Boss Challinor makes signing pledge

Fylde have brought in three big names so far this close season in the shape of Brendon Daniels, Andy Bond and Steve Williams and Challinor has long been keen to further bolster his ranks.

Challinor lines up against his former club Tranmere Rovers on Saturday afternoon and whilst he admits the transition to full-time football has affected the club’s transfer policy, he is adamant there will still be activity before the start of the new campaign.

“We still aren’t quite as prepared as we would like to be at this stage. Being full-time has given us lots of advantages, not least being able to train every day, however it has meant our squad hasn’t been sorted as quickly as usual.

“That said, we probably wouldn’t have been able to bring in the players that we have done had we still been part-time. On the flip side we might not have lost the players we have. We knew what we were getting ourselves in to and it was always going to be a summer of transition whilst we found our feet.

“We still have lots of irons in the fire and positive conversations with players, agents and clubs and potential loans that could well still happen. If they come off they will be very exciting because there are some very good young players out there that need some game time.

“Of course we still want to strengthen and I’m sure we will but we already have some very good players and I would be comfortable going into the season with what we have so far.

“Hopefully we will have something to announce by the start of next week.”

One position that Challinor is keen to nail down is the goalkeeping spot following the departures of both stoppers in the summer.

Several trialist goalkeepers have been on show during pre-season but it is a situation that Challinor doesn’t want to rush.

“The goalkeeper situation continues to rumble on,” added Challinor. “Young Ed Wilczynski played against Blackburn Rovers last time out and he did well.

“He’s from Huddersfield but he has been on loan at Hyde over the last couple of years. He’s still only young but he’s been playing men’s football.

“We are still on the look out. We had hoped to do something with Tim (Dieng) who played against Oldham but it looks like he is going to join Rochdale as a number two. It was a decision for him whether he wanted to be a number one somewhere and put himself in the shop window.

“However we still have other options in terms of loans. We are looking for two goalkeepers and ideally we would have had them in place by now but that hasn’t happened yet.

“Ed did himself no harm whatsoever with his performance. The is also interest in him from the division above but again it’s whether he wants to be a number two or potentially compete as first choice. We will wait and see where that one takes us.

“He trained with us this week and hopefully we can have another look at him today.”