Page praises ‘tremendous group’ after announcing retained list
Port Vale manager Rob Page has praised a “tremendous group” of players after announcing his retained list.
Page has offered contracts to all but nine of his squad and told the media that the team “punched above its weight” and he will now look at additional players to “improve” the side.
The group of lads that we’ve had have been tremendous and great to work with so we want to keep hold of as many as we can that have bought into what we want to do…
The Port Vale manager told the media: “I think with the core group that we’ve got for next season, it’s just adding quality to that.
“I think for a large part of this season we haven’t been too far off the play-off push. Up until March we’ve been three points off it.
“Maybe a bit of investment in the January window might have helped us to get that last little bit.
“In the main we haven’t done a lot wrong this season, we have punched above our weight, we were third favourites to get relegated, we’ve said all this before.
“The group of lads that we’ve had have been tremendous and great to work with so we want to keep hold of as many as we can that have bought into what we want to do.
“But because of the budget cut, we’ve got to do business carefully and there’ll be a lot of work to be done with renegotiations of the contracts.
“There will be cuts made, that’s public knowledge, so a lot will depend now on whether the players will be able to afford to take those cuts and continue to play for this football club.
“At the minute the work we’re doing is plan B. We’ve got our list that we want and now we’re out there looking at potential players to come in to improve us.”