Here are DJ's programme notes from the Blyth game on Tuesday night:

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the game.

I would like to thank everyone who attended our recent webinar, it was great to catch up with over 200 of you. As usual, there were some very good questions, which showed how much people care about their club.

We have been working hard with Josh on getting some new players into the club to provide additional quality to the squad, and we have made enquiries literally all around the country about the availability of players for loan or transfer. As I explained at the webinar, we need to move players out before we can bring players in, which Josh was fully aware of when he was interviewed for the job and as such this is a difficult process. As mentioned, the playing budget for the season was spent before Josh came to the club, so he knew the constraints and will work with it to deliver what we need.

As I have said before, we won’t put the club at risk financially by bringing in expensive players and not moving players out. We need to balance the books financially and Middlesbrough for example have been very supportive in providing us with ongoing support as they look to get their U21’s some valuable experience. Some clubs are unwilling to let players move out because they are still a part of their plans, or the player concerned might pick up an injury, as happened to us a few days ago when we thought we had a player in the bag. We are however hoping that we have been successful in time for tonight’s game.

Our immediate objective remains for us to get out of the relegation zone and reach midtable. Josh speaks on a daily basis to me and Chris Stockdale about the various options that come up. The players are also very impressed with the training sessions with huge attention to detail, shape and opponent analysis. Obviously, this takes time to bed in, but we remain focussed on doing the right things.

One of the aims of that webinar was to dispel some of the unfounded, damaging and misguiding rumours about various subjects – at times, I really don’t know how this stuff gets about. We have not, for example, approached the council for a loan. We are going through a time of change now from Alun to Josh, and we are being as transparent as we can within confidentialities.  The two boards are working closely together on many issues, and we are making progress.

I thought we showed some good improvement in our last home game against King’s Lynn, and that very soon we’ll start winning home games again. We have two opportunities this week against Blyth and Spennymoor, and hopefully we can build on those promising signs. The priority is to tighten up in defence, the sooner we can keep clean sheets, the better.

I’d like to remind everybody again about the Holiday Camps being staged by our Foundation between the 1^st and 3^rd November at the Education Village. Details are available from Barry Thompson.

This week I also saw the news that Geoff Thompson was stepping back from his role at South Shields. I would like to put on record what a fantastic legacy he has created with the club, and I wish him every success in the future. He is one of football’s good guys and the game will be worse off without him.

Finally, I would like to welcome everyone from Blyth, and hope they have a safe journey home after the game.