Paul Hartley is determined to add more experience to his new-look Cove Rangers squad.
The Cove boss has signed nine full-time players so far, with the oldest being 24-year-old defender Will Gillingham.
Seven – Gillingham, Arron Darge, Mouhamed Niang, Mark Gallagher, Tyler Mykyta, Kyle Connell, and Rumarn Burrell – of those nine recruits started in Tuesday night’s 5-2 win over Clyde in the Viaplay Cup.
Mitch Megginson, Connor Scully, Mark Reynolds, and goalkeeper Balint Demus, who has signed a two-year full-time deal at the club, made up the starting XI.
Hartley was encouraged by those competitive debuts, but still feels he is lacking in certain areas of the pitch.
He said: “We’ve got a few things currently in the pipeline.
“We’ll just need to wait and hopefully get things over the line over the next four or five days. We are definitely short in some areas.
“It (bringing in experienced players) has been the hardest thing, but we will try our best to get good experienced players in.”
Mykyta can develop at Cove, says Hartley
Former Aberdeen youngster Mykyta is Hartley’s latest signing, with his transfer from Formartine United announced prior to kick-off against Clyde.
Hartley believes the 2o-year-old midfielder must embrace the chance of full-time football and make good progress at Cove.
He said: “We only just got the clearance through and we weren’t quite sure if he was going to be able to play against Clyde.
“Tyler’s got a lot of work to do, but he’s got a lot of talent. He’s come from part-time football and it’ll take him some time to adjust, but we know we’ve got a good player.
“He did some good things against Clyde, so hopefully he can keep getting better and better. The hard work starts now for him to get his fitness up and to get stronger and sharper.”
Following their opening win over Clyde, Cove return to Viaplay Cup action against Breedon Highland League champions Brechin City on Saturday.
Andy Kirk’s side have lost their first two matches of the competition with a 3-0 defeat to Premiership outfit Livingston followed by a narrow 1-0 loss to Hamilton Accies.
Despite Brechin’s start to the competitive season, Hartley is still expecting a tough game at Glebe Park and hopes to have more players at his disposal for the Group C clash.
He said: “It was a good start getting the three points against Clyde and that was the most important thing for us.
“Brechin will be a hard game. It’s a tight pitch. We just need to see if we can get another team ready again – we were short of bodies on Tuesday night.
“We had a couple up watching in the stands, so hopefully we can bring a few more players in to give us a little bit more freshness in the team.”
