Cod Almighty | Diary

The McJannet Philosophy

28 August 2024

Mr Target Demographic writes: Despite shipping nine goals in the past week, I think it safe to say one of the better acquisitions made this window so far has been Cameron McJannet. Yes, that's right a centre-back who hasn't kept a clean sheet yet is probably up there for me as our joint best signing. Is that a reflection of how bad our transfer business has been? No, I don't believe so, I think each player that has come in this year does offer something in their respective ways. However, with McJannet he does not just offer something, I believe he offers the whole package. Heading, tackling, speed and calmness when put under pressure by playing out from the back (this is key).

Now I appreciate we're not blind and his goal last night probably even swung the neutrals into believing that he is a solid centre-half, but what annoys me is a comment I heard while at the ground yesterday. As someone who wants to see Grimsby Town succeed it annoyed me as the voice spoke: "he won't stay with us". This is so, so, so, so, so frustrating to me because – why not?! I feel that every good or even semi-decent player we've had over the past couple of years leaves because either they want to move onto bigger things, or we don't try hard enough to keep them.

I'll list a few, just in terms of strikers: (going back a bit) Pádraig Amond, left on a free and continued to score 20+ goals a season in league two for Newport. Why didn't we keep him and try to push up the leagues like so many other teams have done recently? Andy Cook, who's still doing it for Bradford and will probably score this Saturday; we let him go…why? There are exceptions. Players like Bogle and McAtee where we received transfer fees too good to turn down, I don't mind, that just happens in football and we're not the only club to suffer from it. But I often believe we don't do enough to try and keep our best players! More recently Danilo Orsi, Harry Clifton, Max Crocombe and Ben Fox all left on a free (with Orsi deemed "not good enough" now playing in league one). Konte had a release clause that saw him leave, and don't get me started on why we never tried to resign Dieseruvwe after the playoff campaign.

It just makes me upset to see teams keep hold of their better players and build round them, often improving as they go, while we continually let ours leave for nothing. An example is Port Vale – for me they are a mid-table league two team yet last year, and it appears this year again, are going to find themselves at the top end of the table. Bromley coming up have managed to keep hold of Michael Cheek and he is already scoring important goals for them. Surely, we have a better stature and more financial muscle than Bromley? If they can keep hold of their better players, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to.

I really don't want us to let McJannet go, if you can't tell already! Or Svanþórsson. I believe they are both good enough players to be in a team that wins this division, a GTFC team for that matter. We are not far away from a decent and really competitive team. If we're going to continue with the system we've been playing we still need another midfielder and we need to sort out the fact that our full-backs are being dominated at the moment. Whether it's to ask the wingers to track back more or the midfield to come over and cover or new full-backs entirely! I'm not sure, but thankfully it's not my problem to sort out.

There needs to be a change in ideology within the club and the fans that once we have a good player, they stay. We reward them and lock them down in a contract for two years. I appreciate this is football and things can change fast in that McJannet may not be as good next year, but I believe we just have to take those risks if we want to improve. I desperately want to improve as a football club and in the last 10 years I feel we have, but only behind the scenes and now it's time for on-pitch improvement. New philosophy from now: keep the good players and for god's sake don't let them leave on a free.

UTM