Hartlepool United chairman Raj Singh discusses transfer business, squad size and potential incomings

Pools’ transfer activity following promotion back to the Football League took a while to get off the ground.

But now the ball is rolling and players are coming through the door as Dave Challinor assembles his squad for the start of the season on August 7.

And Singh assured supporters that there are still plenty more signings to be made with potentially two new faces coming through the door this week.

"Yes definitely [more transfers to come],” Singh told The Mail.

“We haven't finished because we haven't got the squad of 22 that Dave's after so there will definitely be more signings on their way.

"Hopefully there will be a couple [this] week.

"We're very confident [ahead of the new season]. We've signed a few players, there's ongoing negotiations with others and hopefully Dave will put a squad together that will be competitive and give us a good start to the season."

It’s been a month since Hartlepool secured promotion from the National League which meant they were playing catch up on many of their League Two rivals, most of whom finished their seasons in early May.

But Singh isn’t overly concerned and believes Challinor will be able to assemble a squad capable of competing in the division above.

"I've said it before the first few weeks I don't think a lot happens anyway because players are waiting to weigh up their options, agents are looking round with who the interested parties are so I don't think in that respect we've lost that much time,” he added.

"But I think it is fair to say that maybe some of the players have gone elsewhere within that four or five week period that we might have been able to negotiate a deal with if we knew which league we were in.

"So in that respect we've lost a little bit of a headway but other than that I think there's still plenty of players around to make us a good competitive squad."

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