Torquay United: 2011 / 2012 Pre Season

Hello friends and welcome back to the English Riviera as Torquay United prepare for a new season in the Coca cola Championship after a tense and dramatic end to last season at Wembley where we edged past Colchester in the Play-Off Final

One of the first pieces of business was to conclude the deal with our new shirt sponsor and that added a tidy little sum of £160,000 to our back account which was quickly followed by a parachute payment of £400,000.

My intentions going into the upcoming transfer window was again to focus on the back four as many of you know this was a problem area of sorts last season with the exception of Kamil Wiktorski. Also my back room team saw the necessity to replace both Scott Bevan and Michael Poke between the posts and as for myself I was on the hunt for a new left and right midfielder.

From those two sources of revenue previously discussed the board only gave me £55,000 to work with but at least the salary budget went up over £10,000 to £50,000 so that should give me a bit of room to entice any out of contract players. I will however be looking for some decent loan signings as well.

I’ve promised the board that we will attempt to avoid relegation which seems reasonable enough to me.

I had a fair idea of which players were leaving Torquay though before any of that was going to happen I wanted to make sure I got in decent replacements to fill those positions and here they are.

Austrian Jurgen Macho will wear  the No1 shirt and brings some international experience to the side and will replace Scott Bevan. I had made an offer of £40,000 for Welsh keeper Lewis Price but when Macho popped up as a free transfer I swiftly signed him.

Former Man city player Shaleum Logan will compete with former City team mate Kieran Trippier at right back and has good physical attributes as well a half decent cross on him.

Phil Jones was re-signed on loan from Man United for the season as he performed well along side Wiktorski last year and  should provide some “steel” in the back four.

At seventeen Sean McGinty was noted as having great potential  and was picked up on a free transfer from Man United. He’s a bit weak on technique so may rotate in and out of the first team squad

Frederic Veseli was released by Aston Villa and for his young  age has some good all round qualities and could provide decent cover throughout the season

Recommended by the backroom staff Andre Wisdom was trained by Liverpool before being released. Apparently he is one for the future and will most likely go out on loan this season.

Finally after all these young players I decided to go for a seasoned veteran in Lucinao to add a bit of  Mediterranean  flavor to the squad. Doesn’t have top quality attributes  but this signing was all about gut feeling.

Josh Payne (Aston Villa) and Jake Livermore (Spurs) both return to The Riviera as Torquay players due to their contracts expiring and so I quickly snapped them up to the delight of the home fans. Also returning  though on loan is Barry Banan whose name just flows off the tongue and whom I expect to be a big hit this season.

Up front I brought in Jay Simpson who you all know from parent club Arsenal  and Andy Page, an interesting looking ‘poacher” from Aston Villa.

Of my transfers out the most eye catching one was New Zelander Shane Hooks who went off to Ana’s Real Union!

Transfer Actvivity

As been the case all summer long Espanyol have once again came looking for John Guidetti and so I slapped a £1.5million price tag on him. Somehow I think the board are going to accept any offer that comes their way.

Our preseason games went pretty well all in all though we could and should have scored more than we did.

The latest betting puts us as clear favorites to go back down so I hope we can prove the bookies wrong.

So that’s the pre-season activity and now its on to the real thing where we open our campaign with a home game to newly promoted Southampton followed by a League Cup encounter against Southend.

Thanks for reading.