AFC Fylde bosses "aligned" on strategy as they plan club's future

Chief executive Jonty Castle has agreed a way forward for AFC Fylde with chairman David Haythornthwaite and manager Jim Bentley Picture: AFC FYLDE

Fylde thank Danny Philliskirk for accepting lower wages and turning down Carlisl...

The club chairman has held talks with manager Jim Bentley and chief executive Jonty Castle in recent days to outline Fylde’s direction.

Despite the Coasters’ relegation from the National League not being officially confirmed, Haythornthwaite believes it’s important to lay down a blueprint.

“Jim, Jonty and I had a meeting and I asked them to present their plans to me. They are my management team taking it forward,” Haythornthwaite said in his latest video for the club website.

“We are pretty much aligned on how we want to play, in whichever division. We are never going to be a team who try to kick our way out or who go out to buy a big centre-forward we lob the ball up to.

“That’s not Fylde’s style of play and never will be as long as I’m chairman.

“Jim has been asked to identify targets and we have some good ideas together. We all know the numbers are going to be a lot less and we’ve started to put some feelers out for those targets.

“We are not going to sign any players up to contracts that are going to burden us because we don’t know when we are going to start. Our league won’t start behind closed doors. That’s definitely not going to happen.

“Some people are talking about a September start. I’m not quite sure where that has come from.

“I’ve always felt that with crowds it’s a November start and we only need one spark to lock everything down again.

“But we don’t know when the start will be, so we’re not actively looking to add to that squad we’ve got.

“A lot of the players we’ve got are on two-year contracts. Jordan Williams and Tom Walker are two of those. The only one who wasn’t who we have signed was Nick Haughton, our most exciting player.

“All the other players whose contracts expire at the end of this month will probably be departing, though there are still conversations going on (and the retention of Danny Philliskirk was confirmed this week).”

The Coasters are still waiting to find out whether play-offs will go ahead as planned in the National League North and South.If they do, Fylde’s relegation will be confirmed after the finished second-bottom of the National League under the points-per-game system.

If the play-offs don’t go ahead next month, then only bottom club Chorley will be demoted.