Can Keates motivate players, no.
Organise a team, no.
Does his recruitment and team selection seem to follow any logic, no.
He keeps mentioning building a team, but could he build on our best ever start at this level, no.
Is he using resources wisely, no.
Has he been given a fair crack of the whip, yes - 12 months, two transfer windows and one pre-season.
There is absolutely no reason in footballing terms to persist with Deano, his tenure is already 2 or 3 games over the “red line” of complete untenable meltdown that no manager will recover from. Harsh though that is, its the nature of the job.
Personally I’ve got a horrible feeling he won’t get the sack and that’s not really good for anyone. If we turn in another tools down, non-performance next week resulting in another defeat to nil it will start to turn ugly at some point, surely nobody wants that?
I think that the fans have been unusually patient with deano, and that is down to his former hero worship, but i don’t think it will last much longer, if as i suspect he takes us down, then how will that affect his relationship with fans next season in league 2?.
He signed a deal until Summer 2021, which I believe is most likely the reason he is still with us. Not sure how much he is being paid but I am sure any pay off would hobble the playing budget for next season.
Keates complained in a recent interview that when he arrived in March last year there were 17 players who had contracts that took them into this season. He implied this was too big a number since it left him with limited options.
Am I right in thinking that those players were:
Liam Roberts
Mark Gillespie - was under contract till 2019, but left on a free to go to Motherwell.
Luke Leahy
Jon Guthrie
George Dobson
Nicky Devlin
Adam Chambers - injured
Kieron Morris - out on loan
Kory Roberts - injured
Liam Kinsella
Mitch Candlin
Maz Kouhyar
Jordon Sangha - out on loan
Callum Cockerill-Mollett - out on loan
Daniel Vann
Tobias Hayles-Docherty - out on loan
I make that 16 players, but perhaps I have missed someone.
I think that eight or nine players were out of contract at the end of 2017/18. Keates gave free transfers to five of them: Florent Cuvelier, Simeon Jackson, Reece Flanagan, Milan Butterfield and Will Shorrock.
He offered four out of contract players new deals: Joe Edwards and Dylan Parker accepted the offer. Erhun Oztumer declined. As for Amadou Bakayoko - club had the option to extend his contract, which it did, before selling him to Coventry.
That left a squad of 17 players before Keates needed to look elsewhere to strengthen.
Keates has brought to the club and given contracts to 11 players:
Chris Dunn
Andy Cook
Zeli Ismail
Morgan Ferrier
Josh Ginnelly - left
Josh Gordon
Isaiah Osbourne
Russell Martin - left
Dan Scarr
Cameron Norman
Omar Mussa
Keates’ loan signings are:
Kane Wilson - gone back
Connor Ronan - gone back
Matt Jarvis
Corey Blackett-Taylor
Scott Laird
Connor Johnson
Jack Fitzwater
Amaride Oteh
Cameron Peters is the one you missed. He is on loan. DK has also brought in a goalie Joe Slynn who is on loan at Rushall Olympic.
Actually as I have posted before we gave too many youngsters 2 year deals so I agree with DK on that point.However he cannot say he hasn’t been backed when you look at the list of players signed.
As I said in the Summer, Keates should have made a handful of key signings (like Cook) who were first term certs, rather than spread the budget too thin and flood the squad with dross.
I think that interview was done on Saturday, after the game. Before Devlin knew what Keates had said. (masi on twitter said he’d interviewed both of them on saturday).
