The shedding of contract/rolling contract players is always sad, both for the Club and the young individuals themselves, whatever their merits and demerits, but  is the only obvious way forward as the club has to cut its cloth to suit its circumstances... as any other responsibly run business has to.  Sadly, as a result, we are not this season  going to have a settled team who bed down and learn to operate effectively by constant familiarity and consistency of selection.  The loan system is our new reality for the foreseeable future.  Reliance on loanees obviously requires of Management  constant improvisation and the shuffling of a pack of mostly very young players whose tenure might only last a month.  This puts tremendous demands on the Management Team  ... especially as it  has such a stark  bottom line for the rest of this season: avoid relegation by winning more often, playing attractive football and bringing "seasonal"/semi-detached, followers back to the TSHPLTD Stadium.  It's a tribute to both the Board and current and previous Managemnt that EFL clubs in the South West clubs feel full confidence in releasing players to CTFC knowing that they'll be well looked after and offered opportunities for 1st Team football that they'd rarely get otherwise. Would young Scotty T have flourished as he has done  without the opportunities he was offered at CTFC?  We look as though we might be heading towards the youngest squad in the NLS.. so the older heads of WR, KP, SH  etc will never have been more important as regards example and leadership on the pitch.
BTW, for an informative 5 minutes.. you might want look up the Wikipedia entry for the erstwhile Fairy Godfather of Billericay FC, Glenn Tamplin.  His Lordship will eat his deerstalker if anyone can find a managerial/chairmanly CV to match it!.  Clearly Billericay are still suffering the damage... which is why they will doubtless be as dangerous and unwilling to roll over as Braintree and Welling ( at the time)..Thank God we have the Chairman and Board we have. Come on You Blue Fledglings. Fly!!

 

On the topic of loans, ex-Bluebird Josh Smile has just joined tomorrow’s opponents Billericay for 1 month…

96chipp wrote:

On the topic of loans, ex-Bluebird Josh Smile has just joined tomorrow’s opponents Billericay for 1 month…

They’ve also signed a defender form WBA and a striker from Barnet on loan.

Chipp54 wrote:

HisLordship wrote:

The shedding of contract/rolling contract players is always sad, both for the Club and the young individuals themselves, 

 

But they weren't young individuals. They were relatively old, relatively expensive and past their best.

I think we have an age-relative difference here, young Chipp!  At my very advanced and semi-derelict age, anyone under 40 is worryingly young and any one 21 or under is a mere infant. Having said that, just before  the first  Lockdown I had the pleaure of watching a Home game in the company of the charming wife and two lovely, spirited young daughters of a CTFC player watching Daddy play.  She was telling me how, as a delivery driver for a  National carrier company, her partner was very anxious about being   retained for the next season as the extra footballing money meant  a lot to their young family.  That player was "shed" this summer. I know nothing of the circumstances of Messrs Jackson & Stearn... but 6 weeks before Christmas, potentially having  mortgages and  young children, being shown the door could never be other than a sad blow.... however superannuated and expensive you feel them to be. Neither of them was exactly a Wayne Bridge.. either warming the bench or shopping in the Arndale Centre of a Saturday afternoon on £150,00( ?) a week.
 

If having loan players put points on the board I will take that, but believe it’s a short term fix,to a long term problem. Looks like money talks even more these days in our league.