Lennie Lawrence Explains His Loan Plans

By: Bill Osborne
Date: 02/07/2001

TOWN BOSS Lennie Lawrence has explained his policy regarding loan players and trialists coming to Blundell Park, and what he sees as his requirements for the season ahead. The first trialists, being two players from the French club Bordeaux, are arriving soon.

Explaining that he wants to bring in several young English and foreign players Lennie told Mariners Net: "We are not going to fill the place up at the moment because we will be concentrating mainly on physical training for the first week or ten days. We will need to see them in football situations. We need to see them in games. They will be coming throughout July and any decisions will be made on them by August 3rd, which is the day of the last pre-season friendly."

"There will be a couple of them coming in soon - there will be Mathieu Chalmet from Bordeaux, and also from the same club, Yoan Langleat. They are two boys we have looked at in the Toulon under-21 tournament which takes place in early June between different countries. They are in the French squad and are both Bosmans."

"In France it doesn't matter how old you are. If your contract is up, your contract is up. It is not like here where clubs can command a transfer fee until they're 24 - it's not the same in France. One of them can play on the right or left (Chalmet) and one is a wide left player. They are both young players, in the 20/21 age bracket."

"After that there'll be a few more in, including two or three English players. I think we need a permanent English signing, an English loan, and I think we need three or four foreign trialists which may develop into loan players. That is in a perfect world. Whether we can afford all that is a different matter."

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