Yeovil Town manager Mark Cooper has appealed to the club’s supporters to “have a little patience” as he bids to strengthen the club’s squad.
With just two weeks remaining until the eve of the National League Premier Division season, the Glovers have 16 registered first team players following the exit of winger Lewys Twamley earlier in the week.
The latest arrival is young full-back Byron Pendleton, who joined on a season-long loan from Birmingham City on Thursday, and follows permanent signings defender Kyle Ferguson, winger James Daly and striker Tahvon Campbell.
Speaking to the club’s social media from its training facility in Bristol, the boss said: “We had to wait a long period of time for the takeover to go through and then when we had the chance to speak to the fans at the forum it was about (the fact that) I was going to be patient and get as much value for money as I could which is still the case. I know people will be panicking that we have not done this and that, but it is in hand and I always said we would plump the squad out with two or three loans. That is the case and Byron is one of them.”
Asked about the futures of trialist midfielders Luke McCormick and Teo Kurtaran and striker Jevani Brown, who have regularly featured in pre-season friendlies, Cooper said he was “monitoring” their situations whilst keeping tabs on targets for permanent additions.
He added: “We might have to wait to get our first choice players, but we are only talking two or three. It is a waiting game now, there are probably about 25 players of real quality that still have not got a club and they all want to play in the EFL. Not all of them are going to be fixed up and I certainly want to explore one or two of those which would be above our level.
“We have got enough players at the minute to make sure we can get good minutes in to games. I would just appeal to the fan base to have a bit of reality and a bit of calmness, we have had three or four owners in the last three years, we have had a promotion and consolidated (with last season’s 18th place finish) in the National League, and now with a new owner we are trying to step forward. Everything is in hand, there is no panic from us. I get that fans are frustrated we have not signed this or that player, but there will be fan bases all over the country saying that now, we just have to be patient.
“I could’ve got 150 players this morning to sign for us but I want to make sure they are the right players for Yeovil that are going to excite the fans and after two weeks they are not barracking them on social media and saying ‘why have we signed them?’ We have got an amount of money we have got to spend and I want to get as much value as I can to make sure we have a good season.”
Yeovil will be looking to get back to winning ways in their pre-season campaign on Tuesday following back-to-back defeats at the hands of Bristol Rovers and Cardiff City Under-21s as they travel to National League South side Bath City, managed by ex-Glovers’ player and manager, Darren Way.
Cooper said he expected to give first-team squad members more minutes in the fixture and against Weston-super-Mare in their final friendly outing seven days later.
He said: “It has been a good week, a tough week in terms of the distances we have covered and the intensity. It is a good game to look forward to tomorrow where we will start seeing a lot of the players playing more minutes and from tomorrow there are two weeks to go (until the start of the season).”