Deal Town boss Steve King happy to keep biding his time in transfer market but reveals majority of squad will stay with terms agreed with one summer signing

Boss Steve King is happy to continue biding his time as Deal target the best-value signings they can get.

King is hard at work ahead of the Hoops’ third Isthmian South East season.

While the club are yet to officially announce any news, the majority of those involved in the squad last time out, as they came eighth, are expected to stay and a new arrival is set to be revealed potentially as soon as next week.

Many of Deal’s best signings in recent years have come towards the end of pre-season - or even at the beginning of the campaign - and King expects his patience to pay off once again.

King said: “I always say that it’s a players’ market in May and June, and a manager’s market in July and August.

“If we had lost five players this summer, you have to get involved in that bidding war of being after players at this stage.

“But in all my years of doing this and being involved, you realise you usually pick up your best signings - and certainly your best-value signings - at the end of pre-season and, often, normally a week, two weeks or three weeks after the season has started.

“When players are maybe sitting on the bench elsewhere or not playing as much football as they were promised, that same player becomes available for maybe half of what they would command at this stage.

“We’re in that lucky position where we are happy with what we have got. We would like to strengthen it, of course and we are still looking to do that, but players will become available once we get into it.

"That’s when I think we will pick up what we need.

“There’s a lot of trialists about, a lot of players maybe trialling at higher levels and stuff might not come off, and they might become available. Sometimes, loan deals become available when the