United boss Greg Abbott (GA) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's Paul Newton (PN) at Tuesday's open press conference for the local media, Abbott first talking about recently meeting some prospective new signings:
GA
I have met three or four players already, I have spoken to three or four, I am talking to another three or four today on the phone with agents and hopefully I am going to meet another one or two before the end of this week. That will be six or seven I have met and maybe after I have spoken to John Nixon and seen where we are in terms of the information I can give him regarding our players, then we are ready to move. I go away for a week, a week on Saturday and I would hope we can maybe do one, but I am not going to rush into it.
That is only again a hope because I want something to happen to just give people an idea of what is happening and where we are. But, if it doesn’t happen because it is not the right one then it will have to wait until I come back. Where we are financially there is going to be a flaw with everybody that we bring in, now what we have got to try to do is iron out that flaw and make it better. I don’t think we are going to be able to sign absolute household names because that is where we are.
So, there is a bit of an unknown excitement about what is going to happen and I think once the fans look at that, and we will do all the homework we need to do, we will know everything about every player we get. What we won’t know is just where they are going to go in League One, but we have got to do as much work as we can to hope they will be a success.
But, the good thing is they will be different and they will be fresh and we will find some energy and we will find some pace to add to what we have got. Looking at the squad from last year and what we have got left, there is a bit of experience, a bit of nous in there, there is the young kids coming through that have played a full season and had a season with us and you have got some nice experienced players in there.
Throw some energy and some pace into that and we might have found a decent formula, but again I don’t think any manager, any manager, can sit here and guarantee that it is going to be successful or unsuccessful. We are sometimes in a bit of the unknown area because that is football for you and that is why the game is exciting.
PN
What Yeovil have achieved this season shows that maybe it is not all about budgets and resources, it can be done?
GA
It can be done and I have no doubt that the fans………… What it has given is everybody an optimism to say it can be done. It doesn’t happen every year and it won’t happen every year, but I am not going to dampen everybody’s enthusiasm and say that it can’t happen with us, because we have near enough done it ourselves as well.
We have been one of those clubs that people look to, to think that they keep doing it on a financial level. So, we are in the high pecking order of having success with relatively moderate budgets, so we are going to try again next season to rebuild and try to do a Yeovil. Now whether it be next year, whether it be us or whether it be the year after or whether it be us, all those things remain to be seen.
But, it has certainly given everybody a hope and an optimism that we can do it and some of the bigger more affluent clubs have suffered. Your Brentfords, your MK Dons, your Sheffield Uniteds, they will be rueing their policy this season watching Yeovil go past them and get promotion.
PN
I should mention as well that your contract situation has come out now, the contract offer was actually on the table last summer, is there any reason why that has only emerged now?
GA
Yeah, I mean I think with the way the season panned out, football is very grey, it is never black and white. It would have been nice if we had got that sort of agreed in principle, it went to the League Managers Association, they had to sort one or two issues out and in that time the football with our home form was at such a level where I think it would have been the wrong time to do something.
To be fair to myself I said to John that results hadn’t been great and I didn’t want to be seen to be doing that and create a situation where you invite pressure on yourself. But, in hindsight what is the right and wrong way to do things? But, we left it and we have been discussing it, we have been talking about it and we have been planning with it.
So, it has been there, it is just something that I have just thought, no John, let me just concentrate on the football, that is my most important situation that we need to do. Then we got to a stage where we had not got in the relegation battle where you think can we do it, and then you think well we might just as well leave it.
Let’s just get it out of the way, let’s get the season done, let’s do all our bits and pieces with the players first. Then the season got done and we addressed it and we are here now, so I hope that has given you a reasonable answer to it.