Carlisle United Football Club

“I have a meeting today with Mark Beck’s agent, but that’s more a courtesy thing at the moment,” he said. “Nothing will get finalised, because the managing director is away, but it will be good to have a discussion to see where we are. 

“We know Mark still has  a lot to work on in terms of his game because he knows the more he plays, and the more goals he scores, the more he will get paid.”

“All three of the players [Beck, Dempsey and Potts] are aware that the timescale has elapsed so it won’t be addressed again until after Christmas,” he continued. “Yes, Brad has turned his offer down, but that won’t affect whether or not I select him. 

“He is well within his rights to turn down the contract he’s been offered. That’s part of any negotiation process. Just because he’s offered something it doesn’t mean he’s duty bound to sign it. 

“As I say, we’ll look at it again after Christmas, and if we deem it right to increase his incentives, or look at other areas of his offer, it could be that is what will tip the balance where he agrees to sign. 

“If that doesn’t happen, and he decides to let his contract run out in the summer, then he has the right to do that. As long as it doesn’t have an adverse affect on his performances then it won’t make any difference to selection.”

“I like Brad Potts as a player,” he said. “He adds fantastic dimensions going forward and he works hard defensively with energy and enthusiasm. He has good ability and those attributes are why we want to sign him. If he continues to give me all of that then he will obviously continue to play.”

“Kyle’s agent emailed us a revised proposal, from their point of view, and we didn’t deem it to be acceptable to negotiate via email,” he confirmed. “We tried to get a face to face meeting but we weren’t able to do that for a number of reasons. We’ve drawn a line under it and said that we’ll revisit it after Christmas. 

“I think it’s important for Kyle, Pottsy and Mark Beck that they concentrate on their performance levels in the mean time. Lots of things can change so we’re happy to see how it develops.” 

“As things stand we haven’t used money on committing those three players to our service so we can possibly put it to good use in January,” he revealed. “The money we were going to give them might allow us to bring one, two or possibly three other players into the squad. Again, we’ll wait and see what we decide to so with that.”