Mangan, Akpa-Akpro and Grandison still in the Micky’s Thoughts
Micky Mellon continues to weigh up his options as he assembles his squad for the League 1 campaign.Andy Mangan, Jean-Louis Akpa-Akpro and Jermaine Grandison are all out of contract and the manager hasn’t ruled them out of his plans as yet.
He is building his squad and has already revealed that he is working to a tight budget as he brings in new faces to add to the existing squad.
Speaking to the press Micky spoke about the out of contract players and added that he would like to keep them:”In an ideal world we’d have wanted to keep them all but we only have a certain amount in the budget and we have to take into consideration Financial Fair Play.
“I want to be as transparent as possible with the fans and I’d love to keep all of the players who are out of contract.
“They have all done brilliantly for me and probably all deserve to stay, but finances dictate that at the end of the season, the 15 players who stayed all got a wage rise and that ate into any money to either retain or bring new players in.
“So we had to make sure we prioritised in areas where we felt we desperately needed to improve to move the quality of the group on.
“But the pie is only so big and it’s not going to get any bigger and there’s only as certain amount left.
“At this moment in time, we’re struggling to retain all the lads which I’m disappointed with because they did so well for us.
Mat Sadler, Abu Ogogo, Martin Woods, Jordan Clark, Shaun Whalley, Kaiman Anderson and Darren McKnight have been added to the existing sixteen players under contract. This gives Micky a squad of 23 players and he is looking at the available budget before making decisions on some players:”I’ve spoken to ‘Mangs’ and he’s someone I have a really strong relationship with because I’ve worked with him for so long.
“I need to try to get other things done before I sign a striker.
“If things change along the way and someone like ‘Mangs’ was still available, I’d love to bring him back but I just don’t have the finances.
“I’d love to bring all of them back because I think they’d all do really well for us next season, but the pie is only so big and I can’t grow it or make it any bigger.
“It’s the same with John-Louis and the same with Jermaine and Bobby Grant - we haven’t got the finances to keep all of them.
“So as a coaching staff we’re disappointed but as a club, we have to be realistic because we don’t carry that sort of budget.
“I don’t want to be coming across as making excuses but I’m stating a fact that we will have one of the smaller budgets in the league because of Financial Fair Play and we have to make sure we spend wisely.
At the weekend Jermaine Grandison was linked in the press with a move to Birmingham City. Micky and assistant manager Mike Jackson haven’t has any calls about Jermaine and are still planning to speak to him when he returns from holiday:”“I saw the story and read it like everyone else and I spoke to Mike Jackson about it,” said Mellon.
“I don’t know anything about it but I spoke to his agent before and he said Jermaine is on holiday but that we’d speak he got back.
“I haven’t spoken to Jermaine about it because he was on holiday.
“Jermaine is perfectly entitled to look at his options and if he has the opportunity to go and play for a big club like Birmingham in the Championship then he should take it.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in for him because he’s a good player.
“There’s nothing much we can do about it.”