Nathan Ferguson

[Snowflake Royal]

Bit harsh on Sticks

More so than bench sitting or U23s here.

And at this point he's looking 4th choice behind O'Connor, Burns and Williams.

[linkenholtroyal]

Bit harsh on Sticks

I do wonder whether he flatters to deceive a bit, like Holmes, Abbey, McIntyre. We have a bit of rose tinted spectacles as he is homegrown. 4th choice or a loan would be where I say he is at the moment unless performances improve.
But on Ferguson we maybe looking at this the wrong way. He is an investment opportunity. Rather than a realistic first team starter at the moment. Probably low wages due to his injury issues. Have 1 year plus an extension year. Hope he comes good and sell on for 250-500k in a year if not don’t resign.

This is a business signing not a football signing and this the game we are now playing.

[Hound]

I’m not too sure what Stickland really offers. He’s ok all round but not esp big, quick, strong or good on the ball.

As he’s not going to get much quicker or taller then he needs to work a lot on his ability on the ball imo

[MR. CYNICAL]

I’m not too sure what Stickland really offers. He’s ok all round but not esp big, quick, strong or good on the ball.

As he’s not going to get much quicker or taller then he needs to work a lot on his ability on the ball imo

He is 6ft 1in you know

[Snowflake Royal]

I’m not too sure what Stickland really offers. He’s ok all round but not esp big, quick, strong or good on the ball.

As he’s not going to get much quicker or taller then he needs to work a lot on his ability on the ball imo

He is 6ft 1in you know

Which is not remotely tall for his position. And he tends to play hunched over a bit... though more so last season than this.

[Clyde1998]

This idea seems like a waste of wage bill to me. We have 4 specialist CBs plus Dorsett, and enough depth in FBs and midfield.

Put his potential wages on a striker.

They may be thinking it is a low cost/high reward signing as he was very highly rated before his injury. If he does sign, and no guarantees of that, then it may allow the club to loan out a player for more game time than they would otherwise get with us.

Stickland, for example, would benefit from L2 / National League exposure.

This. Like most of our young players over the past few years, they've been stunted by our inability to loan players out without massively harming the depth of the first team. Stickland's been a regular for our U21s for three seasons. He needed a loan at the very latest last season to assist his development and probably the year before.

If signing Nathan Ferguson allows Stickland to go out on loan for a season and we believe there's scope for him to develop well as a result, we should absolutely consider it. I just wonder if he's now too old for him to progress meaningfully beyond lower League One level at best.