July Board Confidence Update
-- The board are very pleased with my overall leadership of the team. They are still most satisfied with our stature increase but slightly disappointed with the departure of ST
Simon Rideout. We made a profit of £14.64 million last month, most of that coming from our chairman's investment.
Manager Team & Stadium Status and Media Expectations
As indicated previously, my salary is almost doubled this year and I'm given a two-year extension by the new chairman. Tactical consistency is down (not surprising) as is domestic player bias - again, not surprising, as I continue to add a lot of international flavour to our squad.
TIcket prices are up again, this time around 6%. Our value has skyrocketed to approximately £54 million and our squad status changes to Ambitious. I'm consciously trying to move this to a more determined squad.
There is an incredible amount of construction going on right now, with a 5250 seat stadium expansion being worked on in addition to a youth academy and training ground/youth facilities improvements. Incredible!
Transfer IN
-- As indicated earlier, I was hopeful of getting a second young centre halfback signed and we just get word that a £2.5 million deal to bring
Abdallaye Kokaina to Dover from FC Bayern has been completed! The German-born Kokaina is only 18 years old but has a 2.0/4.5 rating from our scouts. He played 32 games as a 17 year old for Bayern's #2 team, scoring twice, adding 9 assists and coming through with an average rating of 7.60. I think I'd like to loan him out this year in order for him to learn English but I may keep him with our U18 squad as an alternative.
-- One of my major needs was at left wing/left midfield and after getting thwarted by greedy agents on two potential transfers, I finally get one to go through. And to top it off, it's a name familiar to Dover fans. 23 year old Frenchman
Arsene Bamba returns to Dover, only this time as a fully contracted player! We purchased Bamba from Metalurg for £7,000,000 - Bamba is a former Arsenal U18 who played three years with us on loan when we were in League 1. He was arguably our best player all three of those years, playing 94 league games, scoring 12 goals and adding a mind-blowing 49 assists during that period. He's a 3.5/4.0 player and he'll immediately jump in as a first choice player here at Dover. The other two players I was chasing might be better players but Bamba might be the best fit. Very exciting!
Transfer OUT
-- We move DR
Jackson Ramm out in a £500,000 transfer deal to QPR. Ramm has been with Dover since 2016 and played two full seasons for us, one in our League 1 winning season and also in our npower Championship promotion season, playing 57 games and contributing 5 assists. In the past two seasons, I've loaned him out to Championship clubs Southampton and Watford, where he was a backup player on both squads. He's not a Premier League quality player so this was an easy decision to move him out.
Loans OUT
-- New signing
Jonathan Gauthier accepts a loan assignment to Brighton. In reality, Gauthier will never be in my plans and I'm honestly just hoping he develops enough to sell at a profit in the next year or two.
-- I also loan out middling prospect ML
Steve Ingram to Brentford. I'm only keeping Ingram around because he's achieved home-grown status.
-- Juventus are starting to sniff around my stellar young left fullback
Renato Gaucho. They made a £1.8 million bid that was quickly rejected and I've issued a hands off warning. The 18 year old is a big part of my plans going forward. Of course, his agent tells me he's unhappy with his contract now but after a short talk with the player, he's back to being happy again.