Braintree Town manager Jamie Day is hoping to have his Iron squad pretty much all in place by the end of this week.

With the first pre-season fixture - at Heybridge Swifts on July 9 - just over a week away, Day has continued to be busy speaking with new players and he is keen to finalise his squad soon.

Having added striker Jack Midson to his squad yesterday, Day said he hoped to have several more new players in place in the next few days and added that if he couldn’t wrap up the deals he wanted then he was prepared to be patient and expected to leave things for a while before reviewing how his squad was looking after some pre-season action.

“We are speaking with three or four lads this week,” said the Iron boss.

“There is a centre-half who has been in League Two, a central midfielder and also a wide player and we’re hoping to complete them this week.

“If we can get that sorted then I’ll feel as though we’re practically there.

“They are targets who we have been tracking for the last few weeks and if we get them then they will add experience to what we have.

“If we get them all then I’ll be happy and won’t expect to do a massive amount more, but if we can’t sort things out then I’ll probably wait for a few weeks and see how things pan out through pre-season.

“I’m looking at the three or four that we’d like to bring in ahead of our first pre-season game so we can then get them working together, which is what we want.

“You want a new squad like we have to focus and too many trialists can be a distraction so we’d like to have things sorted this week so we’re not looking too much at trialists in pre-season.”

Day held his first training session as Braintree Town manager last weekend and was looking to continue working at sessions this week with those who he had already added to the squad and some of those he was hoping to bring in.

“We had our first training session on Saturday and are then continuing this week,” added the Iron boss.

“We have 12 signed on and there were also five or six who we are having a look at so it was a good start.

“A couple of the new lads were playing Ryman League last year and some are young lads who have been released by pro clubs, so it’s a bit of a mix with some dropping down and some moving up.

“We’re working them hard and will make our decisions.

“We did bleep tests with them and everyone did well, which was good as it showed everyone had looked after themselves, but you tend to expect that nowadays and I was pleased with how it went.”