Fleetwood Town owner Andy Pilley feels the shackles are off as they look to invest in the squad

Town were limited last season by a transfer embargo because of a loan taken out from the EFL.

That money helped the club get through the pandemic but, until it was repaid, they could not pay fees for players and could only offer them wages of £2,500 a week.

Having had to cut their cloth accordingly, Town have started their summer recruitment with the free transfer arrival of Shaun Rooney.

“I’m determined to give it everything we’ve possibly got,” Pilley told The Gazette.

“We’ve not got any restrictions, no embargo which we had last year.

“It felt appropriate and prudent to take the loan as we didn’t know if there was going to be another lockdown.

“I didn’t want to get to the stage where we had another lockdown and it got difficult to pay wages or anything like that.

“We took that cash and we thought that was the safe and responsible thing to do. We could have never envisaged that we would have had five or six players out for the season – that hit us really badly.

“It meant our younger players got minutes and they were outstanding, they really were. They will benefit enormously from the minutes they got last season and I think they will be a key part of this coming season.

“What we have to do now is get the recruitment right. We want the very best players that can make a difference to our season next year.”