Yeovil Town manager Billy Rowley has said the work to build a squad capable of challenging for the National League play-offs next season has already started.
The Glovers travel to title-chasing York City at the weekend for their final away trip of the season before finishing the campaign off at home to Solihull Moors seven days later.
But, the boss told BBC Somerset report Josh Perkins that his work will not stop when the final whistle sounds at Huish Park. He said: “We’re looking at the squad (to) rebuild for next season. We’re going to be in the office now all day looking at more things, not only on York but for the next few weeks and how that pans out. It’s a never-ending journey that we’re on.
“Obviously a lot of these lads will be remaining or some of them will be staying and we’ll be looking to bring in some fresh faces. I feel like the team is in need of a little bit of a rebuild, but we also want to reward the lads that have performed well this season. It’s going to be a mix of the two and we very much look forward to that.
“It’s something that I’ve done before personally; two years ago (at former club Walton & Hersham) I had to rebuild a team with three or four players and that season finished in the play-offs. I’m not going to say that’s going to necessarily happen next year, but that will be the aim and we’re going to aim high and we’re going to try and get some really good players in.“
In their first season back after at Premier Division level last season, the Glovers finished 18th and, even if they pick up maximum points in their final two fixtures, they are unlikely to break in to the top half of the division.
Asked about his play-off ambitions, Rowley added: “I would stand probably alongside another 14 to 15 managers in this division that would say the same. We don’t want to be a team, we don’t want to be a club that just turns up and makes the numbers up. When the league starts in August, we want to be winning every match and we want to be at the top end of the league and this club and this support base deserves that.
“It’s been an incredible learning opportunity for me in these past four months to learn loads about the level and about the players that I’m working with on a day-to-day basis and the support base. There’s nothing more I would like than in this time next year we’re having conversations than to be a team at the top end of the table and not talking about achieving 50 points because that’s not where we want to be.“
The Glovers expect to have on loan Cardiff City midfielder Dakarai Mafico available for the trip to York and Rowley revealed captain Jake Wannell has been testing his injury to see whether he will be fit. Fellow central defender Kyle Ferguson, who limped off after picking up an injury in the pre-match warm-up before last Saturday’s goalless draw at home to FC Halifax Town, has also been in training and will be “touch and go” for York.
The Glovers will be playing in front of a sell-out home crowd on Saturday as their hosts have a chance of clinching the title and a return to the Football League after 22 years away. They sit two points ahead of second-placed Rochdale, who travel to already relegated Braintree Town at the weekend, with the top two due to face each other in what could be a winner-takes-all final fixture.
Rowley said: “We can go to York on Saturday and play with the shackles off and try and be ourselves and cause an upset. With the greatest of respect for what them and Rochdale are trying to achieve, but we’re going there to win the game and play well.
“I think the natural thing to do when you’re towards the bottom end of the table is kick it long and play scared and play for set pieces and waste time and we’ve never done that. We’ve not been brilliant, we’ve not scored enough goals and we probably haven’t created as many chances as we’d like, but we’ve been brave in our build-up. We kept the boys trying to stay on the same patterns as we’ve been working on all season.
“We haven’t thrown those out the window and when it goes well for us, I think of like Tamworth at home, Morecambe at home we looked really good. So that’ll just be the message on Saturday really: keep doing what you’re doing, just do it slightly better.“