BRAINTREE Town’s players have three more games to make sure they cement their places in manager Jamie Day’s plans.

Having brought a new group of players together over the summer, the Iron boss has been honing his squad over the last couple of weeks with loanees Sam Matthews and Brandon Goodship coming in from AFC Bournemouth and goalkeeper Sam Beasant joining permanently from Cambridge United.

Day said two weeks ago that he was reassessing his players to see whether they were fitting into his plans and following the next three games – at home against Gateshead on Saturday and then trips to Sutton United and Chester – he has said he will look again to see whether further changes needed to be made.

“I want to get next week’s three games out of the way with the squad that we’ve got and we will then reassess it again,” said Day.

“We will look then at where we possibly need to strengthen as we’ll have had 11 games and we’ll have given everyone a fair crack at this level.

“I said in pre-season, that everyone was happy then as it wasn’t for points on the board, but you really see people’s characters when the season starts.

“We’ll see how we go over the next three games to see whether we need to change anything.

“Each month we set targets and we are a little bit behind that.

“I don’t want to use it as an excuse but we are still a new group of players who are working each others games out and that can cause problems at the back and going forward.

“Unfortunately it does take time and I’m more disappointed than anyone to get beaten, but we can see where the problems are and we’re working hard on them.”

Day was happy to have the two loan players – Matthews and Goodship – in on long-term deals from Bournemouth and he was looking forward to having a clear week this week to fully bring them into the squad.

And the Iron manager was also hoping that a week without a midweek fixture would give injured players a chance to regain fitness to be ready for the visit of Gateshead on Saturday.

He added: “I have a very good relationship with Bournemouth and they rate the two lads very highly.

“We want good players at our club and it was an easy decision to bring them in when they were available.

“This week will give us a good spell to work with them and we also have players coming back from injuries so we have competition for places.

“I’m hoping that both Cheeky (Michael Cheek) and Jack (Midson) will be back, but we’ll have to assess them in training.

“I want to get them back as we’ve missed them.

“Cheeky is a real handful and Jack has so much experience so we need to get them back.

Cheek has been out with a knee problem and Midson has had an ankle injury, while Ian Gayle is another who has been out with a tear in his groin, but Day doesn’t feel it’s an injury that will keep the central defender out long-term.

He added: “I don’t think it’s anything major with Ian and maybe he’ll be back for Saturday, but we have three games coming up quickly and we want to keep him fit after we get him back so we’ll have to wait and see.”