Re: Brian Stock??????
The fact is we are overstocked (no pun intended) with midfielders and are going to have to do some serious pruning at some point. Apart from the current first choice quartet of Whaley, Sedgwick, McKenna and Pugh we have got Jarrett, Anyinsah, O'Neil, Lewis Neal, McCormack and, soon, Nowland, as well as Davidson as a utility defender/midfielder. Add in Stock and you are up to a dozen. Add in Alexander, who can also play there. Add in Beattie and Parillon, who are I believe both midfielders, and the numbers start to get silly.
I suspect that however talented Stock may be he is likely to be offloaded, simply to get the numbers down, and in any case if Nowland returns to full effectiveness he can provide us with an attacking central midfield option. I can't believe that any half-decent offer for McCormack would be turned down either - he seems to have been effective in Scotland last season and I am slightly surprised he has not returned there. Come the end of the season I think that both O'Neil's and Davidson's contracts are up and you can't really see what the case would be for retaining either given the number of younger players we possess.
But right now you also have to question what chances Anyinsah and Neal are likely to get once Ormerod, Mellor and Nowland can be added to the squad - though I have to admit a sneak sympathy for Neal who probably should have got a bit more first team action than he has so far. Whichever way you look at it we need to trim the midfield by three or four players as soon as we can.
