Bognor add five to injury-hit squad

Pearce and No.2 Robbie Blake have been running the rule over a crop of players during pre-season training and last night moved to pen deals with Jason Parish, Ethan Robb, Alfie Lis, Mike Baker and Ben Mendoza.

The Rocks were hit with a string of injuries in the build-up to tomorrow’s pre-season friendly match at Chichester City but both Keaton Wood and Brad Lethbridge trained without issues last night.

Also back in training for his first session since the lockdown was keeper Amadou Tangara – and he looked particularly sharp during some shooting practice that saw Blake, the former Premier League striker, test the big keeper between the sticks with some venomous dead-ball strikes.

Rocks go to Oaklands Park before heading into a game at Gosport Borough a week Saturday. And Pearce feels his squad is coming together nicely. He said: “The injuries have been a worry but overall the training sessions have been very encouraging. We welcome the new players to the club and hope they can develop and contribute to a campaign which we are all very excited about.

“We have one or two new faces ready to come in as well, so by the time the season starts we hope to be in decent shape to challenge.”