Fleetwood
Av Attendance 2019/20: 3130
Manager: Joey Barton
Preferred Formation 2019/20: 4-3-3
Last game v City: Imps 2-0 Fleetwood 31st August 2019
Summer Ins: Callum Camps – Rochdale, Jordan Rossiter – Rangers, Morgan Boyes – Liverpool (Loan), Joel Coleman – Huddersfield
Summer Outs: Ash Hunter – Salford, Billy Crellin – Bolton (Loan), Lewie Coyle – Hull, Harrison Biggins – Barrow (Loan), Kyle Dempsey, Matt Gilks, Conor McAleny, Dean Marney, James Cottam, Gerard Garner (All Released)
This assessment rolls off my keyboard rather begrudgingly, because I’m not a big fan of the Fleetwood model. They’re one of the poorest supported clubs in the division and some might argue they epitomise everything wrong with football. Even taking away the massive over-funding of an unsustainable club, you’ve got a manager in Joey Barton and a striker in Ched Evans who stimulate all sorts of negative feelings and emotions. Their play-off semi-final exit was a calamity too, but they’ll be expecting to replicate their top-six finish.
There’s no reason why they won’t. For all his perceived faults, Barton is proving to be a decent coach and they’ve got a side packed with quality, aggression and style. Callum Camps is a great addition too, he’s been Rochdale’s talisman for a while now and he’ll be hoping to step up to the Championship under Barton. My gut feeling is they’ll be in the mix.
Gillingham
Av Attendance 2019/20: 5233
Manager: Steve Evans
Preferred Formation 2019/20: 4-3-1-2
Last game v City: Imps 0-0 Gills 22nd Feb 2020
Summer Ins: Ryan Jackson – Colchester, Vadaine Oliver – Northampton, Zach Medley – Arsenal (loan), Trae Coyle – Arsenal (loan), Jacob Mellis – Bolton, Jordan Graham – Wolves, Alex McDonald – Mansfield, Kyle Dempsey – Fleetwood, Robbie McKenzie – Hull, Christian Maghoma – Arka Gdynia
Summer Outs: Max Ehmer – Bristol Rovers, Mikael Mandron – Crewe, Lee Hodson – Hamilton (loan), Mark Byrne, Ousseynou Cisse, Ben Pringle (All released)
Wow, I just write a piece about an unpopular manager in Joey Barton and my next subject is Steve Evans. I feel I might have to go and wash my hands after this.
Evans is a great pantomime villain. I’m not a fan of his touchline antics, nor his incessant hyperbole around new signings and their potential, but he did prove a point last season. He was always thought of as a money man, going where he can spend and enjoying success purely because of that. well, Gillingham are not a flush side and yet last season they were solid, tough to beat and may have been able to stake a bold claim for sixth had the season progressed. Evans is a master at stopping opponents playing, but he has a style of his own that works too. Akinde and Oliver up top are both familiar to us, we wouldn’t thank you for either right now and yet somehow, under Evans, they seem a real prospect.
Some of his deals (and there are many as there always are with Evans) concern me. Mellis and McDonald are surely not the quality a top ten League One side needs, but Dempsey and Graham almost certainly are. Evans is a bit like a stew your Mum used to cook; she chucks everything in, boils it up and sometimes the results are great, other times they are not. I didn’t think this year’s ‘Evans stew’ would be all that great, but as the weeks pass I think I might have to acknowledge I might be wrong.