Hayrettin's comments suggest it wasn't necessarily in his plans to bring in another centre-back but the opportunity was too good to pass up. Which possibly pushes Binnom-Williams more the the left-back role and puts pay to the trialists we've had in that area?
With 19 players now announced would imagine there's only two or three squad spaces left - expect one will go to the goalkeeper who's been with us all pre-season, and maybe one or two attacking midfield/wide players?
Also, will be interesting to see if the extent of player movements once the season is underway is greater than experienced in the NLS - get the impression there are more season-long contracts at Step 3 level than there were last time we were here.
Yes, Manny Parry has mostly played at Step 1, including that season at Braintree. I recall him playing against us as a youngster for a very good Grays side that included Kenny Beaney, Dumebi Dumaka, Nathan Ferguson, plus Freddie Ladapo who has since had a substantial Football League career.
He was in the Maidstone squad (along with DD) that won the National South play-offs and went to Woking and Maidenhead after Braintree, before dropping back to National South at Welling last season. He's now aged 29 and as big as Chambers and Gyebi, so picking all of them in a back three would give us a massive presence at set pieces.
Constable is suspended for the first 4 matches and the triallist sent off against Erith (looked like Pingling on the video highlights) will get a 3 match ban, plus there must be doubts over Gyebi and Allen after that awful collision at Tooting. Unless another "too good to miss" player comes along I guess the triallist keeper will start the season now, and we may need a side salad or two for the bench.
Most Isthmian Premier clubs have named a squad amounting to 15-20+ players, so I'd imagine most of those players will be under contract. Only Kingstonian (7) and Lewes (8) haven't revealed enough names to make up a full team, although they're obviously fielding teams in friendlies.
Aveley have taken secrecy to the extreme and have been naming entire squads as "triallist" with no names given, including against us, although Jonathan North is clearly their goalkeeper.
