Manager Graham Alexander believes new signing Funso Ojo has the capabilities to be a very good player for the club.
The 25-year-old Belgian signed on a free transfer on Tuesday following his departure from Dutch top-flight side Willem II, penning a three-year deal and becoming our fourth new addition of the summer.
Alexander told iFollow Iron that the next stage is to assess his fitness and get him up to speed with the rest of his team-mates ahead of the start of the new League One season.
ON HOW THE MOVE CAME ABOUT…
GA: He was first highlighted to us last season by Lee Turnbull, our head of recruitment. So we watched quite a bit of him towards the end of last season and then I met him last week. He flew over to England to visit and have a chat with me. I spoke to him about our expectations, what we’re like as a club and how we run things here. I needed to know his character too and his motivation for coming to England, and to Scunthorpe. We both felt it was a really good opportunity - for us to sign a quality footballer and him to get the opportunity to come and play in England and show his qualities on a wider scale.
ON THE FIRST MEETING…
GA: I find the personal meetings with these lads really beneficial to get to know the player beyond what you see from the stands and on the pitch. You have to know the character. You never get to fully know them and have to take an educated guess, but you do your diligence and speak to them personally, and just get a feel for their character, personality and how they’d fit in to the rest of the group. That’s really important for us, that they buy into what we’re about. I think we’ll see a very good player do just that.
ON WHAT’S AHEAD…
GA: He did a little bit of a running test on Tuesday afternoon so we can gauge where he is in the fitness stakes. He will train with the boys in their next training session and we’ll assess him. He hasn’t been training with a club, and has been keeping himself ticking over, but we have to work out exactly where he is in the conditioning stakes compared to the rest of the players. We don’t want to push him too much in this early stage of pre-season, for him to then break down. He’s a fit boy and is motivated to get into the team as quickly as possible so I’m sure he will be pushing himself as hard as the rest of the players.
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