That was the original title of Hey Jude, until Paul McCartney recovered from the cold he had…
Yes, SW19 is back, and I somehow managed not to go through Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan/Uzbekistan/Latvia without getting arrested/kidnapped/shot.
In fact, it was mostly quite convivial (buying a SIM card in Bishkek was an experience, and an enjoyable one at that), although I did have a little trouble with the security NKVD rejects** at Tashkent airport.
** – travel tip for former USSR countries : always speak in English, speak quickly when asked a question and don’t tell them anything more than three words in a sentence.
My Russian teacher from Donetsk taught me that and it was the best advice I’ve received in some time.
Also, somebody else there thought I was from Poland…
Anyway, it seems like I’ve got lots and lots of new signings to look at since I’ve been away. So, let’s take a butchers at our newbies.
And, er, urm, yes, well.
OK, Ryan Johnson re-signed as soon as I left two weeks ago, which was a good one to read about.
He was one of those you maybe forgot was out of contract, although it seems that all the others in a similar position have gone.
In the last three days, Ninetowns has joined Bradford and as of last night James Tilley has gone to Buckinghamshire.
No, not to them as some shit-stirrers tried to make out, but the proper club there.
Guess they can use the headline “Wycombe Tilley Dies” now.
I don’t really blame them for leaving, they’ll likely get longer contracts with far better money, and their stock won’t be much higher than right now.
As ever at this time of year, we move on.
It would be nice to hear of some incoming players when the transfer window reopens, as some are already in a doom spiral about it.
A brief moment of clarity for those who are running around in blind panic at the moment : the season starts in about six weeks.
We might not have the full whack of PSFs released yet, but we’ve got something like three weeks before the annual pissup in Marbella or wherever we’re going.
We still have the backbone of the defence that got us to L1, plus whoever else is on this retained list.
Who we have at the moment isn’t bad, and some if not most of them should be able to step up a level.
It’s true that we’ve released a lot of players and seemed to have dipped out on keeping Ninetowns, Tilley and probably Smith too.
In all honesty though, I’m not massively upset by even those ones going.
Why? One suspects they had a purple patch in the run-in to Wombley : The Return and we might have got the best of them.
Remember that Tilley fell right off the pace earlier in the season, and Ninetowns wasn’t always effective.
And really, I don’t believe any of our attack will be good enough in L1.
They struggled in L2, and we managed to go up, so with slightly better (and faster) defences who we’ve released might well end up struggling.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out Ninetowns and Tilley are benchwarming a lot for their new clubs this season, put it that way.
I also wouldn’t be surprised to find out we’re doing a couple of changes to the way we play, to get better value for money from those we do sign.
As said before I went away, in JJ we have somebody who has actually managed in L1 and knows what’s what.
His remit next season is basically to keep us in the third tier, and our signings may reflect that.
If we end up with a bunch of journeymen who won’t get us relegated but won’t set the division alight, I’ll happily accept that for 25/26.
Of course, that will cost money. Indeed, if we’re remotely serious about staying up we’ll have to up the wage bill.
And that was the big update in the past two weeks – Craig Cope’s interview (here in case you’ve forgotten it) basically sitting people down and telling them that we need more money.
Not in the “everyone should pay triple for their tickets and concessions and sell their house and their entire contents to help AFCW” sense, that some people even now have convinced themselves we should do.
But actual proper cash injections to give the footballing side of things a sporting chance of doing anything.
I’m going to make a prediction for 25/26 already – our spending power will finally smack a lot of people in the face next season.
Perhaps literally.
Playing in front of full houses at PL, with some pretty high high ticket prices, and yet still being poorer than a vagrant living on the streets of Stoke-on-Trent won’t go un-noticed.
I’m debating whether to put the following here or in the “That Was The Season That Was” that I’ll try and write in the next couple of days, but I’ll put it down now so I don’t forget.
You aren’t going to get many more individuals putting in the equivalent of pocket change any more without something more substantial in return.
Anyone who thinks that there simply has to be another Nick Robinson, or John Green, or Ian McNay, or the Malaysian bloke out there will be disappointed.
There isn’t one any more. If there was, we would have got one at some point during the last twelve years.
And even if we somehow did find one during the next three months, Cope has implied that what they’ll realistically put in will struggle to touch the sides.
Player wages at the top end of L2 would no doubt horrify some of our fans if they knew what they were, let alone down the arse end of L1.
Our training facilities, while better than they were, are apparently still quite poor and that needs to reflect professional football in 2025.
And there is the small matter of appearing if we have any sort of ambition or not.
If Jackson and/or Cope (especially) think there’s no point being at AFCW because of the continued lack of money – they’ll just go elsewhere.
Both JJ and Cope (especially) won’t struggle for work away from London SW17. It’s up to the club to keep them here.
Doing things slowly and surely rather than “rushing into things” is what we’ve been doing for a long while, and the result of that is our Director of Football has used official media to imply we need to change.
Getting promoted to League One is the best thing that’s happened this year. Forcing some fans to accept that it’s not 2002 any longer could surpass that.
I don’t doubt there will be some players happy to play for £1.50 plus reduced Dons Trust membership this campaign. But they would be shit ones who would be better behind the goal.
We might need to sign one or two fewer players so we can bring in some slightly better ones, which is what I expect we’ll do.
I certainly expect another Owen Goodman-esque loan between the sticks, and we’ve done very well on that score.
We just simply have to be patient, accept we’re slap bang in the middle of the quiet month of the year and do something else in the meantime.
Although pant shitting that we haven’t got 12 new players before the tennis at Southfields starts is a Womble tradition I forgot existed…