Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Rovers not committed on Seager – Hargreaves
not committed to signing young Southampton striker Ryan Seager.
Seager is currently on trial with the Pirates, and scored in their development side’s victory over Forest Green Rovers earlier this week.
Yet Hargreaves says Rovers cannot promise anything over whether they will retain the services of the 22year-old front man.
He said: “He’s just spending some time with us at the moment and that’s it. He’s spending a week or two with us, we’ll see how he integrates into the squad – we played him the other day and he scored a good goal.
“You can’t hide from that – he played well and scored. But we don’t want to promise anyone anything because we’re not in a position to do that at the moment. We’ve just been honest and said spend a week or two with us, see how you feel, see how you integrate with the lads and we’ll take it from there.
“Again, it’s part looking at options of players who might be out of form or might want to get game-time at another club but, again, we don’t want people to leave, so our players come first.
“He’s a player whose come through the door, he’s spending a week or two with us, that’s it.”
With Rovers having four strikers at the club already, Hargreaves says Seager will have to prove himself a better option than what the Pirates already have.
He said: “He’d have to prove himself and that’s no mean feat because we’ve got very good strikers at this football club already.
“They may not have scored the goals we think we’d have liked them to have scored, but maybe that’s lack of creativity, maybe that’s a little bit of lack of form or confidence, and that’s our job to turn it round.”
Meanwhile, Ollie Clarke has outlined what has changed at the club under new boss Coughlan.
Rovers’ new manager has overseen a transformation in the team’s fortunes in League One with the club now outside of the relegation zone.
And the midfielder has talked about the differences in approach between Coughlan and predecessor Darrell Clarke.
“I think the (old) gaffer (Darrell Clarke) was always one to try to outthink the other manager, and he did that quite well,” said Ollie Clarke.
“I think now we’ve found a good shape, what we are good at, and we’re not conceding sloppy goals.
“Until the last couple of league games we’ve done alright, and it’s actually worked for us.”
On Coughlan, he added: “The manager has just given us that confidence to say, this is what we are good at, this is what we are doing.”
Rovers take on Wycombe at the Memorial Stadium today.