Cox to run rule over trialists early

“The big job starts now,” he said. “Our first goal was to get the club promoted back into the League and stay up. The next step is how can we push on and improve the club from here?

“I want to get a few behind-closed-doors game arranged.

“I want to look at trialists, the youth team players and maybe the lads coming in as apprentices can get a run-out against good opposition to see where they are.

“There is a long way to go still – about a month – and we want to look at as many players as we can in that period.

“There will be a lot of players out of contract this summer and I don’t want 100 trialists coming in over pre-season as the players that are already here then don’t get the time and part of me and the staff that they really need.

“We have a nice nucleus of players here. We just need to add a bit more quality. Also, some of the players here may want to go elsewhere. There will be a lot of soul searching by players and by myself and the club.

“We will go with a smaller squad. The reserves will be mostly made up of the youth players.”