Squad Update Ahead Of The New Season

We played out two games a few days ago against Sheffield United behind closed doors. The first of the two games ended 2-0 to the Blades after two goals in ten minutes, while the other game ended 4-0 to the Blades but that was against a much weaker Imps’ side.

I watched both games, but with it being pre-season and many people not watching it I won’t be giving my thoughts on the games. However, I will be doing a sort of squad update coupled together with some talking points from both of our recent friendlies, at Gainsborough and Sheffield United.

Goalkeepers

Starting with the goalkeepers, we currently have Carl Rushworth, Sam Long and Jordan Wright. I’d expect to see one of two of the latter leave on loan, and it will most likely be Sam as he is seen to have long term future as our number one and he is a potential big asset. Sam needs football and a year on the bench will not do him any favours, so a League Two or National League loan move would be perfect to help him progress.

Central Defenders

Moving onto central defenders, contracted to the club we have Lewis Montsma, Adam Jackson, Regan Poole, Joe Walsh, Paudie O’Connor, Hayden Cann. This is probably our strongest area on the field, and we’ve only added one player to it. Last season, three of the five central defenders suffered long term injuries, which on the face of it is unlucky. Jackson managed two concussions in quick succession, I’m no doctor but repeat concussions are dangerous and that meant he had to be out for a prolonged period to make sure a third wasn’t picked up, that may have resulted in memory and thinking problems. Repeat concussions are so uncommon, so to see it last season was just gutting for Adam. Again, Lewis Montsma was also incredibly unlucky with injury. He is not prone to injury and out of nowhere, he gets an ACL injury during what was probably our busiest point in the season. Joe Walsh on the other hand is injury prone, we can’t avoid that but when he is playing we are a completely different side. If our new medical team can work with the likes of Jackson and Walsh, we will hopefully see more of them next season.

Regan Poole was awarded the AllLincoln Player of the Season at the end of last year, and I don’t think anyone else came close. He was a leader for us at points last season, and his performances kept us up in my opinion. I’d expect him to carry on his form, as I know he’ll be hoping to win back to back Player of the Season awards, but seriously he will be key next season and the defence should be built around him, and I have a feeling Mark Kennedy feels the same. Finally, onto our new recruit Paudie O’Connor. I feel what we are getting with Paudie, is something like what we lost with Bozzie. From what Bradford fans have said, we have ourselves a fully committed central-defender that in simple is a bully. Last season, we rolled over too many times and we gave too much respect to the opposition but hopefully, Paudie brings that aggression and desire to go out and stop the ball going in the back of the net at all costs. I feel if he does that, he will soon become a fan favourite along with what should be his defensive partner in Regan Poole.

Full-Backs

For the right-back spot, we have two options and they are TJ Eyoma, Jay Benn. This is probably our most unknown defensive position on the pitch going into next season. We all know the quality of TJ Eyoma but he had a poor season last time out. I’m a much bigger fan of him at right-back despite his good performances centrally at the end of 20/21. It looks as if Mark sees TJ as a right-back judging by pre-season lineups and it might help him get back to his form. When Jay Benn signed I expected him to go back out on loan, but that seems as if it will not be the case. He is obviously one for the future, but he is seen as good enough to play now in a rotation role.

Despite losing Cohen Bramall, our left-back situation is looking very promising with the options being Jamie Robson, Sean Roughan. Starting with Robson, we saw at the end of last season what he can do when he is on form and hopefully he can continue that. There is a reason he was the replacement of Tayo Edun and the club rarely gets a transfer wrong for a player with a transfer fee. This could be Robson’s season to impress now that Bramall has departed and he should have the starting spot against Exeter. The other option is Sean Roughan, we saw Sean do so well but fall out of the team in the 20/21 campaign, he has struggled with injuries but it looked like he impressed at Drogheda and he is ready to be in the first team this season. I’m excited to see him back in and around the first-team as he is an academy player and one that has had trials with both Chelsea and Southampton, so he has the potential to be good for us but Mark Kennedy needs to unlock that.

Midfielders

The midfield is considered the most important area of the pitch by most fans, and last season it came under some criticism when Liam Bridcutt wasn’t fit, which was large chunks of the season. Our current midfielders are Max Sanders, Ted Bishop, Lasse Sorensen, Tashan Oakley-Booth, Danny Mandroiu. Our midfield ranks are light at the minute but another signing in that area would definitely change that, we need the Bridcutt replacement as we suffered without him last season. Max Sanders will hopefully have a big role to play next season after being an outcast under Appleton. Sorensen will be looking to impress after what was a poor season for him last time out and Ted Bishop will be hoping to keep fit as he has shown he can be a big player for us, which he showed in patches last season.

The two new signings are promising, Oakley-Booth is extremely highly rated by Stoke and that has shown in the amount of appearances he has in the Championship at a young age and his first few pre-season outings have looked impressive too. I’m not sure where Mandroiu will play for us next season, he usually plays as an attacking midfielder, but he has played a few times out wide. I would probably expect him to play further forward in a midfield three, so that’s why I have placed him in the midfielders section. Mandroiu excites me because of his career in general. Having interest from Celtic is really impressive and also to be wanted by MK Dons, you have to have be a good enough for this level and have potential to play higher and sell on for a profit.

Wingers

We struggled last season in the wide areas to replace players such as Brennan Johnson and Morgan Rogers, but hopefully this season we can get it right. Our current selection of wide players is as follows Anthony Scully, Charles Vernam, Hakeeb Adelakun. Starting with what we do have, I am happy with all of them. Vernam has looked good so far in pre-season and his season last year he looked very impressive. He might end up being the centre of what we do this season and hopefully he can score and create some goals. We all know what Anthony Scully is capable of from the last two seasons and that goalscoring form will probably continue throughout the campaign, however if we are to challenge higher up the table, we need Scully’s form to continue this season rather than dip around Christmas time like last season.

Onto Hakeeb Adelakun, he has looked in good shape so far in the pre-season games, and he almost feels like a new signing. There was no getting away from the fact he was very poor last season, but he came in when he wasn’t fit and the team performances around him made him look worse in my opinion. He played against MK Dons on Boxing Day and against Sunderland in January, and in both of them games he was one of the best players on the pitch but it was shortly after that we brought in the likes of Liam Cullen and Morgan Whittaker. He scored on the last game of the season, which will give people optimism, and hopefully with a new manager he can start fresh next season and push him Imps’ career on.

Strikers

Every time we hit a bad patch of form, most people always say ‘we need a striker’ but it feels like this season that is not the case. At the club at the minute we have the following, Tom Hopper, Ben House, Charley Kendall, Jovon Makama, Freddie Draper. Starting with the two youth lads I’ve put in there, Makama and Draper, they will most likely end up on loan next season but they have both showed good potential in games so far for us and if they do leave on loan and go two levels below and impress, they may be back with us for the rest of this season. Makama did very well at Gainsborough and it looks as if Mark Kennedy really likes him, as for Draper, we haven’t seen him in pre-season but he showed maturity last season to come into the team when we had no real goal threat and lead the line. He didn’t score any goals but he got in good positions and battled, as he ages we should see a real player in there.

Now onto the ones I expect to be in the first-team. Tom Hopper has shown his influence on team since his arrival and he is seen by many as one of the most important players in the side. He isn’t a twenty goal a season striker by any means but he improves the players around him and he is one of the longest serving players at the club and one of only a few to captain the side. If we don’t sign someone capable of scoring twenty goals a season, I expect Hopper to start and mentor the other young strikers. I didn’t know where to place Ben House in this article, he can play as a striker but he looked really good against Cheltenham last season in midfield. Ben will be really useful for us next season now that Marquis and Cullen have left and he should get a lot more time in team.

Now, onto the one you’ve been reading for, Charley Kendall. Well, what can I say he scores goals and a lot of them. He has already got one for us in pre-season on his debut, so if that’s anything to go by, we have ourselves a very good footballer. I am unsure if he can recreate what he did last season in League One but we might see a few glimpses this season as he develops under Mark Kennedy and is mentored by the likes of Tom Hopper and Anthony Scully.

There is a few players I haven’t spoken of in this article, mostly youth players such as Billy Brooks and Morgan Worsfold-Gregg. I hope Mark does start to give some chances to some of our brightest academy players and it would help him get the fans on his side too.

There is another player I’ve not mentioned on this list and that is Chris Maguire. I can recall calling Maguire “the late Christmas miracle” as he added our third against Sunderland to make it a hattrick but it all went downhill for him after that. I always liked Maguire. I liked his ability to get under the oppositions skin. He did get overly frustrated when we didn’t win and even confronted fans out of anger, but of course that wasn’t right and turned a big majority against him. He hasn’t featured in pre-season and reports are claiming that he is looking to leave and that he felt underappreciated by the fans. That is all I’m going to say about Maguire, as I’m not in the business of causing backlash to players because of reports that may or may not be completely true. If he moves on, I will wish him all the best purely because of that Sunderland hattrick.

Moving away from that, we look to be around two or three signings away from finishing 14th in my opinion, which would be a good season for the club after the struggle last season under MA.

As I’m sure you are, I’m now counting down the days until we play Exeter.

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For those of you that might not want to read the whole article here is a summary of our transfer business.

Out:

Brooke Norton-Cuffy, Lewis Fiorini, Josh Griffiths, Liam Cullen, Morgan Whittaker (Expired Loans)

John Marquis, Max Melbourne, Liam Bridcutt, Conor McGrandles (Free Transfer)

Cohen Bramall, Theo Archibald (Transfer Fees)

In:

Tashan Oakley-Booth, Carl Rushworth (Loans)

Sam Long, Sean Roughan, Jovon Makama, Charley Kendall (Returning Loans – Already Contracted Last Season)

Paudie O’Connor, Charles Vernam (Free Transfers)

Jay Benn, Danny Mandriou (Transfer Fees)