Stevie Farrell hopes getting his summer business done early has helped prepare the Sons for a successful season.
Farrell has a 21 strong squad signed ahead of Dumbarton’s first friendly with Northern League Hebburn Town this Saturday (July 1), and admits he’s only looking for one or two further additions before the start of league action in August.
Trialists are likely to feature in all three of the Sons’ pre-season friendlies, but unlike in Farrell’s first two seasons at the club he won’t face a race against time to assemble a squad.
The boss said: “We’re really pleased with our summer business. We were proactive and started fairly early.
“I’m delighted because we’ve managed to secure most of the targets who we identified when we sat and talked through them last season. That doesn’t always happen. Normally you identify a lot of targets but, for one reason or another, a few will go to other clubs.
“But on the whole we’re delighted with the targets we got in key areas; particularly at left-back, centre-half and striker. That’s very pleasing.
“I’ve been in football for a long time and I’ve always been a believer that the quicker you can get your players in the building then the better.
“It becomes a bit disjointed otherwise. But on the whole we have a consistency right the way through pre-season which allows you to get some consistency from day one, particularly at a part-time level.
“We’ll have a couple of trialists coming in who we’ll have a look at, but we’re in a good position to build for the new season.”
Farrell was especially pleased to capture Sean Crighton and Mark Durnan, with the defenders both targets in previous windows.
He said: “It’s important you don’t burn bridges, either with players who leave the club or players you go for who then choose another club. If a player doesn’t come to us initially then we are very respectful of that, wish them well in the future and then there’s always an opportunity later.
“I’d spoken to Mark and Sean previously and they had chosen other options.
“But now they are here and they are both big signings for us who’ll give us a different dynamic at centre-back. They have big shoes to fill in Gregor Buchanan’s. But we know that they will be important both defensively and offensively. I’m delighted to have both of them.”
He added that Kalvin Orsi’s decision to snub a return to full-time football with League One Queen of the South shows that the Sons are an attractive option for players - even if they can’t offer full-time training or big wages.
“This is a good environment and players will look at last year and say that we just came up short” he explained.
“We’re still an attractive proposition. When players are signing they’ll say that we’ve kept the majority of a team that was in a title race. We’ve added and recruited quite well, and that’s something players want to be part of.”
Kick off at The Rock is 3pm.
