Sussex By The Sea - Pre Season & Transfers! (2)

Hi all, and welcome back to the second instalment of Sussex By The Sea. If you missed the first part, I'll leave a link  HERE.  This ...

Hi all, and welcome back to the second instalment of Sussex By The Sea. If you missed the first part, I'll leave a link HERE. This episode, I shall be focusing on our pre season friendly matches, any transfers that may have happened and any general news throughout July/early August.

Pre Season

We have a great pre season programme lined up with trips to the likes of local rivals Lewes and Crawley. Whilst also hosting West Ham, Frankfurt, Jablonec and Dundee United. We start out with a visit from West Ham.

We put on a strong performance against the hammers, narrowly losing 1-0.  Positive stuff!

My favoured formation for the game is an attacking 4-2-3-1 with 2 attacking wingers, but throughout pre season I shall be mixing it up. Against Jablonec we went with a 4-4-2 which held itself well.

A second positive performance in quick succession.

The 4-4-2 formation held out really well, but I've found our attacking mids just aren't cutting it well enough playing slightly lower down the pitch. Time to revert back to the 4-2-3-1. Also, well done to Hemed for getting our first (unofficial) goal of the season. We faced rivals Crawley Town next. It's fair to say we battered Crawley, from the very off the game was ours! Hemed grabbed his second and third goals of the (pre) season. LuaLua got his first after a wonderful long run giving us the 3-0 win. Heart break also hit as our team captain Steve Sidwell picked up a twisted ankle and will miss the rest of pre season as well as the start of the new campaign.

Moving on from the heartbreak, we had one of the harder teams we had to face this pre season in Frankfurt. We put on an amazing performance and managed to take out an incredible victory which had given us great hope heading into the last two friendlies.

Another dominant performance gave us a win at home against Dundee United, which ended 2-0 to the Seagulls. Also, our last pre season battle at our other local rivals, Lewes. Finishing off pre season with a wonderful 3-0 victory at The Dripping Pan, Kazenga LuaLua picked up a hat-trick in amazing fashion. 

Transfers

We've had a busy period so far. 4 players in, and 2 out. So far, we've acquired the services of youngster defensive midfielder Jack Leitch. A player of 2 star ability and 4 star future potential in the Championship. He's also one of the players on his way out, on loan to St. Mirren for the season. Our next summer signing being Hannover centre midfielder Ceyhun Guselam for a sum of £1Million pounds. A strong player tall player who is great in the air. Our biggest investment being goalkeeper Marco Silvestri, making him the clubs strongest keeper and most expensive at £1.4Million. Our final transfer of this chapter being, Junior Stanislas from Bournemouth for £875,000. An impressive winger that has bags of pace and will hopefully give us lots of assists. Our second outgoing player is Danny Holla, a player we've managed to cash in on, giving us £300,000 extra budget.

In's

Out's

So, after an impressive pre season, our next challenge will be tackling is the Championship season itself. I'll be taking the team till the end of August in which we will face Aston Villa, Cheltenham, Derby, Nottingham Forest, Reading & recently relegated Newcastle United. The next episode will be out in a few days, and you can keep up to date with that over on my Facebook page HERE.  Thanks for reading!