BRAD Quinton does not want to fill his quota of Braintree Town players too early and says that he will stay patient before fully finalising his Iron squad.

He has set up a testing pre-season campaign, with seven games and expects to use the time ahead of the start of the National League South season on August 5 to have a look at potential new recruits.

A total of 11 new players have been unveiled so far, but Quinton knows others may catch his eye in the coming weeks.

“I’m looking for another centre back and a full back, I’m talking to another forward as well and another midfielder so there are areas that we want to cover,” he said.

“We want cover as we don’t want all our eggs in one box when it comes to positions on the pitch because you can get the curse of dreaded injuries.

“You have to take that into account and it’s mine and (assistant manager) Andy’s (Porter) job to get the right squad blended together.

“There are two or three others who we want to announce, but we don’t want to go too far too early.

“There is a sense that we’d like to knuckle down with what we have got, but there is still an opportunity to look at people who have almost made it with pro clubs and may have just not made it.

“They’ve just been released as first-year pros or maybe scholars and you don’t want to run the risk of missing out on those types of players by confirming your squad too early.

“There could well be one or two golden ones in among them.

“But we are happy with the players that we have already on board.

“I hope the supporters can see the calibre of lads who we are bringing in. You can see from the awards that many of them picked up at their previous clubs how highly-rated they are.

“And they know what is expected from them at this club.

“That’s what we felt we needed to bring back - players who would put their bodies on the line.

“Their skill levels will come through once they show that commitment and there is loads of pace there as well.

"If the fans are happy, then they have every right to be happy as we believe we have some great players on board.”

Quinton was holding a trial game for potential new players on Thursday, with the squad starting full pre-season training on Saturday.

“Pre-season will be hard for them,” said the Iron boss.

“We want to be organised and we want them to understand how we want to play so we have to get that into them.

“We are in on Thursday for the showcase game, then it is a double session for the first one back on Saturday.

“We then have Tuesday-Thursday sessions and a Saturday on July 1 at Five Lakes when we’ll have some hard sessions and then time in the spa for them as a little treat from me.

“They have to be ready for it, though, as there will be a lot of high tempo work.

“The players are going to have to be mentally prepared.

“The ones we have on board already have all be given fitness plans so they will have been doing that and what we are looking for is a very fit bunch of lads.”