Dartford boss Alan Dowson expects to sign only two players from his former club Woking.

Dowson enjoyed great success at Woking, guiding the Cards to the National League before re-establishing them in the top flight of non-league football - only to be sacked following a poor run of results in February.

Now he’s onto a fresh challenge at Princes Park with Dartford and has been linked with a number of players who featured for him at Kingfield.

Midfielder Max Kretzschmar worked with Dowson at both Woking and Hampton, and announced his departure from Woking on Monday.

He’s already been linked with a move to Dartford but, either way, Dowson doesn’t expect there to be a flood of players from his former club.

“We’ve got a core already, the ones we feel that made Dartford strong in the first place,” he said.

“You want to keep a main core and add one or two bits to it that we’re working on this week.

“There will be players coming in who we like, it’s like everyone else we keep it under wraps a bit until pre-season. They are on holidays and have said they will sign so I trust them to do that.

“There’s players I’ve worked with before, managers always get players that they like.

“There’s one or two from my ex-club that I want to get in next week, not three or four, and not five or six, just one or two. We’ll work on that.”

With Dan Roberts classed as a winger by the new boss, Dowson is yet to sign a striker so far.

Dowson is in talks with a number of options and knows there will be plenty available - it’s a matter of finding the right ones.

“It’s the hardest position to fill but we’ve spoken to three or four so we’ll get them in, there’s no problem there,” said Dowson.

“Hopefully we can get something sorted next week. I don’t think conceding goals last year was a problem but scoring goals was a problem.

“The stats don’t lie - defensively we did well and attacking-wise we could have done better. We’ve got to improve in that area.

“I’m ringing up managers from the leagues above and a lot of them say ‘give me the first week of pre-season to see what I like’.

“So you’ll get players that are not quite good enough for the Football League or the division above, but certainly good enough for us.

“That’s when you can get that special player, there will be one player who comes out of pre-season that is special. You’ve got to wait for that special player to come up.

“I haven’t done my budget. I’ve got money left over and a lot of people I think do their business too early and you then think if I’d held my money I could have done that. I’ve learnt that so I’ve got to wait.

“Supporters will think what’s happening and that’s fine but I’ll be judged with what happens on August 6, not in pre-season - that’s there to get the lads fit and a structure.”

Dartford are holding an open day on Saturday, July 2 for supporters to meet the manager and his squad.

Fans are invited to watch the final hour of training before coming together for food and drink in the Champions Bar.

“The fans know who the players are but I think it’s important that the players know who the fans are,” said Dowson.

“It’s important we know them and I believe that extra bond might get us another five or 10 points in the season.”