Micky Mellon's Retained and Released List

[Wardie]

9 minutes ago, Frankly Mr Shankly said:

 

It's a blank page. Is that the club telling us it's a clean sweep of the decks? 

Now it's a404!
Jesus.

[Dickie Down]

I think it was a hoax.

[Wardie]

Just now, Dickie Down said:

I think it was a hoax.

Somebody with a sense of humour at the club?
I think it was a mistake.

[Crusoe]

I think they just pressed the button too early. Presumably we’ll see it tomorrow. 

[Dickie Down]

4 minutes ago, Wardie said:

Somebody with a sense of humour at the club?
I think it was a mistake.

The font used for ' Retained List' was different to the one the club uses.

 

Amusing, though.

[Wardie]

3 minutes ago, Crusoe said:

I think they just pressed the button too early. Presumably we’ll see it tomorrow. 

Good job the person responsible is not the president of the United States!  

[sjk2008]

On 4/22/2024 at 6:20 PM, deyres42 said:

You aren't getting game changers on one year contracts so let's put that red herring back in the sea.

I don’t often, but I have to agree with Rob here.

 

It wasn’t long ago we were sick and tired of only offering 12 month deal and then collectively losing our shit every pre-season when we pretty much had to start again.

 

2yr deals with an option (on both sides) is the way forward, but only for the right players. No more 32+ year olds looking for that final pay day.

[Dave_Og]

Many things that I struggle to get my head around, one would be Lundstram.Apparently he'd struggled to adjust to being at a bigger club? He's not got much of a career ahead of him if that's really the case. It's not like he's moved to Real Madrid 

[nzlatic]

1 hour ago, Dave_Og said:

Many things that I struggle to get my head around, one would be Lundstram.Apparently he'd struggled to adjust to being at a bigger club? He's not got much of a career ahead of him if that's really the case. It's not like he's moved to Real Madrid 

I think playing for Oldham in the national league is comparable to playing for the top premier league teams. Relatively of course. You’re expected to perform and you’re expected to win the league. That’s a huge difference to playing for someone who would be delighted with a play off place so needs the right sort of player who can handle it. Added to that, there was an extra layer of pressure on Lundstram particularly because a lot of our issues early this season were partly blamed on him being out injured so by the time he came back we’re all expecting to see a world beater. 
 

Those side of things need work on too as well as physical attributes. I think he looked a lot better when he came back after Mellon gave him a break. So I’m hopeful he can kick on next season. That’s why recruitment is so crucial and probably so difficult this summer. We need more players who will keep moving forward when the pressure is on (metaphorically and literally!) and not ones that will shrink like too many of ours have done this season. 

[nzlatic]

If the rumours are true about McGahey getting a new deal then I’m guessing it would be because he sees in him a mental strength that others don’t have. So would rather have him as a back up for central defence or defensive midfield. Even if he is limited as a player. 
 

 

[OneSizeFitz]

6 minutes ago, nzlatic said:

If the rumours are true about McGahey getting a new deal then I’m guessing it would be because he sees in him a mental strength that others don’t have. So would rather have him as a back up for central defence or defensive midfield. Even if he is limited as a player. 
 

 

 

I might be in a minority of one here, but I don't think he's that technically limited... He's strong, decent in the air, and not hopeless with the ball at his feet (for a defender). Spent several seasons playing regularly in League One / League Two and still only 28. So added to the 'personality', can see why Mellon might keep hold of him. 

[nzlatic]

6 minutes ago, OneSizeFitz said:

 

I might be in a minority of one here, but I don't think he's that technically limited... He's strong, decent in the air, and not hopeless with the ball at his feet (for a defender). Spent several seasons playing regularly in League One / League Two and still only 28. So added to the 'personality', can see why Mellon might keep hold of him. 

Yeah i agree. He doesn’t often look to go back, he sometimes tries to beat a man or try a forward pass. Doesn’t always come off which becomes frustrating but I can see his uses as a squad player. 

[JoeP]

24 minutes ago, OneSizeFitz said:

 

I might be in a minority of one here, but I don't think he's that technically limited... He's strong, decent in the air, and not hopeless with the ball at his feet (for a defender). Spent several seasons playing regularly in League One / League Two and still only 28. So added to the 'personality', can see why Mellon might keep hold of him. 

 

Your pre-season optimism has started early!

[mick26]

2 hours ago, Dave_Og said:

Many things that I struggle to get my head around, one would be Lundstram.Apparently he'd struggled to adjust to being at a bigger club? He's not got much of a career ahead of him if that's really the case. It's not like he's moved to Real Madrid 

I think it was more his preseason injury that made him struggle. Saw him at the Hyde game (I know!) and he looked just the type we needed when he came on.Bearing in mind that Hyde were much better than us on the day with Harry Bunn, Lewis Alessandra and Jack Redshaw .

[Dave_Og]

42 minutes ago, nzlatic said:

eI think playing for Oldham in the national league is comparable to playing for the top premier league teams. Relatively of course. You’re expected to perform and you’re expected to win the league. That’s a huge difference to playing for someone who would be delighted with a play off place so needs the right sort of player who can handle it. Added to that, there was an extra layer of pressure on Lundstram particularly because a lot of our issues early this season were partly blamed on him being out injured so by the time he came back we’re all expecting to see a world beater. 
 

Those side of things need work on too as well as physical attributes. I think he looked a lot better when he came back after Mellon gave him a break. So I’m hopeful he can kick on next season. That’s why recruitment is so crucial and probably so difficult this summer. We need more players who will keep moving forward when the pressure is on (metaphorically and literally!) and not ones that will shrink like too many of ours have done this season. 

 

There's a real dilemma here.

 

It's just bizarre that so many of our players appeared to be weak mentally - Many have played at a higher level, many have achieved things in their career that are what we as a club aspire to. But they're mentally weak?  It makes no sense at all.  Mellon seems to have preferred experience over youth during his career but here he has a team of largely experienced players who have proved they can play at this level, at least, but we're left with spineless performances against clubs with a fraction of the resources.  OK, we were light at right back and in midfield but it doesn't excuse some of the stuff we've seen which has looked a lot like throwing in the towel.

 

So, we'd prefer a good blend of young dynamic players who, pretty much by definition, will be taking a step up if the come here even if they are coming from a higher level club where they played in, say the U23s, and gnarly NL experience.  If our first question of that younger cohort is can the cope with the pressure of playing for the mighty Oldham Athletic and the only way of finding out is by signing and playing them, then we really are stuffed because the chances of getting that right, say, 75% of the time seem to be pretty remote based on recent experience.

[Hemel latic]

28 minutes ago, nzlatic said:

Yeah i agree. He doesn’t often look to go back, he sometimes tries to beat a man or try a forward pass. Doesn’t always come off which becomes frustrating but I can see his uses as a squad player. 

I'll also stick my head above the parapet on this. Of all the players currently on our books he's the best we've got at CDM and we know he's a CB by trade and has covered RB too. He's smart at breaking up play and covering from CDM, he works really hard. He's mentally strong, coming back from that back injury showed real fortitude and I don't think he's missed a game through injury since he came back.

 

Unless we're signing two better CDMs, or he's overpaid for what he does, it's an easy decision to keep him for me. 

[nzlatic]

16 minutes ago, Dave_Og said:

 

There's a real dilemma here.

 

It's just bizarre that so many of our players appeared to be weak mentally - Many have played at a higher level, many have achieved things in their career that are what we as a club aspire to. But they're mentally weak?  It makes no sense at all.  Mellon seems to have preferred experience over youth during his career but here he has a team of largely experienced players who have proved they can play at this level, at least, but we're left with spineless performances against clubs with a fraction of the resources.  OK, we were light at right back and in midfield but it doesn't excuse some of the stuff we've seen which has looked a lot like throwing in the towel.

 

So, we'd prefer a good blend of young dynamic players who, pretty much by definition, will be taking a step up if the come here even if they are coming from a higher level club where they played in, say the U23s, and gnarly NL experience.  If our first question of that younger cohort is can the cope with the pressure of playing for the mighty Oldham Athletic and the only way of finding out is by signing and playing them, then we really are stuffed because the chances of getting that right, say, 75% of the time seem to be pretty remote based on recent experience.

Part of the issue and what makes it hard to understand is how many are affected in this way? It might not be that many but enough for it to spread. I wouldn’t have thought Conlon would fall under that bracket but he plays that way. So maybe it’s like an infection? And the answer I suppose is to either cut it out or introduce something to fight that infection. Or both. 
 

Im just guessing here by the way. But something is wrong when it comes to the mental side of our game clearly.

[Lee Sinnott]

15 minutes ago, Hemel latic said:

I'll also stick my head above the parapet on this. Of all the players currently on our books he's the best we've got at CDM and we know he's a CB by trade and has covered RB too. He's smart at breaking up play and covering from CDM, he works really hard. He's mentally strong, coming back from that back injury showed real fortitude and I don't think he's missed a game through injury since he came back.

 

Unless we're signing two better CDMs, or he's overpaid for what he does, it's an easy decision to keep him for me. 

He's done a great job at being crap in 3 different positions...

[JoeP]

32 minutes ago, Dave_Og said:

 

There's a real dilemma here.

 

It's just bizarre that so many of our players appeared to be weak mentally - Many have played at a higher level, many have achieved things in their career that are what we as a club aspire to. But they're mentally weak?  It makes no sense at all.  Mellon seems to have preferred experience over youth during his career but here he has a team of largely experienced players who have proved they can play at this level, at least, but we're left with spineless performances against clubs with a fraction of the resources.  OK, we were light at right back and in midfield but it doesn't excuse some of the stuff we've seen which has looked a lot like throwing in the towel.

 

So, we'd prefer a good blend of young dynamic players who, pretty much by definition, will be taking a step up if the come here even if they are coming from a higher level club where they played in, say the U23s, and gnarly NL experience.  If our first question of that younger cohort is can the cope with the pressure of playing for the mighty Oldham Athletic and the only way of finding out is by signing and playing them, then we really are stuffed because the chances of getting that right, say, 75% of the time seem to be pretty remote based on recent experience.

 

A lot of the players weve signed who've won things in the past might have been pulled through by the other players who were in the same team. 

 

We might have signed these players based on stats and previous achievements, when it was their team mates that were keeping them going. 

 

It's becoming obvious with Lundstram that he needs the right players around him more than most. Alty's player of the season last year, but not even a glimpse here. Alty, meanwhile, have barely dropped a beat since he left them..

 

So we've basically signed the branches of other successful teams, when we needed to sign the trunk... if that metaphor works!

 

 

Edited April 24 by JoeP

[Dave_Og]

1 minute ago, JoeP said:

 

A lot of the players were signed who've won things in the past might have been pulled through by the other players who were in the same team. 

 

We might have signed these players based on stats and previous achievements, when it was their team mates that were keeping them going. 

 

It's becoming obvious with Lundstram that he needs the right players around him more than most. Alty's player of the season last year, but not even a glimpse here. Alty, meanwhile, have barely dropped a beat since he left them..

Yep, team game - but teams rarely win promotion when they have weak minded players in their regular starting XI

[JoeP]

2 minutes ago, Dave_Og said:

Yep, team game - but teams rarely win promotion when they have weak minded players in their regular starting XI

 

My point is maybe the players weve signed might have provided the talent, rather than contributed to the mental side of successful sides they were a part of previously. 

 

Also not sure about the hunger of a player who's already been there and done promotion. Do you have the same eagerness, if you've already won it? 

[Only Blue]

3 hours ago, Dave_Og said:

Many things that I struggle to get my head around, one would be Lundstram.Apparently he'd struggled to adjust to being at a bigger club? He's not got much of a career ahead of him if that's really the case. It's not like he's moved to Real Madrid 

I know Dave but if he gets nervous about playing and is brave enough to tell us all then a bit of support for him wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

It's all relative what worries you, I worried when my pub team got promoted to the Oldham Sunday premier league

 

 

[Dave_Og]

Just now, Only Blue said:

I know Dave but if he gets nervous about playing and is brave enough to tell us all then a bit of support for him wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

It's all relative what worries you, I worried when my pub team got promoted to the Oldham Sunday premier league

 

 

 

I play pool on Tuesdays for the local pub (not especially well - it's more of  a social thing)  We were in Division Two of Three this winter, there were eight teams of which three were promoted and three were relegated.  Division One is way too serious (One bloke I played from up there in a cup competition had a whole sleeve of pool based tattoos!) so we weren't really fussed about going up but we are competitive enough not to want to go down.  Mission accomplished, we finished fifth.  Love a comfort zone!

[nzlatic]

10 minutes ago, JoeP said:

 

My point is maybe the players weve signed might have provided the talent, rather than contributed to the mental side of successful sides they were a part of previously. 

 

Also not sure about the hunger of a player who's already been there and done promotion. Do you have the same eagerness, if you've already won it? 

Agree. Most of our signings were well received by our fans. But maybe that’s where the naivety of Unsworth came in last summer - he was looking at it more superficially. Someone experienced like Mellon will hopefully look for more this summer. 

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

45 minutes ago, Hemel latic said:

I'll also stick my head above the parapet on this. Of all the players currently on our books he's the best we've got at CDM and we know he's a CB by trade and has covered RB too. He's smart at breaking up play and covering from CDM, he works really hard. He's mentally strong, coming back from that back injury showed real fortitude and I don't think he's missed a game through injury since he came back.

 

Unless we're signing two better CDMs, or he's overpaid for what he does, it's an easy decision to keep him for me. 

 

He's definitely been used as a stopgap and the only one who was consistent in breaking up play. Yes, that last match at home was a total horror show, some may point out. But people forget how frequently teams used to travel with the ball right through central midfield.

 

I wouldn't have kept him myself as I think we're well serviced in central defence and I'd like us to focus on getting midfield sorted. But, providing MM wanted him as cover I don't think a huge deal needs to be made of that. We probably need the likes of McGahey and Sheron next season, with all their limitations, to bring on to help see out a tetchy 1-0 win.