Thetownend.com

list following the conclusion of the 2023/24 campaign:

2023-24 retained list

Under contract for 2024/25

Ricky Aguiar
Jake Cain
Aaron Drinan
Anton Dworzak
Pharrell Johnson
Harrison Minturn
Tariq Uwakwe

Option taken to extend contract

Jack Bycroft
Paul Glatzel
Udoka Godwin-Malife
Saidou Khan
Williams Kokolo

Out of contract (offered new deal)

Sean McGurk
Nnamdi Ofoborh

Out of contract (released)

Charlie Austin
Tomi Adeloye
Frazer Blake-Tracy
Conor Brann
Tom Brewitt
Tom Clayton
Reece Devine
Brooklyn Genesini
Rushian Hepburn-Murphy
George McEachran
Tyrese Shade

Loans returning to parent club

Dawson Devoy (Franchise)
Zach Elbouzedi (AIK)
Harry McKirdy (Hibernian)
Conor McCarthy (Barnsley)

So we basically paid compo (in a way) for UGM and only gave him a one year deal. Makes sense.

Well that will obviously be McGurk and Oforboh off then

Khan only extended so they can get a fee i suspect

Odd that UGM was only on a 1 year deal?

Not really any surprises there TBH.

Nothing makes sense with this lot in charge

12 kept om then, higher earners released. Being honest, not bothered about most staying - probably Glatzel & that's it. The rest were fairly pony all season.

I hear locally that Genesini has a deal in place to join my local team Yeovil, its his home town team. I think theres a decent player in him obviously his face didnt fit.

Shade will end up at Solihull i think, he loves it there and they love him

And will probably score against us next season

Meh,

Would like to see McGurk & Ofoborh stay.

 I’d certainly be intrigued to see what Khan could do further up the pitch with Ofoborh behind him but not sure it would be worth triggering a year extension for a ‘maybe this might work’ hypothesis

Year 1 Tom Clayton was a decent prospect a shame we couldn’t get something short term low risk - potentially high reward done.


Mad that UGM was a 1 year deal but Uwakwe was a 2 year deal

Jesus if you had to pick seven players to already be under contract you couldn't do much worse than that.

Nothing on contracts for the kids at all?

Keeping Ofoborh will be big if possible.

Two or three under contract that need to be shifted though. Cain/Aguiar particularly. Dworzak probably as well.

Minturn has potential. Not sure we saw enough of Uwakwe (or what his position is), Johnson is a long term project. Drinan is decent for league 2.

Hes one of their own isnt he. Hometown club where he started.

https://thetownend.com/index.php?topic=59328.msg1689579#msg1689579

Squad down to 12 guaranteed plus 2 contracts offered - 1 keeper, 4 defenders, 5 midfielders + 2 offered contracts and 2 forwards.

Of the 14 you'd probably think 8 are reasonably involved in the first team next season, then Johnson, Minturn, Cain, Uwakwe, Dworzak & Aguiar are more fringe/prospects.

We have 6/7 players there under contract that aren’t good enough.

So we realistically need another 15 players to compete at a half decent level next season, oh, and let’s not forget we need a manager too.

As things stand - we are fucked.

Odd that all the January signings had the extension option except McGurk

But, but they told us they all had one!

Indeed, but others posted on here that none of them did.

As ever, the truth is somewhere in the middle

I wonder if McGurk extensions terms were something we just simply couldn’t afford & have tried negotiating accordingly…

With an exciting third option in that Johnson appears to have just had a longer contract to begin with, rather than an option.

Gunning in the Adver after the Tranmere match

 “Speaking ahead of their clash with Harrogate Town this weekend, Gunning was asked about the start that McGurk had made and the interim head coach did nothing to dampen expectations surrounding the youngster.

He said: “Sean will be here next year, I have seen people getting excited thinking he is going back to Leeds, but he is our player, and he will be here.””

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/24156334.swindon-town-fans-get-excited-young-players/

This is the issue that has been insinuated. He was due a decent pay hike in his Lids contract and as we took it over we are negotiating a lower deal.

Who wants a comedically early depth chart to fill you with fear...

I think Click to edit has potential to be a decent keeper tbf

#sneaky edit there Nemo

We've had worse.

I assume we’ll hear something about the U18s soon.
So the likes of McGregor & Hunt (and others) will pad out that depth chart slightly.

…and if we are going to go with a team / squad of cheap kids - I’d rather they at least be our own cheap kids…

Redman-Evans too

Last year (and this year according to advisory board notes) they'll only announce the kids who have signed contracts for er, "safeguarding reasons", so there won't be a proper retained list exactly.

But yeah I'd expect McGregor, Evans and Hart at least to get contracts, and Kanu to get some sort of extended scholarship. Hubbard maybe but we're probably doing okay for technical lightweight midfielders.

Uwakwe was naturally a central attacking midfielder whe he was at Chelsea and played a fair few games for Crewe in that position, they moved him out to left wing. He played central midifled for England U19 and U20 team too.

We are the first team to play him as a left wingback which didnt seem to suit him from what I saw.

Nice to see a lot of the deadwood leave.

I hope Ofoborh stays. He, Glatzel and UGM are the only ones I want to see in the starting line up next season.

I'd like McGurk to sign but i doubt he will.

Khan and Kokolo are worth keeping but i imagine we'll most likely sell Kahn, and honestly, i wouldn't blame the club for that. Way too inconstant for my liking.   

Manager announcement soon?

Coca Cola is a positive, lets get McGurk.

A really poor team this season.

Some material left to work with I suppose.
What matters more is can a proper back bone be recruited, preferably tungsten & not rubber.

Glad that there were no punts taken on the chronic sicknotes. We just didn't get enough value out of them & I include RHM in that.

Might have got a better return from Austin had he been plated exclusively as an out & out striker & not some faux in game utility player.
Too many crosses went where Austin's head would have been had it not still been chugging its way from midfield.
Needs must I guess with a team primarily composed of embryos.

Not particularly sad to see any of them go

This. Never been so "meh" about a retained/released list ever. All under achievers.

I'm much more exercised about the ones we still have. 12 contracted players and I'm sure we'd release at least four or five of them if we could...

Some of the under contract will be offloaded or loaned out, surely

Glatzel/UGM being signed it's the one good bit

Well, that list was totally underwhelming. The downward spiral continues.

Aguiar should be an easy sell the a NL side

Getting McGurk & Ofoborh signed up would provide a small crumb of hope.

See this as fairly positive myself. I wouldn't have been surprised to see a few others kept, and with wasted wages for players like Clayton, Devine, Adeloye and Genesini now freed up we should (in theory) be able to move forward more effectively.

Assuming we keep McGurk and Ofoborh and don't sell anyone, I reckon we now need to recruit one GK, three full backs, two CBs, two AMs and two STs. That's 10 players to replace the 15 departing, giving a total squad of 25 players plus any youths who move up. Plenty of room for a new manager to make his mark if we recruit well, and if they're given freedom to build a team. Big ifs though.

Worthing in the NL South play-off final on Monday, i’d imagine that would suit Aguiar if they go up.

Not sure I agree. Yet. Got to see who we replace them with.

I agree those still under contract is underwhelming, but I think I'd feel worse at this stage had we kept the majority we released.

I cant see your view point. Surely getting rid of the deadwood is only a good thing?

Maybe hoping more had left?

So Austin has said he wasn't on crazy wages (which in truth, I had heard).

Spot on, we have suffered this season because we had so much deadwood left from 22/23 season.

So largely as expected then. If he’s fit no way will Glatzel be here come the end of August, someone with some ambition is sure to be looking at him.

While we won't resist a decent bid (January would be my guess), I could see Glatzel himself wanting to get a solid season in before moving on.

 the tide has swept the flotsam and jetsam away.  but we have been left with a skeleton crew.

Hopefully , Milton Keynes and other division 4/NL clubs will have some decent prospects for us to develop for them.

Strange times, these. Still that lingering hope that there is good news of a Morfuni & Co exit hours away which would change everything. If it wasn’t for that, I would turn off for 3 months. It’s the hope….

We can’t even back ourselves to hold onto a Leeds youth reject, with a handful of league appearances to his name. How we’ve fallen.

Maybe one was never part of McGurks agents plans. If he turned the corner on injuries and performed well enough he’d be daft to tie him down to us just in case. Equally if he showed just enough to keep us interested then he could negotiate a contract at the end of the season. He may still end up here if no one else comes in for him.

Aguiar likely to go back out on loan to help pay his last year.

Well we still have 11 players who can cover all the positions which is more than we've been left with in the past (all be it some are injured). Now we need another 11 of better or potentially better fit players to compete for the places.

"Taxi for Aguiar and Dvorzak" please

Joel Mcgregor, Sonny Hart, Jaxon Brown and Cameron Redman-Evans offered pro deals according to LS Pod

Is this an in joke? Isn't Redman his actual first name?

Would make sense as the group offered. I'd hope Kanu gets a scholarship extension too, considering he's been out injured all season.

Surely thats Cameron & Redman Evans?

"Jamie, a quiet word if you will."
"Of course Adam, whatever you want."

To be fair young Sonny does have some potential from what I've seen.

I wish them well on their journeys.

Need to be like Peterborough and hold onto them for a few years and drive the value up more (or were never progress).
Not make a quick buck like have in the past. :(

My bad, i thought that was his name!

Fair play for being named after a 90’s hip hop artist though

Gotta admit I was hoping he’d be let go in the hope Adam might completely disappear from the club, never going to happen though of course so he’ll continue his project then!

Remember back in January when everyone ws saying we had sold all these players

Don’t you have to offer a deal to get a fee?

Possibly but rumours were rife we had sold a shed load of players including the keeper

I’ll find it hard to have any positive feelings about any Sonny Hart first team appearances, as I might have for other youth teamers. Hope we sell him to Inverness Caledonian Thistle for the price of a bag of crisps and he takes his lowlife father with him.  

Well yeah, I heard he was probably going to Bristol City so were lots of rumours going round. I guess we’ll see what happens, I’d expect some to be cashed in on.

For the ones that are still here, finding a decent loan would be a help.

Heard a rumour that we have had a substantial  bid for Jaxon Brown

Quantify substantial.

‘I’d like a bar of chocolate, please’.

A Mercedes

A few higher league clubs have been watching him, we got him from Spurs U15s so has some good junior coaching behind him.

I understand his dad is an ex Pox player but I cant remember thier name for the life of me.

We did definately sell 1 youth player to Villa earlier this season for a fee.

Mr Brown ;)

In this day and age we can assume nothing, Mr, Mrs, Miss....

Are you telling me that Jaxon is Paddington's adoptive brother?

The marmalade sandwiches were the clue