Francis: 'We have lads here who are certainly good enough to play higher up'
We heard a lot for Blues player-of-the-season Simon Francis at the weekend warning that there were a lot of unhappy bunnies at Roots Hall and not just because of relegation to League Two.
He's back again, this time naming names, the four, along with Simon himself, that are favourites amongst fans to be start looking elsewhere once the final whistle goes at St.Mary's on Saturday.
Francis spoke to www.echo-news.co.uk: "I think there will be players going because we have a lot of lads here who are certainly good enough to play in League One if not the Championship. We have players like Steve Mildenhall, Alan McCormack, Adam Barrett and myself who want to play at the top level."
Maybe he's got a high opinion of one or two names there but anyway, we'll soon see.
The Blues right-back continued: "I can't say for sure what will happen during the summer but I'm sure people will want to see what else is out there and see what is happening in other leagues. At the same time, I'm sure there will be players coming in too because the squad isn't big enough here."
Of course we've heard that before but even Ron can't expect Tilly to pick a bunch of kids come August.
Simon himself had a year left on his contract and has turned down one move, to Peterborough in the January transfer window, so if they can't afford to match his wages it would not be surprising to see him stay until he can walk for nothing, unless one of the bigger sides come in for him, and they may well do, he's a talanted lad.
As for the reasons why we got ourselves in this mess, well nothing new from the Nottingham born defender but the selling of Barney to the Saints was obviously high on the agenda.
Francis concluded: "I don't think we've replaced players who have left over the past couple of seasons, especially Lee Barnard in January. We've had a mixed and matched team for most of the season and have had loan players coming and going. We've had a small squad but that's been because of the financial situation at the club. The gaffer has done the best he can but we haven't had enough to stay up."