Firstly, I would like to wish all supporters, club officials, and all players from our junior setup through to the first team a happy new year. It is exciting times for the club currently and we are hopeful of a successful 2025.
We start the year by looking forward to getting the game on against Dudley, we need momentum after a good month so far. We do have a fair few big players missing, the influential Mark Jones, Tom Morris, and Jacson Coppack are all suspended, Amarn Robinson and Scotty McGowan are both ill and Theo Flanagan is almost back from injury, hoping to have him available for selection next weekend. Luis Davin has gone out for a few weeks to get game time ready for him to come back match fit and ready to go.
On the positive side, we have brought the right lads in and this is the exact reason we brought bodies in. I didn’t envisage needing to make so many changes this quickly, but hey… that’s football, you never know what is around the corner, you just have to be in the right moment to deal with it, and we feel we are.
We have made two big signings this week. Central midfielder Ben Guest has had his international clearance come through and he will be a big addition. His high-energy box to box game is something we don’t really have, if we can get Guesty to chip in with goals and assist with the front men, then that is only a good thing.
A big one for us is John McGrath, it’s no secret that we have been on the look out for another winger who has versatility, and in John we probably have one of the best at these standards coming in with us.
A left footed wide man who can play anywhere across the front line or as a 10 will be huge and will add that extra bit to our attacking game. He is pacey, aggressive in the press and is happy to drive at the defenders with the ball causing havoc. He also has a great left foot and we will see some decent goals from him.
Again, this adds great quality and competition for places, John will come straight into the squad against Dudley Town and he can’t wait to get going and playing in front of the fans and linking up with the lads. I’m sure the 2 new lads will get a warm welcome and excite the fans.
The second half of the season we need to be a little more consistent and turn them soft draws in to 3 points. We are in a great position to pounce but we have to be taking maximum points rather than the draws that should have been avoided. On the flip side, squad wise now we are so much stronger than we were in August and September, it’s a huge difference, we have added extra pace and power all over the pitch and have great options to change things when needed and we can change shape during the game whenever we want and the bench will always give us them options.
It’s important now that we keep professional and our discipline has to improve dramatically, it has cost us massively in the first half of the season with 2 home defeats when we had everyone missing against Romulus and Studley, playing a team with the average age of 21, it cost us dearly, and then we have had odd draw for the same reason.
So, the lads have been warned that it’s not acceptable to keep the poor discipline and that we need every player available to achieve our goals.
It’s been extremely frustrating lately for Steve Burr, Myself and the coaching team.
We have to be professional and I’m sure the lads have taken this on board and this will improve immediately starting against Dudley Town.