Fleetwood Town manager, Graham Alexander, described the arrival of Ryan Cresswell at Highbury as a 'great signing for the club'.
'I am really pleased. We've been building over the summer throughout the team and spoke to Southend initially a few weeks ago about Ryan. He had a fantastic year for them last season. He has a lot of experience at this level and, at 25, is a great age. I feel that the best is yet to come from him.'
'We have principally bought Ryan for his defensive qualities but he can also score goals from set pieces and his experience of captaincy makes him one of a number of proven leaders in the squad. It's what you need on the pitch to enable a side to carry out what the management asks of them from Monday to Friday.'
Cresswell has trained at Southend through pre-season and is eager to get some match-time, the first opportunity potentially coming as early as this evening against League One side Coventry City. For manager Alexander the game is another important step in his side's development:
'We've got another tough opponent in Coventry. I know manager Steven Pressley from our Scotland days and he plays the game in the right way. We will make changes from Saturday and, once again, look for both performances and a good team ethic. The Preston game had a lot of positives but we want to see further progression.'