More on the Madden loan decision
United manager Greg Abbott spoke to us about the decision to extend striker Paddy Madden’s loan spell with Yeovil Town until the beginning of the New Year.
He said: “I don’t think there’s a winning situation with Paddy.
“It’s been a difficult one because there are ten reasons for bringing him back and there are ten reasons to let him stay where he is.
“We’ve looked at the way we play and we’ve looked at Paddy’s frustrations and I think I’ve shown Paddy a bit of loyalty by not hampering a situation which really suits him.
“The easy thing for me would just be to bring him back. But if he comes back and he doesn’t fit in with the way we’re playing, and he doesn’t score goals for us ... which he hasn’t done in the past on a regular basis ... then I’ve got an unhappy player who isn’t going to play regular football. That’s something he will definitely get at Yeovil.
“We’ve looked at a whole host of situations with him and hindsight will tell us if we’ve made the right or wrong decision. It’s such a close one to call and I don’t think anybody, without looking into a crystal ball, would be able to say what we should have done.
“I’ve thought about this for a week, I’ve made my decision, I’ve put that towards John [Nixon] and he’s supported my decision. Paddy wants to play regular football and he’s enjoying himself and scoring goals, so he’s expressed a desire to continue doing what he’s doing.
“I’ve had to take that into consideration because Paddy has been the most frustrated player over the last two years. He’s had two really bad injuries at bad times and they have both kept him out for three months. When he has been fit the players in his position have been doing really well and he’s been a bit-part player, which isn’t what Paddy wants.
“As to where it will go from here, club circumstances change and Yeovil might not want him in January if he doesn’t score more goals. But he might score 10 goals and then a really big club might want him.
“There are loads of things that can happen and no one knows what those things are going to be, so we’ll wait and see how he gets on over the next period and then revisit the situation so we can all see where we are going to go with it.”
