MANAGER: Not scared to make changes

“I'm mindful of the fact we've got a lot of players in the dressing room and financially we can't just keep adding to that,” he said. “For me to have the opportunity to bring players in, who I think will be good additions to the squad, the likelihood is that some will have to move out. 

“The thing to remember is I haven't got a clean slate. It isn't as if I've walked into the club and we've got players at the end of their contracts who can leave. I'm dealing with somebody else's ideas, but I'm trying to get the best out of them until I can do my wheeling and dealing. Sometimes you can do it in January but sometimes you have to wait until the end of the season when the players you’re after are out of contract.” 

“I think the players know if they haven't been involved, or they don’t get involved, the requirements for them to stay at the club are going to be less,” he commented. “I've sat down with them and told them it’s going to be in their interest to get their agent to get them a move, because they must want to have a career after this year. 

“Unfortunately it is about money. Players aren't going to say ‘it hasn't worked out so cancel my contract and I'll move on.’ That just doesn’t happen. They want the money they’re entitled to, and rightly so.” 

On continued rumours of interest in some of the younger members of the squad, he said: “I got a phone call from somebody at the club yesterday saying they’d heard a rumour that a Premier League club was interested in Kyle Dempsey. 

“I think it was Burnley. I spoke to Sean Dyche last week about the progression that Tom Anderson was making. If there was any interest from him in Kyle Dempsey I'm sure he would have brought it up during that conversation. It's another rumour from another football club, but I think it's excellent that people are interested in what we have. It means we’re doing something right.”

And speaking again about the changes made to the starting line up on Saturday, he said: “We need to get the right blend. Sometimes things can look good on the training ground but injuries and unavailability can affect that. 

“If everybody was fit the team on Saturday wouldn't have been my ideal team. We had players who had to pull out of training on Friday - Troy [Archibald-Henville] and Gary [Dicker] weren't available – and Brad Potts declared himself fit on Friday. I think everybody would agree he is one of our better players, so you immediately have three changes there that needed to be made.

 

“I'm not scared to make changes and I’ll do that to give us the best opportunity in every game we play. If that means I don't play the same team from now until the end of the season then I'm probably going to upset people.” 

“I can confirm that Brad [Potts] has officially turned his offer down. It’s now a case of myself and John sitting down and seeing where we want to go with that. In the offer we made we did say there would be another offer of engagement at the end of the season. We may be able to bring that forward, or we may say the offer we made is in line with where we think Brad is.

 

“We're still waiting for a suitable time for all parties so we can sit down and discuss Kyle Dempsey and Mark Beck's contracts. John Nixon has been away for the early part of the week and one of the agents isn't available on the day he is. We've extended things until the end of the week because we haven't got a game, but it's just a case of logistics and tying people up.”