Deal Town manager Derek Hares has completed the signing of Dan Barrett ahead of the new season.

Barrett arrives from Ramsgate on an initial dual-registration for a month, after which the club will sit down to assess the prospect of extending his stay.

He arrives as a welcome addition to Town’s squad ahead of their Southern Counties East League opener at home to Fisher on Saturday.

Hares said: “He’s quite versatile. He can play at the back or he can play as a right wing-back so it’s always useful to have a player that can play in a couple of positions.

“We’ve got one or two people absent for the next month – particularly on the right-hand side – so he’ll come in and be quite valuable there.”

Town will be missing three players at the weekend as they set out to build on last season’s 11th-placed finish in the Premier Division.

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Hares added: “On Saturday we’ll have no Ben Chapman, no Liam Hark and Alfie Foster is suspended from last season.

“We just have to see how it goes. The aim is to improve on the points total from last year. That’s all you can do, really, because in this league you just don’t really know.

“There are always teams that have got big budgets but you aren’t really sure.

“I think Chatham will be up there, I think Sheppey will be up there and it looks like Glebe could be another side that could do well.

“We’ve got a real tough start. We’ve got Fisher on Saturday then Chatham away and Sutton in the FA Cup so it’s a tough start but we’ll have a better guide in a week.

“For us it’s been a bit of a building process. A lot of the players have been with us now for a couple of seasons.

“A lot of them are young players but they’ve now got a lot of experience and hopefully that will take us forward.

“We’re confident. I think we’ve got a decent squad together. The last few years we’ve done pretty well so hopefully we can push on from that now.”

Deal wrapped up their pre-season with a 3-2 defeat to Lydd Town on Saturday in a game that was switched to the Charles Ground due to their opponents’ pitch being waterlogged.

“It wasn’t a great game but I’m pretty happy with how pre-season has gone and now just really looking forward to that first game,” admitted Hares.

Hares also confirmed the club are working on a deal to sign another midfielder.

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