If you could keep three players…

April 26, 2009 in City

Who would they be? Personally, my three would probably be O’Brien, Furman, and Law.

Definites: If I had the choice of keeping any of our current squad I’d keep Evans, Arnison, O’Brien, Graeme Lee (despite his appalling passing!), Furman, Law, Colbeck, Daley, Thorne, and Boulding. That’s almost a team.

Probables: I’d probably also keep Kyle Nix, two of Bower/Clarke/Rehman and Steve Jones.

Possibles: I’m having trouble deciding on Brandon (I don’t think I’ve seen a fit Chris Brandon yet), Lee Bullock, and Paul Heckingbottom – but I wouldn’t be too upset to see any of them leave. Simon Ainge hasn’t appeared often enough in claret and amber for it to be obvious where his future lies, but he certainly didn’t let us down when covering for injuries to Arnison and Moncur. Taylforth has looked promising when I’ve seen him. Sharry is an unknown quantity to me, as are Rory Boulding and Leon Osborne. Jonathan McLaughlin, Matthew Convey, Adrian Bellamy and Louis Horne will presumably continue to learn their trade at VP.

Noes: Keith Gillespie showed no signs of being useful to us in the future and he will surely leave the club. McLaren has been a huge disappointment to me and (I think) is one of the players who has a non-promotion release clause. I woulnd’t be surprised to see him go. Mullin is expected back at Accrington and, while I wish him well, I don’t think he’s the kind of striker we need – we play better with the ball on the floor and if we could keep Furman and/or Law, we would have at least one central midfielder who knew how to use the ball. Barry Conlon, I guess, has played his last game for the club. Whatever the truth of his being disciplined*, his contract is up, Grimsby seem keen to sign him, and I can’t see him being brought back to VP if it is true that his indiscipline was the reason for his loan to Grimsby.

*I have heard several versions of the story, all contradictory. I have also heard several contradictory reasons for Clarke remaining at the club and Conlon being sent on loan. As none of my sources can agree on a line, I can only assume that they are all talking out of their behinds. Why people feel the need to make up stories or explanations for genuine events is beyond me. I assume it is a kind of attention-seeking and that they have self-esteem problems. Whatever. I would prefer the gossip-mongers to keep quiet, as I cannot trust any of them to tell the truth. All their stories are equally plausible and are told with equal conviction. All are contradictory, therefore a maximum of one version is correct. The rest are simply bullshit and only losers bullshit – so do us a favour and keep your imaginary world to yourself gossip-mongers. Thank you.