As we get ever closer to the new season, there’s a mixed bag of both excitement and concern in EX4. After last season’s decent campaign resulting in a 14th placed finish with no threat of relegation, the close season has been a real period of change for the club with no fewer than 13 players moving on to pastures new.

Some may say that this could be down to the management, but sometimes it’s just the simple fact that said player would like a new challenge. I try to look at things from a human perspective as although we see them mainly as footballers being fans, I’m mindful that they are people too. I’ve had instances in my working life where I’ve felt a new challenge was required, not that there was anything wrong with my workplace at the time, and players and staff are just the same as us in that respect. The career of a footballer is a short one, and therefore they rightly want to make the most of it to set themselves up for life and for their career after they retire. These players have families, loved ones etc to support too so if they want to move for personal purposes or to undertake a new challenge you can’t blame them really. There really is no point standing in someone’s way if that is the decision they have decided to undertake.

Saying that, you’ve got to prepare for those eventualities as you need to bring in someone to fill in the role left behind by the departing player. I have faith that Gary Caldwell and the recruitment team have been working hard over recent months to look at where we need to strengthen, and some of the players that we’ve brought in so far for me signals the intent of the management to take our club to the next level. Tom Carroll for one looks a decent experienced signing – if we can keep him fit of course. Working in the data field myself, there is a plethora of data at your fingertips these days and I’d imagine the data that our coaching and recruitment team have now is plentiful, from top of the range scouting software to data from heart rate monitors, player positioning and the like.

Granted we’re still a bit short in places, especially in defence, and new loan keeper Vil Sinisalo conceding 8 goals in his first two games albeit friendlies for me is a small cause for concern. I’d want to keep with a back 3 of Hartridge, Diabate and Sweeney but strength in depth is needed to cover these positions in case of injuries and suspensions. It may be worth looking into getting some more defensively-minded wing-backs to help support the back three, but on the flip side this is easier said than done and may impact on our attacking impetus.

As I write this, another issue has cropped up at the top of the pitch. Sam Nombe, who is our current main source of goals, is being heavily linked with a move to Charlton. However, a social media post from the club confirmed today that he was taking part in training. Having lost Jevani Brown (which I think the club dealt with in the right manner by the way), if this move goes ahead it’s quite alarming at present trying to work out where the goals are going to come from. Considering the money we’ve received in this window (although I expect said money will be paid in instalments so we’d only have a quarter of it now), I hope that we can spend some of that money and get in some adequate replacements where needed.

I really want GC to succeed here and I hope that he does, but can understand some fans’ frustrations with how this transfer window has panned out so far despite some of the signings made. Saying that though, there are clearly some in the fan-base who aren’t fans of him whether that be down to his unsuccessful previous roles at Chesterfield and Partick Thistle to name but two, or his Celtic connections as I know a couple of Grecians with connections to the blue part of Glasgow. Going back to the former point, who hasn’t had a job where things haven’t worked out as you would have liked or where you’ve made mistakes? I certainly have, and personally I feel I’m a better person for having learnt from those experiences – I’d like to think that this is also the case for GC. As I said before with the players, he’s human too.

On paper, I still think a top-half finish is doable. However, what I witnessed on the pitch at Torquay last Saturday (the only pre-season game I’ve seen so far) was rather concerning. Credit to our yellow neighbours who fully deserved their win, however we were not prepared for the physicality that faced us. We treated the game as just another run-out whereas Torquay wanted to get one over us being their biggest rivals (albeit one-way). Some of the tackling left a lot to be desired on Saturday, yes you should go into every game wanting to win however we were very lucky not to come out of the ‘friendly’ with any injuries considering how physical Torquay were. You’d expect that kind of play in a league game, but I think we were pretty naive going into that game considering how much Torquay wanted to win it.

Following that, we’ve had two further friendlies this week facing Bristol City and Weston-Super-Mare. Both games had a mixture of first-teamers and academy products, so it doesn’t give a huge indication of what side will start at Wycombe a week on Saturday. The former ended in a 4-0 defeat, from looking at YouTube highlights for me some of those goals were preventable and hopefully we can learn from them, but the latter ended in a hard-fought 3-2 win. Considering a fair few of our friendlies this pre-season have been against sides three divisions below in National League South, I can’t help but feel that some of the results could have been more convincing – but hey, as the old adage says, you can never read too much into a pre-season.

At the fans forum, GC explained that the players could be suffering from fatigue from the gruelling pre-season they’ve endured, so this could explain under-par performances, however he did mention that he needed the defending to be a lot better. When the players would usually chalk up 3-4k distances in training for a league game, they’ve been chalking up 6-7k distances in pre-season, so the extra stress on their bodies is likely to be a factor.

So onto Coventry at home on Saturday for our final pre-season game. This should give a reasonable indication of the side we’d expect to line up at Wycombe the following Saturday. It’ll be great to get back to SJP again to see some familiar faces and hopefully the players will put in a good shift. Coventry are likely to be challenging near the top of the table again this coming season despite losing star striker Victor Gyökeres to Sporting Lisbon, so as long as we’re competitive and give it a good go – even if we lose the game – I’ll be satisfied.

A fair few of our fans are concerned about the coming season and I can see why, however until we’re a fair few games into the season around the late September/early October point we won’t have a rough idea of what’s likely to happen going forward, so for me I’m still (cautiously) hopeful and not (quite) panicking yet. Besides, the transfer window doesn’t shut until September 1st so there’s still time for new faces to come in yet. Remembering back to the five years of poor home form under Tisdale (despite all of the good that he did for us to take the club forward), in my opinion it could be a lot worse and there could be less excitement leading into this season. My concern though is that if we have a poor start to the season, this could lead to a toxic atmosphere which we haven’t seen since the tail end of Tisdale’s reign.

From a personal perspective though, health issues kept me under NHS care for seven and a half months last year and therefore I wasn’t there in person for our promotion run-in and ensuing celebrations. It did give me a better outlook on life not to sweat the small stuff so much and just let things be, and I’ve taken this into my City-supporting life too. We can be frustrated with bad performances and the like, it’s only human, but for me it doesn’t affect me as much as it used to – I’m just thankful to still be alive and able to go to SJP in person and watch my team, win lose or draw. Coming back to the park for the first time since illness last season for the MK game in early September was extremely emotional, and Cheick Diabate’s winner certainly helped matters on the day too.

Overall though, I’ve learnt over the 26 years that I’ve been following this club that we don’t do things the easy way, and that being an Exeter City supporter is a rollercoaster in its own right. We celebrate 20 years of Trust Ownership this year, and it never ceases to amaze me just how far we have come as a club in that time. For me, I’m just enjoying the ride and what will be will be.

Enjoy the new season. UTC.