It feels like the summer transfer window has been open for months (oh, it has) but, as we approach the end of August, there are now just days rather than weeks in which clubs can complete any further business.
United boss Paul Simpson spoke to the press yesterday on what he expects will be a quiet few days to come.
“Once we get the injured lads back we’ve got good competition in all areas of the pitch,” he commented. “The way the transfer window works, once we get to September, that’s it until January.
“If we don’t get that right we could be in trouble come January, so we’ve got to get players back fit and keep them fit.
“I don’t expect anything else to come in, if I’m being completely honest. That’s two-fold, we haven’t got the room in the budget left to do anything, which is fine.
“The club pushed the boat out to give us a little bit more to get Duncan Idehen in. The other thing is that I’m quite happy with the squad, we’re in a much better place and I’m looking forward to seeing how we go with it.”
“Again, being honest, I probably did more than I expected to this summer,” he added. “My hand was forced on that with the injury situation.
“This isn’t a finished group, but it’s one that’s ready to take us through the first part of the season up to January. We’ll reassess where we’re at and what we need to do differently as we get to that point.
“I think the benefit of the situation we’re in at the club now is that we can actually have a plan in place as we look towards January.
“We’ve got Greg who is working with the part-time scouts, and Jacob is helping him with the analysis side of it.
“We’ll work together as a team to make sure we’ve got a plan in place if we feel we do need to do anything in January. Moving forward we won’t be starting with a blank piece of paper as we go into a transfer window, like we had to do this year. It’ll be a much more structured approach.”
And, of course, the transfer window opens both ways, with late bids to take players away always a possibility.
“We’ve had a couple of calls, but nothing serious,” he said. “The truth of it is I’m not prepared to let any of them go.
“Part of it is that the only way us bringing players in will change is if anything surprising happens the other way.
“The pleasing thing is I’ve got nobody knocking on my door saying they want to go because they’re unhappy, and we aren’t in a position where we have to sell.
“As long as that’s the case I want to keep everybody together. I’d like to think we aren’t going to get any other enquiries for our players, and I’ve actually been looking at the contracts over the last week or so.
“We’ve got a lot of players who may attract interest that we have an option for that’s in our favour. Effectively they’ve got 20 months left instead of just eight months, which is brilliant.
“That makes me think I’ve got a better starting position next summer than I had this summer. I know I’m looking far ahead with that, but I’ve said all along I want to look long-term.
“I know I’ve got to get short and medium-term right, but I want to look long-term to try and progress the club and build the club to be better than it was when I first came in.”
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