How has pre-season been for you?

The club has been saved from extinction by a rich owner. An encouraging managerial appointment has been made. Judging by season ticket sales, the fanbase seems onside. Would I be crazy, therefore, to describe the last few weeks as the pre-season from hell?

1) Results: We could only draw against Eastleigh and AFC Totton. Fair enough, the games came at the height of the takeover upheaval. We lost to Ajax. Again, fair enough. But we have also lost to Bournemouth and, more recently Salisbury, in a side composed of many first team players. Aside from the Hearts win, the last few weeks have contained more dodgy results than a blind chefs' cooking contest.

2) Signings: I will move on to strikers in particular, but our squad in general is weak. We have a potentially solid spine (Davies-James-Perry-Thomas-Molyneux-Gillett-Wotton-Holmes-Lallanna-Rasiak-Saga), but once injuries come into play the wardrobe is bare. Dan Harding aside, there has been little indication of signings on the horizon. Time for Pards to work the contact book.

3) Strikers: Our striking options are threadbare. Marek Saganowski hasn't looked up for it in recent friendlies, Gregorz Rasiak still refuses to run if he can help it and Stern John is off. Our big fish forwards don't exactly seem up for the challenge of League One, a league in which they would terrorise defences with ease. You can understand Stern John's decision - at 32 dropping down into League One brings with it a chance you will never play at a higher level. But the other two have hardly covered themselves in glory recently.

In case anyone has forgotten, we are due to start this season ten points behind. Crikey.