Another striker still on shopping list as Worthing FC finalise plans for season

The Rebels have been running the rule over a number of attacking players, still wanting to boost a squad which lost Ollie Pearce to York City and saw Jake Robinson move on but which has seen forward Jake Hutchinson join.

Agutter has also been looking at a midfielder who was with him at Hastings United and who scored Worthing’s winner in their latest pre-season friendly, a 1-0 victory at Whitehawk last Saturday.

Worthing lost their lastest friendly, going down 2-0 at Poole Town on Tuesday night.

The manager is content with how the final pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place, with the National League South opener at Weston-super-Mare coming on Saturday week. They have one more friendly to play – at Bognor on Sunday (2pm).

Agutter said: "We’re almost there now. What we don’t want to do is bring in anyone just for the sake of it – we don’t want to block the pathway in place at the club.”

With that pathway in mind, Agutter said a number of Rebels academy players – like Freddie Chester, Stan Berry, Evan Hoarty and Cavan Gratwick – had impressed him and were pushing for first-team opportunities.

The manager said he’d seen a reaction from players to comments he made to us last week that one or two new faces needed to show they could display hard work alongside talent.

"Worthing’s success can be seen as being about the pretty stuff but the foundation of it – which Adam Hinshelwood instilled – is down to hard work abd commitment, and we have to keep that in our minds in every game,” he said.

Agutter said the performance at Whitehawk contained pleasing forward play and solid defence, and he expected another stern test at Bognor.