Written by Mitchell Bray:
Should the expected sale of Jota to Aston Villa and the return of Gary Gardner to Blues go through, then all round, this appears to be an excellent deal.
With our wage bill drastically cut by selling Jota, Garry Monk may, at last, have some leverage in the transfer window.
As it stands we still urgently need a minimum of four players to add to Monk’s ranks and I am hopeful he will get what is required.
This window is, in my opinion, a crucial one for Monk in terms of not only the club but about his own personal ambition. He worked under severe restrictions, with a threadbare squad, but still managed to surpass merely surviving in the division. In fact, he bordered on the unthinkable and challenged for a playoff spot until the EFL punishment.
This must have galvanised his backroom team into thinking “what if?”.
Now they can approach the new season without having one hand tied behind their backs.
We now have a solid foundation and character but the quality is missing in areas that I am sure GM acknowledges. This is the key that unlocks our new campaign. It is obviously still early days, and speculation will be rife everywhere but Bluenoses who know ‘suffering’ more than most will remain fairly grounded in the trust that our manager will deliver.
Monk is certainly not on trial but I would imagine he is busting a gut to really set his own career alight. This means getting his original plan in place for a real attempt at promotion with players he needs and not particularly those who are fairly well known. My guess he will go for strong, fit individuals who are hard to beat and pose threats at going forward.
The icing on the cake players such as Jota, Fabbrini et al will not come under his watch, which will be accepted by most if the chance of real scrap to leave this division upwards is on.
This does not mean we are abandoning quality- far from it- just that the tippy tappy players who have been tried will not be repeated under Monk. Mahoney and Gardner are his types and Jutkiewicz and Adams suit him up front. Just two generals in midfield would fly the flag for Monk and who knows he may already have them lined up.