MARK Yates has confirmed that midfielders Dean Bennett and Simon Russell will join up with the rest of the squad when pre-season training starts tomorrow.

Russell was out of contract at Aggborough following the end of the season, whilst released Chester man Bennett ended the campaign on loan at the club.

Both will link up with Harriers' contracted players as well as a group of trialists when the squad begin their pre-season training schedule tomorrow morning.

Speaking to the official website today, Yates stated that whilst finances remain tight, he's looking forward to welcoming back a strong group.

"It's a difficult time at the moment; we are on a budget that we have to stick to," he told harriers.co.uk.

"But we have one or two irons in the fire, we're still talking to a number of players and we have a number of options available.

"Tomorrow we'll have all the players we've got signed on contract coming back as well as Dean Bennett and Simon Russell coming in to train.

"We've got seven or eight decent trialists coming in, too; they're good players and many have come from League clubs as well as there being one or two other gems we think we've found.

"There are also one or two other gems we think we may have found so we're excited and we're looking forward to it, it will be enjoyable but also some hard work."

Yates will continue to negotiate with Russell and Bennett, who he still hopes will join Harriers' 12 other contracted players for the 2008-09 term.

"We're not far away with Simon, and it's the same with Dean," he added.

"We want to offer them the best deals that we can but we haven't got pots of money to be throwing around."So we're trying to be prudent - those two are coming in and we'll have a chat with them."