[NoSkillz]

July 2021- Transfer Window



Retirements

None



Transfers OUT

AMC - Thierno Ballo - Sheffield Wednesday - £250,000

Thierno Ballo was unquestionably my most exciting signing last year: a supremely talented attacking central midfielder who had Premier League training (through Chelsea's youth academy) and played a position I valued greatly in my attacking 4-2-3-1 Gegenpressing system. However, he wasn't able to lead the offense as well as hoped and was only a marginal contributor in the first half of the season, a period of time where we struggled to score and stuggled to win. We'd change formations mid-season, employing a defensive midfielder and eliminating the AMC and that pushed Ballo into a Mezzala role in central midfield and then to the bench when he couldn't adapt. Getting £185k up front and up to £275,000 after future payments and clauses was impossible to turn down.

Perhaps the biggest news is who ISN'T on this list...

Top defender Sam Lavelle requested a transfer originally in January and despite getting an offer from Crystal Palace, he couldn't come to personal terms at the time. We kept him on the market and insisted on getting our full valuation of £200,000 for him. We had some offers between £120-150k along with a couple others that included clauses but I wouldn't budge. The window closed without a deal and Lavelle was pretty furious at first. Once I mentioned I'd definitely sell him to anyone bidding £200,000, he was okay again, feeling that was a reasonable amount. So he'd be staying with us until January and we'd try to move him out one more time before his contract expires next June.

We also had another controversial potential transfer offer to deal with - two teams were coming hard at young star winger Harvey Neville, with QPR and Crystal Palace seemingly trying to one-up each other in hopes of enticing me to sell. The bidding started at about £100k and kept going up, with me rejecting every offer. Eventually, in hopes of getting the clubs to stop with the offers, I set his value at £500,000, a figure I thought was high enough to scare everyone off.

A couple days later, Palace comes back to me with a non-negotiable £500,000 offer, with all the money up-front.

Holee shit!

I figure I can't back down now and after much thought, accept this unsolicited offer.

It wasn't minutes until I heard from a devastated Neville, who said he loved it in Morecambe and was very upset that I didn't feel he was good enough to be part of my plans. Whoa! Wait a second here!!! I *love* you my man but £500,000 is a hell of a lot of money! He indicates that he doesn't want to go and he wants me to cancel the deal AND promise that I won't look to sell him for at least another 12 months.

I think about it for a bit and decide to cancel the transfer and it barely takes a day or so for Neville to be back to 100% happiness. We certainly could have used that cash injection but we get to keep a very good young player...



RELEASED PLAYERS

DC - Di'Shon Bernard
DC - Tyler Brownsword
DR - Liam Hegarty
DM - Alex Kenyon
MC - Ben Hedley
MC - Owen Beck
MC - Lamin Jagne
AMR - Rhys Oates
ST - Jason Oswell
ST - Bradley Clayton

We've been waiting 12 months to clear a lot of these wages off our books so this was a positive day for our balance sheet. We had most of these players out on loan last season but the one name that stands out here is former captain Alex Kenyon. This fan favourite was a blue collar player without question - he was overlooked by all of the major clubs and started his footballing career with non-league clubs Chorley and Lancaster before finally opening some eyes at National League club Stockport. He spent one year there before Morecombe scooped him up on a free in the summer of 2013. Kenyon would spend eight full seasons with our club, playing 272 games, scoring 10 goals and adding 9 assists while providing leadership and stability in front of our defense. The fans will definitely miss him as will the boys in the dressing room.



Transfers IN

DL - Dale Sayers - £0 (Free) - 18 years old, England
DR - TJ Eyoma - £0 (Free) - 21 years old, Nigeria
MC - Lewis O'Brien - £0 (From Huddersfield) - 22 years old, England
MC - Paul Leach - £0 (From Manchester City) - 18 years old, England
MC - Greg Ganley - £0 (Free) - 18 years old, England
MC - Richard Baah - £0 (Free) - 17 years old, England
MC - Ming-yang Yang - £0 (Free) - 25 years old, Switzerland
ST - Austin Samuels - £0 (From Wolves) - 20 years old, England
ST - Robbie Shanley - £0 (Free) - 17 years old, England
ST - Ben Weaver - £0 (Free) - 17 years old, England

A few interesting pickups here and certainly one name that may be familiar to fans of Morecambe.

Our first transfer of the season was to bring Lewis O'Brien to Morecambe on a permanent basis on a free from Huddersfield. O'Brien spent last year with our club on loan and Huddersfield weren't planning on resigning him. We're delighted to add him to the roster - he is a natural box-to-box but can certainly play a number of different roles in the central midfield. The other big signing is to get Ming-yang Yang, a former member of Wolverhampton, into the club on a two year deal. Yang is a pedegreed central mid who seems capable of playing DM as well - that versatility could prove to be useful.

I'm perhaps most intrigued by the signing of Paul Leach from Manchester City's youth academy. This 18 year old is supremely talented (3.5 star potential) and I'll look to get him out on loan to further his development. That said, he's definitely good enough to feature in our side this year so that's an option as well. Sayers, Ganley, Baah, Shanley and Weaver are young players who developed at top academies that we're hoping turn into something while TJ Eyoma and Austin Samuels will provide depth for our senior team this year.

The one "big miss", if you will, was my inability to get imposing and pacy DC Ro-Shaun Williams from Gillingham. He was transfer-listed by request and we actually had a deal in place where I'd get him for a pretty bargain price of about £20k (plus clauses) but then a transfer embargo was placed on the team by their board, as they were in the middle of a potential sale. Of course, two weeks later the sale goes through and the new ownership took Williams off the transfer market and resigned him. I wanted him desperately as a replacement for Sam Lavelle, who likely would be leaving the team in January.



Loans OUT

GK - Lewis Thomas - Torquay - Free
GK - Louie Moulden - Dag & Red - Free
DL - Tristan Cover - Alfreton - Free
DL - James Morris - Tranmere - Free
DL - Dale Sayers - Blyth - Free
DC - Morgan Feeney - Aldershot - Free
DC - Samuel Nsumbu - Stockport - Free
DM - Matt Dolan - Torquay - Free
MC - Rafferty Pedder - Dover - Free
MC - Joe Pritchard - Tranmere - Free
MC - Richard Baah - Chester - Free
MC - Greg Ganley - Guiseley - Free
MC - Paul Leach - Dag & Red - Free
AMC - Lyall Reynolds - Solihull Moors - Free

I actually tried to move Matt Dolan out in the transfer market but there were no takers - he was making too much money and we were well over our wage budget so I was pleased to have Torquay offer to pay his salary while away on loan. All of these players had recall clauses in their loan contracts, just in case I decided I needed them.



Loans IN

DL - Lewis Gordon - £0 (From Watford) - 20 years old, Scotland
DL - Joe Anderson - £0 (From Everton) - 20 years old, England
DC - Reece Staunton - £0 (From Blackburn) - 19 years old, England
DC - Daniel Ballard - £0 (From Leicester) - 21 years old, Northern Ireland
DR - Aaron Lewis - £0/£1600 p/w (From Swansea) - 22 years old, Wales
DM - Jaimie Alvarado - £0 (From Watford) - 21 years old, Columbia
DM - Neil Furness - £0 (From Derby) - 18 years old, Ireland
MC - Sadou Diallo - £0/£1600 p/w (From Everton) - 21 years old, Wolves
MC - Tristan Nydam - £0/£3000 p/w (From Ipswich) - 21 years old, Zimbabwe
MC - Ethan Galbraith - £0 (From Burnley) - 20 years old, Northern Ireland
AML - Dion McGhee - £0/£325 p/w (From Sheffield United) - 20 years old, England
AML - Dion Pereira - £0 (From Watford) - 22 years old, Portugal
AMR - Sylvester Jasper - £0 (From Fulham) - 19 years old, England
AMR - Nathan Tella - £0 (From Southampton) - 22 years old, England
ST - Michael Fowler - £0 (From Burnley) - 20 years old, England
ST - Juanito Lopez - £0 (From Newcastle) - 21 years old, Spain

16 players in on loan!!!

Again, with us over our wage budget, we were forced to do whatever we could to add depth and quality to our lineup. The key names among the 16 include Aaron Lewis from Swansea, who can play both the left and right fullback slots with equal aplomb, Jaime Alvarado, a solid looking defensive mid, the midfield tandem of Sadou Diallo and Tristan Nydam and striker Michael Fowler from Burnley. Fowler, at 6'2", is a natural pressing forward and has every quality I desire in a striker, except for elite pace. The other additions are meant to be backups or depth - I was very direct with these loaning teams when it came to playing time expectations - I basically promised every team that these players would fit into a rotation at best as opposed to lying to them and saying they'd be key players. That meant missing out on a couple of targets but I much preferred this option versus having a mutiny against me mid-season when none of these guys are getting into the lineup. I was also careful to add clauses to all of these loan contracts that would allow me to send them back to their parent club if things weren't working out.



Final Thoughts Before the Season Begins

We set up a ridiculous stretch of friendlies in order to get our squad on the same page. In fact, after a couple of late requests came in from other teams, we ended up with 11 in total, forcing us to split our squad for much of the preseason. We had a couple of big teams come in, namely Manchester City (2-0 loss), Middlesbrough (1-1 draw), Newcastle (4-1 win!), Everton (3-3 draw) and Deportivo from Spain (5-1 win!). In all, we went 7-2-2 in those 11 contests to set us up well for the start of league play.

We decided to go primarily with the 4-3-3 attacking system we implemented in the middle of last year, with a DM, two MCs, two wingers and a lone striker up top.

Since we didn't renew the contract of Alex Kenyon, we needed a new captain and the easy choice was made to promote Andrew Tutte into the position after he spent last year as our assistant. We don't have an awful lot of veteran influence on the team as it's currently constructed so our choice for vice captain is newcomer Ming-yang Yang.

While our board and the pundits expect a mid-table finish, I'm shooting for automatic promotion...I want to finish in the top two but of course, any playoff position will likely do. I've been able to clear out all of the contracts I needed here in year two and also have a full compliment of new staff members, coaches, physios and analysts.

This is now my team, through and through and it's time to make the next step forward.

Our season begins on the road with a date against the bookies favourite to get promoted - Swansea City:

NEW OPENING DAY STARTERS NOTED IN ITALICS
GK - Rory Watson
D - Bailey Owen - Stefan O'Connor - Sam Lavelle - Jordan Gabriel
DM - Ming-yang Yang
M - Tristan Nydam - Andrew Tutte
AM -Carlos Mendes Gomes - Harvey Neville
ST - Michael Fowler