It's been a busy day for United manager John Ward as he sat down with his squad to assess the season, and to look ahead to the 2008/09 campaign.

He told us: "Zigor Aranalde, Paul Arnison and Grant Carson have all been released. Kevin Gall has another year left on his contract, but he has been made available on a free transfer."

"Luke Joyce and Grant Smith will be offered new contracts," he continued, "although we haven't yet decided how long they will be for. Both players have been made aware that we will be talking to them again soon, when we will finalise that kind of detail. Obviously Dan Wordsworth has been offered a one-year deal, but that was something we decided when we spoke to the Youth lads a few weeks ago."

"We're talking to Keiren Westwood and his representatives, and have been for a while now," he explained, "and those talks will be ongoing."

"With Zigor, he has been a fantastic servant for the club," he said. "We sat down and looked at the situation, and he's 35 now. Young Evan Horwood has come in and done a great job, and we also want to push Darren Campion on as a left back as well, so there just wouldn't be the opportunity there for him to play. I also couldn't offer Paul Arnison guaranteed first team football, as we feel that Dave Raven is in front of him, so we have made that decision in the hope that Arnie will find a club where he will feature regularly. Again, he has been an excellent servant for us, and he will be missed. He is a real livewire, one of our noisy lads, and he's a bright person to have around the place, not just on the pitch but in the dressing room as well. We will miss him, but we've had to make a football decision."

"Grant Carson hasn't featured for us," he added, "and we feel that we have the cover we need in that position. Obviously Keiren has done really well, and Chris Howarth is also pushing him all the way. Young Alex Mitchell, although he is only 16, is coming on in leaps and bounds, and we have high hopes for him, so I decided that I couldn't really carry four keepers on the staff. Alex is still playing Youth football, but that would still leave me with three senior keepers, so we've decided to let him go."

"Kev Gall has one year left on his contract," he concluded, "and his opportunities were limited this season. He's been out on loan to Darlington, and he has been over to Canada, and that didn't happen for him, and it's become a case of us having an experienced player who desperately wants to play. I couldn't offer him that at the moment, so we have made him available and we can see what interest there may be on that."