Johnnie Jackson hasn’t ruled out further signings in this window, following our latest addition which the manager described as a “real coup for us”.
Defender Joe Lewis has made his move to Plough Lane permanent, forward John-Kymani Gordon signed on loan earlier in the week, and Friday’s addition of Republic of Ireland international Ronan Curtis have already strengthened the squad significantly this month.
“I’m happy with what I’ve got, but if there are things that come up that we think will improve us, they’re doable and within our means - then we’ll look at it,” said Johnnie, speaking after training was switched to the 4G surface at the Elmbridge Xcel Sports Hub in Walton.
You can listen to the full interview with Johnnie and read a summary of key points below.
How has Ronan’s recovery from injury gone with us up to now and what’s the plan for him?
Really good. It had been slow as it was a bad injury with him. He’s had to build-up his recovery. He has a working relationship with Bobby Bacic, our Head Physio, as they worked together at Portsmouth. They know each other well and that’s really helped with his rehab.
He trusts him and Bobby has been really hands on with him. Now it’s about drip-feeding him back into training. We’ve done that and he’s been training fully now for about three weeks and he’s pretty much at the point where we don’t have to modify things, he’s involved in all the sessions.
Hopefully that means he’s ready to play a part really soon.
Your other new signing this week, John-Kymani Gordon, how's he settled in?
“JK”, as he likes to be called, has settled in great!
We’ve been over at Walton for most of the days this week. He’s not trained over at Woodies yet. He’s been part of the group with us though and looked really bright. He’s a great, young lad and we’re excited about what he can bring, and show what he can do, and he’s been doing that in training already.
How likely are those two to being involved in a match day squad in terms of their situations?
John-Kymani can go straight in, for sure.
We’d have to see with Ronan. What with his rehab, the type of injury that he’s had, we’ve had to be careful with the surface that he trains on. We’ve been unable to get on grass for the last few days, so he’s not been able to train like we’d want him to.
Certainly next Tuesday or next weekend we’d look to get Ronan involved.
It is a big squad. You’re reviewing the situations with regards to young players going out on loan?
We called Ethan Sutcliffe and Morgan Williams back because we did pick up a couple of knocks and we were a bit light on numbers.
They’ll be with us for the next few weeks. We’ll look at that. Obviously they can still go outside of the league with their loans. They are not bound by the window. We don’t have to make any rush decisions on them.
I’ve got faith in those boys as well that if we need them to step up then they are more than capable. They’ve both shown that previously.
We’ll keep monitoring the loan market situation, what with the squad that we’ve got and injuries, and if we feel like we’re in good shape and can send them back out on loan to get more game time - we’ll do that. At the minute they’re with the group.
Photos: Pro Sports Images.