NEWPORT County AFC have finally completed the signing of defender Ryan Jackson in time for him to feature against Accrington Stanley on Saturday.

The right wing-back, who joins as cover for captain David Pipe, has been training with the Exiles for almost two weeks.

The move was held up due to confusion over whether he was a free agent and County have agreed to pay his previous club, Macclesfield Town, a ‘small compensation fee’ to settle the issue.

Manager Justin Edinburgh is delighted that the transfer has been completed ahead of Saturday’s big League Two opener.

But he stressed once again that the club does not have the huge budget that some people appear to believe they have.

The presence of multi-millionaire chairman Les Scadding has led many media outlets and fans of rival clubs to label County a ‘moneybags’ team who have bought their way to success.

An article in the Daily Mail this week even suggested that Scadding had paid out £150,000 for Christian Jolley last season and £100,000 this summer for Adam Chapman.

Edinburgh says those figures are wide of the mark and emphasized that he is working within a tight budget.

“They said we paid £150,000 and £100,000 and I think they added a few zeroes somewhere along the line!” said the Exiles boss.

“It was £15,000 to £20,000 for Jolley and £10,000 for Chapman.

“People know we haven’t paid those amounts. We haven’t got that kind of money to spend, not yet anyway.

“Hopefully in the future we can work towards that.

“We’ve got big ambitions and who knows? Maybe in a few years time we might be in a position to pay those type of fees.”

On Jackson, Edinburgh added: “We are just getting over the final obstacles with Ryan but he should be available for Saturday.

“That is great news. The boy has been here for a while now and we were given wrong information by his representatives.

“But the club have been fantastic towards Ryan and I’m delighted to have been backed by the board once again to get the deal over the line.”

Triallist Ryan Doble is still training with the club but has not yet been offered a contract.

“We’re at a point where we are at the maximum of our budget,” explained Edinburgh.

“We need to wait for the season to start and the fans hopefully get behind us and exceed what we’ve had to put into our budget before we can come up with some more funds and have the opportunity to sign Ryan [Doble].

“We’ve left the door open for him but there is nothing imminent so he won’t be part of the squad at the moment.”