a week? Perhaps a loanee from a Championship (or even Prem) club will come in and help out for this season? It worked with Gwillim (and what’s the latest on him?), although our record on temporary players is pretty ropey.
Whatever happens, we do need to start making moves before the first pre-season training session. Even if we get just one more striker in, that will be something to work on, and build up to. Maybe the plan is to give Luke Moore a run up front? Or even bring on Brendan Kiernan? It’s a risk though, although nothing a League club shouldn’t be able to handle.
Speaking of handling things, Danny Kedwell. Things have been quiet recently, as both he and TB have been on holiday (not together, one presumes). However, this morning, the local Kent press (sourced by, bizzarely, Steve Evans) suggests it’s all done bar agreeing a fee. And makes you wonder how far advanced negotiations were when DK put in his transfer request.
It’s fair to say that one week on, the mood around AFCW is still a bit deflated. I know it’s been nine years since any of us experienced the culture of the Football League, although with the distraction of THAT 2001/02 season it’s actually longer. But finding out we’ve effectively been dumped by somebody who claimed to love us remains a shock to the system.
That probably says more about our collective naivity, and how much more we need to re-educate ourselves with life back in proper football. The key now is to get the best price we can from Gillingham. We reportedly got somewhere in the region of £100k for Hussey, so a similar figure would be a good deal for us. The insinuation that no fee has been agreed is a good chance for us to play hardball – no pay, no play, or something like that.
How much would DK be worth? Bearing in mind that strikers are more expensive than most other positions, more than you would expect Gills to offer a 28 year old with no L2 experience. Though probably less than we’d want. Whether it will be the dreaded “undisclosed” fee or not remains unclear, but if we’re going to be the continuation of WFC, we’ll need to adapt the Lebanese Camel Shagger’s approach to transfer dealings.
Anyway, no news isn’t always good news, and no doubt DK will be gone before we sign a replacement. Whether he’ll be the last to go for money we don’t know, but I hope TB is enjoying his holiday right now. He’s going to need all the rest he can get.
Oh, and I haven’t started on the fixtures or pre-season friendlies…