Taylor’s perfect mixture

Chris Taylor presents a cheque for £600 to Michael Lester, of the Terence O’Grady Club — the charity of the winger’s choice. Taylor was named the Chronicle’s ‘Star Man’ for the 2010-11 season, and picked up the cheque at sponsors, the Indish restaurant. Also pictured are Matt Chambers (Athletic writer for the Chronicle), Rabat Mukhtar (Indish secretary), Shahid Mukhtar (Indish director), Jawad Mukhtar (Indish secretary), Hasan Habib (Indish manager) and Barry King (vice-chairman,

A TIGHT-KNIT squad with plenty of guts is the recipe for Athletic’s success next season — according to winger Chris Taylor.

A total of seven players have already been shown the door by boss Paul Dickov as he seeks to work some managerial magic with a reduced budget.

Phil McGrath’s signing of a one-year contract extension takes the confirmed current first-team squad for 2011-12 up to nine.

That number includes Dale Stephens — on loan at Southampton, but who could attract bids from the Saints as well as other higher-division clubs this summer — while Jean-Yves Mvoto and five others are currently contemplating offers to stay at Boundary Park.
A summer of wheeling and dealing awaits for Dickov, but Taylor reckons that, by carefully adding to the core already signed up, Athletic can compete with the big boys of next season’s npower League One.

“We need to improve and the gaffer has already shown he is prepared to be ruthless by not offering contracts to certain players,” said Taylor, who collected the Chronicle ‘Star Man’ award charity cheque at the Indish restaurant.

“He wants a smaller squad and to have better quality in there.

“I think like this season, there will be a lot of teams going for it next time around. If we can get good players and perform with team spirit and togetherness then that may give us the edge over some of those bigger sides.

“I don’t know if Dale (Stephens) is coming back, but what we need to do is keep hold of the good players we have got. If we can do that and add to the squad we can pose a threat to anyone.”

As for his own efforts in 2010-11, leading scorer Taylor can barely even start to compare it to an injury-ravaged season the year before.

“I think I could have been a bit more consistent,” Taylor added. “But then I was playing in a few different positions and that had an effect.

“I went to central midfield when Dale got injured, up front and in both wide roles.

“I had mumps and missed a couple of games. And with an illness like that, it is hard to gauge how much it is affecting you before it has actually been diagnosed.

“But what is for sure is that it was a better season than the last one — five times over. I was dreaming of the season being like this last summer.”




ATHLETIC have confirmed two more pre-season friendlies. The first team will travel to play Blue Square Bet Premier side Barrow on Saturday,



July 9, while a home game against current Premier League club Blackpool has been penned in for Saturday, July 23, at Boundary Park.