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The new season may still be some two months away, but Ashford Victoria started their pre-season preparations at the weekend as the Vics players returned to training after their short early summer break. A decent amount of players attended the first training session of the summer including several new faces, and you would have thought that the number of potential new signings and impressive trailists would have had Victoria manager Ryan Mills licking his lips at the thought of being able to improve and add to his squad. But the Vics boss is wary of concentrating too much on certain individuals and instead is looking around at other options to add something to his team for next season.

“I have made no secret this summer that I feel we need to add three, maybe four new faces to the squad for the new season, and even after one week of pre-season I think we’ve found the boys we need to progress as a team and improve on last seasons mid table finish” said Mills.

“We simply didn’t score enough goals last season and failed to kill off games when we had the chance, so I have made it a priority to bring in a couple more attack minded players to compliment what we already have at the club. Big Wayne (Cleave) did very well last year and played his part by bagging a decent goal tally for himself, but we never really found him a settled strike partner. So by bringing in someone new hopefully it’ll take a little bit of the pressure off of his shoulders and maybe solve our goal scoring problem at the same time”.

Two of Cleave’s current strike partner options though are in serious danger of missing large chunks of the new season, as both Jack Bundock and Darryl George look set to be sidelined with two different injuries for some time. Bundock, who returned to the club from The Crusader last February, broke down in training yesterday with a reoccurrence of his ankle injury from last season and looks set for a lengthy spell on the treatment table after damaging ligaments again and could face up to three months out.

Meanwhile Darryl George, who has been out injured since early April, has ruled himself out of action for the rest of the year after discovering that he has torn his anterior cruciate knee ligament. The strong and direct wide forward was named Captains Player of the Year at last months end of season presentation night, but has taken his physio’s advice and will rest until at least January hoping to make a New Year return.

Reacting to the loss of two such influential players, Mills has moved fast to add to his squad by offering young striker Joe Mort a chance to join the Vics this season. The 19-year-old left footed forward made an instant impression at the end of last season netting on his debut, and impressed again in training at the weekend.

“Joe is an exciting forward who I think can score a lot of goals for us given the chance” said Mills. “He loves running at people with the ball at his feet and knows where the goal is too. He is quite a similar player to Jack Bundock in terms of both having pace and the way they like to drop deep and collect the ball, but another face and other option is always a good thing to have”.

“There are another two lads I am very keen to sign, and I think everyone knows who they are including the individuals concerned, but I can’t wait all summer for them to give me a yes and commit. The only thing stopping them at the moment is their loyalty to their current club in another League in Kent, something that I cannot fault as I respect the difficult decision the pair have to make”.

“But it’s important that I don’t put all of my eggs in the same basket and completely concentrate on bringing that pair into the club, and I need to cast an eye on other avenues or face missing out on any other players moving clubs this summer and we could be left with no one like last year” added Mills.

One area where Victoria do need reinforcements is in goal, and former ‘keeper Mark Bennett looks like he is in pole position to claim the number one jersey for the new season after a decent showing in training at the weekend. The 21-year-old stopper spent two seasons with the Vics before losing his place in the side last year to Benn Phillips, but is now back and hungry to regain his place.