With Jordan Jones off to Sunderland, there remains one or two bodies who are nowhere near the first team and in need of football for one reason or another.
Greg Stewart is out of contract in the summer and his chances of finding a decent club will improve immensely if he goes out on loan for the rest of the season, it hasn’t worked out for him at Rangers but he has never let us down when he has played and got to live out a childhood dream by playing for the club he supported as a boy.
With Jack Simpson signed up for next season and Leon Balogun also likely to stay, George Edmundson has slipped even further down the pecking order from his previous number four position, we’ve all seen in Steven Gerrard’s time how highly he rates personal qualities like hard work and integrity and the former Oldham centre-half has badly let him down.
Publicly the gaffer my have hinted that all has been forgiven but actions speak louder than words, with interest from down south already rumoured, we could end up in a situation where we have upgraded the centre of defence and made a profit, if Edmundson is sold, unfortunately he is still recovering from a hernia operation so he is unlikely to head out before Monday’s deadline.
The only other player really up for debate is Brandon Barker, with Scott Wright set to arrive and Kai Kennedy impressing more and more every week out on loan, his place will be further under threat in the squad and, for all that he has improved this season, he just hasn’t done enough to merit staying at the club beyond the summer, he’s another I’d like to see go out on loan now to put him in the shop window, but I can’t see it happening.
We’re getting there, there is less dead wood in the squad and we can now trust as many as 20 players to do a job when they are called upon, the last manager to have that luxury was Dick Advocaat when he had about 40 senior professionals to choose from – times, they are a changing, in more ways than one.