Rory McKee
r.mckee@ardschronicle.co.uk
JOHN Bailie has spoken honestly about how inflated player wages have made for a challenging transfer window to date.
Nonetheless the Ards manager remains hopeful of being able to add to his squad between now and the start of the new season, which kicks off in just over three weeks’ time.
“It’s certainly important that we continue to be in the market as we are still short,” said Bailie.
“But I have said it from the moment I arrived that the players coming in have to have the right attitude and the right character.
“Financially, it has become really, really difficult to compete. Ards, to be fair, offer decent terms but other clubs in the Championship have pushed on. I’m not knocking that, but when you are trying to sign a player the first thing you get asked is ‘how much are you paying me?’ and we’re way down the pecking order on that,” he explained.
“So we have to cut our cloth and work within what our budget is and I’ve no problems with that.
“We’ll try to build as good a team as we physically can to be as competitive as we can.
“We may go under the radar a wee bit, but the players who we have here now and those joining the club need to be better than what they’re replacing. Quite a few players have moved on, we need to bring in better and hopefully over the next three or four weeks we’ll continue to do that.”
On Tuesday night, the Red and Blues continued their pre-season preparations by hosting last year’s Championship winners Portadown at Clandeboye Park.
One-time Northern Ireland international Shay McCartan scored the only goal of the game just after the half-hour mark, but Bailie was pleased with what he saw from his side.
He reflected: “There were a lot of games towards the end of last season where the result was more important than the performance.
“In pre-season the performances are more important than the results – and I thought in the main our performance was very good.
“Playing against a good side with plenty of Premiership experience was always going to be tough but I thought the boys acquitted themselves really well.
“We contained them for long periods, we gave away a soft goal but our goalkeeper hasn’t really had to do a lot and we caused them a few anxious moments ourselves.”
Ards have top flight opposition again tonight (Thursday, 7.30pm) when they face Glenavon at Mourneview Park before clashes against Ards Rangers and Abbey Villa on Saturday and Tuesday respectively.
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THE LINE-UP
v Portadown
Marc MATTHEWS
Mark CARSON
Ryan ARTHUR
Córaí QUINN
Connor SCANNELL
Aidan STEELE
Patrick CAFOLLA (C)
Eamon SCANNELL
Ross HUNTER
Ethan SIMPSON
Connor MAXWELL
Subs used: David McAllister, Corey McLaughlin, Trialist A, Trialist B.
