17th - Macclesfield

We wouldn't be the petty, narrow minded site that we are if we didn't start off the new season with a bit of Keith Alexander bashing, and if we based him purely on the performance of Macc against us at the Moss Rose last season, we'd be laughing him all the way to the job centre but we have always begrudgingly had some respect for Señor Alexander, even during his days as Director of Football with Bury.

The thing with Alexander is that unlike many managers at this level, he has a plan. He always has a plan. Admittedly, its a route one, doesn't give a toss what anyone else thinks sort of plan, but it's a plan all the same. And that in itself puts him ahead of most managers at this level.

This time round, he's gone out, recruited a whole load of players, many of whom will see playing Macc as a golden opportunity, that he thinks will be enough to make Macc a hardworking, hard to beat side that will more than comfortably avoid relegation year in, year out.

Arguably, he has over achieved with every side that he has managed, even back to his days with Northwich Vics, and at this level, he's got experience of successively making the Play offs with a side that had previously been at the bottom end of the table, and experience of keeping an under funded side well away from the drop.

He's just not one for the purists, and if the inevitable happens and he gets a load of flack off the Silkies this season, the question has to be who could do a better job with what Alexander has had to work with.

After all, just what do people want from a Macclesfield side? In terms of resources, you have to lump them in with the likes of Accrington as they compete with sides with significantly more funds to play with, and as such the immediate goal for any season will be survival, which arguably it is for us too.

And in doing that, Macc made it ten successful years of avoiding relegation back to the Conference proving many an expert wrong along the way, as they secured their League position with some ease. The second half of the season might have been a case of seeing out the season, which included a run of eleven defeats from fourteen games, but in this day of limited budgets and transfer windows, would it really have been worth it for Macc to sign further players in January, when there was no chance of either going up or down? Better to keep the funds in your pocket and wait for the Summer.

And that's exactly what Alexander has done. He was probably amongst the quickest of the League Two managers to start signing up new recruits for the 2009-10, obviously conscious that Sven was coming into Notts County with his blank cheque book, and they'd be going for similar signings. They've signed a lad from Hednesford, an Algerian U-20 international, last year's loanee Player of the Season has been made a permanent deal, former Dale target Ben Wright has been signed, the impressive Nat Brown's spell at the club has been made full time and they've snapped up a lad from Weymouth too, amongst no doubt a few others. It's been a busy old Summer at the Moss Rose.

And we've also seen them re-sign Matty Tipton after a two year break from the professional game for his third spell with the club.

You can see what we mean when we say Alexander has a plan. It might be the sort of plan where if you sign enough players, some of them will come good, but finances always tight down at Macc, he's got rid of many of last season's deadwood and put together a largish squad by their standards, and one which he feels will battle their way through the season.

That'll at least prevent them suffering the sort of injury woes that underfunded sides often go through, but you have to question how many of them are any good? Tipton hasn't been playing non league through coincidence, and despite starring against ourselves last year, many Macc fans have questioned the permanent signing of Nat Brown.

Opinion amongst the Macc fans is very much divided about the forthcoming season. A recent poll had fans equally split between whether they saw the Silkmen as relegation battlers or a midtable side, which given the traditional pre-season optimism which affects pretty much every side in the country, is a tad worrying.

But we think they've got more about them than that, and whisper it quietly a little bit of faith in Keith Alexander to ensure that they'll finish a little bit higher than last season's 20th placing. Just not a million miles higher, but enough.

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