Steve Morison has already bolstered his squad just a week after the 2024/25 campaign came to an end, with Edon Pruti joining the ranks at Gander Green Lane from Slough Town.

The Albania youth international had spent the second half of the season at Arbour Park, but now has the chance to prove himself at fifth tier level after a brief stint at Hartlepool United.

“It feels great” said Pruti after agreeing to join, “I’m absolutely delighted to get here, to this massive club and hopefully have a really good, strong season.”

“The move came about relatively quickly. Straight after the season finished I heard about what was happening and I just wanted to get it done.”

A former Burnley and Brentford youth player, Pruti will be no stranger to what it takes to compete at a high level having played for the academies of both clubs while they were in the Premier League, and it’s this sort of experience which will bode well for the young defender, while his decision to drop into non-league after being released from the former will give Sutton’s Head Coach the sort of determination he wants in his team.

“The amount of stuff I’ve learnt from both my times at Burnley and Brentford has been so helpful for me and my career. What I learnt from being in the building every day and learning from seeing how the first team train and being a part of that sort of environment, you naturally pick up things in terms of development and professional attitude.”

“You learn not only tactically and mentally but physically as well, it just improves every aspect of your game. From what I’ve learnt there will for sure help me during my time at Sutton.”

“When you play for an Under-23’s or a B team you’re playing against a younger team and that maybe doesn’t have its physical challenges as it does in the National League and the Football League, which is maybe a bit unrealistic because you’re going to come against physical teams and whatnot.”

“It’s a great way to learn how to deal with that in non-league as opposed to you don’t really get that test in development football.”

Having previously suffered relegation from League Two with Hartlepool, Pruti will want to make sure he has what it takes to play in the National League, with manager John Askey opting to ship him out on loan to National League South side Farnborough early on into the Pools’ season, and meant he has only played a handful of times in the fifth tier thus far.

“Relegation is never a nice feeling although when we [Hartlepool] got relegated from the Football League I still did learn a load.”

“I was 20 years old and from what I learned during my time there, it really has helped me in terms of not only the physical battle but making sure you can match the physicality with the technical aspect as well – not thinking you’ve got to be very physical and forget about the technical side or vice versa – you’ve got to have a perfect balance. That’s what I really learned; to put in a good performance you’ve got to have both, you can’t be good at one thing and poor at the other.”

“I definitely feel that with the attributes that I’ve got and I can bring there’s no excuse for me not to do well at this level and at this club. That’s my aim: to come into pre-season and to start the season off strongly I’ve got a real point to prove, not to everyone else but most importantly to myself – that I can play at this level and push on.”

A self-proclaimed Chelsea fan, Pruti has credited the likes of John Terry and Thiago Silva as big influences, while his career so far has certainly seen him prove himself at both ends of the pyramid, something which has shaped his style of play since starting out in the Burnley academy.

“I like to defend the box, try and dominate my opponent, I like to win a header, put in a big tackle and maybe hit a diagonal ball once in a while.”

Pruti also spoke to SUFCtv about his upbringing and his Balkan heritage, having notably represented Albania at youth level along with having a Kosovan mother and a Bosnian father.

“It’s shaped my whole life really. I can’t be more proud of my parents and what they’ve done for me, especially my dad who’s taken me up and down the country s it’s the least they deserve really.”

“I’m extremely proud to be from Kosovo and to hopefully make my parents proud.”

“We played against Bulgaria for the Under-21’s and was a proud moment, there’s no taking away playing for your country and to see how happy it made my parents as well just made me even happier; not only my parents but my extended family as well and whatnot, they were all really happy for me. To do that to make them happy, I was absolutely delighted.”

Looking ahead, Pruti commented on his aims for the new season and how excited he is to get started.

“I’d like to keep as many clean sheets as possible, score a few goals, but as a team I’d love to see us compete as high as possible, have a good go at this season and hopefully have a cup run; that would be lovely to be involved in.”

“I think we can do that with the team that we’ve got and of course the management team.”

Watch Pruti’s first interview as a Sutton player here.