Midfield

Coming in

We’ve got Ethan in the middle. In fact, we’ve got two Ethans, and they’ve got the middle of the park nailed down. Ali Smith offers the cover, but it wouldn’t surprise me massively if we did recruit in the central area. Erhahon is certainly one that might be the subject of a bid, given his quality, and I think we might do a bit of forward planning. Could we find a player like Max Sanders, coming out of a Premier League U21 setup, to nurture and hopefully bring through? The winter window is where we’ve done that in the past; Sanders, Edun and Scully all spring to mind.

There’s also a train of thought that suggests we could do with a more attacking midfielder. Ted Bishop keeps getting a run out, but can’t stay fit, so is there scope for a player to come in there? In the past, we have paid nominal fees for players in this window (Bramall and Poole, for instance), knowing a player is nearing the end of their deal. For instance, we were thought to be interested in Tommy Leigh at Accrington over the summer – he’s out of contract in July and is the sort of player we might pay a nominal fee for in the window.

There’s some crossover here with the number ten role as well – Smith and Bishop have played there, so I’m really thinking about us covering the holding role rather than further up the field, which I’ll cover in the next section.

Current loans

Oisin Gallagher is out on loan and doing well, but his loan was only scheduled to run until January. It really wouldn’t surprise me if that loan finishes, and he heads over to Ireland. I do think we’ll look to place players over there – Roughan and Draper have both benefitted from League of Ireland football, so why not Gallagher? Of course, there’s an outside chance we bring him back here for first-team exposure, given that Michael Skubala hasn’t had a close look at him.