This week I consider midfield and attack for the players that will take on the "might" of Division 2 next season.
Obviously one midfielder picks himself. Darren Caskey is by far the best creative midfield player in Division 2 this season, the best free-kick taker outside the Premiership (and not bettered by many in that division), and surprisingly our leading goalscorer as well. There will continue to be rumours about him leaving but it is obvious that we must do everything possible to keep him. If he does leave the fee must be at least £1.5m as well as a percentage of a sell-on fee. In some ways, this is selfish. When Caskey looks back at his career he will see three seasons in the Second Division and wonder what happened. I think that as a club we need to be selfish.
If the worst happens and Darren leaves, then a suitable replacement might be Lee Hodges (that's the other Lee Hodges!). He's a fine attacking midfielder and chips in with a few goals. He's not going to want to play in Division 3 with Scunthorpe and whilst he is not up to Caskey standard, he might well fit the bill. I see no real point in going after him if we have Caskey, though.
Pardew's system towards the end of this season has been to play Caskey on the right, two defensive midfield players in the middle and either a winger or another attacking midfielder on the left. It's worked pretty well so we can assume that he's going to stick with that.
Peter Grant has stepped down a level and left for Bournemouth which leaves Phil Parkinson as the only person who can really fill that middle role. We've had Ricky Newman on loan in that position and it's clear that Pardew rates him so we may well see him again next season. I on the other hand do not rate him - if he was at the club I would see him as a backup rather than as a first-team player. To be frank, if he's not good enough for Millwall he's certainly not good enough for us.
The other player at the club who can play in that role is Neil Smith. If you've read my previous articles you will know that I don't rate him either. We're not going to be able to shift him so I think he should take on the back-up role. This will also force us to think about other ways of using throw-ins as an attacking ploy.
Other central midfielders at the club at the moment are Sean Evers and Jimmy Crawford. Evers has been a huge disappointment and shown no value at all for the £500,000 we paid for him. However, Luton fans still think that he is great and their club now has some money. I am certain that they would take him off our hands for the same transfer fee and so propose that we should sell him.
Nobody rates Jimmy Crawford (apart perhaps from Tommy Burns) and it is clear that he is not going to feature in the first team barring major injury problems. I think he could do a reasonable job in Division 3 so some club might conceivably come in for him on a free transfer. We will of course bite their hand off. Failing that I think that he has a year on his contract, and we will of course have a reserve team next season so he can go and watch them.
That will still leave a huge hole in the centre of midfield. We will need to go out and find someone to fill this. The most amusing signing I can think of would be to go and get Sean Gregan from Preston - that would really wind them up at Deepdale! There is absolutely no chance of him joining us though now that they have gone up - in fact the usual rumours are that he might join a lower Premiership team.
Hopefully our management team have a much better knowledge of suitable players for the position than I do. If Evers does go to Luton we could try to get Matthew Spring as part of the deal - he's a very promising young player and I'd be surprised if they let him go. He's also the one that crocked Murty a year ago (and got away with it, remember) so he clearly knows about hard tackling. Another possibility that comes to mind is Andy Hessenthaler at Gillingham. He's getting on a bit but is younger than Grant. I expect Gillingham to win the play-offs and I'm not sure that Hessenthaler would be good enough to stand out in Division 1 next season.
For a wide midfielder we have recently played Hodges, Igoe or McIntyre (and Butler on one occasion). McIntyre is now on the transfer list which surprises me a bit, but given his wages I'm not sure if a club will come in for him. I would play Hodges first and have Igoe on the bench with McIntyre as a backup.
The front two pick themselves. Nicky Forster, now that he is fit, is one of the top forwards in the division, and quite possibly the very top. Martin Butler is a tireless worker who brings the best out of Forster, sets a fine example for the rest of the team and who can clearly stick the ball away. He will want to get more goals than he has done since he joined us, but as long as he's helping create them that is not so important. He currently has a stress fracture, but such injuries normally take between four and six weeks to heal so he should be fit for pre-season training.
We need two experienced backup players. At the moment one would be Martin Williams but it seems that he might leave. I would give him a one-year contract and look to bring in someone else as well. The obvious candidate is Sean Devine at Wycombe particularly as we might be able to get rid of Keith Scott at the same time. If we are really ambitious we should look to get Jason Roberts from Bristol Rovers but I suspect that Ian Holloway would top himself before making that deal. We also have Henderson and Tyson as further backup. (I'm desperately hoping that Cardiff will take Brayson off our hands so I've ignored him.)
One other thing that I would have to consider after offering a few one-year deals is which contracts are due to expire in June 2001. It's no good having lots of contracts expire all at the same time as it creates too much uncertainty. Therefore I would look to renegotiate with some of our better players to avoid that problem. Obviously the first port of call would be Caskey but beyond that I can't say, as I don't know for certain what deals other players have.
Anyway, assuming that that problem is sorted out, and that we can make some of the sales I've recommended, next season my team line-up would be:
Howie
Murty, Polston, A. Williams, Robinson
Caskey, Parkinson, A. N. Other, Hodges
Forster, Butler
Subs: Whitehead, Hunter, Igoe, M. Williams, A. N. Other
Backup: Gurney, Casper, Mackie, Smith, McIntyre plus youth
players
New signings: Adrian Williams, one defensive midfielder, one
forward
Sales or giveaways: Gray, Primus, Grant, Scott, Evers, Crawford,
Bernal, Brayson, Sarr, van der Kwaak
Home . Columns Index . The Cube's Corner Index
News . First Team . Opposition . Reserves . Academy . Where Are They Now? . Kingsley . MadStad . Interactive . Links . Site Map