WARRINGTON Town manager Paul Carden is playing it cool with his summer recruitment and insists he won’t be panicked in to signing players too early.
It is Carden’s first pre-season in the job, having succeeded Stuart Mellish and Lee Smith part-way through the 2016/17 campaign, where he helped lead the Yellows to the fringes of the play-off places.
Youngster Dylan Vassallo has penned a new deal, while all many of the players who featured for the Yellows at the end of last season have been invited back to pre-season training.
Carden said: “I’ve got targets and I’ve spoke to players. I’m targeting players from higher levels who are going to wait and see what their options are, which puts you down the pecking order a little bit.
“If I can get things done I will, but I’m going to be panicked into doing it just because somebody says they want an extra £50 a week.
“Unfortunately the club’s had a reputation since the FA Cup run of maybe having a bit of money and that we pay bundles of money for this level.
“The budget has been cut but it’s still competitive and I’m glad Toby (Macormac) cut it to be honest, because we need to lose that stigma of people coming here for the money.
“We need people coming here because they see it as a good place to come and play, and they see it as a good platform.
“We want them to come and play for me and Toby, and the management. You want them to want to be part of a good team and a good squad that’s got ambition.
“The extra £50 a week does help, but if that’s what they’re about then they’re not for me.”
Carden will have to wait and see if he can call upon players from his former club Tranmere Rovers.
Last season, defender Evan Gumbs established himself as a key part of the Yellows backline during a loan spell from Prenton Park, forming a formidable pairing with Yellows Player of the Year James McCarten.
He and another loanee, Mitch Duggan, have signed new contracts at Tranmere, though a third, Samuel Ilesamni was let go.
Gumbs went on to feature for the Tranmere first team in their final league game of the season, before their heartbreaking play-off final loss to Forest Green, and Carden was full of praise for the youngster.
He said: “Micky Mellon phoned me after that game and said how good Evan had done.
“He’s just developed into a man and if I could have kept him, I’d have loved to.
“Not only is he a great player, he’s a great lad as well. Sometimes players earn careers for their ability, and he deserves a career because of the type of lad he is, his attitude, his mentality, his work rate, his ethics and his morals as well as a person.
“He’s just a really good lad who you hope has a big career in the game.”
