Champ manager? No, I had to build a squad

TO SAY Steve Morison has been busy this summer is doing the former Wales striker a serious disservice.

- CHRIS DUNLAVY

“We had to build a squad,” explains the 40-year-old in typically forthright fashion. “We didn’t have one because everyone left.”

And when he says everyone, he means everyone. Sutton slipped out of the EFL at the end of last term, three years after a historic promotion under Matt Gray had ended an unbroken 123-year residence in Non-League football.

Momentum very nearly carried the south London side into the play-offs the following season, but the reality of competing against better-resourced rivals soon began to bite.

A 5-1 victory over Notts County on the opening day of last season was followed by seven successive defeats. Sutton tumbled into the dropzone and only briefly reemerged, despite Morison’s arrival in January sparking a spirited late rally. Relegation – confirmed by a final-day draw at MK Dons – prompted a stampede for the exit.

“Officially I had nine players left on the books,” says the ex-Cardiff boss, who was lured to Gander Green Lane after guiding Hornchurch to the summit of the Isthmian Premier during a wildly successful six months in charge.

“But Harry Smith and Omari Patrick both had clauses in their contracts saying they could leave if we got relegated. Both of them told me that’s what they wanted to do.

“The majority of the rest all intimated to me that they’d like to stay in the EFL, so I had to work on the basis that none of them wanted to be here.

“With Craig Clay and Louis John, it was beneficial to both parties that they left because they were on wages that we just couldn’t carry and they probably weren’t going to play.

“So it ended up with us having Ryan Jackson, Josh Coley and… that was it. We had Jack Taylor and Joe Williams, both young lads. But we didn’t have anyone of real substance.

“I’m sure people will look at what we’ve done and think ‘Wow, that’s a lot, 17 signings’. But it wasn’t just me playing Champ Manager. It was a necessity.”