[St Charles Owl]

Ok, so as we head into the New Year we find ourselves just outside the playoffs in a group of teams likely to be chasing just the one playoff spot!! The top 5 seem to be a class above everyone else although Burnley and Hull have been inconsistent of late and Brighton have just had their first loss so we will have to see how they react to that. Boro and Derby for me are the two teams to beat and I expect them to take the auto places.

But, now sees the silly season with regards to transfers and in our position this is one that could really propel us to a chance of promotion to the Premier League!! We have done well overall so far, we are hard to beat but we start slow too often and find ourselves coming from behind in too many games. I think on the whole we are clearly better than last season but so are many other teams. The question is what should we do in the JTW, if anything, and if so where should we improve the squad to give us that chance to push on for the play offs??

From a management perspective I expect no changes. The recent parting with Roeder to me suggests that CC has cemented himself as the one to run the team and I expect the signings we make to be the ones he wants to get, not ones the comittee will force upon him. CC is a breath of fresh air, he is good with the fans and his press conferences are a joy to watch!! But we do need to improve, we are not the finished article by any means but we do have a chance, its up to him to pick the right teams, rest players at the right time and get them playing from the start like we tend to finish games!!

So what do we have in the stable at the moment: (those in italics are our loan players)

Goalkeepers
Keiren Westwood
Cameron Dawson
Joe Wildsmith
Lewis Price

Defenders
Liam Palmer
Tom Lees
Glenn Loovens
Claude Dielna
Jeremey Helan
Darryl Lachman
Vincent Sasso - Season long loan from Braga
Jack Hunt - Season long loan from Palace
Rhoys Wiggins - Signed 3 year contract from Charlton
Daniel Pudil - Season long loan from Watford
Michael Turner - Season long loan from Norwich

Midfielders
Jose Semedo
Kieran Lee
Silva Felipe Melo
Sam Hutchinson
Marco Matias
Ross Wallace
Alex Lopez - Season long loan from Celta Vigo
Modou Sougou
Lewis McGugan
Barry Bannan

Forwards
Athde Nuhiu
Sergiu Bus
Lucas Joao
Fernando Forestieri
Gary Hooper - on loan from Norwich until January

Players out on Loan
Marnick Vermijl - Season long loan to Preston
Caolan Lavery - On loan with Portsmouth until January

So this is what we start with and as we go along I will add new players and remove the ones who leave.  So the question is what positions do we need to strengthen in, who should be our targets for these positions, who should we look to offload and what should we do with the players we have on loan and the ones we have out on loan???

Over to you.