Town boss Paul Cook says recent signing Tete Yengi, who was on the bench for the Papa John’s Trophy win at Gillingham on Tuesday, has plenty of good qualities and looks to be a positive signing for the club.
Cook says he can’t take too much credit for signing the Australian, who came on trial to the club via a contact of Town’s head of sports science Andy Costin, also an Australian, having left A-League side the Newcastle Jets.
The 21-year-old forward was an unused sub at the Priestfield Stadium having scored his first goal for the U23s in a 3-0 win at Swansea on Monday.
"I’d love to be able to tell you that I’d watched him play four times, I really liked him and I thought I’d bring him in,” Cook said.
"I think that credit goes over to [CEO] Mark Ashton, the recruitment guys, Andy Costin at our football club, he’s obviously got a relationship with a couple of the Australian agents.
"The boy was obviously looked at, he’s got really good qualities, certainly his physique is outstanding. He can handle a football and he seems to have an eye for a goal. He looks to be a really positive signing on everyone’s behalf at the club.”
Is he one for the future or could he push on into the plans for this season? "I think one of the things I didn’t enjoy last season was the amount of jumping around players were doing within different squads.
"It’s something I’d never seen before where lads from the academy were going to the U23s into the first team, from the U18s [into the U23s].
"And for me there’s always been pecking orders and solidity at clubs where lads have got to work really hard to come through.
"And for us now, certainly the U18s are solid, the U23s are solid and the first team in terms of numbers and quality is certainly solid.
"It just allows the groups to thrive and get better. And within that, we want lads to progress.
"Obviously, you’ve seen with Zanda [Siziba] coming off the bench on Tuesday night to replace Conor Chaplin, for example, they’re the type of substitutions that I think are correct.
"And I just think the club’s being built now, and that’s nothing disrespectful to anything that’s happened before us, with solid squads with hopefully, especially for the first team, good lads who want to progress.
"And then at that point then to jump from one team to another, they’ve got to be doing really, really well.”