Summer business in hand but work needed closer to home

Locking down key players very much in Barnet's interest

Whilst the season only finished for the National League this past weekend, clubs are already hard at work preparing for the new season. Football rarely stops and has a day off, whether you are Step 1 or Step 6.

After Barnet bowed out of the play offs in the Eliminator Round and had extended the season by a few days, the retained list was out before the weekend, a theme of the top division clubs where many had theirs in the public domain a few days after completion of the season.

Recruitment started months ago as we all know, we’ve had the insight from Kirk Rayment, the list in that time has been whittled down, changed, added to, players removed but targets are now set and if one doesn’t come off they move onto the next one.

That happened a few times last year and look what we signed through the summer, we’re in safe hands no doubt about that. But while we wait there are one or two just as pressing items on the agenda to contend with.

Whilst many are under contract for next season there are a few that need some attention including Dale Gorman, Harry Pritchard, Ryan De Havilland and Sam Granville, all with an option exercised.

The first three, integral to our plans for next season although speculation around De Havilland’s future will persist until the ink is dry or Tony Kleanthous accepts a decent bid for a talented footballer who has shown that you can drop out from an academy and build a career to go back up again.

Gorman we missed when he was out. With no other player able to fill his role with perhaps the exception of Pritchard which then completely nullified his game it’s one of the areas that needs attention this summer.

While he’s not going to set the world alight he does the perfect job for us and football is about competition, some of these players who did so well this year I think will relish having to be at the top of their game every week to keep a starting place.

We’re quite lucky some didn’t coast through the season without the supporting cast to push them, next season I expect that to be much different, there will be no place for a shirker or none giving 100% each week.

Pritchard showed how vital it is to have midfielders who know where the net is. We know ourselves from title winning days where Curtis Weston netted regularly and before him Nicky Bailey and Dean Sinclair served us well to get the title on both occasions, midfielders that hit double figures are just as hard to find as strikers who get guarantee 20 goals a year, age is no barrier it shows and even if he gets half of that total next season it’s what you need for goals from everywhere in the team.

Granville I’d still be surprised to see him around the first team. Granted he had a very good first 45 minutes against Dagenham in the final game of the season but as they picked up the pace in the second half he disappeared into himself as a Step 3 player would.

Certainly needs a strong pre-season and heading out on loan to the National League South for the season, none of this bit part stuff everywhere and at a lower level, if he’s going to be ever more than a squad player at The Hive it has to happen this way to aid his development, on the opposite side of this credit to the fact Dean Brennan sees this one worth keeping over Kian Flanagan, might tell you how far the ex-Palace man was down the pecking order, easily both could have left the club.

Whilst we wait for news on this lot as well, probably not a surprise for many to see David Moyo and Jordan Cropper depart their parent clubs. Moyo not well represented by his agent in my opinion, you will know we had him training with us for weeks over pre-season and his guy held out for more money than we could pay.

Granted he got him that, miles up the north in Barrow, hardly featured and ended up back down with us in a loan spell that didn’t produce much and now a free agent when he could have been on that option list, funny the way football works out at times.

As I pointed out in the Friday Freebie on www.footballwriting.co.uk last week, there are over 1300 players out of contract from the Championship to the bottom of the National League plus almost 700 from the Premier League academies.

With those still in contract at the same levels I worked out the average to be 24 players per squad and 10 released from each club. With Brennan liking to keep around 26 in his numbers that would bring just two players into The Hive, but bearing in mind we released five others, six or seven coming in is about right as he mentioned at the Player of the Year awards.

There isn’t room for all these released players to filter into clubs, many will drop into the North and South divisions and even below, some played a dangerous game of waiting last summer, and ended up signing for clubs but sitting in the stands for a majority of the year, it seems some are planning to do the same this time around as well, could be a long wait and disappointment for some…..