English transfer window closes this evening
Fleetwood Town’s Technical Director Gretar Steinsson has been impressed with the Club’s summer transfer activity.With the window slamming shut this evening, the Cod Army have added to their ranks in recent months with the addition of eight first team players.
Declan McManus, Vamara Sanogo, Amari’i Bell, Jimmy Ryan, Eggert Jonsson, Lyle Della-Verde, Bobby Grant and Victor Nirennold have all joined the Highbury outfit.
The strategy put in place by the Club has pleased Steinsson, with an emphasis on developing youngsters through to the first team.
Speaking exclusively to the Club’s media team, he said: “Since January we’ve set up a strategy that we were going to lower the average age of the team and work on a stricter budget.
“We knew what we wanted to achieve straight from January so did our business early and knew the players we were after.
“We met players, agents and clubs from February to May trying to get things moving, and apart from a couple of players Graham had a full squad at the start of pre-season.
“We’ve done really well in most aspects trying to advertise the Club to players. We’ve got a bright future ahead with some big plans.
“It’s very important to educate people in the football business of what we’re actually after. We are a selling Club as we want players to come here to move on.
“We introduced this strategy to our players and to their management, and that’s what we wanted to try and do.”
The former Icelandic international admits focus will very much be put on the development squad in coming years, with the aim of producing a conveyer belt of talent.
“The development squad is something we’ve put a lot of focus on over the last two years, and a lot of credit must go to Barry Nicholson and his staff.
“We want to bring players through and we must do that to be a sustainable Club. We started that last year with Ashley, Nick and Tyler.
“It’s very important for the Club from a financial side that they get the opportunity for scouts and other clubs to see them.
“We need to keep focusing on the development squad over the next couple of seasons as they’re becoming a bigger part of the Club.
“We all agreed on the strategy and what would benefit the Club in the long term, and we’ve followed this through by putting things in place.
“We must stay on this strategy now and keep on working towards our ultimate goal. We need to be patient as it takes time for players to get games under their belt.
“All in all it’s about staying on track and being true to the plan as it would be more successful than chopping and changing every time it starts raining.
“We need to keep on supporting the younger players and to never stop keeping on improving what we’re trying to do.”