Retained list announced

[mikemiller]

Thought that young Rose looked quite good in the reserves - a bit surprised that he has been released

[tony260674]

Wood and Mattock are both well past their best, inconsistent and injury prone. For me it would have been a sensible decision to thank them for their service and wished them well. Warne has failed an important test in my opinion as he needed to be ruthless but has failed and kept these players around as he is close to them both.
I am also concerned at where this leaves our new recruitment policy. We have employed a recruitment guy at great expense to ensure that we have a philosophy of who we recruit never mind who the manager is. Stewart said that we were going to employ younger lads on their way up, rather than experienced guys on their way down. How does keeping Mattock on help Purrington who was the first and expensive signing of our new recruitment policy?
If Wood does sign, we will have 5 centre halves on the books before any recruitment, does this suggest that Broadfoot is done?

[millertop]

Wood and Mattock are both well past their best, inconsistent and injury prone. For me it would have been a sensible decision to thank them for their service and wished them well. Warne has failed an important test in my opinion as he needed to be ruthless but has failed and kept these players around as he is close to them both.
I am also concerned at where this leaves our new recruitment policy. We have employed a recruitment guy at great expense to ensure that we have a philosophy of who we recruit never mind who the manager is. Stewart said that we were going to employ younger lads on their way up, rather than experienced guys on their way down. How does keeping Mattock on help Purrington who was the first and expensive signing of our new recruitment policy?
If Wood does sign, we will have 5 centre halves on the books before any recruitment, does this suggest that Broadfoot is done?

I don't think Belaid or Broadfoot will play much tbh, Wood can do a job in L1 and maybe help out behind scenes if we get better.
Think Mattock might be a safety net until Purrington is ready

[mikemiller]

From what Warney is saying , it sounds like Camp really IS injured. and it wasn't just "shell-shock" from having to face a barrage of 20 or 30 shots at goal in every game when Stubbs was manager.

Wood is studying part-time for a degree in journalism, so he might also be involved in more media related stuff for RUFC too

[caytonmiller]

Wood and Mattock are both well past their best, inconsistent and injury prone. For me it would have been a sensible decision to thank them for their service and wished them well. Warne has failed an important test in my opinion as he needed to be ruthless but has failed and kept these players around as he is close to them both.
I am also concerned at where this leaves our new recruitment policy. We have employed a recruitment guy at great expense to ensure that we have a philosophy of who we recruit never mind who the manager is. Stewart said that we were going to employ younger lads on their way up, rather than experienced guys on their way down. How does keeping Mattock on help Purrington who was the first and expensive signing of our new recruitment policy?
If Wood does sign, we will have 5 centre halves on the books before any recruitment, does this suggest that Broadfoot is done?

you do realise mattock is only 26?

[lbj]

So now we're being rational - realised that £10 million strikers bite....and a new defence might be susceptible to these players.....suddenly we see the struggle we had but there was zero "rationality" back at the start of the season.

EVO never had "cliques" and this is why....

Irrational nothing.....the one common denominator about our season has been slow turning central defenders....and of all the goals conceded Halford - Kelly & Wood were culpable....yet Wood stays...

That's not irrational it's going to specsavers !

[mellowmiller]

So now we're being rational - realised that £10 million strikers bite....and a new defence might be susceptible to these players.....suddenly we see the struggle we had but there was zero "rationality" back at the start of the season.

EVO never had "cliques" and this is why....

Irrational nothing.....the one common denominator about our season has been slow turning central defenders....and of all the goals conceded Halford - Kelly & Wood were culpable....yet Wood stays...

That's not irrational it's going to specsavers !

Whereas Fry and Ball were outstanding were they? I don't think Fry won a header in all the time he was with us and Ball is miles away from being a Championship defender.

[lbj]

were to nurtured by top class coaches and Fry & Izzy came for that tuition.

But we are talking about the centre of our defence that incidentally played all season and the goals went in and in record numbers. There wasn't a manager after AS went and Warne is culpable for playing open football when we should have adopted Cloughie's tough to beat tactics as played under Stubbs.

The problem then wasn't the tactics - it was the players who WOULDN'T or COULDN'T get it !

And Wood is front and centre of all that !

Stubbs dropped him and he was right !

Now we've got a mates team - brilliant !

Forget Stubbs - how many conceded - who played most in a key position....do the maths....

[Casper64Frank]

you do realise mattock is only 26?

Yeah he`s 27 next week & Richard Wood will be 32 when the season kicks off.

Underwhelmed....retained list is what I expected....not what I would have chosen but hey ho lets move on.

[mikemiller]

Lbj, I have some sympathy with the idea that Wood was never going to be good enough to keep us in the Championship - Steve Evans worked that out after seeing a handful of Millers appearances by him, so it's nothing new. As soon as we knew Broadfoot was injured we should have brought in a quality experienced centre back...but we tried to do things on the cheap as usual, with predictable results.

The Stubbs new defenders were fairly awful too (partly due to inexperience) and lightweight midfielders like Allan and Forster-Caskey, were poor defensively -and as soon as Smallwood came back, the number of goals conceded dropped significantly, even thogh he is a fairly limited player

Players like Wood and Mattock (and Ball) may look better in League 1, only time will tell, but given who has been released/is injured we need at least a couple of new centre backs/ utility defenders anyway... Will McGinley be "dropped in at the deep end"?