Pre-Season 2017/18

Along with your comment on Billy Lowes I think David Jerrard could be a good player for us this year - he popped up with some important goal for us last season and has looked sharpe in preseason.

I worry about Ross Carmichael he has good attributes(strength, speed, height) but that second goal last night makes me wonder if he has the brain he left his man unmarked in the six yard box, he might of got away with that last year.

Bowles - for me he's a much better central defender than midfielder, maybe a few years back he could of been tearing about in the middle of the park but he's gone lost at times. I'd rather seen him at the back especially the fact we've conceded 20 goals in preseason alone.

Neil Martin - doesn't look to be Craig's first choice left back at the minute which is a mistery to me, he's played at this level a long time and with the amount of young players on the pitch it's essential we have some sort experience - playing Egan at left back on his weaker foot just makes no sense to me.

Quality over quantity - I gave Craig the benefit of the doubt when he realeased people at the middle of the last year, but seeing the replacements I'm concerned, if you gave me the chance to have Matty and Franklyn back I'd snap your hand off. I understand budget and all that other shit but we've comfortably got a squad of 20+ most of if not all will be getting paid but I'd rather a good player on 120 than 3 average ones of 50....

I worry about some of the comments lairds been making in the echo, he wants to play this passing style of football, that's great for the start of the season, what happens when the pitches cut up? Have we got a plan B? Are we even good enough to play this brand of football - Most teams in this league don't play like that for a reason, Chippenham won by playing direct like most teams do in this league.

At the start of preseason results didn't matter; it was about getting the legs back but the last two I wanted to see results, when Jem had his first full preseason in charge results were poor up until the final game before the season started when we drew Truro - that's good for the confidence, going into the season off the back of a 4-1 defeat to lower league opposition isn't giving us or the players confidence.

I hope that everything comes together as the season starts and maybe I'm being too negative, but since Craig it's been nothing short of shambles.

Jerrard's quality has never been in doubt for me, it's his desire and "off-the-ball" work that has let him down thus far. He's only young though and hopefully with an extended run last year the penny has dropped with him.

More than most, I think Laird has been guilty of tinkering far too much this pre-season, when I think I'd rather he focused on allowing a first XI to gel. I guess though, the pre-season is the only suitable time (outside of training) to do such a thing, and I do agree with him that the early results can be false flats. Personally, I've not been filled with hope going into this weekend, but similarly, I'm far from pulling my hair out. (Not that I have any nowadays)