Neil Baker says there would be some poor judge of a player if Murph starts the season with us

Neil Baker has told crewealex.net that he would be very surprised if Luke Murphy was to kick off the new season as a Crewe Alexandra player. Baker feels that the captain’s high level of performance over the last two seasons will not have gone unnoticed and that he is sure to be on someone’s radar this summer.

The Alex assistant manager claims that a contingency plan is in place should the highly-rated midfielder moves on this summer.

Neil told crewealex.net: “Murph has just gone on and on over the last two years and ever since he was handed the captain’s armband and replaced Westy (Ashley Westwood), his performances have been exceptional for us most of the time.

“If Murph was still to be here at the start of the season, then I would question the scouting. There must be some poor judges of a player if we don’t receive a firm bid for him.

“It could be that he is another Westy. He can kick on and become even better and it may be that we get a late bid on deadline day again. Murph has just reached a level now where he feels he wants to move his career on and do well and he deserves to.

He added: “If he does move on then we won’t get caught out. We have been working hard on that and planning for if he was to move, there are one or two replacements in mind and that is already high on our agenda.”