Director of football Keith Alexander is speaking to new players and several have indicated a willingness to come to Gigg Lane

"It's all settled down now and all ready to go, though it doesn't take much settling down.  I've been kept busy looking at the players that are here and talking to them and seeing where we are."

"I've only been here a week myself and there's no problem selling the club to potential new players.  Footballers are footballers, they want to play football and if the money is right, they will go anywhere.  It's as simple as that.  This is not a club that pays fortunes to players so we have to be a little bit more selective.  It's something that I have done in the past and there are enough players out there for us to get some into here and that are better than what we had."

"I'm looking forward to getting going and working with Chris Casper.  You get the feeling that this is going to be a good working relationship.  If you look at three of the teams that got into the play offs, they had directors of football.  It can take a bit of pressure of the manager."

"I'll tell you in six months time how it's different from being the manager.  I'm still going to be hands on working with Chris and I will be doing a lot more work behind the scenes in getting the players into the football club.  It's a new role for both of us and it's the way football is going, we are both looking forward to it and I think we have some exciting times coming our way."

"Finishing in the bottom five is not what I am used to, and it's not what Chris wants, so we are going to try and put that right.  There are no guarantees in football and I am not going to sit here and say that we are going to finish in this that or the other position, but we both know that we have to do better."

"I had a look at the pitch last week whilst the work was being done.  I am a great believer in that you do need a good pitch, but I also believe that you have to play on whatever pitch you have got. It's far too easy to say that the pitch wasn't good enough and we couldn't play.  In the days gone by, the pitches were always bad, not they tend to be always good.  Having a good pitch doesn't make you a good team, yes it does help, but there is a lot more too football than a good pitch."

"Its all about finance, clubs at this level can't go and spend x amount of thousands on a new pitch.  I've been in this situation before, clubs that I have been at have had poor pitches, but as the club has got better, the pitch has got better, and that's how it will have to work here.  Of course we want a good surface to play on, but my concern is the team and the team has to be able to perform on all sorts of surfaces."

"At the moment, I am talking to a lot of people and as I have said many times already, there is no rush, we don't want them here until 05 July because we don't want to be paying wages for them over the summer.  We have been speaking to a lot of people and several of them have indicated that they are keen to come, whether that transpires or not we will have to wait and see."

"I'm away on holiday from Friday, and in today's world the mobile will be on.  I'm going to St Lucia and I remember 20 years ago, you couldn't get a signal on the island, but nowadays, the wife takes my phone off me after a couple of days, but it doesn't stop ringing.  It's the sign of the times, I expect people to ring me whilst I am away and I will be ringing them."