I read somewhere that City had signed eight players by this time in the off season last year. This time around, we’ve a new manager and four I think it is new backroom staff, but no sign of any new players – the influx of all of the new staff meant that the news that Sol Bamba has joined Dean Whitehead (now at Watford) in leaving the club was hardly a surprise.
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The identity of “the special one” who is supposed to be signing for us any time soon has not been officially confirmed, but when Aaron Ramsey was asked directly by a youngster at an event he attended this week, the midfielder spoke of his desire to play for City again while adopting a wait and see attitude. Shortly afterwards, Chairman Mehmet Dalman said any move was now down to Ramsey while also promising supporters an exciting few days and the arrival of some “exciting and talented “ players.
So, while no one is admitting Ramsey is the player we’ve been reading about for the past month or so, no one is denying it’s him either. What we do know is that we won’t be paying a transfer fee for the special one or any other newcomers – the club’s appeal against the EFL embargo imposed in January was heard this week and, although the embargo stays, the good news is that it will now end at the end of August as it will now last for two transfer windows not the original three – we’ll be able to pay transfer and loan fees for new players again come January.
The biggest surprise of the week for me was the news that the first team’s opening pre season game will take place as early as next Saturday (1 July) to be followed by a second match on the following Tuesday – our opponents will be two Cymru Premier teams, Pen y Bont and the New Saints who should both be much further advanced in the fitness stakes than us given that they are both competing in Europe next month.
Manager Erol Bulut spoke of wanting to see his players in action before deciding what moves to make in the transfer market – I assumed that he meant training, but it seems not, hence the games some five weeks before the competitive stuff starts. With those two matches out of the way, the party then head off to the Algarve for a week long camp with the plan being to play another game over there, but, as of now, the only other confirmed friendly remains the Joe Jacobson testimonial match at Wycombe to be played on the weekend before the league season starts.
City will begin that season on the Sunday with a televised game at relegated Leeds. Our second away match is at another relegated side, Leicester, so it’s a testing start for us, but it may be best to face sides like these early on while they’re still getting their Championship bearings – there’s also our very good record against Leeds in the twenty first century to consider as well. Here’s the full list of our League fixtures while it’s also been confirmed that we start off in the Carabao (League) Cup with a home tie against Colchester.
Just to bring things up to date regarding the dying embers of the 22/23 season, City we’re well represented in the two under 19 internationals with Sweden played at Leckwith last weekend. The first resulted in a 1-0 defeat, while it was 2-2 in the other match with City’s Japhet Matondo scoring one of the goals.
It was also 2-2 for Wales under 21s in Denmark in their opening match in their latest Euros qualifying campaign. As the Danes are number one seeds for the group we’re in, it’s a good start, but, in truth, Wales will probably feel disappointed not to have won when you consider that the Danes finished the match with nine players.
Rubin Colwill and Eli King started for Wales and it turned out to be probably the best game of a miserable season for the first named. As in the game in Spain against Scotland in March, Colwill was, by some way, Wales’ most creative player and he carved out our best chance of a first half generally dominated by the home side in which they took the lead with a penalty.
Colwill then created another chance a few minutes after the interval which saw a defender block a goal bound shot with his hand earning him a red card in the process – the City man took the penalty and placed his shot right into the corner of the net with the keeper diving the right way.
About ten minutes later, Colwill was brought down for a second penalty – this time he went in the same direction, but with more power and, although the keeper again got close to the shot, it was placed too well for him (both penalties were in a different class to any of those taken by City’s senior team last season.
Colwill was rather surprisingly withdrawn for the last quarter of an hour and his team could have done with him when their opponents had another player sent off with about five minutes of normal time left – as it was, Wales did everything but score in the time that remained.
As for King, he played the whole game and generally did well, but he will have been disappointed to lose his man from the corner which saw the home side score their equaliser.
Finally, another of the players released by City at the end of the season has found a new club – Jack Leahy, who was used regularly in first team pre season games a year ago, has teamed up with former City boss Steve Morison at Isthmian League side Hornchurch.