Contract expiry

[Gudnisson Trotter]

we are bringing all player from last year it's not bad but we need new player .

We are cash strapped and under an embargo, improving the squad is going to take time.
The first thing required is to tie down all the regulars from the end of last season, which is what we are doing.

[Prufrock]

Top end champo and higher? Behave. Decent cover is Dorian, like, never a bad as some made out, but steady on.

[twilight]

I'm neither excited or disappointed with Dervite signing

[Nicko58]

I'm neither excited or disappointed with Dervite signing

Same

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

The morning Iles: busy week as the club "hope to advance talks" with Spearing and Morais, plus others – "Negotiations have begun with a handful of free agents, including ex-Newcastle United star Sammy Ameobi and ex-Bradford City pair Tony McMahon and Stephen Darby".

Club also "expected to confirm a two-year shirt sponsorship deal with gambling firm Bet Fred".

Oh and Sports Shield are back in the winding-up court this morning; request expected for second adjournment "as negotiations continue".

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Updated to include the signings of Dervite and Little.

Contracts until June unless otherwise stated. Corrections and clarifications (with citations) always welcome.

2017
RELEASED AT END OF CONTRACT
Lawrie Wilson, Reece Wabara, Lewis Buxton, Callum Spooner, Dean Moxey, Liam Trotter, Mark Davies, Tom Walker

LOANEES RETURNED TO PARENT CLUBS
Tom Thorpe (released by Rotherham), James Henry (released by Wolves), Chris Long (contracted to Burnley until 2018), Viv Solomon-Otabor (contracted to Birmingham until 2019)

NOT KNOWN AS YET
Jay Spearing
Filipe Morais
Max Clayton

2018
Mark Howard
Ben Alnwick
Mark Beevers
David Wheater ("with an option")
Dorian Dervite ("with an option")
Derik Osede
Alex Perry (presumably a one-year deal but not stated)
Jem Karacan ("with the option to extend for a further year")
Darren Pratley
Chris Taylor
Jamie Proctor
Conor Wilkinson (Granted permission to speak to other clubs, summer 2017)

2019
Ben Amos
Mark Little
Andrew Taylor
Josh Vela
Adam Le Fondre (with "an option", "appearance-based" according to the player)
Gary Madine

[BWFC_Insane]

Morais and the club have agreed terms - source: Morais' twitter.

[Bruce Rioja]

Morais and the club have agreed terms - source: Morais' twitter.

Excellent news. I really am allowing myself to get a little giddy now.

[BWFC_Insane]

Morais and the club have agreed terms - source: Morais' twitter.

Excellent news. I really am allowing myself to get a little giddy now.

Embargo in my view is still a major obstacle to having a squad of sufficient depth and quality. If we get Spearing back then we can name the side that finished last season. Not sure that will be anything more than cannon fodder most weeks in the championship sadly.

[dave the minion]

why would it necessarily be cannon fodder?
We finished 2nd, and in going about the process battered a few of the teams in and around us.
Top of league 1 doesn't necessarily sit directly below bottom of the championship in terms of quality and performances - there's always a lot of overlap.

I don't think we will have it easy by any stretch, and don't think we'll finish above half way, but I don't think the team that finished last season is going to get battered by 75% of the championship either...

[Bruce Rioja]

Morais and the club have agreed terms - source: Morais' twitter.

Excellent news. I really am allowing myself to get a little giddy now.

Embargo in my view is still a major obstacle to having a squad of sufficient depth and quality. If we get Spearing back then we can name the side that finished last season. Not sure that will be anything more than cannon fodder most weeks in the championship sadly.

I disagree. I'm confident that we'll be sound at the back. It'll mean looking to eek out the draw in quite a few games but I certainly don't think we'll be anything like cannon fodder at all.

[BWFC_Insane]

Morais and the club have agreed terms - source: Morais' twitter.

Excellent news. I really am allowing myself to get a little giddy now.

Embargo in my view is still a major obstacle to having a squad of sufficient depth and quality. If we get Spearing back then we can name the side that finished last season. Not sure that will be anything more than cannon fodder most weeks in the championship sadly.

I disagree. I'm confident that we'll be sound at the back. It'll mean looking to eek out the draw in quite a few games but I certainly don't think we'll be anything like cannon fodder at all.

I don't think we will get beat 4-0 but I struggle to see where enough chances or goals will come from.

[Nicko58]

why would it necessarily be cannon fodder?
We finished 2nd, and in going about the process battered a few of the teams in and around us.
Top of league 1 doesn't necessarily sit directly below bottom of the championship in terms of quality and performances - there's always a lot of overlap.

I don't think we will have it easy by any stretch, and don't think we'll finish above half way, but I don't think the team that finished last season is going to get battered by 75% of the championship either...

I hate to keep banging on about this but I think that the step up from League One to the Championship is greater than any other step up. That combined with the transfer embargo and our lack of money in general means that I suspect that we'll be fighting a relegation battle from the start. I hope that I'm wrong but I think that we're going to need to find better players than we had last season to properly compete at this level. We might end up having to rely on the biggest clubs' willingness to send us some of their brighter prospects without getting a loan fee in return.

[Bruce Rioja]

Morais and the club have agreed terms - source: Morais' twitter.

Excellent news. I really am allowing myself to get a little giddy now.

Embargo in my view is still a major obstacle to having a squad of sufficient depth and quality. If we get Spearing back then we can name the side that finished last season. Not sure that will be anything more than cannon fodder most weeks in the championship sadly.

I disagree. I'm confident that we'll be sound at the back. It'll mean looking to eek out the draw in quite a few games but I certainly don't think we'll be anything like cannon fodder at all.

I don't think we will get beat 4-0 but I struggle to see where enough chances or goals will come from.

I think we're entirely reliant on ALF for goals, next time out. I've mentioned this earlier. I truly fear for Madine.

[bristol_Wanderer3]

I think saying we are going to be "cannon fodder" is way over doing it:

PRO's

We already have a strong defence even at Championship level. The defence (Morais apart) have played most of their career in the Championship or higher. Wheater was signed as a Prem CH, Dervite with a view to helping us being successful in the Championship. Taylor has won promotion from the Championship a few years ago. The way Parky sets his teams up we will be hard to score against.

We only saw the Spearing, Karacan, Vela midfield for two games at the end of the season, but again that midfield has Championship pedigree. That miidfield looked like it could keep the ball than any other combination we had during last season. Derik, Pratley and Vela would indeed be a problem in the Championship imo. But with Karacan in there it looks a lot better. Of course Spearing still needs to sign up, but if he does we look ok here.

There is more to come. Parky has certainly done well enough with the players he has signed so far to suggest by the time the season starts we will be stronger in all areas. Ameobi looks like he might sign, maybe Cullen on loan from West Ham, who played for Parky at Bradford, and was their best player last season? The key imo will be whether or not we get the right talented young attackers from Prem youth sides. If we get a Tammy Abraham, a Sam Gallagher, or the equivalent of the Huddersfield version of Izzy Brown rather than the Rotherham version we could be challenging for the play offs. If it goes the other way it will be a struggle.

CONS

Goalkeeper. We have 4 of them, but all worry me. Howard looks the most likely to be consistently good for a long period of time, but he has his wobbles. Amos scares the life out of me. Alnwick is very adept at turning himself into 5ft 9in, from his starting 6ft. Turner might be great but is probably too young for next season. It is hard to prioritize this position when we are under an embargo and already have four players competing for it, but it worries me we will overlook this position and end up bemoaning lots of dropped points due to keeper errors.

Creativity. As things stand, we have very little ability to beat a couple of players and create a chance. Our main methods of scoring seem to be set pieces and Morais crosses. If this doesn't change we might become very easy to play against. Wigan seemed to suffer from this last season and got soundly relegated. Lets hope Parky can solve this issue in the next couple of months.

Scoring goals. How many will Madine and ALF score at Champ level? Will we get 20+ goals from set pieces again? Certainly every reason to worry that even if we get more creative players we wouldn't take the chances. Madine in particular has form for missing chances and not getting himself in positions to score. More strengthening required here.

So all in all too early to make predictions atm, but I think we will be competitive regardless. Our defence and midfield, not too mention team spirit are likely to be able to give us a chance in most games. The margins will be fine, but when it comes down to it I would bet on Parky to find enough edges for us to get to lower mid table minimum.

[BWFC_Insane]

Cannon fodder was perhaps the wrong phrase. I think we're doing well to get last years squad back together and it was an important thing to do in the main. We've got rid of the ones we needed to.

However, I think quality wise we're well under quota. I'd agree that the back four will probably be ok (noting DSBs concern about lack of pace) and defensively we'll have a strong midfield if Spearing signs on.

Up front I do think Madine and Le Fondre can be handy together sometimes. But feel we'll need to go with one up front sometimes and not sure Madine is the man for that in the championship.

Out wide and in creative areas we seriously lack talent to compete in this league. Not enough options going forward. I also think we lack players who can hold onto the ball and get us up the pitch. Which will be important in the championship where often we won't dominate possession and will be playing a counter-attacking game. There is no pace and no real threat running at teams as it stands. We were functional in league one, but I fear that we'll not have enough possession in many games this season to make our set pieces and physicality in the box count. Under embargo it may be hard to rectify this situation as the players with that quality who are affordable will likely be loans from the premiership - who usually require loan fees or wage contributions we are often barred from under embargo (see City lad we missed out on).

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Despite the (welcome) positivity from some fans and players, personally I think we need to acknowledge that this season might be tough – it is indeed a big gap between divisions; the PL money doesn't just strengthen the top half, it also inflates wages and expectations elsewhere; and we're *still* operating with tied hands over the embargo. At the moment, I'd settle for 21st, and build from there.

What I will say, and please don't take this as overly negative when it is in fact a positive, is that at the moment we seem to be signing players who would presumably be happy to knuckle down and stick around *if* we went down again. Now, as usual there's a balance to be struck between realism and ambition – I wouldn't want a team of jaded journeymen who'd meekly accept relegation as their inevitable fate - and it may be that we get the brighter sparks later in the window. They say good managers build from the back, and Parky seems to be doing that (re-signing trusted lieutenants and filling that right-back hole), but he's also doing a good job of signing the players he knows before looking for the creatives.

[BWFC_Insane]

Despite the (welcome) positivity from some fans and players, personally I think we need to acknowledge that this season might be tough – it is indeed a big gap between divisions; the PL money doesn't just strengthen the top half, it also inflates wages and expectations elsewhere; and we're *still* operating with tied hands over the embargo. At the moment, I'd settle for 21st, and build from there.

What I will say, and please don't take this as overly negative when it is in fact a positive, is that at the moment we seem to be signing players who would presumably be happy to knuckle down and stick around *if* we went down again. Now, as usual there's a balance to be struck between realism and ambition – I wouldn't want a team of jaded journeymen who'd meekly accept relegation as their inevitable fate - and it may be that we get the brighter sparks later in the window. They say good managers build from the back, and Parky seems to be doing that (re-signing trusted lieutenants and filling that right-back hole), but he's also doing a good job of signing the players he knows before looking for the creatives.

Indeed. Parky knows what he's doing. It is a question of whether he can get the right quality in with the restrictions we're under. I suspect not to be honest. If embargo goes, picture changes, but by the time it goes (IF) we might have missed the best players already.

[Worthy4England]

I'm not quite as convinced about our back 4. Maybe the passing of a year has affected people's memories, 2015/2016 the appearances were (leaving out a couple of one-time/two time apearees)

Derik (22)
Dervite (21)
Holding (26)
Moxey (33)
Prince (19)
Wheater (26)
Wilson (11)

We let in 81 goals (I know it's not all just about the defenders). So we looked more stable at the back this year albeit with generally a lower class of sharpness in the oppos attackers. Out of that lot, the hapless Mr Moxey has left the building and we have Beevers and Taylor. We also lost Holding, who by the end of the season was commanding a first team slot at Arsenal.

I think Parky has them better structured and organised than we were. But unless we pop some goals in, at the other end, I could envisage it being a long old season, because the team probably has more than a goal a game leakage in them. We kept 20? Clean sheets this season and still only got up on the last day.

[BWFC_Insane]

I'm not quite as convinced about our back 4. Maybe the passing of a year has affected people's memories, 2015/2016 the appearances were (leaving out a couple of one-time/two time apearees)

Derik (22)
Dervite (21)
Holding (26)
Moxey (33)
Prince (19)
Wheater (26)
Wilson (11)

We let in 81 goals (I know it's not all just about the defenders). So we looked more stable at the back this year albeit with generally a lower class of sharpness in the oppos attackers. Out of that lot, the hapless Mr Moxey has left the building and we have Beevers and Taylor. We also lost Holding, who by the end of the season was commanding a first team slot at Arsenal.

I think Parky has them better structured and organised than we were. But unless we pop some goals in, at the other end, I could envisage it being a long old season, because the team probably has more than a goal a game leakage in them. We kept 20? Clean sheets this season and still only got up on the last day.

Clearly we will concede more this season against better quality sides. However, I do honestly think comparison to the season we went down under Lennon in total chaos is relatively useless. Parky probably would have kept us up that season. Lennon was clueless.