luckyPeterpiper wrote:For me it's all been about next season since Freedman was finally shown the door.
We know we lack strength in depth and quality in certain areas of the pitch but Neil does seem to be addressing those issues as fast as he can given the constraints on our finances. I don't agree with cocker that we've ridden our luck in earlier games. For me the difference between now and a month ago lies in two key places. First, Lonergan is a decent keeper but it's become more and more apparent to me that Adam Bogdan is better. And second, we've still to properly address the striker situation. Heskey and Gudjohnsen were never going to be the answer by themselves. Both men are not starters for me now, they're best use is as impact subs. We need a young and quality striker, preferably two and for my money Cravies is never going to fill that role well enough.
Chuck in the loss of CYL and Mason, add the fact we played a lot of games in a short space of time and what's really happening is that we're seeing yet again just how threadbare our squad really is. I expect Neil wants to be showing the door to a number of the current squad and trying to replace them with quality rather than quantity in summer but whether or not he can do that will depend entirely on finances. I hope the current crop of loanees can add something to us and that if they are successful we'll be able to hang onto them. In my opinion the fact we keep having to borrow players then send them back just as they start to really settle in doesn't help.
The Freedman excuse yet again. Nothing to do with Lennon's failings I suppose - or moreover accepting the fact that our squad is poor, paper thin and we haven't got the finances to buy another.
My concern for next season is that Lennon has continued Freedman's task of getting rid of the higher paid players and rather than buying affordable replacements, Lennon has mainly opted for loaners.
The dilemma is this:
If the loaners do well and get us into the playoffs this season it will increase the demand for Lennon to go to a premiership club (unless by some miracle we are actually promoted in which case we have a chance of him staying)
If Lennon leaves, the next manager will inherit bugger all as despite the loaners doing well, they are mainly out of our financial reach and I've seen figures in excess of £2 mill for Slavchev for example.
If the loaners crash and burn and we get relegated Lennon will be off or fired, but at least the finances will be geared towards League One. The downside is we'd lose more players and Lennon has got rid of some of the League 1 level youth players who could do a job for us in that situation.
The likeliest scenario is that we'll survive the drop but fail to trouble the scorers at the top half of the division. Maybe Lennon would stay but I'm not too sure. Either way the more talented players may feel restless and unless there's a change of personnel or minds in the Boardroom we won't be spending big in a bid for promotion 2015/16.
After this January I reckon Lennon has been firmly non-commital. He's trialling the loaners and has set the scene for a fresh start/clean sheet in the summer - whether under him or another manager.
I therefore doubt that much if anything will be done to prepare for next season
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