Originally Posted by
Fivesilver
All this talk about Croly's maneouvrings is interesting. Looks like he's trying to build an entire league-winning team almost from scratch.
If he's signing all the players mentioned, common sense would dictate that Shams will run away with the league next season - but we all know football's never quite that simple. One thing it does is take the weight of expectation off us and the other hopefuls and puts all the pressure squarely on the shoulders of an untried manager trying to find his best line-up and tactics. If early results don't live up to expectations you could see the crowd in Tallaght getting on their backs pretty quickly. There's also the question of money, no matter what Shams tell you about their new signings playing for next to nothing. And Kenny's compensation remains to be dealt with.
From our point of view, we've nailed down Keane, North, Peers, Rogers and Conneely - all of whom I rate as being as good as any in the league in their positions. Cawley, Henderson and Connolly could also prove to be very effective. That's a hell of a lot more quality than we had signed this time last year - and that didn't turn out at all bad. McGuinness is gone, and it appears Quigley and Ndo may follow - that's several of our top earners off the books, freeing up funds for replacements, with several months to work with. I'd be curious to hear what fans of other clubs think about the squads they've already assembled, and what they're expecting.
