Firstly, if you still haven’t signed the letter to the Mayor, do so. Doesn’t matter if you don’t live in LBM/LBW, just do this one final push. It will be worth it…
Done it? Good. I know it seems a bit redundant to do it, especially after the previous guidance from the club, but it really is an every-little-helps scenario. You don’t want to die wondering “what if?” after all.
You’ve basically got less than a week to do it, and as past write-ins have proven, it might not have much weight on the final decision(s) made, but it’s much better to be safe than sorry…
Anyway, lecture over. We’ve got our fourth and final striker – welcome to AFCW Tyrone Barnett. The rumour mill has hinted at this for a while, especially when Southend looked elsewhere.
It was certainly suggested around the time of James Collins, and the club did put this highly unusual update on the OS yesterday.
Was it to fend off a last minute gazumping? Was his agent and/or another party aiming to leak to the press, and we stepped in? Not that it matters much now he’s done the posing in the shirt.
And doesn’t he look happy to be here? That’s not meant as snark either.
So, what do we know of him? Well, he’s supposed to be a replacement for Akinfenwa, though hopefully without the off-field stuff acting as a distraction.
He’s 6ft 3, been around a fair few clubs in the last decade, and somebody I expect may be giving a couple of our established forwards a bit of competition.
Oh, and he seemed to fall out with people at Peterborough. Which will make next Tuesday at London Road interesting…
A lot of people have said how they noticed him when he played against us, so on that score his signing is a good one. I doubt he’s cheap, although neither was Akinfenwa, and I suspect NA right now is a very content individual.
What is clear is that with Sean Kelly putting pen to actual paper, our rebuilding is now complete. At least until January, when we’ll be panic-buying to avoid relegation add to the squad.
We haven’t ripped apart the playoff winning side too much, though question marks still remain over a) our keeper situation, and b) what happens if we get a mass of injuries.
Plus there’s always the issue of Taylor getting snapped up at the last minute, though with Barnett now signing it will be a blow as opposed to a catastrophe.
Whether we’ll be tempted to go into the loan market for a deal until January/May remains to be seen. TBH I doubt if we will, as there may be pressure to give the yoof more opportunities instead.
With League One still being an unknown quantity, we have to assume our main issue right now may still be match fitness amongst the whole squad.
I’m not sure if we’ll properly get the first XI settled until even the middle of September, although I doubt if we’ll be the only side in that situation.
What I’m hoping for in these initial four weeks is not to be over-awed by the division we’re in. We’ll have to learn quickly in some areas, try to play it safe in others, and perhaps not expect too much otherwise.
NA has his Meet The Manager tomorrow, and the way he approaches it will be more intriguing than most previous ones this time round. Though if it’s like last year…