Manager Keith Hill spoke to Dale Player this week about a number of topics including the pre-season trip to Tenerife and recruitment.
The players head out to the T3 facilities on July 3rd, a week after the players return for pre-season training, and Hill is looking forward to it.
“It’s a massive opportunity for all the players and the staff as well,” said Hill regarding the week long training camp. “I’ve just returned from Tenerife on Tuesday and while I was there I went up to the training complex. It’s in an immaculate condition and it fills you with enthusiasm when you just walk up to the venue. The players will really enjoy it, and also endure it as well, because it’s going to be extreme conditions heat wise and with the amount of training sessions that we actually do. There’s a physical conditioning to everything that we do in training, but technically and tactically as well. We’re going to be working on different strategies this season to give ourselves the best opportunity to be successful with the players that we’ve got. The fans have got to show patience with us and patience with the team. We are young side and I really enjoy working with a young squad. I do plan on promotion from within and maybe adding two more players.”
He continued: “I definitely want to add two more players. There were two players that I tried to sign who were attached to others clubs but we’ve been unable to do that. I’m not going to panic, though, because with the players that we’ve got going into pre-season, or the start of the season, I’m more than happy. But if I could get two more players I would be really, really keen to do that and I’ve been given the green light by the Chairman and the Board of Directors to do that.
“It’s playing a patient game. There are a lot of players available and I do believe that patience is key when recruiting because there will be something that drops in for us. I’m always looking for a certain type of player that’s flexible. Someone who can play in a number of positions maybe and who understands football because when we have limited resources I have to have players who are more than understanding of the game and who can put the tactics that we use into practice. Far too often too many players do a vacant stare, and when they give you a vacant stare it’s blatantly obviously that they don’t understand what it is they’re trying to employ, so we’ve got make sure that we’ve got intelligent football players, which we already have at this football club and will continue to strive to recruit and develop.”
The full interview is on Dale Player.