United manager Greg Abbott spoke to the Official site yesterday about the future of some of the recent trialist players who have had spells at the club.
He said: "Whenever you take a player on trial the longer you can get to have a look at him then the better you are able to judge whether they are going to improve your squad or not.
"We've had that opportunity with some players during this pre-season and being able to take both Francoise Zoko and Kevin Long down to the training camp in Leicestershire and get an extended look at them was a big bonus. Both seem to have really enjoyed themselves and have fitted in well with the rest of the squad.
"It's now a case of sitting down and talking with the respective parties to decide what we all want to do next. With Kevin Long we've had to wait to talk to the people at Burnley as they have been away in Singapore, as is the case with Jean-Yves M'Voto and Sunderland who have been in Portugal for the last week.
"It's difficult in that situation when there's no real point of contact to deal with and we know ourselves from being away in our own training camp for a week that it's all about putting the hard work in and ignoring any outside influences. Now that they're back, I'll take the time to talk to Steve [Bruce] and Brian [Laws], swap opinions and see what we want to do next with each respective player.
"We're also speaking to Francoise and his people. He actually went back to France at the weekend to get some more gear as he'd originally only brought enough things to stay for a week and ended up here for three. It's actually quite difficult talking to him as my French is rubbish but I'm learning quickly from him!
"We've spoken to his agent and it's a work in progress. We'd like to keep him a bit longer but we're not sure if that will be something like a six or twelve month deal at the moment. He's done really well since coming in and looks like he can us something different to what we already have.
"There has been improvement with each day he's been here and you can see that he enjoys playing football. That's the kind of thing we look for in a trialist and that's why we're keen to extend his stay here."
A full video interview will be available for United Player subscribers to watch later today. You can watch a freeview clip at the top of this page in which Greg talks about how the performance of his players since returning from the summer break.
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