Just to emphasise again, 12 players have left Lincoln (13 if you include Jamie McCombe), and only 4 have arrived. Some of those would have been our higher earners too - Lee Frecklington, Michael Bostwick, Neal Eardley, Jason Shackell, Jack Payne, Tom Pett and Josh Vickers would have been taking up a large part of the budget. Even with a proposed salary cap, there is plenty of room in our squad yet.
If anyone is worried about the size of our squad at this point, only Blackpool (6) and Bristol Rovers (6) have made more signings than Lincoln (4), and they shed a lot of players during the summer too. Some clubs have made no signings at all so far.
One major reason for that is that many Championship clubs have yet to confirm retained lists. Every club in the lower divisions will be reserving funds for potentially capturing some of them (David Artell and John Coleman have made that point specifically), and that is probably where our more experienced players will come from. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to have spent the initial part of the window signing the best of the rest, those from the lower divisions that fit our plan for younger player development. Blackpool and Bristol Rovers have done the same thing.
In any case, we already have players with lots of experience:
Cian Bolger 275 appearances
Ben Coker 257
Tom Hopper 196
Harry Anderson 186
James Jones 185
Conor McGrandles 179
Jorge Grant 171
Lewis Montsma 99 (albeit in Dutch football)
With the exception of Coker, all of those are likely to be starters this season.
Finally, last season's Player of the Season only had 48 appearances to his name when he signed for us. Did his inexperience show?
