’Stute look for defender

The Drumahoe club are without centre-back duo Graham Crown and John Curran and because of that Kee is looking to bring in the ex-Derry City and Lisburn Distillery centre-half.

“To be honest I’m probably looking at another defender, I feel we need another centre-back,” insisted Kee.

“I think in virtually every other position we have competition for places and are well covered, but we are a bit short in defence.

“John Curran is on holidays at the minute and (Graham) Crown has a bit of an injury at the minute, so I’m hoping Aaron will sign for us because not only is he a good defender, but his experience will be invaluable to us.”

The ’Stute gaffer knows their opener this weekend is going to be a hard one against a Rangers side, who will be aiming to bounce straight back up to the Premiership.

“It’s a tough opening game for us, but it’s also a good opening match for us and we are looking forward to it.

“It will also show the measure of where we are and see how much desire we have, because we recognise that Carrick are a good side and I’ll be using the game as a bench mark for us even though it’s the first game of the season.

“But it’s a nice start and it should give us an indication of what to expect for the rest of the season.

“After coming down they will want to be going straight back up, they have players who have tasted the Premier League last year and they’ll be hungry to get back up again.”

Having finished last season in good form and clinching third spot the Waterside men will fancy their chances of promotion and Kee feels Michael Hughes’ side will be the team everyone wants to beat.

“Coming down from the Premiership means that teams always want to beat you and there sometimes is a bit of transaction, but there doesn’t seem to be too much transaction at Carrick.

“They have got a good nucleus of last year’s squad retained and they seem to have a decent run of games in pre-season.

“Michael Hughes and Colin Telford are the men running the team and I’m sure they are very driven to get the team back up, so I’m sure they’ll be very competitive this season, along with half a dozen teams in the mix.”

This summer Institute have really come out of the blocks quickly in terms of their pre-season preparations and Kee is hoping they won’t have a repeat of last season when they lost their opening three league matches.

“We didn’t start well last season and we were always then playing catch-up, so hopefully that doesn’t happen again this season.

“It will be another typical Championship season, it’s a very difficult league to get out of and there will be some team who will spring a surprise, so we have to be prepared for every game.

“We have been lucky enough to retain the vast majority of last season’s squad and we tried to up the ante this pre-season in terms of starting two weeks earlier.

“We have had some very good games during pre-season, yes we lost to Coleraine and Cliftonville but they are Premiership teams and those matches will help us. In fact against Coleraine we played very well and I told the players that it augurs well for the future.”