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Chris Kinnear will continue his pre-season learning process when Dover Athletic take on Kingstonian at Crabble on Saturday.
The Whites manager said there could be some more new faces in his line-up after he fielded two completely different teams for the two halves of last Saturday’s 5-0 defeat against League 2 Dagenham & Redbridge.
Kinnear said: “Ideally we wouldn’t have played Dagenham in our first game. They’ve been training for a few weeks already and are beginning to look at what side they will start their season with, while we were just looking at players.
“But it’s not about winning these friendlies, it’s about learning things and on Saturday we learnt that Nathan Elder will win a lot of headers and that Michael Bakare is quick to get in behind people.”
Another of Whites’ close-season signings, Craig Stone, wore the captain’s armband and looked more than comfortable with the added responsibility, but Kinnear said he didn’t know yet whether the midfielder would captain the side when the league season starts.
Midfielder Barry Cogan didn’t feature on Saturday but still figures in Kinnear’s plans, with the manager adding: “He’s not done a lot since he injured his shoulder and I didn’t want to push him back too early but he could feature on Saturday.”
Kinnear confirmed that striker Harry Ottaway had been released and hinted that there could be more new trialists for the Kingstonian friendly.
He added: “It would be unfair to judge anyone on last Saturday. We could be looking at some more new faces on Saturday and the (league) season is still five weeks away, so there’s plenty of time.”