Manager Clive Cook hopes the arrival of two new players at Hythe will force the rest of his squad to fight harder for a place in the team.

Midfielder Chris Kinnear and forward Zak Ansah both made their debuts on Saturday as the Cannons beat East Grinstead 3-2 to close the gap to the Bostik South play-offs.

Kinnear, the son of Dover manager Chris, was released by Tonbridge Angels last week while Ansah, a former Arsenal youngster and Ghana under-20 international, played for Woking in the National League last season.

“I’m pleased with both of them,” Cook said. “It sparks up the squad again, freshens it up. We’ve got a few out with suspensions and people have got to work hard now, more so than they have done before.

“Chris wasn’t on the radar, it came about as soon as he was released. One of the boys knows him well and I spoke with him on Wednesday. He came back to me Thursday and said ‘let’s meet before training and I’ll train’ so I knew it was a positive vibe.

"He gives us something we haven’t got. We’ve got plenty of good footballers but his work-rate is huge and he does the horrible things which people don’t like doing. I was impressed with the boy’s attitude.

“You just need to look at Zak because he’s quality. He was training with Southend in
pre-season but it didn’t materialise and he went out of the game for a little bit.

“He’s only a young lad and he was working with his dad, Andy, who used to be at Gillingham, when suddenly it came to fruition.

“He was playing on a Sunday and he was interested so I met with him and what an attitude the lad’s got.

“I went in there with an open mind and he oozes quality. There’s goals in him – his second goal on Saturday was absolute quality.”

Read the full story in the Folkestone & Hythe Express.