Pre-Season thoughts so far

I'm back from an extended break since the end of last season and to be honest it doesn't seem like I have missed much news worth writing about. There have been lots of players exiting our squad and only one addition. The addition of Carlos Cuellar does provide us with some cover in the back, but i'm confident that there are more changes coming. I decided to come back before the start of the season and write a post to get a few thoughts that i've had as our pre-season is halfway done and the season is only two weeks away.

Our goal scoring problems are obviously still an issue. In three of our four games we've scored a total of zero goals and it seems our lack of a consistent finisher is still a problem. Granted these games doing count for anything, and we haven't had our primary offensive players in most of the games but you would think that we'd have found the net a few more times. We're obviously linked with a number of attacking players as transfer options and the addition of one or maybe two strikers seems imminent. Martin O'Neill has had a propensity to do his transfer business late and it feels like this off season will be no different. I'm hopeful that changes are coming, but that's not what this blog post is about either. This post is about thinking of the positives of the pre-season so far. I posted a question on my twitter account today about the positives of the pre-season so far. Here are some of the responses I got.

• Ryan Noble has looked better than he had before. He may still need a season on loan, but he's looking more like a first team option for the future.
• We've gotten lots of players some valuable minutes. David Meyler for one has gotten more playing time than he has in years. Martin O'Neill seems to think Meyler may develop into a helpful player.
• Management has seen our weaknesses clearly and it seems very clear where the areas of need are.

Well that's about it for positives. Not many so far. I would add this. I'm confident that O'Neill has a plan. I think he's working hard at finding targets and pursuing them. There will be fresh faces and they will come in and have to contribute right away. As tough as it is to be patient as fans we don't have much of a choice. O'Neill gave us reasons to believe last year, let's hope he can do it again come August 18th at Arsenal.

Ha'way the Lads!