SUFC: The Future Next season

[Rob1920]

I suspect the budget will be stretched a bit if its needed to sign or keep the right player. COSU will continue to publicly state that growth must be sustainable without silly money being thrown at it, which is absolutely the right thing to do. But these are mainly quite wealthy guys, and having experienced Wembley, seen the club's potential, they will want success sooner rather than later. I'm not talking about paying someone £5/£6k per week like (alledgedly) FGR or York have done, but I think if getting a deal over the line for the right player means stretching a £1.5k per week offer to £2.0k, or even £2.5k, I'd be surprised if we passed on it. I mean, why invest in a lower league football club to just watch it stand still. These guys aren't stupid. will certainly be an interesting couple of months..

 

[BEERMONSTER]

I suspect the budget will be stretched a bit if its needed to sign or keep the right player. COSU will continue to publicly state that growth must be sustainable without silly money being thrown at it, which is absolutely the right thing to do. But these are mainly quite wealthy guys, and having experienced Wembley, seen the club's potential, they will want success sooner rather than later. I'm not talking about paying someone £5/£6k per week like (alledgedly) FGR or York have done, but I think if getting a deal over the line for the right player means stretching a £1.5k per week offer to £2.0k, or even £2.5k, I'd be surprised if we passed on it. I mean, why invest in a lower league football club to just watch it stand still. These guys aren't stupid. will certainly be an interesting couple of months..

Your thoughts mirror mine on this, it's the slight post Wembley shift in approach I am hoping for, as you say could be interesting

 

[Holy Joe]

Our priority should be the two ends of the pitch - a new no. 1 goalkeeper and a main striker. Get them right and we have the spine of a good team.

I think our defence and midfield are basically okay, could do with a bit more depth in defence and on the left. Given that we only have a handful of players out of contract, I don't expect the squad to change massively.

Our defence had 2 loanees - Goodliffe and Goulding - it defo needs work

 

[Jack_23]

Collin is good enough to be our number 1 he had a rough spell last season but he is still one of the best in the league. Needs to stay fit tho

 

[Holy Joe]

I suspect the budget will be stretched a bit if its needed to sign or keep the right player. COSU will continue to publicly state that growth must be sustainable without silly money being thrown at it, which is absolutely the right thing to do. But these are mainly quite wealthy guys, and having experienced Wembley, seen the club's potential, they will want success sooner rather than later. I'm not talking about paying someone £5/£6k per week like (alledgedly) FGR or York have done, but I think if getting a deal over the line for the right player means stretching a £1.5k per week offer to £2.0k, or even £2.5k, I'd be surprised if we passed on it. I mean, why invest in a lower league football club to just watch it stand still. These guys aren't stupid. will certainly be an interesting couple of months..

The problem with paying 1 player high wages are the unintended consequences...

Would it lead to agents knowing better deals are available at the club and holding out for better deals for other players

Would it lead to a queue of players at Maher's door requesting new deals?

Would it lead to disharmony in the dressing room?

In short I doubt splashing out for 1 player stops at 1 player and could lead to disharmony in the squad.

I'd imagine not easy being CEO/manager/owner

 

[Swiss Tony]

Justin's comment's sound like I might get the outcome I was hoping for

Sometimes you’ve got to speculate to accumulate.

 

[Derbyshire Blue]

Postive intent from Justin (from BBC site). I have cut out some of the bits you already know


Updated 15 minutes ago
Southend United chairman Justin Rees says the club will target automatic promotion next season after losing to Oldham Athletic in the 2024-25 National League play-off final at Wembley.

The Shrimpers secured the last play-off spot on the final day of the campaign and then won away at Rochdale and Forest Green Rovers to reach the final.

"I woke up the next day really, really driven, it's only nine weeks to next season. That should tell us that if you want to play in big games, cup games, play-off games, the more of them you play, unfortunately you are going to taste agony sometimes," Rees told BBC Essex's Breakfast Show.

"We want to be back in that EFL. We should all be driven by this disappointment to attack next season and be chasing the top honours rather than jumping in there [the play-offs] on the final day."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0lfsqwj

"We're all deflated but not devastated," said chief executive Tom Lawrence.

"If you'd said to me 12 months ago, would you take ending up at Wembley and just losing out in a play-off final - if you roll back 18 months we were a heartbeat away from going out of existence, so in the context of everything that's gone on, what the players, Kevin and the management team have achieved is just incredible.

"We'll be back in the office tomorrow to go again and start building for next season. We just need to grow and become stronger."

Just the response needed and expected to be fair. When you lose a game like that in the way we did, you need to be itching to get on with putting it right and it sounds like they are. No time for feeling sorry for ourselves, we go again. That will filter down through the club too.

 

[loz]

great to hear that from Justin and COSU. as other posters have said we've been a playoff team the past two years if you take away the points deduction. a sensible target should be a top 3 spot (with just a home win needed to get to Wembley) with going up automatically as the stretch goal.

 

[Supershrimper]

Sometimes you’ve got to speculate to accumulate.

Ron was good at that.

Speculated much but just seemed to accumulate more debt.

 

[tia]

Regarding season tickets I'd say we probably are on the more expensive side for this already for the level of football.Maybe the club will be wary of raising them again.

 

[Swiss Tony]

Ron was good at that.

Speculated much but just seemed to accumulate more debt.

He wasn’t that good at it he nearly broke the club, the new chaps are a whole new ball game.

 

[Holy Joe]

He wasn’t that good at it he nearly broke the club, the new chaps are a whole new ball game.

From the clubs perspective I suspect any cash coming in is coming as debt. If the cash/debt coming in doesn't raise revenues its the same ball game.

 

[rlb999]

Sometimes you’ve got to speculate to accumulate.

And sometimes speculating - like we did in League 1 when we allegedly had the 5th highest wage bill - can lead to a club's downfall.

We should tread carefully.

 

[BDavies21]

I’ve seen a lot of people say that they would want a new first choice keeper, personally, I would be more than happy with Collin to continue as our first choice keeper.
He is more than competent and the only reason why loanees and Hayes on a permanent were brought in was for cover from injuries, give him competition and to give him a bit of a break.
Mid way through the season he was shot of confidence because of the rather harsh criticism he was receiving online (borderline abuse), especially after the Charlton game and Kev wanted him out of the firing line. He is still young with bags of potential.
He’s the first choice for me

 

[rlb999]

I’ve seen a lot of people say that they would want a new first choice keeper, personally, I would be more than happy with Collin to continue as our first choice keeper.
He is more than competent and the only reason why loanees and Hayes on a permanent were brought in was for cover from injuries, give him competition and to give him a bit of a break.
Mid way through the season he was shot of confidence because of the rather harsh criticism he was receiving online (borderline abuse), especially after the Charlton game and Kev wanted him out of the firing line. He is still young with bags of potential.
He’s the first choice for me

Collin is the better of the two for me, certainly. But he needs to rise up to the next level if all supporters are going to agree he's the undisputed number 1.

But we'd had Hayes before so we knew what he was capable of. I'm not sure why we offered him an 18 month contract - when he's clearly no better than what we had already. Yes, Collin was injured - but it's easy to bring in a keeper quickly if required - as we saw on Sunday.

If we're offering people longer deals it should be because we believe they will move the team forwards.

It's possible of course that Hayes was always signed as Collin's understudy.

 

[onceknownasrab]

Splashing the cash is secondary to ditching the sentiment. I applaud the team and their incredible heroics but, we need to thank and say farewell to a few. Some of our players played above and beyond themselves which explains so many individual errors throughout the season. Reaching levels that are a stretch is hard to do consistently. The odd crack will out.
Our players have been magnificent but, I believe we need as many as six better players to feel confident about a tilt at the title and that would mean moving some on. Much less and we will probably, at best, look again at the lottery of the playoffs.
The team did not let us down and surpassed expectation but, when head rules heart, there will be outs as well as ins during this summer break.

 

[Sufc_tom16]

I’ve seen a lot of people say that they would want a new first choice keeper, personally, I would be more than happy with Collin to continue as our first choice keeper.
He is more than competent and the only reason why loanees and Hayes on a permanent were brought in was for cover from injuries, give him competition and to give him a bit of a break.
Mid way through the season he was shot of confidence because of the rather harsh criticism he was receiving online (borderline abuse), especially after the Charlton game and Kev wanted him out of the firing line. He is still young with bags of potential.
He’s the first choice for me

Agreed.In 20 games this season he has 8 clean sheets and has conceded 24 goals, he is definitely good enough to be our no1 in a title pushing team next season.

 

[kentblues]

I suspect the budget will be stretched a bit if its needed to sign or keep the right player. COSU will continue to publicly state that growth must be sustainable without silly money being thrown at it, which is absolutely the right thing to do. But these are mainly quite wealthy guys, and having experienced Wembley, seen the club's potential, they will want success sooner rather than later. I'm not talking about paying someone £5/£6k per week like (alledgedly) FGR or York have done, but I think if getting a deal over the line for the right player means stretching a £1.5k per week offer to £2.0k, or even £2.5k, I'd be surprised if we passed on it. I mean, why invest in a lower league football club to just watch it stand still. These guys aren't stupid. will certainly be an interesting couple of months..

I think stating that the automatics are the goal (in the NL that means finishing top) is great to hear. But if that is not matched by ambition in the transfer market there are many on here who will remember the first ambition, ignore the second, and we will have a Kev out thread running again due to unrealistic expectations. COSU aren't fools so I to believe if they are saying this then there is a willingness to at least move to a top three or four budget. We should invest that sensibly and in line with our stated policy and not make crazy individual signings, but people we bring in need to be a step above what we have.

 

[BDavies21]

Agreed.In 20 games this season he has 8 clean sheets and has conceded 24 goals, he is definitely good enough to be our no1 in a title pushing team next season.

If we look at the league appearances, he played 24 and kept 11 clean sheets and conceded 25 times, in a time when we had a Kensdale sized hole in the defence with Crowther and Gubbins trying to make the step up.
This was also at a time when we had injuries to the spine of our midfield.

I agree that he has made errors. Every keeper does. Just look at York, in the playoffs, Male who had the most clean sheets in the league made an error playing the ball out which gave Oldham a free goal

 

[kentblues]

If we look at the league appearances, he played 24 and kept 11 clean sheets and conceded 25 times, in a time when we had a Kensdale sized hole in the defence with Crowther and Gubbins trying to make the step up.
This was also at a time when we had injuries to the spine of our midfield.

I agree that he has made errors. Every keeper does. Just look at York, in the playoffs, Male who had the most clean sheets in the league made an error playing the ball out which gave Oldham a free goal

Statistically in terms of clean sheets per games played he remains one of our most successful goalkeeper of all time...we had the Lincoln keeper on loan who was highly rated, went back to Lincoln and made their first team. He was a less experienced version of Collin who made the same mistakes more often. Which combined and given we are in the NL with the stats says it all really...

We have the command the box bit, but he comes and attacks crosses pretty well, punches clear pretty well but in the end whichever way the ball statistically ends up in the net less than with nearly all other goalkeepers in our history.

Maybe looking the part and letting in more goals is preferable. maybe this nonsense about statistics and data is just that. What do I know. Not a lot.

Anyway at our level we have two very good keepers if we keep them- at least who ever is the back up will be one of the best, if not the best, back-ups in the league.