Dover Player Retirements and Other Departures
-- Two of my players file their retirement papers. Right fullback
Glen Johnson had an incredible career: he played in 417 Premier League games, scoring 22 goals and adding 46 assists. He started out at West Ham in 2001 and had spells at Millwall, Chelsea and Portsmouth before spending the prime of his career at Liverpool. We picked him up on a free in July of 2018 but he was largely ineffective in his time at Dover, going scoreless over 33 games in two years. He received 93 caps for England, scoring once. A legendary career and he moves into coaching.
--
Cristian Rodriguez also retires after a wonderful career. The Uruguay international wore his country's jersey on 82 different occasions, scoring 13 goals. He started his league career at Club Atletico Penarol in Uruguay before moving to Paris Saint-Germain in 2005. He'd have a brief spell at Benfica before moving to Porto for six seasons. He'd come to England for the first time in 2013 to suit up for Chelsea and we were able to grab him on a free in 2018. In all, he played 33 league games for Dover, scoring three times and assisting on five. For his career, he played 309 league games, scored 52 goals and added 26 assists.
-- Fullback
Bob Harris sees his contract expire and leaves Dover. At one time, Harris was our largest transfer signing at £95,000 in 2016. He was an excellent player for us and an enthusiastic tackler at left back. He played four seasons for us, making 92 league appearances and contributing 7 assists.
-- We return two players to their parent clubs after taking them on loan last year: DC
Alen Krivic made 15 appearances for us last year, scoring a goal while DMC
Simon Woodman had trouble breaking into the lineup, only appearing in 5 games. Krivic especially has a lot of talent but never really settled in with our club.
Dover Players Returning from Loan
-- We have a slew of players returning from loan assignments: DR
Jackson Ramm comes back from Watford, DM
Shaun Halsall and AMC/ST
Roberto return from West Ham, AMC
Stuart Rogers is back from Luton Town, AMC
Aitor Zubizarreta returns from Gimnastic, MR
Frankie Taylor comes back from Charlton and DR
Rachid Diallo returns from Rayo.
-- Newcastle won't quit: now they offer me £10,500,000 for
Gianluca Bolis. I reject it again - Bolis will play a huge role for us going forward and I'm not even remotely interested in selling him. So far, he's been quiet and I hope he doesn't get upset about this situation.
-- PSG boss Laurent Fournier publicly expressed his interest in our striker
Gerardo Escobar. He hasn't been spectacular for us but I'm not really ready to give up on him quite yet. That said, if I find another striker in the transfer market, someone will have to go and the easiest to move would be Escobar so I'm going to keep an open mind.
New Manager Contract
-- Well, I guess I've convinced new chairman Chris May that I'm the man for the job. Only a couple of weeks after I thought I might be sent to the curb due to his takeover, May offers me a three year contract at a whopping £24,000 per week, a huge increase over my previous salary of £13,250. It's nice to be wanted!
Transfer IN
-- We are pleased to welcome 19 year old central defender
Thomas Andersen to Dover in a £2,300,000 transfer deal with Eredivisie champs AZ Alkmaar. The Danish defender is a driven individual (20 determination) and looks to have pretty decent potential down the road. My two main scouts both listed him at 2.5/4.5 and now that he's on the team, my coaches give him anywhere from 2-3 stars currently and all have him down for 4 stars potential. He speaks a number of different languages, including English, so I think he might be able to contribute off the bench already this season but I will consider loaning him out as well. A good prospect for the future. I have one more deal on the table for a younger DC that I hope gets accepted soon as well.