Squad shapes up for a challenging season

You can't beat this time of year. Just days before start of the season and all things are possible. The phony war of the pre-season is over and the real thing is about to kick off. Had a bad pre-season? Lost all your friendlies, signed a bunch of no-hopers and had your star striker carried off with a broken leg in training? No worries, everyone knows a bad pre-season practically guarantees a good start and the play-offs by Christmas. On the other side of the coin, had a good pre-season? Won all your friendlies, including the one against a middling Premiership side? Signed a good mix of seasoned pros and a couple of starlets everyone's raving about? Excellent! You should really be looking forward to the new season then! Everyone's a winner!

And then there's us, Yeovil Town. On balance I would say we've had a pretty good pre-season. Results have been more or less as expected but more importantly a style of play has developed which hopefully will become entrenched over the next few months. Skivo's team, it seems to me, tries to get the ball forward quickly, tries to keep it on the ground until it gets wide, and tries to close down the opposition fast when they've got the ball. We're playing the game with pace and trying to hit teams on the break, a sensible ploy if we're under the cosh as much as most pundits and bookies expect us to be this season.

As for the squad, this is how it looks (the squad that started last season in italics):

Goalkeepers: Alex McCarthy, Richard Martin (Alex Begovic, Josh Wagenaar). Begovic is clearly the outstanding keeper here, but we only had him for 3 months as it turned out. McCarthy has bags of potential and could be anything really. We've got him for 6 months, could be an inspired signing or could be a disaster. Martin we know less of, but he surely must be better than Wagenaar.

Fullbacks: Craig Alcock, Danny Hutchins, Nathan Smith, Nathan Jones, (Lee Peltier, Craig Alcock, Nathan Smith, Nathan Jones). Losing Peltier is a blow, but not an unexpected one. Gaining Hutchins permanently looked a real bonus at the time, but he's not enjoyed the best of pre-seasons. Hopefully he can get back to last season's form ASAP. Big things expected of Smith this season, if he can stay injury-free.

Centre-backs: Stefan Stam, Steven Caulker, Terrell Forbes, Terry Skiverton, (Terry Skiverton, Terrell Forbes, Rob Fitzgerald, Jordan Street). Stam looks quality, Caulker a wonderful prospect and keeping Forbes was another real bonus. Skivo will hope not to play at all, but he'll be lucky.

Wingers/wide midfielders: Scott Murray, Aidan Downes, Danny Schofield, Andy Welsh, (Danny Schofield, Paul Warne, Aidan Downes). An injury-free Murray will score and provide goals. Keeping Schofield was the third major bonus of the summer. Welsh is another quality provider.

Central midfielders: Kieran Murtagh, George O'Callaghan, Ryan Mason, (Marc Bircham, Darren Way, Kieran Murtagh). On paper last season's trio looks the stronger but of course events have taken two of those three out of the picture. Murtagh is gaining in confidence all the time and has plenty of ability, O'Callaghan has proven ability but needs to show consistency and Mason is another exciting prospect. Such a shame that Gary Roberts decided to play silly buggers with his career, with him involved the central midfield would have been a real strong point. It's pretty good anyway, with the likes of Schofield able to cover.

Strikers: Gavin Tomlin, Sam Williams, Dean Bowditch, (Gavin Tomlin, Andre McCollin, Lloyd Owusu). Tomlin has improved as he's been here, can he up his game further? The two new lads, Williams and Bowditch, are the target-men types we've been looking for. Can they play together? Will they score goals? We'll soon find out.

The squad is larger than this time last season and has more strength in depth. We've lost some good players, but we've gained some too. For what it's worth I think we unquestionably look in better shape than this time last year, but there again this time last year we looked in real trouble. Are we good enough to survive? I think so. Are we good enough to do better than survive, to push for the play-offs? I don't think so, but no-one other than a raving lunatic optimist would expect anything more. Final position: 15th, and arise Sir Terry!