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PN
Greg has been keen this week to show the fans the kind of player he is trying to bring into the club this summer?
JN
He has had some very clear targets and he has sometimes had two or three different targets, because we can't always just go on one player. Because as Greg says, these things do break down at the end and a player decides to sometimes play in the area that he is living.
We have been working for some considerable time now on targets, but he is aiming at players that are better than the players that either we have got or we have had in the past and trying to make sure that the club is going forward.
PN
You have also made public another one of your targets this summer, Roy O'Donovan.
JN
Greg made that a very clear target as well. I was speaking to Sunderland just before, infact I had made some contact with Sunderland before I went over to watch Sunderland play their last game of the season against Manchester United.
At that time Roy O'Donovan was out on loan to Hartlepool and so we were in contact with Sunderland about his contract, when his contract came to an end, what his remuneration was, what sort of a player he was etc. We have been in contact ever since, although I think that it is maybe slipping away from us, it is probably not dead in the water, you never know.
PN
At this stage are there any other offers on the table for players as it stands?
JN
Yes, we have got offers on the table for at least another two or three players. Infact I was in the club this morning and we put in writing offers that we had agreed yesterday, I put in another offer this morning, we have had a reply back this afternoon.
We will probably meet sometime over the weekend and decide whether we are going to pursue that offer or we are going to take a different direction. Again we have got to do it as a sort of get together and keep up with Greg and tell him what is happening.
PN
From your experience since you have been working in that capacity, has it got progressively harder as the years have gone on to try to get players tied up and agreed to deals in the early part of the summer, rather than the later part?
JN
Definitely now, I mean this season is the first time that I have really seen players that are talking to us where clubs are offering them less, that is the first thing. The players that have been in contact have been offered contract extensions by clubs and they have been offered less money. So it is making players a lot more cagey, they are moving around, they are putting our offer in front of somebody else's offer and weighing the whole job up before they decide.
Because all players' contracts come to an end on the 30th of June, the clubs are then committed to paying them until the end of July if they don't get a better offer than the current offer that they are with. So they have nothing to lose by looking around, playing one against the other and then coming to decide early July. I think most of the deals will be tied up really at the beginning of July.
PN
And on that theme, the club have had their fingers burnt to an extent with a midfielder you had agreed terms with but chose another club at the last minute.
JN
That is the way it goes I suppose, at the end of the day this deal was done, Greg did a deal with the player and with the agent and I was there and thereabouts with it. All we had to do having shaken hands on it was put it into writing and confirm the deal, and the guy was due to return a week later to get a medical.
Infact we started to get the wrong signals about four days later when his agent didn't reply to my e-mail to say just confirming, and he had gone on holiday and wasn't coming for the medical, but was going to come a week later.
Now what infact that player was doing, and the agent, was taking our written deal and touting it around and saying that if it could be matched then he would probably go there, and he did, and we have not heard anything since.
So sometimes you do get caught out but I think there are times when you have got to say that this is our offer, this is as far as we are going and we would like you to be here and we think it is going to happen. But some agents you can trust and some agents I have got to say that it doesn't work out and you really can't trust them.
JP
Transfers aside, one of the big things the club has been talking about is trying to get those gates back up at Brunton Park for next season. I know that towards the end of the season your Media Officer Andy Hall and the club as a whole were talking about trying to get out and identify more with the fans, how are things going on that front?
JN
Well that is pretty much so, we have got a fans' forum, I think Andy has got fixed up for that. But we are obviously trying to focus pretty much in the summer season on reinvesting in the club and the training facility, and on trying to indicate to the fans that we are not looking to pick up players from the lower leagues necessarily, or the Conference.
We are trying to pick up players from the higher leagues that are going to make the team better, and infact build on, let's say, the success of bouncing back from fifth bottom the season before last to mid-table last season. To then get in amongst those play-offs or automatic promotion next season. So we are trying to identify with the fans pretty clearly at this point in time that we are trying to move forward.
PN
With regard to the retention of players currently at the club, you are still likely facing a further wait in that respect?
JN
When you say with the retention, with what? People like Richard Keogh?
PN
Richard Keogh, yes.
JN
Richard Keogh has got until Monday to let us know whether he wants to accept our offer or he doesn't, and that is his deadline. We made contact on Monday, if he fails to let us know on Monday that he accepts or rejects that offer then it goes through to the end of June, the offer then automatically lapses.
But we as a club don't lose any rights in that at all in having a compensation package from whoever he then decides to go to. Obviously we are talking with clubs now who have put in a bid for him and we have told them that it might be compensation we are looking for.
PN
And you confirmed yesterday that you have received offers for some of the existing squad there?
JN
Yes we have, yeah. We received offers even in the transfer window in January, we have received offers since the finish of play if you like in May and some of them we have just turned down flat because we want to try to build the squad for the future.
We have to do that, but we have got offers going out to try to bring players in and at the same time we are knocking back some offers that other clubs are making to us. So it is interesting, there is not a day goes by when we are not in the transfer market, and that has been virtually every day since we finished playing in early May.
PN
A quick word about the FA decision not to take any further action against the club for the pitch invasion that followed the Leeds cup tie, obviously that was a big relief?
JN
A big relief for us all round and that was the subject of us putting in something like two or three reports to the FA. And also telling them exactly what actions we were taking and how we were trying to follow that through and how we are trying to stop it happening in the future. I must admit, the stewarding from that point onwards, we strengthened the stewarding, particularly at our Warwick Road End at the end of every match from the Leeds match onwards.
Our last match of the season traditionally is a pitch invasion, this year it wasn't, the fans really stayed behind the barriers and the team went out and it was a really good show. So I think we have been able to demonstrate to the FA that the actions that we have taken since the Leeds game have infact improved the security and safety of the ground.
PN
And just finally, you were at the Football League meeting earlier this week where the management of debt levels was top of the agenda by all accounts.
JN
It was, and it is a big, big issue because there are many, many clubs, particularly Championship clubs where they are paying out more in wages than they are getting in in turnover, now that can't go on forever.
If you read the Deloitte report that has just come out this last week, infact looking at 2008-2009 in the Championship, with the exception of one club and two unreported clubs, and that was Crystal Palace and Cardiff City, every other club in that league made a loss.
Now that can't go on forever because what the clubs are saying is that they are going to pay out more in wages than they are getting in in income and to keep that going they are going to borrow money. So they either borrow money against their assets or owners put more money in.
When the owners then decide enough is enough and walk away, then these things collapse, as happened with Simon Jordan and Crystal Palace, and many of the other clubs. So it is a big issue and we have agreed to be part of a working party and get involved with League One and the Championship and League Two to try to put some better governance in to make sure that teams don't go into administration in the future.
There was a proposal from Barry Hearn, who proposed that infact any team that goes into administration should automatically drop two divisions, and it almost got through. It didn't because the measures were probably too draconian, but it almost got through.
To be honest, he probably wasn't far away from the truth because if you were going to go into administration you would take real action to cut your costs and keep the club solvent, and that is what he was trying to drive through.