New Signings for the 2023-2024 Season

[Wolborough]

Ash is an underwhelming acquistion who will not set the world alight. Perhaps on a par with Keating?

[GullsUnited]

It's very easy to criticise signings after the fact. Any **** idiot can do that (and look - you have!). With the possible exception of Mensah, all of those names were reasonable. I could go through each one but it clearly wouldn't get through your preconceptions so obviously there's no point.

I asked you to suggest a player that we should be looking at. You're correct that it's not your job, of course, and youre perfectly within your rights to offer no meaningful contribution to any discussion ever aside from the constant negativity. Just seems exhausting, that's all.

Couldn't be more right

[DevonBee]

Which team were they playing in that first clip - that is embarrassing. Had already forgotten the standard of football in NLS. Their defender makes Marshall look like John Stones of Man City.

Awful schoolboy defending which we can look forward to.
This is the standard unfortunately in this crap division .
With one man and his dog watching. Embarrassingly to be associated , and should never be here. But we are and we all know why

[jono_Gull209]

Ash is an underwhelming acquistion who will not set the world alight. Perhaps on a par with Keating?

Keating couldn’t dream of scoring 24 goals in a season. I’m not sure it’s an underwhelming signing. People bang on about signing these types of players every season and we do, people moan!

[CP Gull]

Personally, I’ve given up on trying to make a call on what represents a decent signing for us or not, especially after the last couple of summers. Take last summer for instance- was I more excited by the signing of Corrie Andrews or Aaron Jarvis? Well, I should say that that turned out differently to how I expected ! Likewise, some of the other players we signed that I thought would do well for us … simply didn’t.

Gone are the days where we can hope to sign players with a proven track record at a higher level - especially now we are at the level we are at. So, realistically we are having to either take a punt on other teams “cast offs” or we are trying to pick up players who have a decent track record, at the level we are at now - and you would have to say that Ash fits the bill based on 24 goals in a struggling NLS side last season. Would he be good enough at NL level? Who knows as he is largely unproven at that level. But at this moment in time, an established NLS striker at a good age and a decent amount of experience may well prove a better bet than a young Academy player released by an EFL side, with little or no experience of men’s’ football.

Time will tell …..

[SuperNickyWroe]

Personally, I’ve given up on trying to make a call on what represents a decent signing for us or not, especially after the last couple of summers. Take last summer for instance- was I more excited by the signing of Corrie Andrews or Aaron Jarvis? Well, I should say that that turned out differently to how I expected ! Likewise, some of the other players we signed that I thought would do well for us … simply didn’t.

Gone are the days where we can hope to sign players with a proven track record at a higher level - especially now we are at the level we are at. So, realistically we are having to either take a punt on other teams “cast offs” or we are trying to pick up players who have a decent track record, at the level we are at now - and you would have to say that Ash fits the bill based on 24 goals in a struggling NLS side last season. Would he be good enough at NL level? Who knows as he is largely unproven at that level. But at this moment in time, an established NLS striker at a good age and a decent amount of experience may well prove a better bet than a young Academy player released by an EFL side, with little or no experience of men’s’ football.

Time will tell …..

Exactly.
And 24 goals which basically kept them up.......
Not a particularly scientific event is it with players and yours is a great example!
For example, and no disrespect to him - Nico or Ali?

[brucie]

Saying that Johnsons signings looked ok before they played is quite frankly ludicrous. Its one of the main reasons that we went down - half his signings last year wernt good enough.

We are not going to walk this league this time despite what everybody says. Ash did well to score 24 goals last year in a struggling team but he was a big fish in a little pond. There will be far more pressure on him this year because the demands on him will be alot higher.

Theres a difference between realism and negativity - Ash is at his level and as illustrated by the clip I put up the defending is a joke. I still worry about our team though, we've got a lumbering, injury prone midfield and nobody who can run with the ball to create chances for the strikers. Our centre halves are all iffy as are our full backs.

Our squad players Crowe, Hanson and Macgavin are probably not even up to this level. That said the majority of the teams are bloody awful so surely we should be in the lay offs at least.

[GullsUnited]

Saying that Johnsons signings looked ok before they played is quite frankly ludicrous. Its one of the main reasons that we went down - half his signings last year wernt good enough.

We are not going to walk this league this time despite what everybody says. Ash did well to score 24 goals last year in a struggling team but he was a big fish in a little pond. There will be far more pressure on him this year because the demands on him will be alot higher.

Theres a difference between realism and negativity - Ash is at his level and as illustrated by the clip I put up the defending is a joke. I still worry about our team though, we've got a lumbering, injury prone midfield and nobody who can run with the ball to create chances for the strikers. Our centre halves are all iffy as are our full backs.

Our squad players Crowe, Hanson and Macgavin are probably not even up to this level. That said the majority of the teams are bloody awful so surely we should be in the lay offs at least.

Yet more negativity, I've been on this forum for a while now I honestly can't recall a time where you've actually been positive.

We have no idea how this group of players will perform in the NLS.

I have all faith that Ash will be a decent signing, did well in a struggling team that didn't create many chances, every chance he replicates last year form and then some.

Have a little faith once in a while and it might do you some good

[Cheddargull]

Awful schoolboy defending which we can look forward to.
This is the standard unfortunately in this crap division .
With one man and his dog watching. Embarrassingly to be associated , and should never be here. But we are and we all know why

The team in the clip Mellow refers to is not a NLS side, it was Calne Town of the Western League.

[Cheddargull]

We are not going to walk this league this time despite what everybody says. Ash did well to score 24 goals last year in a struggling team but he was a big fish in a little pond. There will be far more pressure on him this year because the demands on him will be alot higher.

But he will still be in the same "little pond" but with better players like Dawson and Stobbs around him so for our purposes in the NLS this is as good a signing as you can expect.

[CourtierGull]

At this moment in time we’re going into next season with a solid goalkeeper, a proper winger and 2 proven goal scorers. Add to that moxey lapslie and asa although not always available, definitely better than NLS. Out of the ‘squad players’ I think 1 or 2 are gonna turn it around this year but that’s me being optimistic, Crowe and Mcgavin are my picks. Let’s see who else signs along with a couple good loans and we may just be starting this season with a better squad than we started last year.

[exilegull]

Personally I think it would be insanity to pass on the opportunity to sign a player that has just scored 24 goals for a struggling team in the same division you are going to playing in.

[desperado]

I agree - I'm not sure who/what standard of player exactly people are expecting us to sign ?! We are in the National South !
With full time training, playing in a hopefully winning team with better players I'm looking for 34 goals not 24 -
Only kidding - another 24 will do just fine
Bradders !

[happytorq]

Saying that Johnsons signings looked ok before they played is quite frankly ludicrous. Its one of the main reasons that we went down - half his signings last year wernt good enough.

I really didn't want to do this, but here we go.

Andrews - scored 8 goals in 10 at Aldershot on loan previous season. Looked a decent signing - we'd been saying for ages that we needed a striker in the 26-28 age range (ie in his prime)
Jarvis - information we had to hand on him was that he was pretty talented but not likely to be prolific. This one seemed 50/50 to me
Hanson - captain at a young age at a NL club. Ok, they went down but his was routinely their man of the match. We had a right to expect him to do ok
McGavin - we knew he had ability (albeit at another poor side)
Marshall - exactly the kind of non-nonsense defender we'd been crying out for. Arguably in a Guy Branston mould. Sadly nobody could predict what kind of liability he'd be
Wyatt - starting left back in Sutton's title winning side. had played 16 games in League 2. Seemed like he'd be a steady player (And generally, he was)
Crowe - England youth player, so can be assumed to have ability.

I don't know of anybody who can honestly say that at the time, they felt these signings weren't good enough. OK, they turned out to be underwhelming aside from Jarvis, but if you're sitting there telling me that you know they'd struggle from day one then you're clearly in the wrong job; you should be a football manager or chief scout somewhere. You know, instead of hiding under bridges jumping out at travellers all day

We are not going to walk this league this time despite what everybody says. Ash did well to score 24 goals last year in a struggling team but he was a big fish in a little pond. There will be far more pressure on him this year because the demands on him will be alot higher.

I don't know about 'walk the league', but the team that is being built already suggests a position of strength. We've kept many of the side that were a decent NL team in the last 8 games of the season - there are of course still positions of concern.

Theres a difference between realism and negativity - Ash is at his level and as illustrated by the clip I put up the defending is a joke. I still worry about our team though, we've got a lumbering, injury prone midfield and nobody who can run with the ball to create chances for the strikers. Our centre halves are all iffy as are our full backs.

We need at least one centre-half (I think Moxey is ideal on the left side of a back 3 but I have niggling doubts on Donnellan). We need a left sided defender (especially if Martin doesn't sign/isn't fully fit from day one). We probably need another winger-type with some pace, and we need a more creative sort of midfielder. This would be problematic if we were starting next season tomorrow, but...we have almost 3 months. If there are no further acquisitions between now and then I might even join you on the HMS Eeyore.

I don't know how Bradley Ash will do. Nobody does, that's why it's fun (remember fun, brucie?). At the very least, taking 24 goals away from our potential rivals has some value. He might struggle, or we could be raging in 12 months that we didn't give him a longer deal as he swans off to, I dunno, Exeter. Saying "he's at his level" could well be true but - sadly - we're at his level.

Our squad players Crowe, Hanson and Macgavin are probably not even up to this level. That said the majority of the teams are bloody awful so surely we should be in the lay offs at least.

I predict Crowe will have a decent season. No idea on the other 2 - I don't think you become terrible overnight, but that's why you build a squad anyway.

[DevonBee]

The team in the clip Mellow refers to is not a NLS side, it was Calne Town of the Western League.

Are you telling me the standard to expect is going to be considerably higher ?