Moors boss Tommy Miller provides an update for supporters on the work going on behind the scenes in preparation for the 2026/27 campaign.
Hello, everyone – and welcome to my first summer update here on the Official Website.
We’re pretty happy with the business we’ve done so far but we’re still waiting on a couple of lads that we’d like to keep at the Club making their decisions. Hopefully we can get all that finalised in the next couple of weeks.
It’s great that we’ve done deals to keep Ben Pollock and Brad James at the Club. They are two key players for us so it was pleasing to agree the terms and have them commit their futures – hopefully there will be more news like that in the coming days and weeks.
I was also delighted to do the deal to bring Louis Stephenson into the Club on a permanent basis after his successful loan last year. He’s a young player who can have a big future because he’s got such a good appetite to learn and an excellent attitude to his work. It was an easy decision to sign him on permanently and we’re excited to see what he can do in a full season of football now.
We’re also making strides in the background in terms of bringing new players into the Club. We’ve already spoken to a few players about it and we also have a list of targets that we’d like to speak to so hopefully we can make progress with those too.
It’s still pretty early in the summer because we’re not due back into pre-season until the end of June so we have time on our side. However, we don’t want to leave it too late because we’re determined to have everything in place in good time and hit the ground running when training returns.
It can be a little like spinning plates at this time of year in terms of looking after the players we want to keep but also keeping an eye on those we could potentially want to bring into the Football Club.
I know what it’s like at this point because I have been there as a player – you’re sort of waiting to see if teams from higher divisions might come in for you. Players who have been release try to hang on and see what develops and what opportunities come along. We can’t wait forever though, and we’ll need answers off certain players so that we can continue moving forward with our plans.
We’ve already let the squad know that our return date for training will be Saturday 27th June, that will be the first session back. It gives us a good look at their fitness levels which I am sure will be fine because gone are the days when lads come back to pre-season to get fit, they come back already fit.
They know that they can expect a gruelling pre-season with plenty of testing fixtures in a schedule that is coming together quite nicely at the moment. Like I’ve said before though, to play in my team you will need to be really fit – we want to have legs and energy and that’s what we’ll be focusing on for next season.
As a manager, you get a lot of phone calls all the time even though you do try and squeeze in a little bit of a break here and there. I am still in regular contact with players and obviously I am speaking to Jason Ainsley a lot to coordinate our work, but you have to find that time to switch off as well.
I am actually playing in charity game in Hartlepool on Saturday which I am looking forward to. It’s at FC Hartlepool’s Greyfields and it’s raising money for a homeless charity. Although I have been told I might have to play the full 90 minutes which I’m not sure about – I am quite a fit lad but playing the whole game might be pushing it for me, we’ll see!
I’ll be back with another update next week, but I hope you’re all having a great summer so far.
Tommy.