1 month ago
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AFTER THE sales of Richard King, Dwayne Atkinson, and Jalmaro Calvin to overseas clubs recently, Cavalier boss Rudolph Speid does not think rebooting the defending champions for the upcoming season will be as seamless as it has been in previous seasons.
Speid pointed out that in the two previous pre-seasons, they lost numerous players and key pieces but not of the calibre of King, Atkinson, and Calvin, who he thinks will be irreplaceable this term.
“Every year we lose players. The year before we lost (Ronaldo) Webster and Colin Anderson, and we still won. Last year we lost eight players and still won. So it is not like we have not lost players before, but it is the first time we are losing our three best players one time. The way they distinguish themselves is why we won.
“We have lost the best centre back (King) in the country. Also one of the best players in the national team. He was captain of the team and a very good leader by example.
“We also lost Jalmaro Calvin, who, playing as a winger, scored 21 goals.” Atkinson was voted the best player in the Caribbean for 2024.
“So when you add up the goals for them for the season, you are talking about 40 to 50 goals. Otherwise from Stein, they were the three leading scorers. So you are talking about 40 to 50 goals and another half of that in assists,” he stated.
He also revealed that attacker Kàile Audrey and defender Alexavier Gooden will also move on but lamented that it was the trio that would really be missed.
“Those are five people who would usually start, and we could lose more before the season starts.
“But I don’t think it will be easy to replace those players. The reputation of Calvin, Atkinson, and King would have been developed over years.
“The young players will not be able to reach that kind of level that those players would have reached this season. So they will be difficult to replace.”
Nevertheless, he said that they always find ways to compete and that they will be experimenting with how best they can compensate for the loss of the trio.
However, they will be sticking to their policy of bringing young players through.
“There are always different ways how you do things. Normally, we look into our youth system to see if we can fill the positions. But it will be difficult to replace them from our system based on the level of the players that have left
“I don’t have anybody in the youth ranks who can come up and replace them and do that type of job. No. There is no such person.
“So definitely, we will be down in quality, but we will have to find a different way, which I am still looking for.
“But we still have a strong system and the policies of our club. So Cavalier is not going to self-destruct all of a sudden. That is not going to happen.
“There is more than one way to be competitive in games. So we might find we have to go to a new strategy or a new game model for this season.”
He continued: “We are not really going to look outside our transfer policy. Our transfer policy is we look inside first or we transfer in developing players and not finished players. And we will stick to that as it has served well over the years.
“There is no need to change even if there is a dip in form. It will take some time. It is a work in progress, but I think we will be in the top six. I think we’ll be able to challenge, but we know this year is going to be difficult, so let us see what happens,” he said.
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