Williams: Let’s target title
Bill Williams says Maidstone should be aiming to win the National League.
That statement is sure to raise eyebrows but Stones chief executive Williams knows what he’s talking about after 60 years in football.
By aiming low you’re asking for trouble and it’s a conversation he’s had with manager Jay Saunders.
Williams said: “I don’t think you can just aim for mid-table.
“I say to Jay every year, if you’re going to be a manager who sits in front of his players and says, ‘Oh, it’ll be all right if we finish mid-table,’ you’re not going to get a good response from that dressing room.
“We have to have belief in these players.
“If they can get their fitness levels right, their stamina levels right, their understanding of the system and put their full talent out there every week, who knows what might happen?
“We don’t know, they don’t know but let’s have a go at it. Don’t cut yourself short.
“Let’s go for the championship and see if we can win it. I always say it every year and I won’t change it.
“There’ll be people saying, ‘you’re dreaming, these players aren’t ready’ and perhaps they’re not, but we’ve got to think, and believe, that we can beat Salford, Chesterfield, Leyton Orient, Ebbsfleet.
“I would always be putting that out there and I hope Jay will.”
Maidstone have increased their budget by about 15% in a bid to climb the league but it’s still been a challenging transfer market.
As a result, they made a conscious decision to target talented youngsters.
Williams said: “I don’t have to tell everyone it’s a difficult market place.
“It always has been but the rich, for want of a better term, seem to be taking most of the cream.
“We thought, ‘can we afford to go in and really go after the experienced players we would like to have here?’
“The answer to that was no. With our budget, we’d have ended up with six players.
“The route we decided on was we would go for talented, younger, athletic-type players.
“We’ve got a reasonable squad together. It isn’t perfect and it’s going to take a little time to mould but it’s really the best we could do at this point in our development with the money we had at our disposal and the type of player we had at our disposal.”
Williams has stressed the need for patience on the terraces as Maidstone look to fulfil their potential.
He said: “I can’t over-emphasise this, as frustrating as it is for everybody, when you get a new, young side it takes a little while longer to mould them.
“You have a P on your cap for ‘ patient’ because they might need 10, 15, 20 games to get it.
“When you throw in an experienced side, aged 26 to 32, you don’t have that same problem because they’ve been there and done it. They’ve had the miles in the engine.
“If there is a downside to what we’ve decided to do this year, that would be it, but England managed to turn out a few performances at the World Cup with a young side.
“If I were one of the coaches here, I’d be excited about working with these players.”