There’s been a news report this weekend about JJ McKiernan potentially going back on loan to Burton Albion.
I have done a video on it, which I’ll try to process and drop at some point tomorrow, but I wanted to put something out today; something important.
There has been a lot of discussion around the narrative Jez George painted in his May interview with BBC Radio Lincolnshire. It was felt, by some, that he said JJ would be given a chance to show what he can do in pre-season. Others, such as myself, heard a different tale, one that seemed to promote a bit of caution around JJ’s return to City.
Which is right? Well, both actually. Here’s what was said, and the inference from the words.
“I think JJ is a player who is desperate to play every minute of every game, and that gets harder to achieve depending on the calibre and size of the squad. Our ambition for JJ is to come back here in pre-season and show us the form that he showed in the second half of the season for Burton.
“We watched him extensively—the coaching staff got all his clips. We’ve watched him live on a number of occasions as well, met him away from training, and he’s had a big part to play there. An unbelievable second half of the season, let’s be honest. Burton staying up—they were so far behind, and to stay up with a game or two to spare was fantastic.
“He played a massive part in that. If there’s one thing he’d be critical of himself about, it’s the number of positions he got into to score goals. He probably could have had a handful of goals to add to his level of performance as well.
“So yes, JJ will be back with us in pre-season, and there’s a lot of competition in the places on the pitch he’s trying to get into. Maybe as a number 10, or maybe as a central midfield player—we’ve got a lot of good players, and that’s a challenge for JJ now.”
Isn’t it funny what two people can take from the same wording? I can see how some felt there was a promise he’d be back and given a chance, but I heard the point about his goals return. I heard the ‘that gets harder to achieve’ and wondered if perhaps we were already laying the carpet for an exit, be it a loan or permanent.
However, there was a clear ‘yes, JJ will be back with us in pre-season’ and that suggests to me the intention was for him to be back. I felt that we were essentially saying he wasn’t going to be sold, but that his route to the first team looked tough. Maybe he heard the interview and feels a move would be a good thing, albeit on loan?
Who knows. What was interesting was the next question from Michael Hortin, which basically asked if we felt he was in a better position for an exit if he didn’t get the first team chances. Jez answered as follows.
“I think JJ would’ve demonstrated at Burton why we signed him. He’s a young player and, for every—maybe the perception—someone like Dom Jefferies, who had a fantastic first season with us and maybe exceeded expectations, there are going to be others who don’t quite hit the ground running or don’t get quite as many opportunities as they want.
“Our job is the long-term development of players when they’re coming in at 22 years old. It’s why we sign them on four-year contracts. They’re very rarely liabilities. They’re much more likely to be assets. Our job is to be patient with them.
“If they’re not able to get those opportunities at Lincoln in the short term, we find a club where they can do that, bring them back, reassess, see where they are, and hopefully, they become really important players for us.”
This almost confirmed my view that we were paving the way for a temporary exit. It felt like we were insulating against the criticism of a loan three weeks before the rumour broke. The key words here; ‘rarely liabilities’ and ‘be patient with them’. It feels like we were backing JJ this season, even if that wasn’t with us. I’ve certainly discussed similar on the podcast over the last couple of weeks.
Personally, I’d like to have seen JJ stay and play, but as I explain in the video, it’s where that happens. Are we talking in the ten role, where we have Jack Moylan, Ben House, Tom Bayliss and Reeco? Or wider, where he’ll fight Erik Ring, Reeco, Jovon Makama and maybe Dom Jeffries and Zane Okoro? When you add up the numbers, you can only give 11 players a start, and a further five a chance from the bench, and it does feel like JJ is down that pecking order.
I’ll drop the full video tomorrow, but hopefully, this does clear up a little about what Jez actually said on the podcast, because he didn’t specifically say we’d be giving JJ a chance to shine pre-season. I’m all for questioning a changing narrative, but not for changing the narrative to fit the questioning.