Carlisle boss Steven Pressley confirmed this week that he has had no contact from Jamie Devitt, Mike Jones, Tom Parkes and Stefan Scougall following the offers of new deals made to the players when the 2018/19 season came to a close ten days ago.
“There’s been absolutely no progress on any of those at all,” he revealed. “There’s no real indication that they’ll stay, and there hasn’t been any type of positive negotiation, as yet.
“Things might change over the next week, but I’d be lying if I said that we look close with any of them. We don’t, and we’re still waiting on a number of them coming back to tell us if it’s a certain no or not.”
“As I say, the indications right now are that there probably won’t be any positive outcomes,” he continued. “We’re also aware that there is interest in some of them from other clubs.
“David [Holdsworth] made them offers within our structure, several of them were very good offers, but if other clubs are prepared to give them significantly more than we can offer then that’s something we have to accept.
“The one thing we can offer every player is a good club which wants to create the right culture. I’ll go back to the fact that I only want players here who want to be here. If they choose to go elsewhere I fully respect and understand that, because players have got to look after their families and their futures.
“We’re a club that’s trying to run our ship correctly and there are only certain levels we can go to.
“In terms of deadlines, that’s something that David deals with. The financial part of the negotiation is very much David’s domain and I don’t need to get involved in that.”
And on the departures of coaching duo Paul Murray and Tommy Wright this week, he told us: “I don’t want to say too much on this because I have a great deal of respect for Paul and Tommy, both as coaches and as individuals.
“We’ve forged good relationships during my time here and it wasn’t an easy conversation to have with them. We spoke and they understood the reasons, which will remain between us. I truly wish them all the best for the future. They’re both terrific in their own way.”
With the slots now vacant he confirmed that he will be looking to recruit staff to fill the positions, preferably sooner rather than later.
“I’ll do the appropriate work on that over the next week or so,” he commented. “I have one major target but the outcome of that is dependent on a number of things.
“There are a few other options I’ll look at and I’ll make a decision based on what I think is right moving forward.”