Brannagan’s got a lot of energy/desire, but is irratic and lacks composure, whereas, I think Sykes is a better all round player.
Didn’t say Ruffels and Long aren’t good enough, but I’d like to improve this area on the pitch.
Having said that, looks like our owner is tightening the purse strings further, so I guess it won’t matter what we want/wound like.
Thought Dan Harris’ comments were quite telling today about funds being cut. Don’t reckon he’ll wait around too long if this is the case, especially as he had a certain strategy which he won’t want to be endangered of being successful.
Where’s Erik?
A few assumptions there. Firstly, the talk from Tiger was that the budget will be the same as this year or slightly lower. That doesn't mean that we will be operating on a shoestring but will mean that we won't be spunking £400k or the likes of Hanson (which is no bad thing). The under 23's will be supplemented by the young kids coming through the ranks so there will not be the need to invest as much into that set up. This would have always been the long term plan, invest in our youth, give them competitive fixtures in the under 23's, then get them into the first team. We couldn't do that from scratch last year, so we had to look at some players coming in specifically for the under 23's. If we are no longer looking to invest there it potentially allows for greater investment in the first team.
Last year we had Holmes, Carrathurs, Garbutt and others on decent money and got little value for them. Alternatively, we have brought in Whyte, Sykes and giving more game time to Sam Long, all of whom are on a lot less. We can still compete but it will be a case of spending more wisely than we did in the summer.
As for Dan Harris, it is a sign of his success that we are able to do a lot of this work. Players who have been around the youth set up have already stepped up, and more will follow. There is no reason to think that he won't continue to be supported and to continue to build on this success.
Finally, we all know that Erick won't be around until the end of April. No one knows what if anything he will be investing, but the playing budget will be seperate to potential investment into the club/stadium. We apparently had the 8th biggest budget this year, but would have been blown out the water by the likes of Sunderland and Barnsley, and to a lesser extent, Portsmouth, Luton and Peterborough. The likelyhood is that 3 of these big spenders will go up this year, and those who stay behind may have to make big savings too. The teams likely to come up or go down from the Championship are not of the same calibre as those who came into the league this season so with adding to our budget we could still be competitive - but as always it is how this is spent.