Comings, goings... and one big embarrassment

The Gospel according to Paul

The Welsh Premier Cup final defeat by Barry Town, just about summed up the season for me, quite frankly the game was an embarrassment, although I have to say that the result was not a complete surprise, and that latter statement indicates just how far we fell last season.

    I had a nasty feeling the day before the final that we just might come unstuck and so it proved. Barry may well be full timers and considerably better than your average League of Wales fodder, but they're no better than Conference standard and shouldn't have troubled us unduly. Obviously, apart from the result itself, the defeat cost us £60,000 - which would certainly have come in useful over the summer.

    It now appears that we have reached the stage where we need to be considering the players we have and the future. It was disappointing to see Wardy released however not really all that surprising given his age and loss of form over the past season. Question marks must hang over the futures of several of the other players and in particular those whose contracts expire next time and who have not performed with the ability or consistency with which they are capable. I'm not going to single any one person out for criticism because they and everyone else knows who they are, however next season will be crucial to them.

    The team building has already started of course with the signing of Kevin Dearden from Brentford and of course Paul Barrett from Newcastle at the tail end of the season, together with Danny Williams and Michael Ryan. The latter two it would appear are regarded more as 'ones for the future', although it wouldn't surprise me to see them force their way into contention at some stage, maybe in the WPC games initially.

    The capture of Dearden pleases me the most, as he seems to have been a consistent keeper throughout his career and has had a number of good games against us. It was important to sign a keeper as a matter of urgency in order to avoid a repeat of last season's fiasco. Mark Cartwright, obviously was thrown in pretty much at the deep end and at short notice after the Marriott bust-up, and though he started off reasonably well, he ultimately failed to achieve and appeared very much out of his depth by the time he was replaced by Tommy Wright. I think Flynn realised this fairly quickly to be fair to him, and obviously tried to sign Clayton Ince (I cannot for a minute think he wanted him for the reserves) to no avail, before rapidly getting Wright in on loan after Gavin Ward told us to sod off. As it stands Cartwright's now on the transfer list and a move from the Racecourse will probably benefit both him and us in the long run.

    The other 'problem area' of course is a goalscorer. Ian Rush was brought in last year amid much hype to tear 2nd Division defences apart but also failed on the pitch and didn't score a single goal in the first team matches that he played. He has been offered a new contract which quite frankly amazes me as on the pitch he has not performed - a fact which he readily acknowledges. And as for his coaching role, he may have invaluable experience, be a good role-model to have around etc etc, but do we really need another coach and, more to the point, can we afford one? Surely our hard earned, limited resources could be better spent on another players wages? At the time of writing Rush is reportedly weighing up his options and the latest 'Leader Exclusive' speculates that he may team up with Dalglish & Barnes at Celtic and to be honest I won't be disappointed if he's played his last game for us.

    At the moment we are apparently talking to Wigan record scorer, David Lowe, a mere child compared to Rush at only 34! Whether he would be the answer to our problems, I'm not totally convinced, to be honest, given his age. And anyway Northampton are also reported to be talking to him, so if he doesn't mind dropping down a division they will probably outbid our personal terms won't they? Remember Corrazin?!

Paul Lindsay