On the back of a great home win yesterday and as our season is under way in earnest now the transfer window is shut just a quick look at two of the main reasons our fortunes have changed from the misery of last season IMO

Martin Hodge (Head of recruitment) and Jared Dublin (Sporting director)

Jared was already in post as a senior club member and when Martin joined back in May he was bumped up to his current role while an experienced Hodge, having been head of recruitment at Swansea and Burnley took the reigns of staffing the dressing room.

Hodge had already known Dublin for years and the fit was made all the more efficient when they joined up and hit the ground running both working in tandem towards the season ahead.

However, it wasn't just the Transfer Window that they started to flex their professional muscle in, it had started before that as City's manager at the time, Ruben Selles was swiftly cut loose after a nail biting end of the season that saw City survive by goal
difference on the last day of the season and the first big task for the Club, which also included City director Mustapha Yokes was to look at and appoint our 6th Manager under Acun's ownership under the dubbed collective, "Brain Team".

I think the choice of Sergej Jakirovic was the first manager we've had that has been a wider club decision as opposed to Acun's initial favoured appointments probably based on more of a personal social decision, heavily biased towards his home nation of Turkey
connections than a football decision without too much involvement from anyone else as Shota Alveradze suggests having lasted just 8 months in post. A long friendship with not an ounce of EFL Savvy was a bitter and expensive lesson.

So with Sergej signed, sealed and delivered with the approval of wider club scrutiny and rubber stamped by Acun, the game was afoot and all was set for a month out shopping. Or so we thought.

An "account department error" soon put the kybosh on that idea.

Embargo.

This is where Hodge and Dublin came into their own. With Sergej possibly left gobsmacked at an unwelcome state of affairs that had pretty much scuppered every player offer he had in mind, the Transfer Twins had to dig deep and dirty, ferreting around the darker
rat runs of the Market and do our shopping on the cheap with some silver tongued trading

AS it turned out, the Embargo could have been a blessing in disguise, forcing our development coaches to pick it up a step, preparing our hopeful and promising development players for muster and for the Club to turn back and take a more serious look at our home grown talent and IMO, there have been a few rough diamonds unearthed, one namely Pharrell Brown who smashed his way onto the radar with some very impressive outings during closed season training.

Long story short, the business done by both Hodge and Dublin have IMO turned out to be at least as good as one of the best windows we've seen in a long while and at bargain basement till receipts, racking up a dozen of so new names to join our ranks, adding
strength in depth and a number of playing style options and formations.

We've also re energised existing players that were out of favour such as Giles who's been given a new lease of life under Sergej as opposed to Selles when he binned him off to Boro' on loan. Coyle, often slated and out of favour under Selles / Walters looks
far more confident and composed and very much a Captain.

So, all in all we are not just looking more promising on the field but also down in the engine room, unseen by the passengers the technicians are greasing the nipples, oiling the rods, and keeping the pressure gauge in the black and amber.

Full Steam Ahead for HMS P*** The League?

UTT.