WORCESTER City boss Carl Heeley has fired out a warning to fellow managers that they won’t be able “cherry pick” his players next season.
The Blue and Whites endured a torrid summer last year, after a dreadful run of form at the back end of the season, coupled with the uncertainty around the future of the club, saw a mass exodus from the squad.
Heeley was left to assemble an almost entirely new team to compete in this season’s Skrill Conference North campaign, in which they finished 15th, but he said they would be looking to improve next term.
“A lot of people wrote Worcester City off last summer and we lost some players to clubs we shouldn’t lose players to,” he said.
“But my message to them is; we’re on our way back and we aren’t lying down and you’re not going to find it as easy to cherry pick our players and do the easy thing anymore.
“It’s a big club and we’ve got a lot of respect for this club and so have our players, it’s a good club and they do things right. We’re in better shape than we were last summer.”
The City manager admitted although they were still in the early stages of talking to the players, he was confident the bulk of his squad would remain.
“I’d like to keep as many of them as I could,” he added. “But obviously they’ve got options as well and they probably need to look at what’s out there for them, I understand that that’s football.
“But certainly the conversations we’ve had initially have been very, very positive and we’re hopeful of announcing some have been retained and signed deals for next season.”