Haslam gives pre-season update

Speaking after Tuesday’s 3-3 draw with Ryton & Crawcook Albion, Bay manager Nathan Haslam was upbeat with how pre-season was going. “I’m happy, in pre-season it’s not so much about the results. We’ve had three games against teams two levels lower than us where I think we’ve got the benefits in terms of keeping possession. There was a step up tonight against Ryton, they tested us and worked really, really hard and they showed some deficiencies in our defensive play, so that’s there for us to work on and tighten up. The lads have all got minutes in their legs again and we’ve gone right through the squad now. In the next three games obviously we’ll whittle that down, we will start to see more of a squad of 17 or 18 and that’s going to be the squad for the start of the season.”
A number of trialists have featured in recent games and an announcement that at least one of them is signing is expected later today. “Tonight we’ve looked at two keepers who’ve been with us through pre-season. I can confirm that Dan (Lister) is definitely our number one keeper, it’s now more about looking for a number two and we’ve got a young keeper who was at Carlisle last year who needs experience. His distribution is really good so we’re going to be looking at bringing him in.”