We sat down with Paul Simpson after our retained/released list was confirmed following the end of the 2023/24 season.
“It is probably one of the hardest days that you have as a manager of a football team because you’re making tough decisions and having tough conversations, but I think whatever industry you're in when you’re in a management role, you have to have those difficult conversations.
“We’ve analysed everything over this season and we’ve had to make decisions on players that we don’t believe they’re the right ones to take us forward.
“That’s all it is, it has not been anything personal, it has literally just been a case of we needed to make changes and I had to make decisions that some people won’t agree with, some people will agree with, but the one thing I’ve learnt throughout my whole management career is that I’m not going to please everybody so I don’t try to please everybody, I try to do the things that are the right things and hope that I make more right than wrong.”
When asked if his decisions were made easier following a tough campaign, he said: “I wouldn’t say easier, no.
“I think it makes it clearer that we need changes because of where we want to go, we do need to have a better group of players.
“The fact that it’s been a season of struggle has given me a clear indication that it’s not been a case of everybody pulling in the same direction so we’ve had to make those decisions and move people on.
“I don’t know whether people will be surprised, you can look at some and think you know, they’ve done okay this season, but I just feel as though we need a change around.
“There’s not many players who can say they haven’t had a chance, they’ve had opportunities and haven’t consistently shown whether that be in training, whether that be on a matchday, they’ve haven’t consistently shown me that they’re fully bought into the football club, fully bought into what we want to do here and that they could be the right players for us moving forward.”
Club captain Paul Huntington was amongst the players who were let go by United.
“Hunts was a difficult one, I’ll be honest with you, it was a tricky one.
“I think he’s been a great servant to the football club in a short period of time, he was only here for two years.
“I had to be really patient and wait for him to make his decision that he wanted to come and I think he was really effective for us last season, he led from the front, led by example when he was fit for us.
“This season has been a different sort of challenge to him. He’s at that stage where muscular things come onto him, whenever he had a full load of games or whatever, he was picking up injuries.
“He’s missed a lot of time because of little injuries, but I just think that we need to look to create a better squad with athleticism about them, we discussed whether or not he would be somebody you could have as a squad player and pop him in now and again, but we just felt that we needed to improve the squad and change the whole look of the squad.
“Unfortunately, that was one of the decisions we made, but as with them all, I really appreciate their efforts for what they tried to do for us and in Hunts’ case, he played a part in helping to get us up last season.”
Speaking on the possibility of Huntington moving into a coaching role, Paul added: “We didn’t discuss that, no, because it’s not a path that he’s following, he hasn’t done any of his coaching badges.
“We have players in the squad who are taking coaching badges and that’s not something Paul has looked to do.
“He still wants to go and play somewhere so we’ve just got to wait and see.
“That wasn’t something that we discussed and he certainly didn’t talk about that either.”
Young forward Anton Dudik was the only player to be offered a new deal.
“He has a month to make a decision. He’s received the offer today and he has a month to make the decision.
“Anton, we’re taking a punt still on him, he’s a little bit similar to the four lads who we’re offering third-year scholars. It's actually a second-year pro contract because of his age, but it’s still a development contract, it’s still one where we’re wanting to see what he’s got.
“The opportunities he’s had in the first team, I think it’s fair to say that he hasn’t shown what we think he’s capable of, but he’s still a young lad, he’s a lad who's gone through an unbelievable change of circumstances because of what's gone on in Ukraine. He’s still adapting to England and English football, he’s got an opportunity over the first few months of the season to be involved with us.
“If we think he needs to go out on loan, we’ll look at getting him out on loan somewhere, but I do need to empathise that it’s a development contract for him to show us that he’s worthy of being involved.”
Analysing the campaign in more depth, he stated: “I think it’s fairly obvious that we all need to be better. I want a better level of professionalism.
“We’ve had a real problem this season because of the atmosphere inside the changing room and we’ve not been able to change it.
“We’ve had too many players, who have probably got their mind set that they’re wanting to go and weren’t part of it.
“Even though they were involved in our team, they’d set their mind that they were going and it’s been difficult to break that.
“The big thing we want next season is that I want a group who are showing leadership qualities, showing that they want to be here.
“One of my big questions was ‘are you 100% committed to this football club, are you here and do you really want to throw yourself into it,’ because we want to be promoted next season. That’s our aim and I will clearly state that now. That’s what we’re aiming to do.
“I want total commitment because you have to have that. You have to have a group who are together, a group who are prepared to dig each other out, a group who are prepared to back each other when they want to do things properly because there’s been a little bit of a feeling this season, that if you want to do things right, others sort of make snide comments about it.
“We have to make sure that we’re all in it together, pushing each other, all working as hard as we possibly can to achieve what we want.”
The manager made it clear that some contracted players would have to fight for their place next term.
“I’m not going to transfer list them, I’m not going to make it public who they are because there is no guarantee that they’re going to go.
“I don’t want a situation where supporters are making accusations that players aren’t fully with it because they’re transfer listed.
“I’m not going to make it public. I’ve had the conversations and said “if we get the players in who we want to, I don’t see you playing, you have to come back in, you have to fight and do everything you possibly can,” but I’ve just been honest with them and said “if you can find a better opportunity, then go and try and find it.”
“We’ll wait and see, if they don’t go, they’re contracted to us and they’ll be back on the 24th of June and they’ll carry on, but I’ve made it quite clear where my head is with it.”
Finally, talking about loan deals, Paul said: “If we’re going to bring loans in, we have to be better on them next season.
“We brought them all in for the right reasons, but I think injuries have been the biggest disappointment with Jokull, Terry, JJ in particular, we’ve missed him for the whole season, Fin has had a disrupted time again with injuries.
“It’s been hugely disappointing and that’s something we have to do better in terms of getting that right loan to make sure that they’re going to come in and have an effect for us.”