David Robertson hopes the early legwork he and his coaching staff have put into strengthening the Peterhead squad will mean deals are finalised quickly after the window opens.
Robertson, who took over at the end of last month, is keen to freshen up his squad for their ongoing League One survival battle.
With the transfer window opening at the end of the week, the onus has been on doing the groundwork beforehand to get deals close to completion ahead of the game against Montrose on January 2.
“We’re planning to bring the players in so that, come the Montrose game, they’re available,” said Robertson. “We’ve been working really hard in the last two weeks and I think we’re getting there.
“It’ll give the whole club and squad a lift. Hopefully, they’ll come in with a freshness.
“It’s always the same when you bring in players – you hope they work out and we feel we’ve put a lot of research into it.
“It’s not to say the other players won’t play – the players have been first-class since we’ve come in. We need a deeper squad and maybe there’s some players that might need a rest, because they’ve been playing with injuries.
“Andy McCarthy has been playing since he came back from injury and sometimes struggles with training. The last couple of weeks have been good for him, but we need to make sure when the players are playing, that they’re in good condition. We don’t want to be putting them at any risk.
“The new players will have to perform and show they’re better than the players we’ve got.
“For the existing players, it’ll help them and might raise their game. They need to know there’s someone breathing down their neck for their jersey.”
New signings will get existing squad members back in position
The additional depth in the Peterhead squad would also help in getting players back into their natural positions.
At times, out of necessity, Peterhead have had to use square pegs in round holes, such as defender Mikey Hewitt playing as a striker due to their lack of available options up top.
“There’s players with hunger, that haven’t been playing, but want to play,” added Robertson. “We’ve tried to organise friendly games, but we don’t have enough players. We don’t want to risk overplaying guys that have come back from injury.
“Each training session, it’s getting easier. We’re understanding the players more and what they can give us. The Kelty game (3-0 loss) was a bit of a whirlwind – we had an idea of some of the players and tried some things that maybe didn’t go to plan.
“But we’ve had a couple of weeks of training and understand what their capabilities are. We’ve got to play to their strengths.
“Mikey Hewitt is a right-back and has been playing as a striker – he’s been fantastic, but we’d like to get him back to his natural position.
“He’s come to us from Ayr to get minutes and he’d probably be better playing in his own position.
“But it’s been like that with a lot of players, having to play out of position. From the outside looking in, it looks like it’s been patching things up week-to-week.
“But it’s why we are where we are. It’s not going to be easy and we need guys to fight and scrap for every point we’re going to get.”
Conversation