Football Season Guide

Rochdale have established themselves as one of the best-run clubs in League One over recent years. They've only narrowly missed out on a play-off place in each of the previous two seasons despite having one of the smallest budgets in the league. Manager Keith Hill is widely seen as the biggest reason for the Dale's successes having been at the club for years. He is very familiar with the squad and has an attacking-minded brand of football that, when executed correctly, makes his side a match for anyone in this division. Given the manner in which the club is run, it is hardly a surprise that the Dale are among the sides who changed the least over the summer. The most notable departure is the one of Matthew Lund who had a breakout campaign last time around and has consequently been snapped up by Burton. Hill might even be relieved to an extent that the Northern Ireland international is no longer with the club given that Lund was benched for short spells in the second half of the previous season due to not being enough of a team player, according to Hill. Conrad Logan and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing are among the other players to leave during the summer. However, while they were regulars, neither of them was particularly crucial to the Dale. The list of arrivals looks rather modest, with only four new players joining. Bradden Inman and Reece Brown will be looking to resurrect their careers after stagnating lately while Jordan Williams will be fired up to do well after his fine displays for Barrow last season earned him a Football League opportunity for the Dale. The Dale still have a rather modest squad in terms of quality but Hill has repeatedly displayed the ability to make them better than the sum of their parts so they will once again enter the campaign with cautious optimism.