More quality signings to follow Sean Davis
6:00am Friday 3rd July 2009 in Sport By Marc Iles
CHRIS Evans reckons more signings should follow hot on the heels of Sean Davis’s arrival from Portsmouth.
As predicted by The Bolton News, the experienced midfielder became Wanderers’ first new recruit of the transfer window by signing a three-year deal at the Reebok yesterday.
Assistant manager Evans expects other new faces to join him over the next couple of weeks, and is confident that Gary Megson will be backed with enough financial muscle to sign the club’s top targets.
“Sean is a tremendous acquisition,” he said. “It’s the first day of the transfer window and I think this kind of signing sends a clear statement out to everyone that we’re going about our business correctly, in a clear, deliberate and methodical manner.
“It also sends out the message that we’re very serious about bringing quality players to this football club this summer.
“Everyone, top to bottom, recognises now is the time to bring in players of a certain ilk. But we are not alone, and there are a number of clubs of similar stature who are looking to do exactly the same.
“That’s our challenge if we want to push forward.”
Megson issued chairman Phil Gartside with a list of his priority signings in May, which he hopes will help build on last season’s 13th-placed finish.
A planned change in style also depends largely on the manager’s success in the transfer market over the next month – but Evans is encouraged that the fact the first of those targets, Davis, has materialised.
“It has given us the vigour to push on,” he said. “The manager has worked closely with Phil Gartside and Eddie Davies in compiling a list of proposed targets, and, to the chairman’s great credit, he has delivered the first of them in Sean.
“He brings tremendous experience of the Premier League in a midfield position that we felt needed strengthening.
“There were several clubs he could have gone to but he wanted to work with the gaffer, and with a former team-mate Matt Taylor, so we are delighted to have him at the club.”
One player who had appeared to fall by the wayside, however, was striker Kevin Doyle who signed for Wolves in a £6.5million deal on Tuesday.
But Evans denied that the club ever made an official approach for the Republic of Ireland striker.
“I have read some reports saying Kevin Doyle picked Wolves ahead of us but that is completely inaccurate,” he said. “We’ll take it as a compliment being linked with a very good player but I stress we never made any offer for him, in any form.
“It does show, however, that even the clubs who have been promoted are having a real go. Wolves doubled their transfer record with that signing, to give themselves every opportunity of staying in the Premier League.
“At this club we know the kind of players we can go for, and those we can’t. We’ll never go for a Samuel Eto’o, that is the remit of the top four or five, but we do want those players who can take us on and improve us.”
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