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Following the departure of 10 of last years squad I have been looking at the career records of 6 of our new signings all of whom have football league experience. I have not taken into account the 2 new first year pros Hutchings and Sullivan.

Ben Harding, age 28, 290 games, 20 goals.
Dale Tonge age 28, 210 games, 1 goal
Elliott Benyon age 25, 197 games, 49 goals I have not included his short period at St Albans FC as non league
Krystian Pearce age 23, 136 games, 8 goals
Courtney Cameron age 20, 15 games, 1 goal
Jordan Chapell age 21, 10 games, 1 goal

All of Alan Knills signings are very encouraging with a good blend of very experienced pros, like Harding and Tonge, a player we all know well in Elliott Benyon who always gives 100%, and 3 younger players, 2 of whom have very little football league experience but could prove to be extremely good at league 2 level given their pedigree.

Alan Knill in his recent video is clearly delighted and also surprised that he has been able to land Pearce and I am sure there will be very few teams in league 2 with 2 such accomplished defenders as Pearce and Downes.

Alan Knill in todays video has confirmed he is in for 2 centre forwards one of which he is confident in signing. Given that our strikers can expect much better service from the wide players this season I honestly think we could be in for a very exciting season particularly as for the first time ever we will be playing Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol Rovers and Exeter. So looking forward to Saturday.

I am never very impressed with historical stats. I.M.O. they mean nothing.
For example if you take the number of goals scored by these six players & divide it by the number of games that they have played you will see that all we can expect from them is 0.0932 goals per game, or 4.28904 league goals per season. Absolute nonsense isn't it? but mathematically correct.

Granted doesn't tell you much about defenders and midfielders but if a strike had a 1:2 ratio over a number of seasons, then you know he is a good player. If Benyon with his career ratio can get 15 or more goals we will know he has had a good season. The main point is we have improved the team and the squad, although a lot will depend on the final two piece being in place soon.

Couple of questions:

Does anyone know the length of Tonge's contract?
Is Pearce going to be No.5?

1. 2 years.
2. I guess!

That'll do for me.
#stats

Wodger I take your point about stats but what I think they do indicate is that Alan Knill has signed 4 experienced pros and 2 with plenty of potential.

In the case of Cameron you do not get a contract at a Premier League club unless you have real ability.Likewise with Chapell from Sheffield United a big club in the Championship.

My post was just to try and summarise our signings and to indicate their level of experience

The point about ability at Premier League level applies equally to Tom Cruise.

Matt.

Yes - you're spot on, Matt. Tom Cruise was well liked at Arsenal until he picked up that injury which threatened his career (didn't he play in a European match, or am I imagining it?). It's to his credit that he has battled through the injury and I think he may well establish himself in the team this season.

tomogull wrote:Yes - you're spot on, Matt. Tom Cruise was well liked at Arsenal until he picked up that injury which threatened his career (didn't he play in a European match, or am I imagining it?). It's to his credit that he has battled through the injury and I think he may well establish himself in the team this season.

Yes, he played the full 90 in Arsenal's 1-0 loss to Olympiakos.

wodger of awabia wrote:I am never very impressed with historical stats. I.M.O. they mean nothing.
For example if you take the number of goals scored by these six players & divide it by the number of games that they have played you will see that all we can expect from them is 0.0932 goals per game, or 4.28904 league goals per season. Absolute nonsense isn't it? but mathematically correct.

Surely as there are six of them and you have worked out an average, you would expect 0.0932 x 6 goals per game from this lot. Which would be 0.5592 goals per game. That would be 26 goals per season from this lot.
Not great but perhaps not as bad as the 4 goals you were talking about!
As you say...the stats are all rubbish anyway.

Had a shock when I read a line on the official site: 'Alan Happy with his Addiction'.

But a big sigh of relief when I read the line again: 'Alan Happy with his Addition'...

Gullscorer wrote:Had a shock when I read a line on the official site: 'Alan Happy with his Addiction'.

But a big sigh of relief when I read the line again: 'Alan Happy with his Addition'...

We definitely don't need another Martin Ling...

SEgull wrote:
Surely as there are six of them and you have worked out an average, you would expect 0.0932 x 6 goals per game from this lot. Which would be 0.5592 goals per game. That would be 26 goals per season from this lot.
Not great but perhaps not as bad as the 4 goals you were talking about!
As you say...the stats are all rubbish anyway.

Yes you are right, unfair to use the average.

Just had a look at our wiki page and it says we have an Australian forward by the name of Matthew Hawke. First of all is this true and secondly does anyone know anything about him if so?