Quakers tighten budget

7:44am Saturday 21st June 2008

DARLINGTON'S summer recruitment plans have been hampered by the club's reduced budget for next season.

Chairman George Houghton has slashed the finances available for squad strengthening, meaning the club will employ a smaller squad next season.

Last season a total of 40 different players were used by manager Dave Penney, including 15 loans, but Quakers still fell short of promotion.

Houghton's response has been to reduce the cash available for players with nine having been released last month, so Penney and assistant Martin Gray have their work cut out in the transfer market.

Gray said: "We're having to be very selective with the kind of players we're after because we're going to be carrying a smaller squad.

"We won't have a 23 or 24-man squad like we had last year, we'll have 18 or 20 so that means you can't afford to have many players who aren't going to play many games for you. But we know which players we want.

"After the last game against Rochdale we had a meeting and talked about where we need to improve on next year and where we need to strengthen.

"We all know where we need to strengthen, but it's a case now of getting the players in."

Jason Kennedy, who finished last season on loan from Middlesbrough, has joined on a permanent basis, the only arrival so far which is in stark contrast to last summer.

At this stage last year Darlington had already made seven signings and a further five arrived before the first game.

But Gray wishes to allay any fans' fears over the lack of new arrivals, saying the club have been working hard on securing new talent.

He said: "Myself and the manager have both been away on our holidays and only got back into the country last weekend.

"But we've been on the phone all the time while we've been away so we've been very busy speaking to players and agents.

Nobody, apart from Jason, has put pen to paper but that's the same with a lot of clubs so far.

"There is progress being made.

A lot of work goes into signing players, sometimes you do so much and then don't get what you want.

"You've got to keep working on deals and myself, the gaffer and Nigel Brown the chief scout are hard at it everyday.'' Despite already releasing nine players at the end of last season, speculation has clouded the future of several of those remaining at Darlington but Gray denied there would be any further exits.

Julian Joachim, one of the nine released players, is to join Blue Square North side Kings Lynn and Neil Wainwright has moved to Morecambe.