High hopes – low outlay

COME FLY WITH ME . . . Shefki Kuqi celebrates in his usual style after slotting home a penalty in the stunning 3-2 comeback win against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane.

After a season with plenty of highs and lows, we look at the prospects of doing better next term.
NEVER before has the word ‘budget’ been used so often, by so many, in a sporting context.

For clubs of Athletic’s standing, it principally centres around a battle to make the most of comparatively meagre resources. Even regular supporters are obsessed.

A glance at the top-five of npower League One illustrates just what Athletic have been up against.

Champions Charlton, Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United, Huddersfield Town, MK Dons; all are clubs with serious financial muscle. Their achievements more or less match up to their respective wealth.

Athletic do not have such power. To finish around that company wasn’t impossible, but it needed more luck, hugely better post-Christmas form and far fewer injuries to key men than Athletic managed in 2011-12.

Should Paul Dickov have done better than finish in 16th, with the resources available? The Scot admits so himself.

Players like Zander Diamond, James Wesolowski, Dean Furman and Robbie Simpson aren’t signed on the cheap. In terms of both individual talent and work ethic, the quartet are way above the morass of lower mid-table. All five were crocked at the same time at one stage this season.

Life is easier if you have a reserve team of proven performers waiting in the wings. Dickov does not have that.

A season of promise, crystallised in that magical moment when Robbie Simpson hit the net at Liverpool to the acclaim of more than 6,000 Athletic supporters at Anfield, went unfulfilled.

As injuries hit, heads bowed in an atmosphere of boardroom blasts and unsatisfactory efforts on the pitch. Once a talisman, 16-goal Shefki Kuqi stopped scoring. Defensively, the team crumbled at the worst possible moments.

Careful calculation on squad acquisitions has had to be paired with selected punts on outcasts. The holy grail for Dickov is to find the best of both worlds.

Positivity, ability and togetherness — on the field and in the corridors of Boundary Park — are keywords if the club is to beat the odds and haul itself up towards the realms of the play-offs in what will be, in 2012-13, the 16th consecutive season in the professional game's third tier.

They will be needed to perform as men, more so than ever, as Dickov embarks on his quest to make his Athletic team play to a level way above the cash sum of its parts.

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Season in headlines
AUGUST: Woeful at Yeovil; Smith stuns Scunny; Clarke downs Dale; Colchester calamity.

SEPTEMBER: Kuqi coup; Taylor Bescot in show; Spirit of the Orient; Uwe’s Bees sting.

OCTOBER: TV terror for Dons; Wesolowski whacks in a double; Careless at Carlisle.

NOVEMBER: Cup of joy at Crewe, Burton; Simpson’s sensational treble.

DECEMBER: Anfield achieved; Morais stuns Charlton; Hartlepool horror show; Diamond shines in Magpies comeback.

JANUARY: Lively at Liverpool; Latics can’t buy a win; Spireites paint Latics’ mood black.

FEBRUARY: Weather woes; Nothing is OK at MK; Marsh-Brown drives U’s round bend.

MARCH: Blades blunted; Corney calls it as he sees it; Shine rubs off Golden Tickets.

APRIL: Black Wednesday; Luck of the draw at Wycombe; Season fizzles out.

MAY: Carlisle confidence boost; All change at Boundary Park.