Welcome, Ten Foot Tigers readers, to the first blog of the season. With the new season just under a week away, let’s take a look at how The Tigers have been improving during pre-season, which, I have to say, has been used properly this year, compared with last season.
New Signings and Players To Look out For
I have the pleasure of announcing that we have signed some very strong players and they, hopefully, should be the final piece to the puzzle. First, we signed English forward Liam Delap on loan from Manchester City. Delap is a brilliant player and he is going to be a key player in our attack next season; he has pace, good agility and his passing and shooting is quality. I was very happy when we announced him. Second, we signed defender Ruben Vinagre on a season-long loan from Sporting CP, who also spent some time at Wolves. He is another excellent player and I always used to say that we needed some new defenders to strengthen the back and this is exactly what we need. Finally, we signed winger Jason Lokilo on a two-year deal for an undisclosed fee from Sparta Rotterdam, with a club option of a further year. I do not know much about this player, but he has spent some time at Crystal Palace and Doncaster Rovers as a youth. I have heard good things about him, though, so I am looking forward to seeing him in action. We have also taken a close interest in signing defender George Cox. He spent some time in training and he was a trialist in one of our pre-season friendly matches. Hopefully, all goes well and we sign him because we need all the help and options we can get for the defence.
Top left is Liam Delap; top right is Ruben Vinagre; bottom left is Jason Lokilo and bottom right is George Cox.
Unfortunately, there have been rumours on Twitter that Tetteh and Ryan Woods may be leaving and the biggest let down was hearing Karl Darlow signing for our Yorkshire rivals, Leeds. However, Aaron Connolly looks like he is going to stay and there were talks about Sinik coming back, but I will let you know for sure in my next match report.
I am going to quickly end this section by briefly going over some players who we need to look out for and who are going to be vital for us: Regan Slater; Ozan Tufan; Jacob Greaves and Will Jarvis. Slater bagged three goals in all of our pre-season friendlies and he is beginning to show what he can do. Tufan scored two goals and he has been a huge help with attacking and getting the ball forward; Greaves has been ruthless at the back; his switch of play is immense and winning the ball back has been one of his improvements and Will Jarvis is a great youngster who is going to keep improving and link well with Harry Vaughan.
Kits
This year we have moved from Umbro and we have joined partners with the brand Kappa, but we are still sponsored by Corendon Airlines. Take a look at our home, away and third kit here:
On the left is our home kit; middle is our away kit and on the right is our third kit.
I am a fan of our home kit and the away kit is tolerable; however, I am not a fan of our third kit. I will let you decide on which one is best.
Pre Season Friendlies
We were involved in a lot more friendlies this year, which is what we needed. We played a total of seven matches and we drew three and won four, which is amazing. Our first couple of outings were played in Turkey against giants Galatasaray and Hatayspor. I was unable to watch either of them, however, I did keep track of them. We beat Galatasaray 3-4 after being 3-1 down at half time; Tetteh, Christie, Slater and Estupinan were the goal scorers. I could not believe it when we came back and I hope we have that same resilience and determination in the new season. We drew 1-1 in our other match, in which youngster Will Jarvis got the goal.
We then went on to play four local teams: Grimsby Town; Barnsley; Bradford and Scunthorpe. Grimsby was an odd game as it was four 30 minute halves, which meant one team was able to play for the first hour and then Rosenior got a fresh eleven on for the last hour. I did attend this match along with 1,400 other supporters and overall we won 2-1; 1-0 in the first hour and 1-1 in the next. Slater and Longman were our goal scorers.
Next, we faced Barnsley at home. I did purchase my ticket for this, however, I was ill on the day and I was not able to attend. I heard it was a great game and we put on a decent performance. But, we are not taking our chances and are still going backwards when we attack. Nonetheless, we won 1-0 and Will Jarvis was the scorer.
Not long after, we travelled to Bradford and I did not go to this as I had no way of getting there and I could not stream it. We drew 1-1 after they equalised in the last minute. Slater netted for us and I hope we do not do this when it matters. Our final away domestic friendly was against Scunthorpe United, in which we drew 1-1. Apparently we were not at our best and our goal was a deflection after Tufan shot from outside the box.
Finally, we hosted French side Nantes, who compete in the top French league. I did go to this one after a last minute decision and I am glad that I did. We drew 1-1 again; however, the way we were playing was exquisite and some players were linking very well together; Liam Delap and Adama Traore. They were machines on the right wing. There were a couple of dilemmas: the final ball is too slow and by the time they release the ball to a player in the box, it is intercepted; we are playing from the back, but it is too slow and not effective and some passing is a little sloppy for the standard of some teams we will be facing in the Championship. However, the positives overwhelm the negatives and Tufan scored for us, with a brilliant assist from Slater–another good pair.
I know we should be beating the teams who are below us in leagues, but what fans need to understand is that Rosenior is not going for the win, he wants to try new things; have them playing his style of football and to make errors. Also, the goals we did score were well constructed team goals and we are only conceding on average one goal over seven matches, which is a big improvement.
I am very pleased with how we did in our friendlies and I cannot wait to see how we play in the league.
Conclusion
We have used our pre-season as best as we could and I have full trust in Rosenior and who he has brought to the club. I have retained my membership this season, in a different seat, and my brother and I will try our best to get to as many away games. We are definitely going to our local games, Leeds, Rotherham, Huddersfield and Sheffield Wednesday, and we are going to QPR away and I am also hoping we can make it to Leicester. I do not think our owner is doing free travel, but I hope he does for some games that are going to be expensive.
I will conclude this blog by giving my prediction for the new season: I do not believe we will be in the top five, I think we will finish somewhere between 10th and 5th; it all depends on how well and quickly we gel and settle into the season, which is going to be a very tough league for us. With luck, we can improve from last season and keep building on a fabulous team and hopefully do something that seemed impossible not so long ago.