SEASIDERS Chairman Karl Oyston revealed today that he has "actually enjoyed the summer's wheeling and dealing" and was still hopeful of deals being completed both in and out as the midnight deadline approached on Monday night. Like most chairman Oyston was in regular contact with his manager Simon Grayson and club secretary Matt Williams and agreed it was a busy time for everyone.

"It has been an excellent summer for us on the transfer front and I genuinely believe we are significantly stronger than last season, we certainly have strength in depth and good competition across the squad."

"Monday was a bizarre but enjoyable day, Simon, Matt and I were in regular contact with each other and we were all fielding calls off agents and clubs offering players, it amazes me that we are never offered a bad player, no matter what the player has done in his career he always is the next best thing and some of the tales they come out with is amusing!"

"Simon and his staff identified who they wanted to sign over the summer and as a board we have backed him with both transfer fees and with wages, I think it is fair to say as a club our wage bill is the highest in our history, but we know we had to do that to progress and hopefully build on last season's achievements."

"I still thought we might have had another one in before the deadline but, the Premiership club we were speaking to didn't sign the player they were hoping to sign, so our deal was put on hold. The progress we have made on the pitch has seen our profile increase and Simon and his team have a lot more contacts than ever before, which can only benefit the club."

Pool now have 30 professionals on their books and the chairman expects "one or two" to head out on loan when the Emergency window reopens next Tuesday, "We have a few of the younger players who we will be looking to get out on loan as part of their development, we have already let Ashton Bayliss go to Fleetwood for a month and I expect a few more of young pros and scholars to follow suit, Andy is putting together a great little set up at Fleetwood and with our relationship with them we are keen to assist them where we can, some of the more experienced players might also ask to go out and play for a month, as professionals they all want to play on a Saturday afternoon so we will see how things progress."

Asked if Pool would be adding again to their squad when the loan window reopens Oyston replied, "Simon is always looking to better the squad, if someone comes available who Simon thinks will make us better then, we will take it on its merits and make a decision, Simon doesn't like to sign players for the sake of signing players, I know he has a list of players who may be available who he thinks he can make us better and if they come available and he thinks the time is right to sign them then we will look at it."

Asked if the club's stance on agents has remained the same, Oyston smiled, "If you are asking me if I think I should be paying them then the answer is no! But this window, we have had to use and pay a number of agents to make sure we signed the players we were interested in. As I have always said, I want to give the manager every opportunity to keep us in this division and build on last season and one of those things has been in respect of agents. It is easy to tar all agents with the same brush but it must be said some are better than others and do actually act in their clients best interests!"

Away from the on the field activities Oyston updated us on the South Stand development, "We are well on with the tenders for the piling, steel work and construction, we are in the process of clearing the site and doing the final few surveys and I fully expect the piling to begin towards the end of the month."