Naysmith working hard to boost squad

East Fife boss Gary Naysmith is back from a short sunshine break with his family and is determined to add more players to his Bayview squad.

The former Scotland defender is looking to go one better than last season, when he led his side into the play-offs, although he admits everyone at the League 2 club will need to work together for this to be achieved.

Budgets have been squeezed and Naysmith reckons that maintaining a promotion push this season is going to be harder than in 2014/15.

He said: “I started work for this season before the play-offs had even been played, when I had discussions with a number of players about remaining with us.

“From those talks, I was able to get guys who performed really well, like Fraser Mullen and Kevin Smith, to agree to re-sign. They had better offers elsewhere but they agreed to stay for less money than they earned last year.

“This shows that they are happy at East Fife, happy with how the club look after them and are happy with their football. I was also delighted to persuade Jonathan Page to move over permanently from Dunfermline.

“The new season is going to be tough as the playing budget has been cut. However, I knew that long before last season ended and long before I signed my new contract. I also knew before signing my contract that certain important players would need to leave for financial reasons.

“My new deal was agreed before the play-offs and, like all of my staff, I agreed to take a cut in wages to help with the financial situation at the club."

Despite a strong link with Raith Rovers during the summer, Naysmith has never let his determination for East Fife to be strong in League 2 next season drop.

He added: “I had agreed to be the East Fife manager weeks before the season ended but we had not got round to doing the paperwork. I carried on working as normal in the discussions with the players and that has been the case ever since.

“We got round to formalising things before I went away last weekend. I cannot help speculation but at no time has it stopped me doing my job for East Fife. In fact, I have been working every day of my holiday trying to get people in.

 “We are short in numbers at the moment but I would rather add quality to our squad and not rush into signing players just for the sake of increasing our numbers.”