Torquay United head coach Gary Owers spoke about the need for planning to get United safely through the rest of the season at his weekly press call on Thursday.
Decisions have to be made on United’s loan contingent of Michee Efete, Rhys Murphy, Josh McQuoid, Jazzi Barnum-Bobb, George Dowling, Callum Evans, and Alex Davey.
“I have to plan,” said Owers at his weekly press call. “The loans go back quickly, within two weeks I could lose four or five of the squad. I have to decide who I may want to keep. I have to enter into discussions with the [parent] clubs to see if they’re happy for us to keep them. It is a bit of a game of chess at the minute and I need to know what I am playing with come the end of December and the beginning of January.”
“Obviously there’s the run-in which is just less than half a season. If I take a certain amount of loans in and I lose them all before the end of the season, and we’re heading into the later months, we could be four or five [players] down again and just scraping through, and I don’t want to do that.”
Despite the Gaffer’s thoughts being focused on the current season, he did give a glimpse of how his squad building usually takes place.
“If I was coming in on day one I’d go with a squad of eighteen outfield players and two goalkeepers, and try and spend more money on less player. Unfortunately, when I arrived I had a squad of twenty-seven. That’s what I have been dealt and that’s what I’m trying to sort out now.”