Coyle Juggling His Balls on Transfer Front

Owen Coyle has been on a mini-transfer spree in the close season having signed six new players to date.

He started with a club transfer record signing when Martin Paterson joined and looks like his last signing could well have been one too. Chris Eagles arrived last week from Manchester United for an undisclosed fee but one believed to be well in excess of £1 million.

Cristian Kalvenes, Remco Van der Schaaf, Kevin McDonald and Diego Penny are of course the other new arrivals to date.

Speaking to the Official Site and the Lancashire Telegraph after last night's match aginst Bradford City, Owen Coyle first mentioned his intentions to look further at signing new trialist, Aleksandrs Solovjovs on a permanent deal.

The Latvian Under 21 international has impressed against both Glentoran last Monday night and Bradford City last night.

"I like what I've seen." confirmed Coyle

"What we have to remember, Aleksandrs is contracted to his club back home, so first and foremost we must speak to them and be very respectful of that,

'We`ll find out what the situation is. Anyone who`s seen those games has seen he`s a young talent, he's got a few attributes in his locker and I think he will only get better.

"We'll weigh everything up and speak to all the parties involved and see where that takes us."

"He`s got pace and seemed to have a very good game awareness, which I'm always looking for. So we`ll take stock of it.

"It would be totally remiss of me just now to say there`s a hard and fast decision, but we like what we`ve seen and we`ll take it from there.

"I think the fans like what they`ve seen, so we'll take that on board and see where we go."

Coyle though also believes he could still strenghen the squad further in a couple of areas but is conscious of the budget he has been given.

"Brendan and the chairman won`t thank me for saying this but I`d love to still be adding another couple to what we`ve got; any manager will tell you that, but we obviously have to take into consideration there are books to be balanced and everything else that goes with that

"We`ll certainly try to show due diligence on that and do the very best we can to bring that in under our budget.

"I know in my mind where I want to strengthen the team. There are a couple of places where I would like to add fierce competition'

He also indicated that he may have to consider loans or look at offers for some of his peripheral players unlikely to see much action in the first team this season.

"It might involve juggling a few balls. There might be one or two who we think aren`t going to play week in, week out and if there`s interest in them then that`s something we have to look at, but at this moment in time, we`ll work hard with what we`ve got.

Specifically on the possibility of loaning players he said:

"It`s always an avenue that`s open to us and I`ve made a few calls in that respect.

"We`ll see whether anything bears fruit on that one."

It could still therefore be an eventful fortnight for the Clarets before the season kicks off at Hillsborough on the 9th of August. Most Clarets fans are probably hoping that Coyle now strengthens the defence in particular and also brings in a tall striker as a target man to give some attacking options up front.




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