Nick Higgs knows a successful summer recruitment campaign will be key to Bristol Rovers' hopes of beginning next season as realistic promotion contenders. Higgs and John Ward have already started the process of piecing together a squad good enough to make a sustained challenge at the right end of League Two after securing a number of the existing squad on longer-term deals. More are expected to follow in the next fortnight and Ward has intimated he foresees only a handful of new faces arriving to join his squad over a summer during which Higgs is determined to avoid the pitfalls that have beset the club over the last two years. Higgs said: Rovers are close to completing a deal to sign goalkeeper Steve Mildenhall on a permanent deal after earlier this week agreeing a long-term contract with defender Mark McChrystal earlier. An offer has also already been made to try to persuade midfielder John-Joe O'Toole to swap Colchester United for a long-term stay at the Memorial Stadium in a bid to ensure Rovers begin the next campaign in better fashion than they started the last one. Higgs added: Taken from the Evening Post.
Fair play - I think his analysis of our recent close season dealings are pretty spot on. I think another 3 signings - a couple of left-sided players and a decent CM (if not JJO'T) are needed. Harrold and Brunt could form a decent partnership, so I'm not that worried up front.
I agree with the above. I also wonder if JW is looking to take on an assistant with a view to taking more of a Lennie Lawrence role with the new guy learning his trade as PT did.
i thought that may be the case sapph. i think we will be wards last club as manager so would make sense for him to bring in someone who has rovers dna like tilson, stewart etc etc and then ward can train him to be the next rovers manager while ward moves to a DofF role. but ward says he is after someone with managerial experience in league 2 so i cant see him falling to the DofF role.
