Ebbsfleet boss Dennis Kutrieb is happy with the progress being made in the transfer market.

The Fleet are yet to announce any new faces at Stonebridge Road ahead of their return to the National League in August but that’s not to say they haven’t been busy behind the scenes.

“There’s nothing I can say now but we’re not far away from where I want to be,” said Kutrieb.

“We’ve got another couple of weeks before we start pre-season so there’s many days where we can make our decisions.

“We don’t rush any decisions because we just want to make sure it’s a good decision and the right decision.

“I’m not concerned, I’m positive and I think we will do very good signings for us.”

The Fleet are being inundated with players offered to them. Kutrieb revealed that they’ve had around 200 players put to them in recent weeks.

“We’re in the middle of doing business,” he added. “It’s a tough time, to be honest.

“Everyone who knows a bit about the market knows it’s really crazy because there are an unbelievable number of players.

“I haven’t counted them but I would say we get a minimum of three to five every day so over the last five weeks or so that’s around 200 players.

“They’ve already been offered to us, and we’ve been told how good they are, that we need them and how they’d help us.

“You really need to stay calm and make good decisions. As I’ve said all the time, it needs to be the right fit for the club.

“It needs to be a good signing and they need to fit into the group. From that point of view, we’re in the middle of business. I can’t moan at the moment and I’m very optimistic that we’ll get our targets done.”

Ebbsfleet’s promotion has opened up a new level of players who are now willing to drop down to non-league’s top flight to ply their trade.

Falling into non-league football is no longer seen as a backward step by many, given the increased professionalism outside of the Football League.

“We could see that there were players on the market that wouldn’t be attracted to play in National League South,” said Kutrieb. “That’s different now and the number increases from league to league.

“If you play League 2, I guess there would be even more and even better players available.

“Sometimes I’m surprised that you get the same player five times from five different people and I think, ‘you’re not good enough to play in lower leagues, so how can you be good enough to play for us in the National League?’.

“But, also, there are players that make you think that’s an interesting one and he should be playing much higher. But they can’t find a club in the league or they want to be closer to home in London, so we’ve got a good catchment area.

“You’ve got players in Scotland or up north from London who want to come closer to home sometimes.

“What I can say is there was a little bit in the beginning that players said they don’t want to drop to National League, I don’t want to drop to non-league. There was a gap between League 2 and the National League but I think that has closed more and more.

“Not everyone sees it as non-league, they say it’s like a League 3, it’s almost as professional as League 2 and there are not many differences.

“You see cup games when League 2 plays National League and how close it was, and Notts County and Wrexham were a good advertisement for the National League. There’s not much between the two leagues.

“There’s more players available who would want to play in the [Football] League but they understand more and more that the National League is not that far away, so from that point of view I would say it opens more options.”

Fleet have retained Greg Cundle, Rakish Bingham, Haydn Hollis and Shaq Coulthirst for the new season.