A lot of managers would have snapped at the first chance of spending the cash, bought a load of good League 1 players in, put a promotion on their CV and then left this club snookered in the Championship when half the budget's gone and we have a squad full of fellas in their late 20's not good enough to make the step up. Fair play to Clough, he's doing what he thinks is the right thing for the Club, but it is a gamble, because if we don't go up next season then his job certainly won't be secure.
Our first eleven (with Brayford & Coady), which at its best couldn't beat Preston, Wolves or Brentford in the league last season, was stronger than anything we could put out next week (and we may be about to lose Maguire on top of that).
I believe we still require two good strikers and replacements for Coady and Brayford (and probably Collins, if Butler is here to replace Maguire as I expect he is), as well as a couple of cover players. Davies looks to be signing and will be one of the cover players I mentioned, he'll be useful to fill in anywhere down the right, but Harris doesn't have any such cover at left back and he tends to be quite injury prone, so I think that needs addressing. It seems Wallace is being earmarked to replace Coady, though most Tranmere fans seem to believe he isn't the same player anymore since his injury, so he might not be an ideal signing, our interest in McGinn has waned. The most important signings will be up top, if we get those right we'll be there or there abouts, if we don't get quality there, forget it in my opinion.
As it stands, I too am in "Camp Underwhelmed" and don't feel we look anything like a top two side. But the beauty of it is, is that it's early days, great to see us busy already.
