Beard: Tooting plans coming together (From Surrey Comet)

Beard: Tooting plans coming together

11:21am Monday 28th June 2010 in

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Mark Beard reveals he already has his first-choice Tooting & Mitcham side pencilled into his season diary, but admits he will be willing to tinker if the need arises.

New boss Beard will pretty much be starting from scratch when the season gets underway in August, having radically overhauled the Terrors squad since taking over from Billy Smith.

But the former AFC Wimbledon man insists he has a vision.

Beard said: “In my mind I already have the 11 players that I want to start the first league game.

“One thing I can guarantee is that we will not be going into our opener still looking to mix and match.

“It is like starting from square one as we have so many new players, and that is why pre-season is so important for us.

“Obviously when we are playing the likes of Bournemouth and Brentford we will give everybody a go, but by the time it comes to our last couple of friendlies I want to be playing my first-choice line-up.

“The key for us will be giving everyone a chance to impress in that period of time.”

Tooting get back into training next week, with Beard having final talks this week with the likes of Aaron Goode and other players from the former regime.

And the Tooting manager has told fans he may not have finished his recruitment drive just yet.

Beard added: “There are still some players that I am waiting on - young kids who have been released by pro clubs.

“If I had my way I would have another four or five players here before we start training.

“This is going to be a very new squad and we need them to gel quickly.

“I am pretty pleased with how things have gone this far and I think Tooting fans should be excited about what we are doing here.”