Sheridan Gets To Work

Two strikers to come in I reckon.

Vassell can play out wide/up front. Lecointe can play in midfield/up front. Feeney probably won't be retained imo. I reckon one target man and one finisher to come in before transfer deadline day in August.

Angry of Mayfair wrote:

Hugh Watt wrote:

I never understood why we needed 3 keepers last season. Especially when Gilmartin Cleary shite and Chenoweth unlikely to be much good

If we had a reserve team i would understand it but it was another gem from Fletcher. Giving a new contract to Ollie then went out and bought Rene straight afterwards whilst having Jake Cole. What a waste of money that was.

I think the idea might have been to get a fee for Jake, or am I giving clueless too much credit? Transfer listing a player in Chadwick/Gilmartin instance doesn't mean we are expecting a fee it's more like telling the footballing that they aren't in sheridans plans and are available. I don't know if its as sime as the other team simy assuming his contract

Nobody pays transfer fees in the lower leagues anymore.However Argyle by transfer listing Chadwick and Gilmartin are looking for clubs to take on the contract that still remains,rather than Argyle paying off the contract and releasing them.Chadwick has another year left apparently.So our resident hotshots Chadwick and Feeney could still be here next season.Plus LeCointe, Vassel and Harvey.Plus ca change.

Czarcasm wrote:

Where do people get this idea that transfer-listing Chadwick means we are expecting to get a fee for him? All transfer-listing a player means is that while he may still be under contract, we don't want him any more, and are circulating his name to other clubs.

If anyone is stupid enough to come in for him, it'll most certainly be a free transfer.

Exactly - he still has a deal so we can't release him like the others. That is what getting a good agent does for a player.

Putting him on the transfer list lets him know he is surplus to requirements, and lets other clubs know they are free to come in and discuss terms with him.

All we are looking to do is get him off the wage bill and out now. But even giving him away for free, I can't see him getting equal terms as he is on at Argyle.

It will be up to Nick if he wants to play reserve team football with the odd sub cameo, or wants to drop down to the conference, take say a 30% pay cut and get back into regular first team football. He is perfectly entitled to see his contract here out, and for all we know, may actually believe he is the best striker at the club and it is only a matter of time until everyone realises it.

Exactly. Getting money in a fee isn't the aim, it's getting him off the wagebill.

I reckon our best hope is to offer him out on loan to all clubs whilst agreeing to pay perhaps 30% of his wages if anyone takes him on. That way at least 70'% of his wages are free for re-allocation.

Are his wages that high though? He was on a short contract at Stockport earning not a great deal I would think. Would we really have had to offer him an awful lot more than Stockport were paying him to get him back in the football league?

greensleeves wrote:

Sheridan has released five players none of whom regularly featured in the first team so basically he has retained the same underperforming squad that has just finished 89th in the whole football league.Carl Fletcher was lambasted for not clearing the decks and starting afresh,yet Sheridan is doing exactly the same.There are fifteen players being retained or offered new contracts.Same old same old.

We were midtable form under Sheridan (although that team included a good wedge of loan players) so we shouldn't be 'that' negative about the current team. You've got to remember we were averaging under a point a game with Fletcher!

Half of the retained players are those who were already under contract. Sheridan probably doesn't want to waste any budget paying them off. If they had been out of contract it's possible that the likes of Berry, PCH and Blanchard would have been let go. However maybe Sheridan thinks he can get more out of them if he can get them some proper training, especially considering that Berry and PCH are still quite young and inexperienced. Others on the retained list are young, probably on smallish wages, and may only be offered 6 months deals with a 'shape up or ship out' motivation (e.g. Vassell and LeCointe). You could maybe make an argument about releasing Wotton and Gurreri, but they are borderline cases for me and I'm not too concerned about them being given another year.

Lets not forget that Sheridan has already disposed of many of Fletcher's signings. Williams and the Fireman were dispensed with soon after Sheridan's arrival. He's now removing Feeney and Chadwick and the injury-prone Lowry. He's also sorting out the surplus keeper situation created by Fletcher. The real test is whether he can bring in 4 or 5 players as replacements for the departed who can turn a midtable team into a play off team.

John Certainly not messing around with the latest announcements. I feel he must want to get his backroom staff in place first aswell as preseason fixtures before he goes off on his well deserved 3-4 week Holiday.

as for transfers coming in (pending on others players leaving that is) i think the midfield will be strengthen the most with 2 strikers coming in. I had a change of thought over Mark Crossley being number 2 keeper i believe another keeper will be signed on top.

swampy wrote:

Are his wages that high though? He was on a short contract at Stockport earning not a great deal I would think. Would we really have had to offer him an awful lot more than Stockport were paying him to get him back in the football league?

He had us over a barrel when he signed.
1. He was in cracking form following his successful loan spell
2. Argyle were desperately rebuilding the first team to stay up. Top of the list was experience and physical presence up front.
3. The fans knew this and there was a lot of expectation and pressure on the club to make the transfer happen.
4. There was a sizable delay in between transfer talks opening and being concluded.


Now being that his agent managed to negotiate this clause, and being that there was pressure to get Chadwick signed up, and being that we were in dire straits on the pitch, and being that the talks were lengthy - I think it is fair to assume Chadwick and his agent pulled for every inch they could get out of Argyle.

Aside from Purse and Bhasera, and maybe Wotton, I think Chadwick might even be the top earner at the club - a senior player in every sense of the word!

FTB with a central midfield quartet of Hourihan,Young,Wotton and Guerrei,there is not much wiggle room to bring in many more,else we go down the road of a bloated playing squad again.Same with strikers.We currently have on the books LeCointe,Vassel,Harvey,Chadwick,Feeney.Again not much wiggle room.I would like to see quality in the side not quantity,and there doesn't seem much quality there at the moment.

greensleeves wrote:

FTB with a central midfield quartet of Hourihan,Young,Wotton and Guerrei,there is not much wiggle room to bring in many more,else we go down the road of a bloated playing squad again.Same with strikers.We currently have on the books LeCointe,Vassel,Harvey,Chadwick,Feeney.Again not much wiggle room.I would like to see quality in the side not quantity,and there doesn't seem much quality there at the moment.

Chadwick has been listed, Feeney isn't having his contract renewed. So that leaves us with MLC, Vassell and Harvey up front, three players who are all under 20 and probably therefore on minimal wages. Scope for two more strikers there I think.

Wotton has been playing in defence this season, which is presumably where he will remain next season. Sheridan is getting rid of Lowry and Charles, two senior players on presumably decent wages. There's room there for 2 midfielders/wingers in there, considering that Young is only 20. The 'retained' list is 15 players, including plenty of youngsters. Most squads at this level are 20/22 players, so there is room to bring in at least 4/5 players. The form under Sheridan was midtable, so the correct 4/5 new first team players should get us into the play offs.

I disagree regarding the retained players or rather those offered the chance to stay as I said earlier and has been repeated above. These players were the core of the almost playoff form following Sheridan's arrival. The problem before for me was the lack of leadership etc. from the managers chair. Once a real manager was employed then their talents came more to the fore. The ones who still didn't perform are for the chop and they played little part in the rise in form which explains why they are going. This says to me that if you are shit already then no matter who is in charge you will remain shit. If you have some talent and are given the right guidance then you will improve dramatically which the others did.

Have to disagree,the loan players made the difference not the ones in situ.The midfield was ineffective all season.The Young/Hourihane partnership never worked at all despite being tried by both Fletcher and Sheridan.In the end Sheridan had to put an extra central midfielder in there to stop the midfield being over run.As for Vassell Le Cointe and Harvey,neither made an impact at all .We need players who are tried and tested at this level especially in attack.No reason to rush out and buy a season ticket looking at that nucleus of a squad for next season.

I'm sorry but without Banton we'd have gone down.

Going back to your previous post Greensleeves I agree it's the quality that is important for new signings, the 4 or 5 brought in must be players who are going to be more or less first choice picks, ie. better than what we have at present. That's going to be 2 strikers and 2 midfielders for sure plus another defender and this providing all those offered new terms accept them. Several of the fringe youngsters should be stronger and more capable of filling in when called on next season and a squad of 20 to 22 supplemented by the odd loan signing ought to suffice. But as you say better less bodies but higher quality.

Banton was the one scoring when the others weren't that's true but he didn't play all by himself. The Defence had to keep enough out for his goals to prove winners for a start otherwise his efforts would have been for nothing. Somebody had to give him a chance to score and although he made a few himself he didn't do that all alone either. I know it's hard to see much good at Argyle for a while but there were enough players that improved. Tell me Hourihane didn't out of all recognition when made Captain is one. It wasn't all down to the loanees.

Same mistake being made as last season?
I don't think we will be much (if any) higher up the league with this core, unless of course they really do only need better coaching. Personally speaking, some of the mistakes and play on show was quite embarassing, as it was just the basics which should of been sorted out when they were younger

Given the list, I believe we'll get five new faces in and three loan deals - one of them being a season long loan.

I just hope we don't have this last day of the season signing again, I know the better loan players leave it until the last minute but you just can't seem to do a decent pre season in ths league because half your players haven't turned up yet, I can't wait to get out of his dogshit league.

Under our Championship seasons, we used 22 players and 24 players respectively.

Last year we used nearly 50.

I don't think the loan players v current players argument is as clear cut as is expounded in some of the above posts.Certainly Sheridan would have had something to do with the improvement in form,especially in terms of defensive organisation and discipline but there is no doubt that the arrival of players such as Branston,Bryan,Reid and Banton provided a boost as well.The same thing happened last season to a degree-results improved vastly after the intake of players post administration under Fletcher.Sheridan saw that as things stood,Argyle were doomed and took swift action to bring in players fit for purpose and credit to him for that-the improvement in the form of Hourihane,Bhasera etc was a very pleasing and important by product of his management and the combination of this and the obviously superior organisation,was a major factor in Argyle's survival.Bit of both really,the key lesson to be learned is to get the recruitment right this summer and not have to rely on another batch of loanees during the long season ahead.

Hi guys!
I guess this is a good place to hide away my first post!
I've been reading ATD for over a year, trying (and often failing) to keep up with the PAFC soap opera.
IMO there have been a lot of constructive debates here and I think more newbies will come,once they get over the ingrained propaganda that ATD is just a collection of crazies.
Pasoti's becoming more unreadable day by day. There's more than a whiff of cronyism and the Site Manager & Mods' relentless defence of JB & Akkeron's plans is quite remarkable.I don't know any of those people but am aware that some of them fought really hard for the best interests of the club in the Admin time. But I've seen it time & time again at work, how easily people can 'turn' when a few perks or power rewards are on offer. Integrity's a key word.
I'll still be rooting for Argyle next season.In fact I've never been more desperate for a promotion. It's incredible how many Argyle fans would accept mid-table but surely we can't accept this league any longer. Just maybe JS can do it for us & as the budget's unlikely to be huge,I'll just look to Yeovil who've got to the brink of the Championship on pennies.
I'm interested to know whether you guys would like like to see Argyle as a trust-run club further down the line, based loosely on the German model rather than perhaps our friends 'up the track'. And what about Portsmouth? There seems to be a big feelgood factor there & an expectation of crowds bigger than last season. Maybe they feel they've got their club back.
Anyway I'm sitting at home in Cambridge recovering from flu (back to work tomorrow) so apologies for rambling.
First Argyle match( at age 6 ),home to Middlesboro' March 1968 (lost 0-1, relegation season) . Maybe it was the same first match as SS68

Welcome Scratchwood to ATD!

good morning Scratchwood.
Welcome to the free world.

Scratchwood wrote:

Hi guys!
I guess this is a good place to hide away my first post!
I've been reading ATD for over a year, trying (and often failing) to keep up with the PAFC soap opera.
IMO there have been a lot of constructive debates here and I think more newbies will come,once they get over the ingrained propaganda that ATD is just a collection of crazies.
Pasoti's becoming more unreadable day by day. There's more than a whiff of cronyism and the Site Manager & Mods' relentless defence of JB & Akkeron's plans is quite remarkable.I don't know any of those people but am aware that some of them fought really hard for the best interests of the club in the Admin time. But I've seen it time & time again at work, how easily people can 'turn' when a few perks or power rewards are on offer. Integrity's a key word.
I'll still be rooting for Argyle next season.In fact I've never been more desperate for a promotion. It's incredible how many Argyle fans would accept mid-table but surely we can't accept this league any longer. Just maybe JS can do it for us & as the budget's unlikely to be huge,I'll just look to Yeovil who've got to the brink of the Championship on pennies.
I'm interested to know whether you guys would like like to see Argyle as a trust-run club further down the line, based loosely on the German model rather than perhaps our friends 'up the track'. And what about Portsmouth? There seems to be a big feelgood factor there & an expectation of crowds bigger than last season. Maybe they feel they've got their club back.
Anyway I'm sitting at home in Cambridge recovering from flu (back to work tomorrow) so apologies for rambling.
First Argyle match( at age 6 ),home to Middlesboro' March 1968 (lost 0-1, relegation season) . Maybe it was the same first match as SS68

You must have amazing powers of self control , to read this forum for a year and not comment

What are your thoughts on Brent's HHP development plans ?