Consider the squad we used in the play off games, who were nearly good enough to go up:
Paul Bastock, Shane Clarke, Lee Canoville, Kevin Austin, Kieran Murphy, Shaun Pearson, Gareth Jelleyman, Ryan Semple, Anthony Church, Danny Sleath, Jamie Yates, Adam Boyes, Spencer Weir-Daley, Jason Lee, James Cullingworth, Mickey Stones, Stef Frost, Danny Davidson, Lawrie Dudfield
The changes have essentially been:
Hall, Wilkinson, Milnes replace Clarke, Church, Yates
Ward, Parker, Fairclough replace Pearson, Murphy, Cullingworth
Holsgrove, Joachim, Suarez replace SWD, Davidson, Dudfield
Plus a fit Newsham will be like an extra player as we missed him most of last year
Plus Stones will be given a chance to see if he can score consistently - whatever you think of him, he's started one league game and has one goal - he might not have the all round game of some other strikers, but can we afford to ignore a goalscorer?
As others have said, the one area we seem to be lacking is central defence - none of Canoville, Parker or Austin have great fitness records, and there is no pace at all. Not seen Ward, so he could be the next Pearson for all I know - about the same age as Pearson was when he joined us I think? But I'd like another centre back with experience in this division. At least Bazza has plenty of experience of playing behind a dodgy defence!
Roll on next Saturday so we can see how the new team looks in a proper game. I'm always optimistic at this stage, but we shouldn't forget we have started slowly (especially at home) in the last couple of seasons, so we need to be patient.
