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Every day is tough for the manager of this football club, but sometimes they are tougher than others. But you have to be tough and you have to make brave decisions right from July 1st when you start the season, right to the end of the season which is probably for me just finished yesterday. Now it is the start of a new season, the new season starts today.
JP
In terms of telling players though that they are not going to be kept on at the club, that can't be easy. How did everyone receive the news?
GA
Not very well and you never do those decisions lightly. They are never enjoyable, it is probably the worst part of the job and that day is probably the worst day of your season. But that is over now and we have got to be bright, we have got to look forward and the new season starts today.
JP
Just looking at everyone who did leave, including the loans who of course at this stage aren't your players again, 15 players I make that leaving your squad. It is a huge amount of work you are going to have on to get it ready again for next season isn't it?
GA
Yeah it is and that is the job, the job is a difficult job, I have just said that. But we have got to fill those voids now and that is why the start of the season has started now.
I had my first phone call at 7.40am this morning, I have had two conversations with agents before 9am, I am meeting an agent at 4pm and I am meeting another one at 6pm and the day will finish around 8pm. That is the first day of the start of the season and really I should be starting to take a bit of a rest but I have got some voids to fill there and I am on my way to doing that.
JP
The two players who turned down the deals, Joe Anyinsah and Richard Keogh, what sort of levels, I think in the past you have said that you made players offers to be the best player in the club. What sort of levels did you go to to try to keep those at Carlisle United?
GA
Extremely high ones, extremely high ones and everybody needs to know that. They are probably levels that we have not been to before so we can assure everybody that we made the right noises to the players. In football you sometimes have to…. I don't think it is the financial side of the equation with the two players.
I think it is more a geography situation where they have got families and location and they have been away from home now for a number of years have both players. I think that they want to go and play their football a little bit nearer home and you have to respect that.
But with Richard, it was very emotional with Richard yesterday. I am going to talk to Richard again today because he is not over-comfortable with what he said, and hopefully, maybe, when I speak to him today, out of all respect I don't want to give too much away because it is a really tough one with Richard. I can actually tell you that he left the office in tears yesterday.
So I am going to give him the opportunity to speak again today and then see what he wants to do. But I think he made a decision yesterday that he is not entirely 100% sure with, and we will talk again today and see where that takes us.
JP
This will seem quite blunt, but just to reiterate it, he is not 100% decided that he has gone then, at this state there may be a faint hope however faint?
GA
All I am I going to say is that he is not 100% comfortable with the decision he made yesterday and I am going to speak to him again today and that is where we are going to leave that. Hopefully if Richard is in the right frame of mind and comfortable in his own mind he might speak to you himself and then you get Richard talking.
Because it is better probably Richard explaining the uncertainty in himself rather than I do. So what I would say is it is not completely dead but I think something needs to be said today so everybody is a bit clearer of the situation. But these decisions are massive in terms of Richard's career and he wants to make sure he makes the right one.
JP
Joe Anyinsah, is there any hope left in that one or has he essentially gone now?
GA
No, Joe wants to move nearer home or to a club near where he comes from and I don't have any choice in that. He has got that opportunity to do that with the Bosman ruling and I have to respect that, be brave enough to accept that decision and get on with it.
JP
Is there anything more you can do as a club and as a manager to try to I guess stop players getting down to this Bosman ruling? Because Joe Anyinsah is one of your prime assets isn't he, he is one of the players I am sure you would have hoped was an important part of the team next season had he have stayed. Is there anything more a club like Carlisle can do to stop contracts running down to try to tie them down to long deals and make them almost have to transfer away rather than this?
GA
Yeah, of course you can sign them to longer deals but Joe's agent was adamant that he was only signing for one year. So you either have no years with Joe Anyinsah or you have one really good year with Joe Anyinsah so they are the risks you have to take.
If Joe hadn't come off….. and to be honest we are talking about a player here that people didn't rate when he first came. Why were we playing a centre-forward that is actually a right-winger? So that is just a bit of a compliment to the fact that we have actually developed a player, improved him, and that has worked to our detriment in this instance.
So Joe is on his way out of the door now and I will find another one, we will work and get another one. At least this time the funds are in place to replace Joe, this time last season we had a much more situation where they weren't.
So I know the decision now with Joe, we are going to move on, I am not going to look back at that decision, I am going to look forward. Today is the start of the season, a new day, the first day of this season and I am on with replacing him.
JP
With all the players who have left then amongst all that, and we will talk more about the ones who you released in a minute, does that mean that there is quite a lot of your budget freed up? Because you were talking about the fact that you needed more of a streamlined squad for next season, has that freed up quite a bit then? Is there a budget available to spend on wages and maybe a budget to spend on transfers potentially?
GA
Yeah, my remit is to improve the squad. I have made spaces available, there is money there to fill those voids. The money that is available is between the three owners and myself and I am on with filling them.
JP
How disappointing is it to lose some of the players you have though? As a manager just on this issue how disappointing is it because it really looked like you were starting to get a squad that maybe needed one or two additions? All of a sudden now it looks like you could need five, six, seven, eight additions.
GA
Well you have to turn the clock back to this time last season and there was a massive debate on whether I had done the right or the wrong thing with the players I released last season. 100% correct I think looking back on the decisions we made, 100%, not 99%, and that in itself is a very difficult situation to do.
But when you come out like we did last season and improve it then the fans then think that actually he was right. They have will the same outcry at the moment, thinking has he made the right decision there. What I would say is that they must give me the respect that there are reasons for why I have made those decisions.
Sometimes you put the whole equation together and it is down to what I see in players and what I see about where they can take us and the financial equation as well. So what I have promised is that I will work exceptionally hard to make sure that when we come back the squad is improved on what we have done this season, that is my remit.
JP
The fans are already talking about maybe needing as many as eight players, how many players do you think that you need to get your squad where you need it to be for next year?
GA
We need to fill some voids, I am not going to commit to say five, six, seven or eight but we maybe have to look at some of the younger players as well developing. We don't want to block their progress. We don't want to be filling holes up and stop quality loan players coming in from the Premier League that we have done really well with we think next season.
We want to be able to compete with the best players around available to improve our squad in terms of maybe having four players that are expensive but will make us a better squad. Then the voids that we have got we have got the younger players to come through and develop and we have also got room to get the loan players from Premier League clubs.
So I wouldn't say it was eight, I wouldn't say it was seven, I wouldn't say it was ten. What I have got to decide is on July 1st when we report back for pre-season, probably nearer August 1st, that I have got a squad in place that has got some depth and got some quality to it that can improve on the position we have got or achieved this season.
JP
Just looking at those latest players that left then, I am just looking at the released list now, you said that there are reasons, broader reasons for everything. Let's talk about two of them first, Lenny Pidgeley and Scott Dobie, why were they then not offered new deals, what were the reasons for that?
GA
I am not going to talk about individual equations, I am going to talk about making the squad better for next season. I have made decisions with those players, we are going to move on now and we are going to look forward to next season and hopefully with an improved squad.
I am not going to come out and be critical of players or explain anything else because the players I hope are all good players and the majority of them have given me 100% commitment.
I am going to give them the respect now to hopefully let them go on and find their football and get a club without me coming on show and criticising them in any shape or form. I won't do that, I have never done it in the past and I am not going to start doing that now.
JP
I am not asking you to criticise them, I am just wondering whether you can actually say why it was you felt that the time wasn't right for them at the club? The fans will want to know why they weren't kept on.
GA
Because I want to improve the squad, I want to get the best possible squad available for the start of next season and that is what I am doing.
JP
I must ask you about Evan Horwood, the consensus with the fans we have spoken to is that he is perhaps one of the best three left-backs in the division. You are the manager, why wasn't he kept at Carlisle United?
GA
Well Michael Bridges was apparently the best centre-forward in the division and I let Michael go and he couldn't find a club and he struggled to make any impact in League One this season. So you make comparisons, and listen, fans will always have favourites and fans will have their ideas of what they think.
But out of respect I work with the players day in and day out on the training field and in games and analyse the games as well. It was a really tough decision with Evan, an absolutely tough decision, like Michael's was last season. Only time will tell if I have made that right decision.
JP
You do have a proven track record as you have mentioned of letting players go and them not haunting you with that decision. But there is a lot of concern about that one in particular Evan Horwood, he seemed like one of your best players and not only one of the division's best players. Have you get somebody lined up for that position and I guess that is the hope of the fans now?
GA
Well again we make it comparable to Michael, Michael was highly regarded amongst everybody and I had to make a tough decision then and I did. Listen, I think I have made the right decision this season, we have not just made a snap decision. It is something that as a staff we have mulled over, we have looked at the DVD's, we have looked at where we can improve.
We have looked at all of Evan's game, we have looked at him as a person and as a person he is an absolute diamond. That makes it even tougher, like Chris Lumsdon was a diamond and a fans' favourite and it made that one tougher.
I don't want to go backwards but I want I need to do is make sure that the fans know that we don't make these decisions lightly. We don't enjoy doing them and I don't think that as a backroom staff we are daft enough to release players that we think might be better than ones we can possibly bring in.
It is my job now to try to bring in better and hopefully prove that was the right decision. If Evan goes on to play League One top of the table and Championship and Premier League football in the future which I told him yesterday, then I have got it completely wrong.
You then hold your hands up with that and you will never make every decision and get every decision right or wrong. With this one we think we have made the right one but it was probably the toughest one of the lot.
JP
You compare him though with Chris Lumsdon and Michael Bridges, both of which you were vindicated on, but they are two players perhaps close to the end of their career and both struggling with injuries. But this has been your first choice left-back for most of the season and a player who during his time at Brunton Park seems to have improved exponentially?
GA
Yeah, we just hope we have made the right decision.
JP
OK, David Raven went as well, I know that the fans will be grateful that you have talked about Evan Horwood there. The one concern about him is that with Richard Keogh maybe being gone, Danny Livesey not yet actually signed on the dotted line and other players in some doubt, if a bid came in for Ian Harte for instance, is David Raven a wise one to let go as well?
GA
Yeah, I think what we have got to do is…… those decisions have been made now, they have been made because I think they are the right decisions. I think what you have got to do is start asking the question that you are asking now on August 1st.
If come August 1st, not even July 1st, if come August 1st, there are still the same players on your sheet that you have got written down and there are still eight or nine voids then we have got a problem.
JP
How far along are you at this stage? I am sure you are not going to say that they are coming in tomorrow but how confident are you that you are going to fill all of these voids?
GA
I think in these times and these debates you need to speak to people with knowledge, and if that is what Tommy (Cassidy) has said then he has got some knowledge. Because I am not going to make these decisions without having targets set up and targets that we haven't already made inroads into doing.
So if you listen to what Tommy has just said it makes a lot of sense, that is the case scenario, we have got targets, we have got people speaking to them. I have given you a list of my agenda today basically of what my workload will be, I have already said to everybody that I won't be going on my holiday until I have got the majority of this work done.
That doesn't mean people signing on the dotted line, that means people verbally agreed. People are still contracted to the end of June and sometimes to the end of July from bigger clubs on higher wages, so they will see that through and then they will come to us when their deals have expired. So work is in progress to fill the voids that you have pointed out to me on your sheet.
JP
With the three players who came in on loan for you, are you hopeful that something may be able to be resurrected with those, Jason Price, Ben Marshall and Adam Clayton and I suppose you are looking at more of those as well?
GA
I think they are players who we have had on loan who we think have done very well for us. We won't be able to do any loan signings until probably the end of August because what happens, the boys go back to their Premier League clubs, all the young players go back to their Premier League clubs and they do pre-season with them.
For instance let's use Ben Marshall as an example. He will go back to Tony (Pulis), Tony will put him through his pre-season, he will take him on a pre-season tour, he will have six weeks with him, he will make his mind up then if he is going to be a first-team squad player or regular.
If he is not going to be either of those then he will probably look to loan him out, and I think we are at the front of the queue for Ben Marshall, and he would be a terrific signing for us if we could get hold of Ben for the start of next season.
I don't want to talk too much about names because it alerts everybody else of how highly I regard players, but the players have done OK for me, more than OK for me. There is obviously interest in them to bring them back but there is also interest in a lot of other players in the loan system that would have to do the same as Ben, and then we make our moves middle of August to back end of August.