PAUL Smith faces a race against time to raise a side at Redditch United for Saturday's Evo-Stik Southern League Central fixture at Stratford Town.

It follows Smith's appointment as Redditch United manager this week after the club parted company with previous boss Paul Davis.

Smith expects a mass exodus of players brought in by Davis during his brief reign at the Valley Stadium but he insisted: "I would have made changes in any event. It's a case of having a clean slate to work with.

"I will see who turns up for training this week and then we'll go from there."

With many of the recruits under the Davis regime travelling from the Oxfordshire area, Smith is under no illusions of the task ahead.

He has already recruited Robbie Bunn and Sam Tye who played under Smith at previous club Highgate United, while recalling goalkeeper Brendan Bunn back from loan with Coventry United.

Busy Smith has also served a number of seven day notices of approach for players.

He is also optimistic of obtaining some loan players from his contacts at both West Bromwich Albion and Kidderminster Harriers.

Smith admitted: "It will be all hands to the pumps just to get 16 players out for Saturday but I'll be working around the clock to achieve that.

"Obviously it isn't easy to recruit players at this stage of the season as they'll be settled with their existing clubs. But it's a challenge that I relish and is something I'm really excited about.

"The main priority at the moment is to get Redditch United away from the bottom three in the league table.

"I also want to bring the local community and the club closer together.

"Redditch is a huge town but I sense there is a distance between the supporters and the club.

"We need as much support as we can muster, so I'll be speaking with people and local organisations to see what we can do.

"It's something that I've done at previous clubs which has proved very successful, but it won't happen overnight."