Hmm, guess NA does like signing former AFCW players after all….
So, welcome (back) to KM George Francomb. I won’t ask him if he knows where the dressing room and player’s bar is, he should know by now. And judging by the coat he was wearing in the obligatory cheesy scarf photo, our boss no longer has the worst dress sense at the club.
Have to say, if we were going to continue bringing back old players, he would have been one of the first on the list. Quite a few fans do state that they think he’s one of the best players ever to put on an AFCW shirt, and to be fair we did notably get worse when he returned to Carrow Road.
It’s easy to forget he was one of the last of TB’s help-me-keep-my-job panic signings, but he did seem to come into his own when NA took over. And to prove how professional he was back then, he overcame a turbulent time with the minimum of fuss…
Indeed, this is what SW19 wrote just before NA took proper charge of his first game, at Fleetwood:
As somebody at the Dagenham game said, we need men in our team and all we have are little boys.
That isn’t necessarily referring to age, either. Look at George Framcomb – he’s 21 and he’s putting in the effort so that his parent club sees him as a future star. That’s a good attitude, and that’s part of the reason why he’s signed to a big club.
Actually, think about our loanees for a minute : what do you think they’ve made of the last six weeks? They’ve had three different bosses to deal with, which must put their parent clubs on edge, yet they’ve knuckled down and become our best players in this shit time. I’ve no idea what that tells you, except that some of our proper squad members should be feeling ashamed.
Which does make you wonder why Norwich released him.
But then, Prem clubs do seem to have a surplus of those sort of players, and you have to wonder who else finds themselves in such a position right now. For our new guy though, he doesn’t need to worry about a P45 any more.
All of a sudden, we look a lot stronger. With a decent pre-season under his belt, and not having to play for a team constantly bailing out water, who knows what he can achieve? Obviously, if he’s any good then he’ll be sold on at some point, but we were used to that up until 28/5/02…
The reaction of him signing has certainly been a good one, on par with the re-signing of Pim last close season. Hopefully, this will turn out better than the (non) Flying Dutchman did, but NA does seem to have more of an idea what he’s doing.
Indeed, this does suggest how well our boss can persuade players to join us. Look at Francomb’s CV – snapped up by Norwich from the Spurz youth team, got to go on loan to Hibs before going up a level with us (we’ll forget he was also at Barnet ;)) and he’s somebody I can well believe was also wanted by two League One sides.
That GF has said on the OS how much he enjoyed playing for us is clearly a feather in the cap for NA, so you have to wonder who else he can entice to us. The rumour mill is flapping overtime with hints about Akinfenwa becoming our next striker (though others are suggesting Jack Midson could be on his way to Brentford…).
On this score, I can exclusively reveal I have seen Akinfenwa coming out of KM. It was after the Northampton game, and he was on the visiting team bus.
It seems that we’re almost set now for the midfield positions. With the news that Luke Moore finally re-signed up again, and the club taking up its option with KSL, things seem to be finally falling into place. Sweeney and Fenlon are back, and they’ll be like two new signings.
We’re now OK for goalkeepers, if anything one could argue we’re surplus on that score. What else do we need? We need another CB still, although we’re still waiting for something official to be announced re: Frampton.
Ideally I’d like another CB if he comes, doesn’t need to be an experienced one so much as I don’t really trust Antwi that much. Maybe a loanee? One also wonders if we will get in another left back – it all depends on where NA wants to play Fenlon (who is naturally right footed, lest we forget).
It would make sense, given that we got rid of Hussey and you assume that Fenlon won’t play all the games. Unless NA plans to make him a starter but put in one of the can-play-there-if-need-be type players. Guess we’ll wait and see, and maybe it’s going to be a case of who is available once various contracts expire.
The striker situation got mentioned a bit earlier, but apart from the scenarios in the previous three paragraphs, that might be our rebuilding job done for this summer.
Six signings, and in all likelyhood another two to come, and that’s what I would call pretty decent work by our management team on paper. Now all they have to do is get it right on grass…