Manager Graham Alexander is pleased with the club’s summer additions, after experienced midfielder Andrew Crofts became the seventh and final new arrival.
The 33-year-old signs a one-year deal following his departure from Charlton Athletic, and the boss feels he will add experience and knowledge to the squad.
Alexander reacted to this arrival, plus loan moves for Kyle Wootton and Noel Burdett, in an interview with iFollow Iron.
ON CROFTS’ SIGNING…
GA: It went really late on Thursday night to finally get it over the line, but we’re delighted to get him on board. He gives us experience and know-how like Lee Novak (who signed on Thursday), and has fire in his belly to win. That’s the thing. We have a lot of quality in midfield but apart from Neal Bishop, the experience was low, so we’ve brought Andrew in to compete with the group of players and to get the best out of them and himself. He’s a proven winner. We have brought in two lads with vast experience, with hundreds of games under their belts and who know what this league is about. They’ve played at a higher level and I think it’s a great sign for us that two lads like that are desperate to come and play for us.
ON WHETHER THEY COULD PLAY A PART AT BURY THIS WEEKEND…
GA: We’re going to look at them on Friday morning to see how they are. Andrew just drove up on Friday morning from Kent, but both are game-ready, having played matches this season already, and we’ll have to see how they go on Friday before naming the full squad. Both are ready to go but we’ll need to see they’re up to speed with what we’re doing.
ON THE SEVEN SUMMER ARRIVALS…
GA: Definitely happy. We’ve got a bit of everything really – a bit of experience, a bit of youth, quality and know-how. We took our time with it in the summer and in the window as well going up to it. We look at the squad now and there’s strength in-depth, we have competition for each of the positions and certainly enough winners and quality in there to make sure we continue the good start we’ve had in the league and possibly improve on it.
ON KYLE WOOTTON’S LOAN MOVE TO STEVENAGE…
GA: We spoke to Kyle in pre-season and wanted to re-sign him on a contract because we do value what he has and his abilities. We just feel he needs to improve in certain aspects of it. He will only get that though by playing games. Where we are, we feel we have players who are better suited for what we want to do at the moment, so it was important he went out and tried to get as many games under his belt as possible and score goals, coming back here as a better player. We feel he’ll do that going to Stevenage. It’s a good move for him and he was desperate to play games. We’re delighted to get that one over the line as well.
ON NOEL BURDETT’S LOAN SWITCH TO HARROGATE TOWN…
GA: We keep the younger players with us in pre-season, get them going and then try to loan them out to play games because we haven’t got a reserve team here. Harrogate are full-time and have a fantastic set-up. They’re top of their league at the moment and he will go there and battle for a starting spot. They’re a really good team and I think they’ve been impressed with Noel, as he’s trained with them for a week. He will represent the best of Scunthorpe and do well.
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