06 Jun 2019 12:54:08
Contracts expiring in 12 months:
Ben Osborn, Jack Robinson, Alexander Milosevic, Michael Dawson, Yohan Benalouane, Adlene Guedioura, Joe Worrall, Ben Watson, Luke Steele, Daryl Murphy, Liam Bridcutt, Claudio Yacob, Karim Ansarifard, Jason Cummings, Jorge Grant, Gboly Ariyibi, Jordan Smith
I'd renew Osborn, Robinson, Milosevic, Worrall. Good players, and have resale value if they have more than a year on their contract.
Assess Yacob, Ansarifard and Benalouane over the next few months. See if they deserve a renewal. Karim, in particular, I believe can settle and do a job for us. I'd keep Yacob all day, but it depends if MoN plans on playing him. If not, sell.
The rest, I'd list as available. Murphy and Watson and possibly Dawson, I believe will retire at the end of their contracts, so they won't be leaving, so I'd be happy to keep them on and use when needed - for better or worse, all three always put a shift in. The others, take what we can get, and maybe keep one of the keepers as backup.
06 Jun 2019 18:33:09
Think Bridcutt as been treated poorly ,Don,t know his character but not heard any bad rumours but was looking what he his ,an experianced championship player and seemed players who played in his position were no better or inferior,,somethings in football hard to understand .
CARLO
06 Jun 2019 23:30:34
I like bridcutt and soadani let's hope they get there chance
06 Jun 2019 23:35:56
Carlo, I completely agree, but Bridcutt is clearly not in favour. I’d have him in the squad, as he’s a decent pro. By all accounts, he has asked to play for the U23s every week, but sometimes a player falls out of favour. or more likely, other players just find themselves IN favour.
Whatever the case, I want Bridcutt to move on, purely for his sake. I appreciate him as a player Tom much to see him rotting in the reserves.
08 Jun 2019 12:27:04
Bridcutt does not move the ball quickly enough!
08 Jun 2019 14:02:40
I don’t necessarily agree with you RIE, but if that WAS the case, would you not agree that getting Bridcutt to move the ball quicker comes down to the coaching and tactical work? I’m not championing Bridcutt, at all, but he’s a good player, and if there’s a weak area in his game, this surely falls to the coaches to work at it with him. Same way as they’re working on Pants’ distribution. it won’t get fixed overnight, but that’s the whole point of changing managers surely. We can’t just write players off because of a problem in their game - if we did that, we’d have no squad at all. I’d love Bridcutt to get another chance in pre-season, but he seems to be finished here unless he can fight for the Colback gap in the squad.