The stats shown above take into account all competitions with our senior team and include everyone who played at least one game for the big club this past season.
GK
--
Ingo Wilke continues to perform beyond his "skill level" and arguably had his finest season yet, with a scintillating 7.10 average rating and a 7.13 rating in league games. He's been a great servant to this club and he's approaching Oliver Nicholas' club record for league games played. That said, we picked up a keeper for the future (and present) in Mexican international
Manuel Perez. I went relatively easy on Perez, giving him 1/4 of our 60 total games as he assimilates into the club. He's still attempting to learn English but he was superb when called upon this year. I envision more of a balanced split next year and I'm thinking that Perez will eventually take over the starting job when he finally learns the language.
D
-- Overall, we went with the exact same starting back four and all of them continue to grow with each other. On the outside,
Salim Loucif continues to grow into his leadership role and he will be a top candidate to take over our captaincy next year. On the other side, another young leader continues to get better in
Renato Gaucho - he's been starting since he was 18 and just over from Brazil and he's coming off his finest season yet. We made a splash to add a quality backup in
Kostas Zagos and he got 24 starts among his 34 appearances and was excellent when called upon. Youngsters
Carlos Guzman and
Steve Reed are decent depth players. We are in great shape at fullback.
-- Our central defence continues to be effective and I expect
Rayane Hamon to be highly sought after in the offseason by bigger clubs. He's got good size and speed and when he went down for over a month due to injury, our back four suffered. Surprisingly enough, Hamon didn't score a goal all year despite being an excellent header of the ball.
Claudio Contreras is starting to live up to his great promise and he is a towering presence on the back end at 6' 6" tall. He scored five goals this year and his speed has improved greatly to the point where he isn't a liability anymore.
Daniel Traore was a nice veteran pickup and produced a couple of goals and brought experience to the club. Young
Mohamed Lamine Yilmaz, a Moroccan in our system since he was 16, made a very good first impression as a back up to the senior team and he played very well for a 20 year old.
Mwemere Mutesa is a potential prospect who may be loaned out next season in hopes of developing his game.
Emmanuel Agbo is a long-time club player who was here due to his home-grown status. His contract expires at the end of the year and he won't return.
M
-- After numerous honours last year, including Barclays Premier League Players' Player of the Year,
Gianluca Bolis was back to his maddening inconsistent self. His production was way down this year, as was fellow starter
Arsene Bamba. That said, both still did fine and had more than respectable average ratings.
Graham Allan, after a very slow start with our club, blossomed in mid-season and ended up with superlative production, notching 20 points in only 19 starts, just incredible numbers! He is equally adept at playing both sides and is a very valuable player for us.
Helder Cruz, another new signing, was brought along very slowly this year as he also gets used to English football. He showed glimpses of potential but like Manuel Perez, is struggling with the English language so far.
Lyubomir Kunchev is a solid prospect for the future and may stick around next year in a reserves role or be sent out on loan.
-- We waited three years but we FINALLY got to see what all the fuss was about with
Neil Cairney. His production always was lacking and I struggled with finding the proper role for him but this year, we stuck him in a "box-to-box" role and he flourished, to say the least! 15 goals…25 assists. 40 POINTS from central midfield are absolutely LUDICROUS numbers and he produced at the same level throughout the year, showing amazing consistency and superlative skill. He benefited from an aggressive and skilled set of forwards, as he was given an incredible 11 penalty kicks this year and converted 10 of them. I will be shocked if Cairney isn't our supporters Player of the Year and he should definitely be recognized by the league for his year-long performance.
Andrea Rocca battled more injuries this year but continues to produce at a level beyond his ratings. He's getting a bit older and isn't as pacy as he was in his early 20's and I'm going to have to start looking for a replacement soon. Speaking of which, perhaps that replacement will be the remarkable
Gian Marco Fanfoni. I brought in this 18 year old from Inter on a season-long loan, expecting to give him maybe 10 appearances as a substitute or maybe a rare Cup start. When Rocca and Mancini went down with long-term injuries, I was forced to give him an expanded role and he delivered in spades, scoring 6 goals and adding 8 assists in 36 games and only 20 starts. Just remarkable for a kid! I do have a clause in my loan contract to buy him out and I will seriously consider it.
Mancini suffered a serious injury and missed four months of the year. When he returned, his role had been stolen by Fanfoni but the Brazilian played well in his early games before the injury. His contract is up and while I've tried to resign him, I can't get an updated work permit and therefore, he'll likely be gone by July 1st. Young
Emmerson Harvey spent the majority of the season with the U18s and saw a bit of action with the senior team. That said, Harvey is a very ambitious individual and I don't know if I'll be able to resign him at the end of next year, as he's been open about wanting to "impress visiting scouts". I do envision a solid role for him on next year's senior team so hopefully he wants to stick around.
Shaun Spall has some offensive flair but isn't a complete player and saw his playing time diminish due to the great play of young Fanfoni. Spall is under contract for one more year but he wants first-team football and I'll be trying to move him when the transfer window re-opens.
S
-- I've seen some good years from my strikers but this year was off the charts. First, our star from last year,
Shanon Andrea, continued to impress and with 21 goals in 34 games, along with 15 assists, was above a point per game for the second year in a row. He's highly productive but a bit injury prone. The biggest and best offseason signing was Belgian
Chiquinho, who set team records for total goals in a year (30) and league goals (23). He's big, fast and strong and has a rocket launcher for a leg and he was unstoppable when he was on. He went into a major slump near the end of the season, going 10 games at one point without a goal but came through in our last match of the season, scoring twice to propel us back into the top four and a third consecutive season of Champions League football. What can I say about superlative young striker
Paul Moses? After a 2021/22 season that saw the two of us feud, he got over it and returned for a second season on loan from Manchester United. All he did was score 20 goals as a 19 year old and this "wonderkid" is destined to be a superstar in this league. I'm DESPERATELY trying to get him to come here for good but for some reason, he won't look at a contract offer from me right now. I'm hoping he has a change of heart when the transfer window reopens.
Zoltan Bardi didn't get an awful lot of playing time this year, as Chiquinho stayed healthy all year but Bardi did produce well when called upon.
Wayne Rooney had an incredible year last year at 36 years old, scoring 12 times but he had no fuel left in the tank at all this year and couldn't even get a bench position for most of the season. This legend of the game will retire at the end of June.
RESERVE TEAM PLAYERS
-- I keep a number of players around that have either reached home-grown status or are working on it. GK
Louis Read, MC
Jamie Matthews, ML
Steve Ingram, DC
Andrew Stanley and MC
Jonathan Gauthier played a bunch of reserves games but never made it into a senior team match.
LOAN PLAYERS
-- We had four players out on loan for the season. AMR
Kostas Kalfas was sent to Sheffield Wednesday and was quite effective there, scoring 6 goals and adding an assist in 20 appearances for the surprising Premier League outfit. Former huge signing
Giorgos Gesios was loaned out to Sevilla but suffered a serious injury, breaking his foot which kept him out of the lineup for four months. He only played 11 games, scoring three goals and adding an assist. I also loaned out two other young strikers:
Orlando Scolari went to Leverkusen and scored two goals and added an assist in 11 games while
Rogelio Garcia played a huge role for Sporting CP, scoring 17 goals (!) and adding four helpers in 33 appearances. He's got great potential and I may see what he can do with our senior team next year.
U18 PLAYERS
-- Unlike past years, I don't really have a great striker prospect. Our top valued prospect would be young left midfielder
Felix Hernandez (0.5/3.0), who joined us in the January transfer window. He scored 6 goals and added 5 assists in only 9 non-competitive starts. Midfielder
Jay Doyle (0.5/2.5), striker
Ben Patterson (0.5/2.0) and DR
Hans Briers (0.5/2.0) have some potential and may make an impact with another team after a sale. I have a number of other middling prospects but I doubt any of them will make an impact with the senior team here.