HEMMINGS NEWS AWAITED
MORE TWISTS TO COME AS
AS things stand, it remains an assumption that Kane Hemmings will be leaving Burton Albion, the club having said they have accepted an offer for him, but if he does so, it will have been a pretty drastic first 10 days of the transfer window for Burton Albion.
Hemmings’ departure would make it five through the out door in those 10 days, which means Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink is wasting no time in trimming a squad he knows to be a little bigger than ideal.
Of the five – the other four were Harry Chapman, Michael Bostwick, Ellery Balcombe and Omari Patrick – only the potential departure of Hemmings came as a real surprise.
Chapman’s loan had only been until January anyway and the option remains to renew it, although that will almost certainly depend on who else might be available to fill the two loan slots that have so far been freed up.
Balcombe’s departure was the least surprising, although it did entail cutting short a season-long loan. It must be hugely frustrating to be a goalkeeper who cannot get a game not because you have done anything wrong but because the player who has the shirt has not put a foot wrong.
If Hasselbaink’s intention in bringing Balcombe in was to spur Ben Garratt on to greater heights because of the potential competition for his place, then it worked perfectly – just not for Balcombe.
Garratt’s professionalism is such that he probably did not need such a spur. He had spent the first half of last season out of the side anyway and it is surely spur enough not to want to return to that situation.
He is either a better goalkeeper now than when he arrived or, for whatever reason, we did not see the best of him when he first arrived. Either way, he is ensconced in the side now and proved why again on Saturday with crucial saves which ensured the Brewers had the chance to return from Cheltenham with a point.
Bostwick’s loan move to Stevenage made perfect sense. At 33, he still has something to offer someone but he needs to be playing matches to prove it, given that he will be out of contract in the summer, and was not finding a regular place with Burton since Hasselbaink moved to a back three.
Patrick has moved back to Carlisle United with no apparent hard feelings on either side, all parties agreeing that it was a move that simply did not work out, making the decision to move on swiftly wise.
Prior to the move happening, it would have been a reasonable guess that Patrick might have gone somewhere on loan to get some games and rebuild his confidence in the hope that he could return with more to offer, having signed a two-year
Asked about potential incomings, Hasselbaink smiles and says ‘ask the chairman.’ deal in the summer.
Somewhere along the line, though, the manager and the player decided that there was no point in pursuing that avenue and they have made a clean break.
The number of departures – and the likelihood of a few more – does make it look as if Hasselbaink is close to having taken the budget as far as it can go. Asked about potential incomings, he smiles and says “ask the chairman,” yet we know he has an excellent relationship with Ben Robinson and is meticulous enough about his planning to know exactly where he stands with regard to the budget.
Logic suggests that Danny Rowe and Kieran O’hara will still depart at some point during this window. A combination of injury and impending parenthood kept Rowe sidelined earlier in the season and he has made only three substitute appearances in the major competitions this season, all in August. O’hara’s season has consisted of three appearances for Scunthorpe United on an emergency loan. It is telling, you might conclude, that Callum Hawkins was the keeper on the bench on Saturday when, with John Brayford playing, there was no necessity to include a homegrown player in the 18.
We can be reasonably assured of one signing coming in – and he is already in the squad. Centre-half