THREE FIRST-TEAM PLAYERS SIGN CONTRACT EXTENSIONS WHILE FIVE DEPART. 

Kieran Preston, Ryan Wilson and Dom Roma sign new deals while James Reid, Zak Goodson, Liam Bateman, Josh law and Jamie Walker depart.

Steve Chettle continues to formulate his 2020-21 first-team squad with players continuing to be offered new deals while departures are announced.
The club is thrilled that Preston, Wilson and Roma have extended their deals at the club, taking the number to 14 existing and new players who have been offered deals.

Further deals have been offered to players from last season's squad so there is more news to come; with several new deals still in the pipeline, the club expects to start preseason with a first-team squad approaching 20.

These latest deals are significant for the club as three of our excellent defensive players from 2019-20 join Stef Galinski in the Steve Chettle's 2020-21 squad. All three had excellent campaigns and played significant parts in the club's promotion chase.

However, the club can announce that as of today James Reid, Zak Goodson and Liam Bateman, Josh Law, Jamie Walker, will not be part of Steve Chettle's new squad. The club would like to thank all five for their services to the club and we wish them all the best in their futures endeavours. 

The club has moved quickly to rebuild the squad when it would be clear certain players would not be signing or would not be offered new deals with Kyle Dixon, Marcus Marshall, Niall Towle, and Wayde Hines all brought into the club from March. 

More carefully selected signings are expected to be confirmed in the coming weeks. Commenting on where the squad is at present, Steve Chettle stated: "We are delighted to have extended the deals of Kieran, Dom and Ryan for next season and, along with already securing Stef, they were the players that made our defence solid after the new-year period.

"It is disappointing to lose Reidy and Zak as we offered them extended deals also, but they wanted a new challenge and we thank them for their time with us. "  We had a very large squad last season, so we will run with fewer squad members this upcoming season and I think the majority of the league will follow suit. "Liam Bateman has had minimal game time recently due to Dom's fantastic form and I spoke to Liam before the end of the season and told him that it would be very difficult for me to offer him an extended deal if he wasn't in the starting line up each week.

"It was a tough year for Josh and Jamie last season with little game time for both. I have known Jamie for three seasons and he is a great person and I work with Josh every day at the academy, a vital role he will continue to fulfil next season."These are tough decisions to make, but they are done with the best intentions for the player and club and again, we wish them all the best.

"More departures are likely to be announced in due course. Unfortunately, like all clubs, we are operating in a new norm of non-league football with a lot of uncertainty of when a new campaign will actually commence so all clubs have to be mindful of wage commitments until such time as a definitive date for 2020-21 is confirmed.

Therefore Steve Chettle is embracing squad and wage guidelines communicated from the chairman without impacting the club's ability to significantly challenge for 2020-21 and subsequent campaigns. 

Last edited by Matchman (02/5/2020 3:21 PM)