Burchnall: We have hungry young squad for season

NOTTS County head coach Ian Burchnall says he is “really happy” with the Magpies business this summer as they count down to the start of their National League campaign on Saturday, writes Bruna Reis.

The Magpies drew 2-2 against fellow Conference Premier outfit Solihull Moors on Saturday, in their final pre-season game.

It has been a busy summer at Meadow Lane as the Magpies added five new players on a free transfer Ed Francis (centre-back), Kyle Cameron (centre-back), Matt Palmer (central-midfield), Aaron Nemane (right-winger) and Frank Vincent (left-midfield).

And Joel Taylor (left-back) and Kairo Mitchell (centre-forward) both joined the Magpies for an undisclosed fee from National League side Chesterfield.

Burchnall said: “Players have come in, I think you can see the type of players we’ve bought.

“Generally younger players with massive capacity to develop can be great assets for the football club long term.

“Some of them, we’ve still got some work to do to get them where they want but I think we have a hungry young squad for the season.”

When asked whether the club would use the loan market to strengthen the squad, Burchnall added: “Initially we want to have our own players we develop for our purpose and then, should we pick up injuries and need emergency players, then obviously we could reach out to the loan market and look at that.

“We know that’s there, we have good connections with other clubs. We’ll reach out if we think we need something once we get to the season so I think that’s always open for us.”

Now the Magpies face a trip to Barnet on Saturday to begin their National League season and Burchnall said: “I’ll use the whole week to look at variations, different possibilities and I rarely decide a team early in the week, I like to see how it goes in training.”