The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Seb Hayes insists that he’s still happy with his Holbeach United squad despite losing two more players to ChromaSport UCL Premier Division rivals.
The Tigers boss always expected combative midfielder Ollie Pinner to move to Boston Town, but admits he’s disappointed to have lost young striker Zak Munton to Peterborough Northern Star.
Munton, signed from Bourne Town last season, scored four times in 17 appearances in his brief stint with the Tigers, while the popular Pinner has made 64 appearances for the Carter’s Park club over the past three seasons.
With Jamie Stevens and Josh Ford having both joined Wisbech Town earlier in the summer, it’s so far a case of four in, four out for Holbeach – who have signed Joe Braithwaite, Lewis Leckie, Will Bird and George Asplin.
Ex-Huntingdon Town boss Hayes admits he may be tempted to add to his squad later in the summer, but feels happy with what he currently has at his disposal.
“With regards to Zak, I’m very disappointed to lose him,” admitted Hayes. “But this is football, we move on quickly.
“I don’t think we saw the best of Zak last season. But I firmly believe he has all of the attributes required to be a top striker at UCL Premier Division level.
“I don’t know, maybe he looked at our transfer activity and saw Lewis Leckie and Will Bird come in and felt his playing time would be limited.
“He was a big part of my plans, but things change.
CLOSER TO HOME: Ollie Pinner has rejoined Boston Town. Photo by JAKE WHITELEY
“As for Ollie, he was pretty open with me about not coming back this season. He’s got a lot going on at the moment, so playing closer to home makes sense for him.
“You never like to lose people like Ollie, but we had already planned not to have him, so we’ve not really got to replace him.
“I’m happy with what we have, the squad looks strong. I’m not ruling out any more signings if the right situation presents itself, but for now we enter pre-season in good shape.”
Hayes and his squad linked up for their first pre-season training session of the summer on Tuesday night, with another to follow tonight (Thursday).
He hopes to get all of the proposed squad on forms by the end of the week, having so far tied down “80 per cent” of them ahead of sending them off to the league on July 1.
With Holbeach’s first competitive game set for July 29 against Sleaford Town, Hayes says he will focus on getting the squad “football fit” instead of making them “run marathons”.
“I’m looking forward to getting everyone back together,” added the Tigers boss. “Pre-season will be hard work for them, of course.
“But we’ll not be making them run marathons. The ball will be out 90 per cent of the time and we’ll look to get them football fit.
“It’ll be different for them and I hope they may actually enjoy it. We’ll obviously aim to be ready to go by the time Sleaford comes around.”
Holbeach’s first pre-season game of the summer is at promoted UCL Premier Division champions Peterborough Sports on July 11.
