Ian Craney

[Ady]

Just seen on Sky Sports News that we are in talks with Accrington about signing Craney.

[Freez]

Hope that comes off, decent player, right age, nice passer of the ball.
We shall see if that has a knock on effect on the squad. He would surely be part of an already overcrowded midfield, so do we swap someone or lose somebody else?

[shrimper]

http://www.thevisitor.co.uk/morecambe-sport/Shrimps-target-Craney.4269936.jp


http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11750_3797286,00.html

...but, on further investigation, the Sky website just pretty much regurgitates what we said this week.

'Talks' - unless and until they give us more info or a different line, at the moment (publicly at least) amounts to....
Us: 'can we buy him?'
Them: 'we don't want to sell him. We might do, but not for what you've offered.'

[Posh]

Hope that comes off, decent player, right age, nice passer of the ball.
We shall see if that has a knock on effect on the squad. He would surely be part of an already overcrowded midfield, so do we swap someone or lose somebody else?

Maybe I'm reading too much into it but the quote in The Visitor says, "Carl Baker is one of our key players.....At the present time, he is a Morecambe player". If Stockport have made an offer then maybe he would be the one to go? I'd be really sorry to see him go if he did as, bar Thommo, he was our only real flair player last season and I think he has a lot of room for improvement.

[Freez]

Without having seen any of the new signings it appears the common theme with the new boys is consistency, high work rate and physical strength.
We were pretty to watch last season but sometimes, when we were not at the races, lost to a team who were technically not as good but were physically on their game that day.
Perhaps, it's Thommo, Twissy and Baker I'm thinking of here, we sometimes played with too many flair players who, when not on their game, ended up as passengers.
Could it be that Sammy is trying to assemble a team who are hard to beat, perhaps not as adventurous but obdurate, and try to turn some of the 1-0 losses into draws and some draws into wins by not conceding as many daft goals?

Therefore, bid for Craney, consistent performer at a higher level.
Possibly more flair players on the move?

However, I feel Carl has a lot to prove and if he was the only "flair" player he could be the key to unlocking the better teams defence!

Fun times ahead eh?

[Christies Child]

As for flair players goes, my understandng is that Carr can play a bit and if he can score goals from midfield as is claimed then we could have found ourselves another gem!

With regards to the Accy bid, my former work colleagues who support Accy don't seem too concerned if he goes as they reckon that since his return from Swansea he hasn't exactly been in outstanding form.

Who has been offered on part exchange?

Unless the deal goes thru' I doubt we'll ever know........YOU could of course speculate!

[Harry]

IF another player has been offered in exchange, I would suspect it would be Craig Stanley, unfortunately as he's a decent lad and when on his game he can really drive the team on.

[Phoenix]

http://www.sportinglife.com/football/na ... ationwide3

Morecambe boss Sammy McIlroy has confirmed he is in talks with Accrington to bring midfielder Ian Craney to Christie Park.

Stanley have so far rejected two bids for the 25-year-old, who only rejoined the Reds permanently in January after a torrid season away at Swansea.

Craney failed to shine on his return to the Fraser Eagle Stadium last season, but McIlroy has so far been rebuffed in his attempts to prise him away.

He told the Morecambe Visitor: "I need another two or three players. A lot of players left last year and I have brought a few in but we have just really filled in for people from last year.

"Ian Craney is a player I have admired and we have enquired about him but they have turned back every approach we have made.

"The directors are working very hard for me. It is about getting the right agreement with both parties. We will be working right up to kick-off."

[Christies Child]

Seems as though the majority of Accy fans on their board aren't too bothered if he goes. Could that act in our favour? Players as we know read their clubs boards.

[Number 1]

Without having seen any of the new signings it appears the common theme with the new boys is consistency, high work rate and physical strength.
We were pretty to watch last season but sometimes, when we were not at the races, lost to a team who were technically not as good but were physically on their game that day.
Perhaps, it's Thommo, Twissy and Baker I'm thinking of here, we sometimes played with too many flair players who, when not on their game, ended up as passengers.
Could it be that Sammy is trying to assemble a team who are hard to beat, perhaps not as adventurous but obdurate, and try to turn some of the 1-0 losses into draws and some draws into wins by not conceding as many daft goals?

Therefore, bid for Craney, consistent performer at a higher level.
Possibly more flair players on the move?

However, I feel Carl has a lot to prove and if he was the only "flair" player he could be the key to unlocking the better teams defence!

Fun times ahead eh?

Fantastic post. Could be spot on there. How many times last season might we have said after a bad result against a side "An ugly team, but effective" ...

[Skid]

Hope we get Craney, we should have got him first time round if we hadn't pissed around with Altrincham. Had heard Baker was off elsewhere a few months ago, and that was from a non Morecambe supporting mate, so maybe there is something in the pipeline.

[HALMA 1983]

Hope we get Craney, we should have got him first time round if we hadn't pissed around with Altrincham.

Here Here!!!
Maybe Sammy can do what Coleman can't and that's get him back to the form that got him noticed enough to get that decent move to Swansea, he certainly looked a sorry sight against us at their place last season but he was injured wasn't he ? and worst of all played way out of position
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt because I know what he can do from previous

[Shrimpsscene]

class act is mr craney
sign him please!!!!
were in for an exciting season if he turns up here with the squad we have

[Heysham_Shrimp]

The latest from Eric Whalley on the Accy forum :-

http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/f116/

[sw1980]

ive got to say - i personally (my opinion) would rather keep Craig Stanley at Morecambe - i hope he isnt offered to temp Ian Craney to Morecambe

Stanners on his day does drive the team on - i have to say i'm still questioning some of sammy's decisions (again, my opinion) and i hate to put a dampner on things before the season starts - im still a bit disappointed in the signings Sammy has made

Sammy (a top Manchester united player in his day) - surely he has got more pulling power to bring in better players than he has!!

[The Red Knight]

ive got to say - i personally (my opinion) would rather keep Craig Stanley at Morecambe - i hope he isnt offered to temp Ian Craney to Morecambe

Stanners on his day does drive the team on - i have to say i'm still questioning some of sammy's decisions (again, my opinion) and i hate to put a dampner on things before the season starts - im still a bit disappointed in the signings Sammy has made

Sammy (a top Manchester united player in his day) - surely he has got more pulling power to bring in better players than he has!!

Who are these "better players" that you would have liked us to have brought in?

How many times have you seen Barry Roche, Neil Wainwright, Michael Carr, Ryan McCann, Andy Parrish and Diarmud O'Carroll play for you to be able to say that you are "dissappointed in the signings"?

Also I'd take Craney over Stanley any day.

[heysham_mfc]

ive got to say - i personally (my opinion) would rather keep Craig Stanley at Morecambe - i hope he isnt offered to temp Ian Craney to Morecambe

Stanners on his day does drive the team on - i have to say i'm still questioning some of sammy's decisions (again, my opinion) and i hate to put a dampner on things before the season starts - im still a bit disappointed in the signings Sammy has made

Sammy (a top Manchester united player in his day) - surely he has got more pulling power to bring in better players than he has!!

Who are these "better players" that you would have liked us to have brought in?

How many times have you seen Barry Roche, Neil Wainwright, Michael Carr, Ryan McCann, Andy Parrish and Diarmud O'Carroll play for you to be able to say that you are "dissappointed in the signings"?

Also I'd take Craney over Stanley any day.

agree you say it like the players we have signed are not good enough

[The Fury]

To be fair, I don't think he is saying or alluding to the fact that they are poor players; just that they don't have the prestige he was perhaps hoping for. Maybe.

I don't agree with him, by the way.

[shrimper]

To be honest I've not seen any sides in our division sign anyone this close season who's made me sit up and go 'Hah, now that's a great bit of business!'

I've said before that I've not done that about any of our signings either (though a few of them sound like they have potential) but I trust Sammy.
We haven't yet seen how some of them might perform at this level, in the set-up Sammy creates.

Carr, O'Carroll, McCann, Wainwright and Parrish (if you pick your way through the 'sour grapes' jibes now that they've left their former clubs) have all prompted some good reports from message boards.
They could give us anything under Sammy's guidance, we'll just have to see.

[Christies Child]

It's totally out of order to make observations about any player until we've seen them in action.

Fortunately Sammy will be aware that football fans worldwide make judgements on players without even seeing them play.

OK so there have been no headline grabbing signings to date, but did we seriously expect any?

At our level so called 'big signings' don't exist. What does happen is the respective clubs build up their signings and in fairness we've done a bit of that in out time.

[Christies Child]

The latest from Eric Whalley on the Accy forum :-

http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/f116/

He forgot to say that the figure that Swansea originally paid for IC was......£85K

So even if we offered £35K he's still in profit.

[wonder shrimp]

i honestly think that even though people aren't getting too excited about the summer signings we couldn't really have signed (m)any of them as a conference team. and the team that did so well last season was in the majority the team that got us out of the conference. so our current signing are better, and personally i'm looking forward to seeing a few of them at barrow.

i'd easily take a repeat of last season to be honest (mid table, couple of good cup runs), and i think we've got the players and manager to do it.

off season has been too long, but its nearly over!

[slackAlice]

What might get frustrating is 'keeping' good players , IF Carl goes [?] , we've had a season out of him.
I have no doubt that Sammy has excellent contacts and have every confidence that this summers signings will prove themselves worthy. But looking at last season Joe Lewis , Gary Thompson and possibly Carl going - they were very influential in maintaining our league status. Its not so much a reputation as a 'selling club' more one of a revolving door - we have to keep replacing good players with more good players ...ad infinitum... The clubs with a bit of brass just come and cherry pick our better players. It's not a problem unique to Morecambe of course - but it will become a tad frustrating especially IF and its a big IF we pick up a bad run of injuries and end up nearer to the bottom end of things.

[Christies Child]

But,and I stand to be corrected here, we don't need to sell our better players to survive. That to me is the massive difference between ourselves and other League 2 clubs.

When have we ever sold a player of late purely to survive?

[sw1980]

To be fair im not that big a morecambe fan - i go to a few games here and there

i shouldnt have really posted my post - but like i said it is my opinion

what i will say is - im struggling to get excited about the new season - and i am questioning sammy's ability

lets just see how it goes this season - then we can all come on here next July and discuss the season

over and out