I'm NOTTS crazy

[Blarney]

FA Cup

Fourth Round Qualifier

from Meadow Lane

defensive match

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be happy or sad.

I"m happy we held Charlton scoreless.... but sad we didn't score.

I'm happy that we get another shot at them... and sad at the same time because it's just another match to play.

Honestly Charlton probably outplayed us but we kept them out of the goal.  They beat us in shots, shots on target and possession but our defense stood stury when needed.

So we go again.

Edited September 12 by Blarney

[Blarney]

FA Cup

Fourth Round Qualifier - part deux

from The Valley, London

so close

We just couldn't shoot.

Credit to Charlton for just shutting us down though.

But credit to my defense as well, even though Charlton got 21 shots off they only got 1 in the net.

On another note... Charlton is my 2nd favorite club in England behind Notts County!

Edited September 12 by Blarney

[Blarney]

February in Review

Schedule

Not a great month, could have been worse.  We played well but lost in our FA Cup match in the replay.  Then we lost a league match, got a draw and finally pulled out a win -- which was our first in 6 league matches.

Table

We are now just 11 points up on 4th place but 20 from falling out of playoff contention so we're in a good spot still but our recent form has definitely brought us back to the pack.

League Two Team Stats

Not much to say here, holding our own but not really at the top of anything.  Our conversion rate has been steady.

Swindon has overtaken us in average attendance.

League Two Player Stats

Langstaff is lapping the league in goals scored now almost.

**It'll be interesting to see how he does in The Championship this season since moving on from Notts.  Still one of my favorite players although I'm very disappointed he left.**

Financials

Money is okay, we're slowly getting a little better.  I have a feeling we'll be selling some more players off this coming season as well.

Review

We hit a small rough patch over the course of the last 6 matches where we ended up with just 1 victory.  Our offense slowed down while our defense remained steady.  We had that same issue last season where it just seemed like we lost our way.  I really tried to win the Charlton match and put my best guys out there for those 2 matches and then we played Mansfield - a rival - right after and we were just exhausted so I sat pretty much everybody down and put a full backup squad out there.  That loss is on me but I needed to rest my players after 2 grueling FA Cup matches.  I also messed with our tactics a little just to mix things up and that might have not worked out well but I'm always going to tinker, especially with us being on top as we try to find the right mix going forward.  We're still in a good spot, I'm not concerned at this point of losing a playoff spot if nothing more.  Although I know I said I'd prefer not to go up this season just so we could spend a year growing... now that we're up here it's not like I want to see the club fail.

[Blarney]

Denied

Tried pressing my luck a little and it failed.  Our youth facilities are still below average and I want them improved but maybe asking for it to get fixed again twice in one season might have been a bit much, especially after they just upgraded our recruitment as well.

I did "push" them but backed down before it got too far.

I'll wait until next season and try again.

[Blarney]

March in Review

Schedule

Our poor play continued through the first 2 matches this month and then we righted ourselves and won the final 3 league matches in pretty convincing form.... and Langstaff scoring 6 goals in those 3 matches.  It further proves how Langstaff goes this season... so do we.  I'm not sure that's entirely a good thing but we'll take it while he's here.

Table

With our victory against Crawley in the final game of the month we secured a playoff spot -- if nothing else for the season.  The board was very happy.

We are also 14 points up on the 4th spot so looking pretty good for an automatic promotion given the games remaining this season.

League Two Team Stats

I'm not even worried about our offensive numbers this year as it's the 2nd year in a row where our defense has been the driving force in our victories.

League Two Player Stats

Have we said it's Langstaff's world and we're just living in it before?

Financials

Ouch, we lost a little bit of cash this month.

Review

In the previous 8 league matches - including the first 2 this month - we had 1 win, 3 draws and 4 losses.  We had definitely lost our way.

Hopefully the last 3 matches of the month are an indicator of finding it again.

If nothing else we're in the playoffs.

[Blarney]

April/May in Review

Schedule

We wrapped up a playoff spot in April... and we wrapped up the league title in the FINAL GAME of the season with a 2-1 win over Tranmere.

Table

Barrow pushed us to the end, even beating us in the 2nd to last match of the season but we won in the final match and won the league.

We are the champions!

Barrow, Mansfield and Tranmere all won promotion as well.  Port Vale and Harrogate went down.  Chesterfield finished 19th but they stayed up.

League Two Team Stats

We didn't have the best offensive season but we didn't have the worst either.  We did play excellent defense though.

A little disappointed we were only 2nd in average attendance considering the season we had.

League Two Player Stats

All hail King Langstaff --- who wants a massive new conract or will demand his release.

Review

Well we did it.  We won the league.  Back-to-back champions!

It took until the final season to get the title but we really weren't in much danger all season long of at least not making the playoffs.  We definitely were amongst the class of the league.  We had 2 things going for us... Langstaff and a very tight defense.  Sort of the same things we had going for us last season.

We've already had several of our players come forward and say they want new contracts, including Langstaff... so we'll have decisions to make in the off-season but for now we're going to relish this championship and hopefully parlay it into a nice shiny new contract for me.

[Blarney]

Season Review

100

A small milestone

Manager of the Year

That's back-to-back.  I'll take it.

Golden Boot

Langstaff with back-to-back-to-back golden boots at the last 3 levels... incredible!

Player of the Season

+ 

And back-to-back-to-back Player of the Season awards as well.

Golden Glove

Kovacevic wins the Golden Glove.  He was simply outstanding all year long for us.

Top Eleven

Langstaff and Kovacevic with well deserved honors, earning a spot on the Top 11 list.

Season Stats

Defense wins championships.  We were first in goals conceded this year and 2nd in clean sheets.

[Blarney]

Langstaff

We decided to reward Macauley with a shiny new contract given his status on our team.... and other clubs desire to sign him.

We received multiple offers for him, including a 2.5 million transfer fee from Nottingham Forest and a 3 million transfer fee from Blackburn.

He was really hinting that he wanted to move to a larger club so we sat down with him and his agent and hashed out the biggest player contract we've ever offered.

And we think he's well worth it.

He's a 3 time Player of the Season and 3 time Golden Boot winner and without a doubt the heart and soul of our club.

And now we've got him for 4 more years...... or until he demands another contract and a Premier League Club comes knocking.

[Blarney]

Other News

Youth Facilities

The board can't make up their mind.  After telling me no... they actually came to me and offered to upgrade the youth facilities.

I of course said yes, please.

I guess that's the prize for winning League Two.

U21

They also agreed to an Under 21 team.

It'll give me an opportunity to acquire some more players and increase our overall depth.

 

[Blarney]

New Contract

they like me, they really like me

A shiny new 3-year contract at 3500 per week.

I'm very happy.

[Blarney]

Off-Season Moves

Transferred Out

Aljofree never really caught on with us.  He was pretty far back on the depth chart so was expendable when the right offer came along.

Dinzy was one of my first signings - if not the first.  But over time he just didn't develop like we needed and we had brought in better players.

Nemane as here when I took over and was a big part of us getting promoted.  However he was more a backup option last season and with youngsters coming up wouldn't see much playing time this year.

This one I'm a little mad about.  Not that we moved him but that we had a 850k offer last year for him which the board cancelled because they said he was worth a little over 1 million.  Of course we never got an offer for him anywhere near that and didn't end up moving him last season... and then ended up having to settle for 650k this season.

Transferred In

Our only real signing this season is Finley Munroe who may end up being our starter at the right wing back position this year.

We did bring in a few youngsters as well as we continue to stock up on young players in our continuing rebuilding efforts.

New Contracts

And we previously reported this but it was the big move of the off-season for us.  Signing Langstaff was an absolute must so I'm glad we got it done.

There are a couple of other contracts we might need to redo also... but this was the big one.

[Blarney]

Predictions

Golden Boot

Can you say 4 times Golden Boot winner?  Well if the bookies are right, you will be.

Player of the Season

Nobody from our club made this list.  That's okay, we're used to being overlooked.

Predicted Finish

Well if the bookies are right, we should be safe but it looks like they expect a battle all season long to stay away from relegation.

I'd like to see us finish more comfortably in the middle of the pack, but I'll take staying up by the slimmest of margins.

[Blarney]

Meet the Squad

Forwards

This is still Langstaff's spot but we do have a few youngsters that could grow into the position.  And since we play with 2 center-attackers, there is plenty of opportunity here for our kids to see playing time.  We tried to sign another striker in the off-season but he chose to go elsewhere and there's really nobody else I saw that I felt like spending money on.

Midfield

Our main tactic uses 2 defensive-mids and 2 wing-backs... so overall we have pretty good depth that we can rotate around.  Davis and newcomer Munroe will play on the outside with Baj, Robinson and Kirby spending most of the season splitting time in the middle.

Backs

And here's where our strength lies in our club.  Our backs have been very good.  Baj bounces back and forth between the midfield and the backfield.  McClelland, Quamina, Kavanagh have been rocks on the defensive line.

Keepers

Kovaceciv was the best keeper in the league last season in League Two.  My concern is that may be his peak and we haven't found anybody else on the market that we think is better than him.  Granted it all starts on the defensive line, but having a good keeper backing them up is a necessity.  Hopefully he'll have another good season, because I think we're going to need it with much more difficult competition.

Review

I think we're going to have a much more difficult season this year as I view the competition level between League One and League Two to be pretty significant.  I hope that Langstaff continues his excellent career because I think the rest of my guys up front are going to need a season or 2 to find their footing.  In the middle we should be okay but as far as depth goes but I don't really see any stars there.  We're probably better on the wing than we are in the middle.  For 2 seasons we have relied heavily on our defense but like I said, I think we're going to be facing much tougher competition this year, so it will be a big test to see if that remains a strength.  And as far as our keeper situation...... it's Kovacevic or bust.  He was really good last season, it will remain to be seen if he's League One quality.  I think he'll be fine, coupled with the rest of our defense should be enough to keep us in most games but I expect it will be much more of a challenge than we've previously faced.

[Blarney]

Season Budget

We finally have some money to spend, which is awesome, because we're not going to spend it.

At least the plan is not to spend it.

I don't really want to touch the transfer budget unless I find someone that I just HAVE to have.

We also have a wage budget of just over 67K of which we are currently spending just over 55K, so we have a little wiggle room there.

That's also after we've given a few of our players some nice raises (like Mac)... so it's good that we're still under budget that.

That plan is to keep accumulating cash as we advance up the ladder to where we have the money to bring in "game-changers" as we need them at the upper levels.

I really didn't want to spend much until we got to the Championship, so we're trending in the right direction curently.

[Blarney]

August in Review

Schedule

Other than the loss in the Carabao Cup match we had a pretty decent start to our League One season with a couple of draws and a win.

I will admit in both of our draws we pulled it out with last minute goals... but last minute is better than a loss.

Table

Our start has been good enough to put us up toward the top of the table. 

League One Team Stats

Offensive stats look pretty decent to start the season.

League One Player Stats

WHAT????  Langstaff isn't leading the league in goals.... oh no.

Financials

Lost a little cash to start the season.

Review

So like I seem to always say at the start of the new season, it's early.  I don't take much stock in how things are going to finish by how they start.  However, it's always good to have a decent start and be toward the top of the table rather than the bottom after the first month.  I'm not going to pretend it's been easy.  In one of our draws we scored the tying goal with a minute left in stoppage time.  In the other one we scored the tying goal with a minute left in regular time... about 2 minutes after they scored the go-ahead goal.  So both matches were "skin of our teeth" draws.  We're holding our own, but barely over the first few matches.

The Carabao Cup loss I still don't care about.  I know it's money but we still don't have great squad depth as I just don't want to waste the money to go and grab a bunch of backup players.  I'm hoping that that will come naturally from building up my youth prospects.  I have put bids in on a couple of decent players that could fill roles but I'm just not going to blow a wad of cash that I'd prefer to hold on to for now.

Overall, I'm happy with the start of the season.

[Blarney]

September in Review

Schedule

Not optimal.  We lose our first match in the Pizza tourney and then drop 3 straight in league play while only scoring 1 goal.  We manage a hard-fought draw to finish the month... where again we don't score.

Table

We're free falling down the table.

League One Team Stats

Well... we're still passing the ball well.

League One Player Stats

Langstaff is being mugged every time he touches the ball.  His expected goals scored is 5 but he's only scored 4 with a 6.61 match rating.

Financials

Ouch.... just a bad month all around.

Review

Well... I said I believed there was a big difference in quality between League One and League Two.  Granted it's only a month and things can turn quickly for the good, but we're really struggling right now.  Our defense has still be adequate... but if you can't score you can't win and we went 3 matches in a row without getting one in.  Langstaff is good but it's possible he's topped out for his skill level... or he just had a really bad month.  He obviously needs help around him and maybe that would get him going.  I think I'm going to mess with the tactics a bit - it's highly possible what worked at lower levels isn't going to work here.

[Blarney]

The Independent Reports

sports with Trent Crimm

Notts County finds themselves in a spot they haven't been in since new manager Eddie Sirrel took over the club 2 years ago.  They're losing.  Now, before anybody goes crazy and starts writing me and complaining that they're in League One and it's growing pains and give them a chance.... we are.  I'm just reporting what we see.  Personally I think Eddie has earned enough leeway to go through a rough patch here or there and for us not to wonder what's going on.  But it is our job to wonder what's going on.

So we ssked Eddie and this is what he said.  "I am a strong believer that the quality of play between the National League and the National League North and South isn't that much diferent.  Just like I believe that the quality of play between League Two and the National League isn't much different.  In other words I think the best teams from those lower leagues can be competitive in the leagues above them.  I don't think there's that much that separates them.  I do however think there is quite a bit that separates League One from League Two.  I think that is where you start seeing a pretty good change in talent levels of both clubs and players.  I also think that talent level grows as you move up to the Championship.  This is where you start separating the men from the boys.... to borrow an old cliche.  Now I don't say any of that to make excuses but just to explain that I think this is where we have to really start growing as a team.  If I was being honest I really think that if we had stayed down in League Two for another year that would not have been a bad thing.  It would have given us a chance to continue to grow and develop our young players without the added pressure of having to play against much better competition.  No disrespect intended to the clubs down in League Two... but obviously being in League One is more of a challenge.  Regardless here we are and we're going to go through some growing pains.  I would hope that our supporters understand that and give the boys a chance to develop and continue this path that we're on.  I know I'm looking forward to it.  We're going to take some lumps along the way.  We're obviously taking them now, but I have complete faith that we're going to figure it out.  Whether that means we go on a run this year or fight a relegation battle all season long remains to be seen.  But I think we have the talent to stay up.  We just have to put it all together out there and part of that is on me as the manager to put my guys in the best position for them to succeed."

We think that most supporters would agree with that sentiment.  They are certainly struggling right now but they're not being blown out.  They've been in pretty much every contest.  The defense is still playing well but on the other side of the ball they're just trying to figure out how to make their attack work.  Once they do, I think they can make a statement in the league and hopefully stay up.

Eddie is right about one thing and he'll never shy away from taking responsibility for what's gone wrong.  He needs to make some changes and make them fast.

I would bet we'll see that going forward.

Edited September 19 by Blarney

[Blarney]

October in Review

Schedule

A little up, and a little down.  I can accept that.

Table

We pulled ourselves up a little.  We need to keep doing that.

League One Team Stats

Pass completion and tackles won are good.

League One Player Stats

Mac righted himself a little this month with 4 goals scored.

Financials

Another bad month on the financial side.

Review

So let's start with the good first.

We played Plymouth - who are currently the best team in the league - and we beat them easily 3-0.  It was easily our best match of the season so far.  We also beat Sheffield Wednesday 3-1.  So back-to-back matches with 3 goals scored.

Unfortunately other than that we had some issues.  3 more losses and a draw in league.

We also lost our pizza match.  I'm still not concerned about that though.

[Blarney]

November in Review

Schedule

Busy month.  Decent month.  We're holding our own.

Table

We're solidly mid-table now.  10 points from a relegation battle and 8 points from a playoff push.  I like where we are, it's comfortable.

League One Team Stats

Our possession has been improving.  It's certainly helped with our matches.

League One Player Stats

Macaulay has definitely been better lately.  He's gone up the ranks in goals scored, shots on target and conversion rate.  What he's not been doing is getting a lot of shots off.

Financials

Another month... more cash lost.

Review

Well we've settled down a little... win some, lose some... which is fine with me.  At least we've pulled ourselves from a relegation battle.  We've had a few good matches and a few not great.  We lost our 2nd straight pizza match to penalty shots.  But we won 2 FA Cup matches this month -- the first one against Tamworth who had already beat us twice this year.  We also managed a draw against Barnsley who currently lead the league.

Mac has certainly been better and is tops in the league in conversion rate but he's just not getting a lot of shots off.  For some reason my midfielders have been taking a lot of shots... and a lot of them bad.  They're basically firing on shot and I wish I could find a way to tell them not to.  My instructions are to work it into the box but those don't appear to be being followed.  It's not that I don't want them to ever shoot.... but I definitely want Macaulay taking the majority of the shots.

[Blarney]

Youth Intake

This is getting old.

This is 3 straight years of getting nothing but crap from our youth intake.

Not even one decent player for 3 straight years.

I'm having a hard time even putting a U18 and U21 team on the field since I can't recruit any decent youth at all.

Edited September 22 by Blarney

[Blarney]

December in Review

Schedule

More of the same.. win some, lose some, maintain our hold in the middle of the pack.

Table

So actually despite our "middling" play over the last couple of months we've managed to move up the table a little.  We're sitting less than 10 points out of a playoff spot now.

More importantly we've put more distance between us and a relegation battle.

League One Team Stats

Slowly but surely we're starting to put up better numbers.  Our possession has been good and we lead the league in pass completion and tackles won ratio now.

League One Player Stats

Langstaff has been much improved.  Now sits 3rd in total goals scored, 1st in shots on target percentage and 2nd in conversion rate.  He still needs to get more shots off though.

Financials

Almost broke even this month.

Review

I'm very happy with our progress.  Over the past couple of months we've been winning or drawing as many games as we've been losing despite still being a little low on depth and being very, very young.  It's a good indication of how the players are developing.  I certainly think if we maintain this and continue our growth into next year we'll be playing a lot better.  Especially if we can find a few more warm bodies to bring in.

[Blarney]

January in Review

Schedule

Very busy month but also very productive.

We lost our FA Cup match but won 5 of our 7 league matches with 1 draw and 1 loss.

Table

Our impressive month sees us vault up the table to the #8 spot.

There are only 20 points separating the #3 club to the #16 club however so there's a big grouping right there that needs sorted.

League One Team Stats

We continue to play good ball lately.

League One Player Stats

Look who has taken the top spot in goals scored..... and it's driven our run to playoff contention at the same time.

Financials

Look at all that cash in the inbox!  That's what happens when the transfer deadline comes and your team gets raked.  We'll talk about that next.

Review

A very good month.  The best we've had in awhile.  We went from up and down and down and up to just straight up.  5 league wins out of 7 played is excellent and shows the growth of the club overall from the first of the season until now.  Now let's see if we can continue it.

[Blarney]

Transfer Deadline News

Out

Gill told us he wasn't going to re-sign so left us with little choice but to sell and get what we could.

McClelland had a release clause so there was nothing we could do about this.

I'm not overly concerned about this one, he was purely a backup player who rarely played.

We REALLY didn't want to move Miles but we were getting repeated offers and he was getting upset that we kept turning them down.  Finally we agreed to let him go just to save the headache and keep the players that were revolting of our back.

Another player that was begging to leave and we had the depth at this position to let him go.

This offer was absolutely insane and was so much that we couldn't pass it up.  Plus they offered to loan him back for the year so we didn't lose anything here.

In

Needed another body at this position after losing Miles.

We honestly probably didn't need him after we had previously done the deal with Adam but for the money I couldn't pass it up as I think he'll increase in value down the line.

Strictly a warm body signing.

Review

I've been waiting for this to happen but I was hoping to avoid the carnage.  This is why we signed Mac to the big contract we did.  I guess I should have worried more about Miles as well because I didn't want to lose him but it was causing problems with the club by keeping him and I couldn't get him to agree to a new contract.  In the end I lost far more players than I wanted to but was able to get a couple back on loan for the season.  I had previously said I didn't want to spend money and in the end I didn't spend much compared to the asking price of some guys that I like..... but I needed the replacements so we did make a few moves.

[Blarney]

February in Review

Schedule

Well we reverted back to the up and down we were playing for most of the season and unfortunately it was a little more down than up.

Table

We fell back to the pack a little.  Still comfortably in the middle and keeping ourselves safe from relegation.

League One Team Stats

Conversion rate and pass completion still good.

League One Player Stats

Mac fell off the pace and Rogers had a great scoring month.  Mac has put up 20 shots less than Rogers has.  We still need him to shoot the ball more.

Financials

A little drop but with our transfers we're still looking good for the season.

Review

Like I said we fell back a little but we're still comfortably safe and that's all we're looking for this season.

[Blarney]

March in Review

Schedule

Nice recovery month.  2 wins, 2 draws, 4 matches.

Table

Only 4 matches left.  We're obviously safe so that's job done.  But there's still an outside chance that we might still push for the playoffs.

Whatever happens I can honestly say it's been a good season.

League One Team Stats

Possession good.  Conversion good.  Number of goals..... bad.  What does that tell us?  We're not getting off enough shots.

League One Player Stats

Langstaff's 4 goals this month put him back on top.  Can he hold on?

Financials

More losses.  We're really doing a horrible job of putting money in the bank except when we sell players.

Review

We've been safe for awhile so that's not really been a concern.  Over the last few months it's really been a roller coaster.  We make a push for the playoffs then fall back.  Then make a push then fall back.  We're technically still within striking distance but are going to have to win and get some help from the clubs above us.  Either way, it's been a really good year with some really good growth from some of our kids.

[Blarney]

Final Month + 1 game

Did we make the playoffs?

No.

We did everything we could, winning 3 straight but we were out of it by the final match.

We did beat 2 of the playoff teams in our final month though.

Like I said previously, I'm not upset... in fact it says a lot about how far we came this season and the growth of our club.

I think we go into next year as a favorite to potentially take the league or at least make the playoffs if we continue our growth from this year.

[Blarney]

End of Season

Final Table

9th place finish is more than acceptable

Competition Review

It was definitely somewhat of a roller coaster season for us, but after a pretty poor start we played much better ball in the 2nd half.

It definitely gives us a great feeling about how next season might go.

[Blarney]

Awards and Recognition

Golden Boot

For those tracking.... that's back-to-back-to-back-to back Golden Boots for Macaulay Langstaff. 

4 straight seasons of scoring the most goals in league play.... in 4 different leagues.

Unfortunately his streak of being player of the year ended as he didn't win it this season.

Best Eleven

Mac with the well deserved honor of being selected to the best 11 in the league.

[Blarney]

Transfers

Out

Edited 4 hours ago by Blarney

[Blarney]

The Independent Reports

sports with Trent Crimm

Another Notts County season is just about upon us.  After finishing in 9th place last year after facing a relegation battle early on in League One, expectations are certainly higher for the coming season.  We had a chance to sit down with Eddie Sirrel and ask him a few questions about the upcoming campaign.

Thanks for sitting down with us again.  We always appreciate the time you take to make yourself available.

I'm always happy to make myself available to you and our supporters.  I said when I took this job one of the most important things I needed to do was grow our presence in the community and recapture some of the lost faith we had with our fans.

We talked a few times last season but can you just go back real quick and tell us how you felt things went and what you're looking forward to this season?

So last season to me was all about growth.  I think I said the previous year that I almost felt like we could have done with another season in League Two before being promoted just to give our youth a little more time to grow.  I sort of felt the same in League One as well.  Again, it's not about not wanting to be promoted, we always want to win and we always want to earn promotion, but at the same time sometimes when you're not it's not necessarily the end of the world.  I thought we recovered really well last season from some poor play early on.  For a couple of months it looked like we were going to be facing a relegation battle and we pulled ourselves out of that and slowly but surely just kept moving up the table.  In fact we had a chance to put ourself into the playoff picture but we needed a little luck and a couple of losses from a club above us and they didn't help us out unfortunately.  I don't like leaving things up to fate, I'm more of a fan of taking our future into our own hands so this season I'd rather not have to worry about what other clubs are doing.  I think we stand a very good chance of being a playoff club this season... if not winning the whole thing.  I think our boys want the same thing and believe the same thing.

You've suffered a few losses already this season on the transfer market - Glatzel and Land being the 2 biggest.  Does the money you got in return make the suffering less or does that really matter to you in the end?

Sometimes you're okay with someone leaving and other times it's out of your hands.  Luckily we have much better depth this year than we've had in previous seasons so the loss of those 2 is tempered somewhat by knowing that we have others that can step in, but that doesn't mean I don't feel them.  Nico in particular I think has a bright future which is why we grabbed him a couple of years ago but I knew it was going to be hard holding on to him.  The fact is we only have so much money to go around and we have a few players that we identified as needing bigger contracts to make sure we can keep them here and when a larger team comes in and makes an offer that we feel we can't match... we're left with little other choice then to let them go.  So in that respect, it's good that we have players that are worth a little bit and we can put some money away for a rainy day.

Your youth recruitment hasn't been great the past couple of seasons by your own admission but you're still managed to acquire a fair bit of youth and have turned some of those players around for a good amount of money.  Is that by design?

Yes, absolutely.  Look, I'd very much like it if we could sort out of youth recruitment and I think we will.  It's an absolute necessity to keep building from within and growing our youth players.  But at the same time our scouting department has done a remarkable job of identifying young players at other squads and we've been able to sign a lot of those players and then turn them around in the transfer market to keep the cash flowing.  We'll need to keep doing that and then if we can also start growing our youth academy from recruitment as well.... then that's when things will really be looking up.

Good luck this season.

Thanks!  I hope to see our supporters out there in full strength this season.  We love having you all out there.