|
"No-one wanted to see Michael (Bridges) go, he was a catalyst for us last season, he is a fantastic player, but I think it was clear that Michael has got a big ambition to play in the Championship again. He is 28-years old and he probably saw it that if he didn't move now then he'd be worried about missing the opportunity. We were in a bit of catch-22 situation, we wanted to keep him but Neil (McDonald) has got to have players on that pitch who are wanting 100% to play for Carlisle United, and we may not have had that if he hadn't gone last night.
" He forced the issue in so much as he made it obvious that he did want to go to a Championship club, we had to look at that situation and weigh that up. Whether or not that has affected his performances this season is hard to judge, some commentators will say that he hasn't quite been as good, and had as much spark this year, and perhaps that has been an effect. We were then faced with are we going to be looking at that for the rest of the season or maybe even worse, that was hard to judge.
" We were faced with a situation of being able to get a fantastic offer for him, and it is a fantastic offer, it's great news for the club that we've got £350,000 for him. He was only going to be here for the rest of the season, at Christmas we'd have got nothing, or very little, at the end of the season we would have got nothing, but we've now got that money to strengthen the team. "
" I think there are two things to say on the lack of a replacement. One is that we still hoped that we'd keep hold of him, perhaps naively, but we didn't want Michael Bridges to go, the second thing is that yesterday is a damn good time to sell a player, it's not a great time to buy a player because it's a sellers market on the last day of the transfer window.
" We are now in the comfortable position of having that money, we want to take our time, when you sign a player – if you sign the wrong one then you are stuck with him for the length of his contract. We want to make the right decisions in signing players, and you don't make the right decision when you are running about making phone calls and looking at different players coming here left, right and centre. We want to make a cool, calm decision on that, to get the best value for Carlisle United we need to take our time, the fans will be frustrated with that but we're not in a crisis, we're not playing crisis management here. We are running this properly, doing it intelligently and I think we've done a great bit of business for Carlisle United, it's one step backward but I think it will allow us to take two steps forward.
" We looked at people yesterday but I'm not going to discuss who they were and hopefully Neil won't either because speculation is damaging for clubs and it's damaging for players. Neil is looking at players all the time, even if Michael Bridges hadn't left we are still looking at strengthening the squad, we're only about one thing at Carlisle United and that is having a successful football club, and that means being successful on the pitch.
" I was absolutely thrilled with the deal, but I think it's just a minority of supporters who are impatient, I think folk have got enough confidence in us now to know that we are going to do the right thing by the club. You do much more better business in the calm light of day, we are going to strengthen the side but people have got to be patient, if they want to jump up and down and cry about it then that is not going to affect my judgement. I've been in football for two or three years now on the management side of it and time and time again you see clubs that make crisis decisions, they pay the price for a long time after it and we don't want to go back there. "
" All the money will go to players if you like, whether or not it goes on transfer kittys I don't know, if Neil wants to offer money for a player then that money will be available. It's just as effective though to persuade a player to come with decent wages and offering him a good package. Someone was saying, not that we will do this, but if you look at that £350,000 and you think that Michael Bridges was only here for the rest of the season, if you split that into a weekly wage we could replace him with a player costing £8,000 a week. You can get a fantastic player for that, we're not going to do that though, we're not going to have players on £8,000 a week. I think it puts it in context though as to how we can use that money to strengthen the squad, whether it's used for a transfer fee or whether it's used to pay players wages.
" I've got to give the same answer on player speculation and that is that we don't want to comment on speculation as far as players is concerned, because if we say that we are going for Matt Jansen then somebody else will maybe say that they are going to go for him. It's a bidding process and you've got to play your cards close to your chest, that doesn't mean we're secretive though, we want to be transparent. We've got to be confidential about things though if we want the best deal for Carlisle United, so that's a long way of me saying no comment.
" This club has moved a long way in the last two years, we're not about to undo it by going and dismantling a successful squad and going for relegation. We're not about that, we're going to use this money to strengthen this side and hopefully the fans won't need too much patience. Just have a bit of trust in us, we're going to do the right thing for the club, in a couple of months time this will be forgotten about and the fans will be thinking about something else to worry about. That's fine though, that's what supporters do, our job is not to react to crises, our job is to make the best of situations and that is exactly what we've done.
" I think I'm saying it for all the directors and all the fans from Carlisle United as well, Michael came and did a fantastic job for us and he was a very popular lad. He was a great servant to the club, he has been dead straight from start to finish, he goes with everybody's thanks, he goes with fantastic memories of seeing him grace Brunton Park and it was great to have him here. "