Sat. August 12, 2023
Preseason Friendly
Dover vs. Celtic (Scotland Premier League)
Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, UK
Celtic are 47 time (!!!) Scottish Premier League champions and have won the league two years in a row. Once again, they’ll be taking part in the group stage of the Champions League. They only brought in three players during July and spent only £3.1 million, with the majority on Duisburg midfielder Louis Nijhuis. Their highest valued player is a striker on loan from Real Madrid named Ulisse Rubino. We’ve played this club in friendlies three previous times, winning two of them.
Pretty much a full starting lineup today, with only
Graham Allan trying to regain fitness after his injury so he’s in for
Gianluca Bolis. I plan on playing our starters for 60 minutes max today - we don’t need the injuries!
Dover: 4-4-2 Control
GK - I. Wilke
D - R. Gaucho, C. Contreras, R Hamon, S. Loucif
M - A. Bamba, N. Cairney, A. Roccal, G. Allan
S - S. Andrea, Chiquinho
Dover 3 - 0 Celtic
Goals - Shanon Andrea (8.2), Zoltan Bardi (7.3), Neil McLaughlin OG
Assists - Chiquinho (6.8)
Man of the Match - Shanon Andrea
Other Dover Notables -
Attendance - 10,795
A bit of a snoozer, as we dominated the first half but couldn’t get shots on target. We finally broke through with a 50th minute goal from Andrea and that sent us on our way. In the end, we held 53% of possession and outshot them 30-3 (9-2 on target). Uninspiring finale to our preseason but it’s a win. Oh yeah, no injuries either.
-- We close out the preseason 8-0-1, with only a single loss to Bayern Munich.
Transfer News
-- Velez in Argentina are looking to bring in
Carlos Guzman on a season-long loan, offering me £375,000 up front and setting a future fee of over £6 million for the defender only valued at a little over £2 million. I reject the deal - first of all, I doubt they’ll activate the buyout for that much and secondly, while Guzman is only a third option at left fullback for us, I need the depth here just in case of injury.
Injury Update
-- We were completely healthy until an accidental collision during an international game for
Gian Marco Fanfoni, where he picked up some bruised ribs. He’ll miss our opening game but should be fine in about a week.
International Roundup
-- Picking up caps are
Rafinha (Brazil U20),
Rafael Ramirez (Mexico U20),
Felix Hernandez (France U20),
Marcel Quade (Austria U21),
Salim Loucif (Algeria),
Manuel Perez (Mexico),
Lyubomir Kunchev (Bulgaria - one assist),
Zoltan Bardi (Hungary - two assists),
Saber Nasri (Tunisia) and
Giorgos Gesios (Greece - one goal). In the biggest news,
Rayane Hamon got his first ever senior cap, coming on as a substitute for France. Congratulations to Rayane!
U18 Update
-- The U18’s open the season with a 2-1 win over Arsenal’s U18s in the first round of the U18 Cup competition.
Gary Archer scored and we also benefited from an Arsenal own goal in the win.
New Coach Signing
-- Usually a coach signing isn’t worth mentioning but for some reason, I think it’s cool that I steal famed English international Steven Gerrard from Aston Villa and bring him to Dover as one of our assistant coaches.
2023-24 Dover Athletic Squad
-- We head into our season opener against Everton with 27 first team players. Here's a look at a breakdown of our senior team along with notes on our reserves, players on loan and key U18 personel. Preferred starters are noted in
bold.
GOALKEEPERS -
Mathis Imbert, Manuel Perez,
Ingo Wilke
IN: Mathis Imbert (Olympique Lyonnais - Free)
OUT:
Wilke is incredibly beginning his NINTH season with our club and is easily the longest tenured player here right now, turning 30 in January. Like fine wine, he’s getting better with age and is coming off his finest season yet. He’ll start more than half of our games for certain but Perez is coming on strong and will play more in his second year with the club. The Mexican still hasn’t learned English so I’m hesitant to give him too many games. Imbert is strictly depth and will play a lot with our reserves after I failed to entice other teams to take him on loan. Our goalkeeping is in great shape.
DEFENDERS -
Claudio Contreras, Carlos Guzman,
Rayane Hamon,
Salim Loucif, Saber Nasri, Rafinha, Steve Reed,
Renato Gaucho, Mohamed Lamine Yilmaz
IN: Saber Nasri (Sheffield Wednesday - £13m), Rafinha (Omonoia - £4.3m)
OUT: Kostas Zagos (Chelsea - £21.5m), Emmanuel Agbo (Chesterfield - Free), Andrew Stanley (Luton Town - Free), Daniel Traore (Everton - £1.7m), Hans Briers (Coventry - Loan), Mwemere Mutesa (AS Saint-Etienne - Loan), Sebastien Kraft (AJ Auxerre - £100k)
Once again, we return with all four starters from last year. All four continue to grow together and Contreras especially raised the level of his game last year. There are no weaknesses among our top four at the back. Saber Nasri will be a key addition for us, bringing great speed and superb intangibles and will likely get 25-30 starts as our third option in the middle. Yilmaz played well as a 19 year old and has earned my trust. Rafinha was a key signing after the departure of the versatile Kostas Zagos and Rafinha has many of the same qualities, mainly the ability to play both fullback positions. Guzman and Reed won’t play an awful lot - Guzman still has plenty of potential while Reed is simply depth. With Nasri and Rafinha joining our team, we’ve gotten better AND younger at this position over last year.
MIDFIELDERS -
Graham Allan,
Arsene Bamba,
Gianluca Bolis,
Neil Cairney, Helder Cruz, Gian Marco Fanfoni, Emmerson Harvey, Jose, Lyubomir Kunchev, Rafael Ramirez,
Andrea Rocca
IN: Emmerson Harvey (Promoted from Dover U18), Jose (Zenit - £16.5m), Lyubomir Kunchev (Promoted from Dover U18), Rafael Ramirez (FC Lorient - £5.25m)
OUT: Mancini (Released), Jamie Matthews (Released), Steve Ingram (Bristol Rovers - Free), Shaun Spall (Norwich - Loan), Kostas Kalfas (Genoa - £7.5m), Johnny Mardenborough (Released), Jonathan Gauthier (Perth Glory FC - Free), Marcel Quade (Savona - Loan)
As with our defence, for the fourth consecutive season, all four midfield starters return. We finally got to see Cairney settle in and what a sight it was, with 15 goals and 40 points for us last year. We’ll look for something similar this year, although that production will almost be impossible to match. Rocca continues to be solid alongside Cairney but we’re looking for bounce back years from Bamba and Bolis, as both saw production declines last year. Graham Allan was superb in the second half of last season and will be our main backup at wide midfield, with capable support from Helder Cruz, who joined us in the January window and 19 year old Bulgarian international Lyubomir Kunchev, a graduate of our U18 program. In the middle, we’ve added a world-class player in Jose, who will be brought on slowly at first but should still get 25+ starts over the course of the season. It’s an embarrassment of riches in the middle, with returning loanee Fanfoni, big prospect Harvey finally up for good from the U18s and newcomer Rafael Ramirez, who likely is the odd man out. Our depth is almost ludicrous at this position and our midfield is unquestionably a major strength of this club.
STRIKERS -
Shanon Andrea, Zoltan Bardi, Andy Broomes,
Chiquinho, Paul Moses
IN: Andy Broomes (Manchester City - £1.3m)
OUT: Giorgos Gesios (Hoffenheim - Loan), Orlando Scolari (Girondins Bordeaux - Loan), Rogelio Garcia (Werder Bremen - £9.75m), Wayne Rooney (Retired)
We lost Said Henni in January so he’s not shown in the “out” column, which means we are arguably weaker at striker than we were at the start of last season. That said, Henni was a third choice at best last year and with a trifecta of Andrea, Chiquinho and the ever-improving Moses, we are as deep and as prolific as any team in this league and perhaps in Europe. Bardi continues to perform well when called upon and Broomes will take over our fifth striker role occupied last year by a non-productive Wayne Rooney. I envision Moses playing a bit more than last year and he’ll start pushing Andrea hard for the main starting role opposite Chiquinho. We are going to score a lot this year and I’d love to finally break the 100 goal barrier after coming up one short last season.
RESERVE TEAM -
We don’t necessarily have any “reserves only” players this year but I don’t envision Mathis Imbert playing for our senior team and guys like Steve Reed, Carlos Guzman, Rafael Ramirez and Andy Broomes won’t play much unless injuries begin to mount. Therefore, the majority of their playing time will come at the reserves level.
U18 SQUAD -
GK Anthony Gardiner, GK Steven Potter, DR Damian Thorne, DR Adam Betts, DR Ben Lee, DL Shane Holmes, DR Takfarinas Madani, ML Felix Hernandez, MC Dominic Beard, MR Sean Woolley, ML Adam Hyde, MC Phil Whitbread, MC Gary Archer, MC James Campbell, MR Steven Miller, MR Terry Williams, ML Joshua Stokes, MC Jay Doyle, MC Warren Wind, AM Pete Smith, AML Matthew Neil, ST Jim Ryan, ST Eddie Robinson, ST Ben Patterson, ST Norberto Vazquez
We aren’t ripe with prospects like we usually are - Felix Hernandez (3.5 potential) and Norberto Vazquez (3.0 potential) are the best in this bunch.
PLAYERS AWAY ON LOAN -
DR Hans Briers, DC Mwemere Mutesa, MR Marcel Quade, MC Shaun Spall, ST Giorgos Gesios, ST Orlando Scolari
Mutesa looks like a great prospect and I hope he plays a lot in France. Spall will be gone after this year and I’ll likely keep trying to sell Gesios and Scolari upon their return in July next year. Briers and Quade are middling prospects at best.
Overall, I love this roster and my goals are two-fold:
1. Win the Barclays Premier League
2. Make the semi-finals of the Champions League
Next Up
-- We open the 2023/24 season at home, welcoming Everton to Crabble Athletic Ground.