Stockport County Season 4

[Bridgey@Stockport]

The media around stockport county dried up last season due to a major drop in performance. Due to not making the playoffs manager Mike Bridge decided to Halt all media around the club until the new season.

He even cancelled the end of season club party. Stating that if the players and staff wanted to enjoy themselves, they needed to perform better.

Mike Bridge, knew that Most of the players in the team last season would be moved on, so it didn't feel right that they should get that kind of send off.

As soon as season 3 finished Bridge moved quickly to move Soyuncu and Savic to Fiorentina. With Camus, Cresswell and Arujo coming to Edgeley Park. Camus didn’t stay too long and was used in a makeweight to bring in Brazilian superstar Casemiro. Despite his age he is still a great player and will do us well in the new season.

There were rumours that Bridge has tried to move Casemiro on since and has struggled due to other managers being afraid of any player of the age of 30. Bridge has denied this but did not refute he thought other managers did ignore older players. Even though they get extra captain abs and reduced minutes. He finished with each manager has their own plan and it’s up to them in which direction they want to take.

Next up was the discussion around the captain for the new season. Who would it be? Would it be Rajovic again? He did an ok job so he could be a valid choice. Bridge said “We don’t do well enough last season to continue using the same tools. We also need to reduce the amount of goals we concede, so the new captain will be Sam Johnstone. His experience and voice has been noted since coming in, we will use this to push us to the next level!”

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

With the team needing to be next level the facilities too need to be improved, this means the stadium needs to be upgraded too. The club owner M Stott approved a ten thousand capacity increase before the season starts. The increase is to cost Eleven million pounds and will be money well spent to help the amazing County fans help support the team to get to the promise land of the premier league.

The work will take all summer to complete and will be done for the first home game of season 4.

It’s a shame we can’t upgrade by more, but the cost and the timescale for the building work above ten thousand would have cost exponentially more and was not cost effective.

We will look to generate further funds for next EOS to increase further if we can. Hopefully the funds can be generated by gate receipts and good performance rather than selling assets such as players to cover the cost. Mike Bridge will surely be sounding out selling players to cover all eventualities if the worst comes to the worst.

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[Dave Thacker]

Marge Stott?

[Bridgey@Stockport]

Mark Stott

[Bridgey@Stockport]

With only a few hours gone between Bridge tentatively floating both Araujo and Cresswell bids for both youth stars were hitting up. Bids from various clubs seemed ok were blew out of the water by two huge cash bids. With only needing to sell one Bridge did some quick maths and was able to cover all his expenditure with one massive bid for Cresswell.

The 55 million, the fee touted for Bristol City to acquire Cresswell’s services means that county can re invest in two massive opportunities given to all clubs in FFO. Although everyone has the opportunity, they have to opt in and secondly and more importantly invest real cash for the gambles.

With Bridge developing a major feeling of “FOMO” (Fear of missing out) he pulled the trigger on releasing Cresswell. So, where is the money to be re invested? County won’t be adding any new players to the youth academy that is something that they will watch with other teams and see if it’s beneficial for next season. They won’t be adding an extra “random event”, Mike Bridge saw this investment as a lot of money with too much risk. The extra random event take the total to two, however they can be negative as well as positive. With this seasons one being negative towards Stockport County I think that one is better left on the shelf.

The final two investments were both selected by County. Firstly, they will be purchasing the scout picking up a youth player for the next five seasons. Not only that they know who they will be replacing in each of those next 5 seasons already. Not only that if possible they will invest further in this option next season if this is available. A really quick way of setting up that youth setup, that instantly takes all the pressure off of the team to get promoted. This option costs the club 25 million and in Mike Bridges and the chairman’s opinion worth every penny.

Secondly, the option of a coach, with a couple of the youth setup showing great signs of breaking into the first team (Especially the keeper) a coach is definitely a great idea to multiply the guys abs. The more experience they can gain will help them transition to the first team. This option cost the club 20 million. With the stadium upgrade too the total upgrades have cost 56 million pounds.

A lot of money we can agree but investing in the future is the best way to grow.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

County transfer updates….
In the last few months County handed a trial to a youth prospect P Canales, an amazing youth player from Spain. He started with the youth training setup and was quickly incorporated into the first team training and he didn’t disappoint. After completing his 3 week trial he was handed a hefty contract and given assurances regarding 100% game time.

The ink had barely set on the contract before some of the big fish in FFO were sniffing around. When they realised they hadn’t acted quickly enough they wanted to be kept in the loop in case Stockport were to cash in on him in the future.

If the scouts can pick up a few more like him Stockport will be in a great place going forward.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

The next update was in to relation to Stockport County’s legendary goal keeper Ben Hinchcliffe. With Ben being 36 and looking to hang up his boots, Mike Bridge scoured his contacts to see if he could get him a move to get some playing time before taking it easy.

Initially no teams came forward but after Bridge decided that the best way forward was to release Ben now before the season starts. The papers were put through for the release, but in the final moments Birmingham City made their interest known in the 11th hour and were able to stop him becoming a free agent to sign Hinchcliffe as their backup keeper. No assurances of playing time were believed to have been made, but the offer of a coaching role may have been offered to persuade him to move.

To replace him County and Bridge were made aware of PSV’s 3rd goalkeeper D Greif’s availability. PSV wanted 5m for his services and this was quickly agreed and pushed through. With Birmingham paying 2 million for Hinchcliffe it was a simple transaction for both deals for County.

A younger keeper will be able to be County’s backup for years to come at the cost of 3M is a steal.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

Further County updates….

Cresswell has moved on and although one for the future he would have easily been in County’s first team. Baffling really, why would the manager and the board agree to this? Rolling the dice and gambling Cresswell to make County great again was the answer! The massive win potential of this risk is too good to ignore.

In the late hours of last night, Cresswell’s move to Bristol City was ratified by the league and although there wasn’t any risk that it would fall through, until it has been completed and confirmed you never know. Heightened by the fact the upgrades were already signed for, if the deal for the young defender ever fell through it was doubtful Stockport County’s owner could have afforded the work.

On a separate note, Araujo negotiations had halted as County didn’t need to push through with his transfer. However, an unnamed team continued to negotiate and they look to try harder to try and sign the second younger defender at County. Whether or not this will conclude before the deadline and the start of the season we’re not sure, but it’s highly unlikely his 45 million pound buy him now will be met. If it is Bridge will highly likely try and sneak into the pre season auction, but with such a low amount the chance of winning a player will be slim.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

Breaking news this morning from Edgeley Park stated that last seasons captain Rajovic has asked for a move away from the club. It has been said that because of being removed as captain and other broken promises by Mike Bridge, Rajovic wants to move onto pastures new.

County and Bridge have said to be ok with the decision for him to leave as he has been seen as a major part of last seasons failure. The fans too have spoken in length about how he was disappointing as a captain and due to these extra responsibilities of the captaincy meant his performances were well below par. Especially with the lack of goals. The supporters do seem to be happy with the captaincy moving to Sam Johnstone though and are happy with the shift in ideas to play the long game to get promotion too.

How long this happiness will last though is anyone’s guess as we all know how fickle fans can be.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

Bridge confirms, County will take no part in this seasons pre season auction!

After the huge success of last seasons pre season auction where County managed a steal in acquiring youth forward Gnonto’s services. Bridge has declined to be part of the auction this season as previously stated he’s managed to use the clubs money to bring in more than just one player over many seasons.

Although he was meant to be the future of the team Gnonto moved on to Celtic and then Bayern in bumper moves! It has helped the squad to acquire much better players than we ever expected. From that first transfer and subsequent deals after Gnonto left, the money some would say has been re cooped and used for the facility upgrades. It seems Bridge has done a large amount of deals but has done well not to lose much money through the many transactions if any at all!

There will always be deals that you give more than you should and always deals where you receive more than you should, we should remember than how fair a deal is is subjective and down to opinion. As long as the managers dealing are happy and as long as it’s not too out it’s good to see it confirmed. Having the safety net of the admins too is always worth having in case any attempt to slip through the net.

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

With a final interview before the start of the season. Mike Bridge discussed the expectations of the team and him from the board.

He discussed at length that with the shift in mentality for the club means that expectations have diminished. Last season the players that were brought in were brought in to gain promotion. That didn’t materialise and the team missed out on the playoffs and promotion. Despite a great run of form getting them to the summit with around 12 games to go. The great run ended and a run of such bad form followed it, they went from 1st to 10th and left themselves too much to do in the final games.

Some of those players were moved on before the window shut last season. The rest moved on in this EOS window. After this the manager and board discussed a plan to be more sustainable going forward. The Glazer way of trying to buy superstars didn’t work last season and won’t work in FFO.

So the idea is to match last seasons finish in the league at least. Maintain and then push in the coming seasons, finishing any lower and that would be deemed as a failure and the managers position will be up for discussion the board will have to look at other options surely!

Hopefully the focus on youth and infrastructure will be strong and the club wont switch up the plan if it doesn’t start too well. It needs to be the start of a five to eight season plan. We’re on the train and it won’t be derailed, even if the manager is helping a premiership team get back on their tracks too!

If Bridge can manage both projects and make a success of them both his stock in the game will rise immeasurably and the world of FFO will have to take notice at this point!

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[Bridgey@Stockport]

With the end of season drawing to a close Mike Bridge had both Everton’s and Stockport’s squads train at the same facility with all their new players.

He wanted to run the rule over all of the players that came in for both teams and it made sense to have them in the same place.

Both squads were set and he was happy with his bonanza haul. So much so he decided to have a behind closed doors friendly. All the players impressed and the score wasn’t important, seeing how they would all gel together and to see how they will perform was much more important.

Bridge was mostly impressed by ‘Super Son’ for Everton and Casemiro for Stockport both showing why he wanted them.

There were no special formations used, both sides setup with 5-3-2 as Bridge wanted to see how the new players would cope with his favoured formation.

After the game finished he was seen rummaging through his notepad to see where he thinks the sides could improve. Everton could definitely do with a defensive midfielder and Stockport were definitely short at the back for a quality defender. Other notes taken were improvements individual players could take on and the rest were positives that Bridge was impressed with.

Bridge was then seen barking orders at his coaching staff to get the players warmed down and ready for the pre season friendlies coming up. Bridge then left to carry on with recruitment there would be a little time left to get those final changes in for both teams. As stated above a defensive midfielder for Everton, but this move would be highly unlikely before the season starts and a defender for Stockport, this would be more feasible but would be more a youth prospect from some upcoming local trials with their newly employed scout.

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