Dan the Fan: Does McCormack's arrival push Ferry out the door? (From Swindon Advertiser)

Dan the Fan: Does McCormack's arrival push Ferry out the door?

6:00pm Thursday 28th July 2011

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With only 9 days till the season's curtain raiser Paolo's new look squad has so far given us hope that the 2011/12 season will be one fans won't forget in a hurry.

I don’t know about you but I think Paolo Di Canio's first impression in the world of management has been spot on so far, especially his new signings from the last couple of weeks.

Since my last blog two weeks ago we’ve signed Mehdi Kerrouche, Alan Connell, Alessandro Cibocchi, Alan McCormack and Etienne Esajas.

I don’t know anything about a couple of those players, just like some of Town’s other new foreign signings.

But Alan Connell from Grimsby is a great buy, of course we all know Alan wasn’t Town’s first choice and we tried to bring in Adam Birchall from Dover, but he said for family reasons he picked Gillingham over Swindon.

Alan’s record for Grimsby last season was excellent and the sort of player we need after losing Benyon to Wycombe, there is a risk of bringing up players from non-league like we found with a few players over the years.

But he has played league football before and this is his chance to prove he’s a league player and I’m sure he won’t let us down.

Alan McCormack joins up from Charlton on a free after failing to make an impression there last season.

After reading a blog on thewashbag.com (great Swindon Town site, look it up) it looks like Charlton fans were happy he’s left the club, but when the club your playing for is having a nightmare season its hard to stand out from the crowd.

His time at Southend was a lot more successful under Steve Tilson, when in the 2007/08 season he played a huge role alongside Nicky Bailey in the club making the League One playoff semi-finals.

Etienne Esajas joins on a free from Dutch side Helmond Sport, after 3 years at Sheff Weds he was released last summer and had trials at Rangers and Charlton but ended up back in Holland but now he’s back in England and like the other signings we’ve made he’ll want to show Town fans what he’s capable of.

But after a bad fall in the friendly on Monday night he will miss a few opening games of the new season.

Of course with all these signings there will be some down sides, one in particular being the possibility Simon Ferry might have to move on to get first team football.

Ever since he joined the club a couple of years ago he’s been one of the clubs best players, during the playoff season alongside Jonathan Douglas he was one of the main reasons we had the success we did.

I don’t think anyone but Simon himself and the management team knows why he didn’t play more games last season.

I thought this season would be his time to shine again but if he’s in the starting line up on August 6th I’d be very surprised.

Make sure you check out Dan the Fan next week when I’ll be previewing the 2011/12 season in depth and looking at Town’s biggest rivals to the League Two title.

Also don’t forget you can follow me on Twitter @danjohnson6.

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