The Lounge

[Windlesham Don]

Apologies for my tardiness in posting my summary of the MtM evening and thanks to Singapore Don for his quick summary.

I’ll probably break my summary down into subjects covered by the evening and break them up into a series of posts. Apologies in advance for clogging up the forum!

However, before I start I’d like to give an overall summary of the evening. Like many fans I was expecting a night of difficult questions and perhaps some friction between the fans and NA. That it turned into an upbeat evening for all was solely down to our magnificent manager.

Every time I hear Neal speak I hear a person who is honest, dedicated, and in love with this club every bit as much as we are. He answered every question honestly, without avoiding difficult subjects, and admitted where he had made mistakes. Throughout, however, he was always positive, always explained the reasoning behind his decisions and his desire to take this club forward shone through.

As fans it is easy to criticise when we only see 90 minutes on the pitch every week. On these evenings we learn the ‘back story’ and in my experience it is very hard to fault any action that NA has taken.

In my view, when Wimbledon and Neal Ardley part company it will be a very sad day…

[Windlesham Don]

1. Goalkeepers – Neal gave a comprehensive background to the selection of our new keeper.

Summarising, his view was that James Shea’s keeping had been variable over the last couple of years. His view was also that neither Shea nor Kelle Roos made enough ‘game changing’ saves. Several months before the end of last season NA had made the decision to try and move on and find a keeper to take us ‘to the next level’. Bayzo was not sure that this was the way to go and asked NA many times whether he was sure that he wanted to change keepers. However, NA felt that he had to go with his ‘gut instinct’ and so a comprehensive search of potential candidates was undertaken. Bayzo produced a 2 hour presentation of 15 candidates, which was eventually whittled down to 5 and then 2. NA mentioned that amongst the factors he was looking for were youth and presence (size and physicality). He also mentioned that trying to recruit a keeper on permanent transfer was difficult as good keepers demand a premium price. The top three candidates in the short list were all loans.

George Long was identified as #1 on the list. The club’s sports psychologist also works with Long and encouraged our interest in him. The deal took a long while to get over the line, but Chris Wilder was very helpful. In the last week before he signed for us Scunthorpe, Portsmouth and Northampton all talked to him.

Although Sheffield United could recall him in January, we have been assured that it is very unlikely to take place, so he should be ours for the whole season.

In training our back four have been very impressed and are happy to have him behind them.

Finally, NA had nothing against James Shea at all and in fact helped him get his contract at Luton.

We shall see how things work out, but NA is confident that we have got ourselves a very good keeper.

[Windlesham Don]

2. Lack of Academy Opportunities – Several questions were asked regarding our perceived failure to play any of our youngsters in the first team.

Neal pointed out that there is a vast difference between seeing kids play in the youth cup and seeing them up against League 1 adults. All of the gifted academy youngsters train with the first team and so NA can see close up whether they are ready for first team opportunities. For most of them it is far too early to put them in, as it would risk destroying their confidence (which is apparently what happened with Ben Harrison, although at the time we had no choice but to play him).

NA gave the example of Paul Kalambayi, our youth centre back who has looked a ‘beast’ at U18 level, knocking forwards off the ball at will. Paul trains with the first team and he was regularly getting knocked off the ball and turned by our first XI strikers. The coaching staff have had to put their arm around him and tell him that he is still doing OK. Alan Reeves is working closely with him, as he did with Ryan Sweeney, and we still have high hopes for him in the long term.

At the moment only Alfie Egan is liable to get significant match time this season, although NA feels that Toby Sibbick has a bright future and would be able to step in for Barry Fuller if required. The other youngster that NA highlighted as showing potential was Anthony Hartigan, but he is only 17 and still has to develop.

NA did mention that in all his career here and as head of Cardiff’s academy, the only youngster he saw who was mature enough for first team football at 17 was Aaron Ramsey – players that good are few and far between.

Finally, the subject of Will Nightingale came up and NA mentioned that he is still immature as a centre back, often being drawn out of position in his desire to make a tackle. This was down to the amount of time he has had out through injury and NA mentioned that he would benefit from 6/8 weeks on loan at a Conference side to get some regular match time. However, with Darius out injured that is unlikely to happen soon.

[Windlesham Don]

3. Transfers – I got the impression that Neal was disappointed at the fans’ reaction to our recruitment to date. He mentioned that we should be ‘dancing around our living room’ when we signed Kwesi Appiah. He belives that Kwesi and Deji Oshilaja are Championship quality players – it was also mentioned that Cardiff wanted to keep Deji.

In the market generally, we have to go for players who have struggled elsewhere. He quoted Reeves at Swindon, Elliott at Cambridge and Taylor at Scunthorpe. We cannot compete with the big clubs for in demand players.

As a rule players are attracted by money firstly, stature of club second and the manager third. It is only when players meet NA that we have a chance to persuade them to join us. Players only realise what a great club this is AFTER they have joined us.

Interestingly, this is the reason why we can attract players who have been with us previously – we would have been unlikely to attract Kwesi and Deji, but they knew what a great club this was to play for. Apparently, in conversations with officials from other clubs they have been shocked that we could attract a player of the class of Kwesi – let’s hope they are right!

Finally, of course, Callum Kennedy was announced as our new left back, to general cheers and applause. Callum was very popular amongst the group and always cheerful and positive – squad morale struggled towards the end of last season and so it was good to have him back. NA was also keen to stress that Callum was not released after our promotion season – it was agreed that he should go as he wanted guaranteed game time. NA feels that he has grown as a player and a person in the year that he has been away.

[Windlesham Don]

4. Last Season – Neal gave an amazing insight into last season from his standpoint, where once again his honesty shone through. He admitted that he made mistakes in his recruitment after the playoff final (and TBH with the list of new recruits reading Ryan Clarke, Chris Whelpdale, Dean Parrett, Dom Poleon, Sean Kelly and Tyrone Barnett it would be pretty hard to suggest otherwise!) He felt that he needed to get players in, but with the short off season after Wembley it was too hurried. Bearing this in mind he felt quite proud that we were never in danger of relegation. He had learnt his lesson and this season the staff began planning recruitment 3 months out.

Neal confessed that the entire squad were ‘dead’ for the last 6 weeks of the season. He tried to up the training, which had worked the previous season, but it didn’t help. Neal desperately wanted to finish above Franchise and the outside chance of this happening was one of the reasons he did not play a load of kids in the last games.

The squad also had some ‘niggles’ within it last season, which caused issues. An obvious problem was Dom Poleon, who arrived as the #4 striker but assumed he should be #1. His attitude was that he was at the club to score goals and others should do the defending. This caused resentment amongst other members of the squad (no names mentioned, but I doubt that Lyle Taylor was happy with this attitude as he was often breaking his balls to track back for the team!) “Selfless, not selfish” was Neal’s attitude and so it is unsurprising that Dom was shipped out.

Curiously, Tyrone Barnett was not mentioned – I think it was just left unsaid that everyone is happy to have him shipped off the payroll.

Another issue it seems was Dean Parrett, as a question was asked why he wasn’t played more. At Parrett’s end of season review he arrived armed with his stats of 10 assists and 6 goals and asked why he hadn’t played more. NA pointed out that 9 of his assists were set pieces and 3 of his goals were penalties. In Neal’s view he has the same problem as Poleon – he believes that as an attacking midfielder he doesn’t have to defend and so others need to fill in when he doesn’t bother to track back. In my view that are three ways that this can play out: 1. he fits in with the club ethos, 2. the team change tactics to suit his game, 3. he is also out of the door.

Although Tyrone Barnett wasn’t mentioned, Chris Whelpdale was and although not actually slagging him off NA did not have a good word to say for him. The comments went from ‘last season was difficult for him’, via ‘he needs to earn trust’ and ‘he still has a few niggles’, to ‘I’m not sure there is a place for him in the system we are going to play next season’. Damning or what?! My guess is that as soon as he is fit we will trying and get him off the payroll one way or another…

Finally, NA mentioned that last season the existing squad was not impressed with the new additions – it is not the same this season.

[Windlesham Don]

And finally from me…
5. The Coming Season – Last Christmas when NA had a good idea that Tom was going to leave the club started looking around for target men. However, there were none that we could afford and so NA decided that we would simply recruit the best strikers that we could acquire. With the arrival of Kwesi and Cody McDonald Neal decided to aim for a squad based on athleticism and high tempo. Deji also fits this bill.

The quality of the Kingsmeadow pitch will also allow more of a passing style and NA may favour 4-3-3 or 3 at the back next season (hence less need for a Whelpdale style of player).

NA still wishes to sign 3 more players: a striker, who is liable to be a ‘project’, and two central midfielders. One of the CMs should be a player who the fans will consider ‘first on the teamsheet’, although NA did not mention whether he had specific name(s) in mind.

And so that is about it from me for a while. There were plenty of other bits and pieces, but I think I have bored you enough for now.

COYD!!

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