Sligo Rovers out to defy the odds as they adopt different approach ...
The club has been boosted by the return of a former star though
SLIGO ROVERS will be out to prove smaller is better this year.
Last season, the Bit O’Red finished one place above the relegation play-off spot.
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With Galway United and Waterford in the top flight, dodging the drop is likely to prove even more difficult.
And yet, John Russell will have to do so with a smaller budget and fewer players than last year.
This time last year, Russell brought in players from Sweden, Estonia and Faroe Islands.
Lukas Browning and Johan Brannefalk have left, Bogdan Vastsuk did so midway through the season while Stefan Radosavljevic remains.
Players brought in during this window have either come from within the League of Ireland or from across the water.
Russell said: “Just because you brought in players from further afield and one or two didn’t work out doesn’t mean that you never do that again.
“At the end of the day, a footballer is a footballer, it doesn’t matter where you are from.
“We’ve had really good success with the likes of Max Mata and Nando Pijnaker, who is still with us, from New Zealand.
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“You’re always looking to see can they do well in our league, what sort of person they are and what’s their motivation in coming to the league.
"We’ve gone to the UK for the budget, probably the way it’s gone at Sligo, they’ve cut it and the loan market gives us that opportunity to do deals with the parent club in terms of percentage of salary.
“And lads that have been in the league probably have a point to prove, which is important.”
Yesterday’s news that last season’s top scorer for the club, Max Mata, is to return for the first half of this campaign on loan from Shrewsbury Town is surely a boost.
His loss - and that of keeper Luke McNicholas to Wrexham during the summer window - hit them hard in the final months of last season and Russell admitted Pijnaker was on the radar of other clubs too.
He said: “There was interest.
"He’s an international footballer and I thought he was excellent for the first half of last year and then it was difficult from the mid-season point onwards when we had to sell Max and Luke.
“We had a lot of injuries, so it was probably tough on Nando in that period but I think he’ll have a successful career and I’m sure Sligo won’t be his last club.”
'WORKS FOR EVERYONE'The void left by McNicholas will be filled, until the summer at least, by the return of former No 1 Ed McGinty on loan from Oxford United.
Russell said: “Ed got a move to League One based on him, for me, being the best keeper in the country here so he deserves to play at a higher level.
“This agreement works for everyone, he wasn’t playing, he needed to get back to a familiar environment and a place where he knows he can develop and play games.
“Hopefully he can help us and we can help him.
“Ed’s a confident guy, that’s one of his strengths and I think he’s got a sense of what he’s up against in England.
“He sat on the bench enough times to see his own competition within the club but also the other keepers in the league and I think he knows himself he’s good enough to play at that level and potentially higher.”
Arguably, though, the most significant factor in a successful season could be a better run with injuries than last year, with Russell hoping changes in the medical department reap dividends.
He said: “Up until May 1, everything was going well and then all of a sudden the period of May when all the games came in, we’d ten players out by the end of that month.
“No team can sustain that. We’d four centre-backs out, we just got decimated and results reflected that.
“I suppose the learnings for us is having a stronger medical set-up that can deal with the demands of maybe a Friday-Monday-Saturday game and rotating players around and making them more robust.
“That’s key for us, keeping players fit and on the pitch to give ourselves the best chance of winning matches.”
