The Glass Is Half…..

To me we have the classic glass equation.

One one hand you will have the crew that believes the glass is half full. They will tell us things like last season’s squad got us promoted when many said they wouldn’t proving them wrong. They will tell us that it is not a big step up from League Two to League One. They will point out the merits of the two new signings and the importance of being prudent with the money that we have to spend. They will tell us that Plymouth went up with little investment and Hull went up in successive years.

And then the other hand tells us that the glass is half empty. They will argue back that we only scraped into the last promotion position in what was arguable the weakest League Two for many years. They will point that it is a big difference between the two divisions and argue until the cows come home that the two singings were not our first options. They will tell us that Plymouth had a very good side before they got here and Hull spent big.

And to be honest both sides have an argument that you can understand. It isn’t as a big a step as people believe to move up a division but it is a big step between top of league two and top of league one. A very big step. You also hear the arguments of ‘so and so will be better at a higher division’ from one camp whilst the other will point out that ‘the same so and so was OK at the lower division before so why not last year’

Maybe it is naivety but I don’t believe that our board or manager believed we would be looking at the first friendly being just three days away with only two new signings into the squad. I think they firmly believed that Holt, Burgess and a couple of others would be here. I’m not going into reasons why they aren’t that is for another debate but the fact is that they aren’t.

I have a feeling that both Akinfenwa and Goodfellow will be good additions to our squad. I have to confess that I didn’t think much of Goodfellow when he first arrived but it is difficult to say that he didn’t add more balance to the side. He did and that became evident the moment he left. How many people said last season ‘if he was still here………?’ and how many of those are now sitting in the ‘half empty’ camp?

It’s not ideal to be in this situation but even Arsene Wenger said himself yesterday that many teams are still waiting to make their summer pounces. Now if that is good enough for Arsenal then is it good enough for us?

The season is still only three weeks away and I have a sneaky feeling that we will see many transfers across the league in the next three weeks. Possibly more than we have seen all summer so far. The transfer window is a relative unknown quantity as far as the league is concerned and very few of the managers at the three levels have experienced it. Plus with loan signings then it renders it pointless to a degree.

Which camp do I sit in? Would it be bottling it to say both? I can see the arguments of both and understand them both but at this moment in time I will keep my faith in Kenny and what he is doing. He delivered what he set out to achieve last season no matter how he got there and he deserves to be given the credit for that. I don’t believe we will be relegated but at this moment in time I also don’t think we will be challenging at the top end of things but I would love to be proved wrong.

24 days to go still, lets see what happens in those 24 days and take stock again on the eve of the Tranmere game.

But one final thing just remember that just because it is not reported in the newspapers it doesn’t mean nothing is happening.