Upson / Ogogo - Potential Departures?

When you add the new signings to the players who've already got first team experience then you can see we've probably got too many midfielders.
By my reckoning we've got :

3 keepers ( Anssi, VDS and Alex
8 defenders (Hare, Little Leahy Kelly Baldwin Ehmer KIlgour and Harries)
9 midfielers ( Rodman Bennett Nicholson Barrett Upson Ogogo Hargreaves Grant Tomlinson)
3 forwards ( JCH Daly Ayunga)

thats 23, so 2 or 3 probably leaving as Ben said 1 more for sure coming in.

To "get rid" now to an L2 side will probably mean we have to contribute at least 50% of their wages, particularly if the £1.5m L2 wage budget is brought in next season. 

Generally agree with the above.

Ogogo over Upson if one has to leave.

I can't see Rodman playing much next season - so he's probably surplus to requirements.

Bennett? I can't see him playing at all next season - he's definitely surplus to our requirements.

Bennet is the man to go, hopefully now Swinedon have come up he will go there

I sense there's little chance of that happening this summer as the players will have to take big hits, 6 August was the last date set by the EFL.   

There is nothing concrete to suggest either will leave. Frosty was just guessing on that one.

If one was to go I'm 60/40 in favour of keeping Ogogo but they have very different strengths. Upson is the better footballer so Garner may prefer him.

Get rid of Bennett, bring in one or two more quality additions and we're set for a good season.

So just playing devil's advocate.. You've heard from the Cov fans on here who all seem to say the one downside to ZW"s game is his lack or willingness to compete for 50/50 balls.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing without seeing him, but those opinions were formed after watching him for most of last season.

That puts Ogogo ahead of Upson in the team if we are to play to each others strengths..

Much as I like Tomlinson and hope to see him get more game time the fact that he’s 19 and promoted from our own youth team means we can declare him as one of the non contributing players to the salary cap (my understanding is if they are 21 or under and had at least one season in your youth programme their salaries are exempt from being included in your allowance). Hence Tomlinson along with Hoole, Mehew, Armstrong, Hulbert, Walker, Warwick and Phillips are the free hits in the current squad. When you look at them the obvious missing piece is no Centre Half and that explains why the first positions we nailed down when adding to the senior squad were the central defensive options.

The fine tuning that’s left revolves around whether any of our in contract players like Bennett, Ogogo, Upson etc are attracting concrete interest that their agent considers worth pursuing and whether that suits our purpose. Abs, for instance, showed many times last season that he has the stomach for the fight and the engine to get up and down the pitch to do something about it, hence it would have to be a decent offer to make me consider parting with that quality, but if Mansfield Et al were to meet the valuation and there were alternatives that keep the squad balanced and the club on the right side of the wage cap then you can see any deal being done.

i don’t expect that when the season starts our squad will be exactly the right balance to take us through the first half of the season...but we have till October to identify where there is little or no depth and sound out some young prem or championship talent that will be loanable at a subsidised salary. They’ll want their starlets having at least some experience of the mans game and whilst we’d rather be developing our own talent we’re going to have to develop somebody else’s where the salary cap leaves us little choice.

Ideally IMO it would be good if we could offload Upson, Little & Bennett. The bar has been set fairly high defensively but the weakness we have is LB still - neither are good enough and good teams would exploit that weakness. So for me another LB and another wide player and then good business done.