PICTURES: Elgin City season ends in defeat to Clyde as manager Allan Hale spreads scouting network and begins work on landing summer transfer targets
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Elgin City manager Allan Hale expects his summer recruitment to be as tough as the job of keeping the club safe from relegation over the past few months.
Hale was disappointed to finish his first season in charge of the Black and Whites with a 3-0 defeat at home to Clyde on Saturday.
He plans to take a short break from football matters to recharge his batteries, before taking on the task of strengthening City’s squad for the next campaign.
“We know what we need and we know ideally who we would like,” he said. “It’s all about whether we can do it or we can’t.
“The difficulty with players being under contract at other clubs is that it commands a transfer fee, and that with wages and all the other stuff, it’s not going to be easy.
“The close season, in terms of recruitment is probably going to be as tricky as what the last six months have been, in order to give us what we need to go and progress.
“But we will work together, we will work hard and hopefully work smart as well.”
Thirteen players who finished the season at Elgin, plus four returning loan players are under contract for at least the next year.
Tom McHale, captain Matthew Cooper, Jake Dolzanski, Lyall Booth, Ross Draper, Owen Cairns, Brian Cameron, Russell Dingwall, Rory MacEwan, Matty Jamieson, Ryan MacLeman, Michael Dangana and deputy keeper Oliver Kelly are all under contract.
Deals for Mitch Taylor and Robert Jones have now expired, similarly for youngster Brodie Mitchell who was on loan at Lossiemouth.
Ben Barron will come back from a loan spell at Nairn County, Dylan Lawrence and Aidan Cruickshank return from Lossiemouth and Fin Allen from Huntly.
One player definitely leaving City is former Fraserburgh midfielder Lewis Duncan, who had been farmed out to Formartine United and is now heading to Australia to pursue his career.
Freddy Jeffreys (Bradford City), Connall Ewan (Ross County), Keith Bray (Inverness), Dajon Golding and Mark Gallagher (Cove Rangers) all go back to their parent clubs after loan spells at Borough Briggs.
Hale will have budget talks with the City board of directors this week before making calls on players’ futures - but some players will definitely depart the club.
“I need to have those conversations first and foremost,” he said. “No decisions have really been made yet, we need to know what the finalised budget is.
“We know tentatively what it is looking like but now that we’ve finished seventh and how that money accumulates, we need to figure out what the final number is and then we can obviously look at what conversations we can have from there.
“We do need to free up money to bring people in, there’s no question about that.”
Hale and assistant Stefan Laird have drawn up an extensive list of possible targets, and also have a network of scouts to report back with findings on suitable players at other clubs.
“We are ambitious, we are driven and we want to move this club on a positive step forward,” Hale added. “You want to do that quickly but you are always restricted.
“We have a scouting team now and they are working really hard. We have a big list in terms of players that we identify over the course.
“It’s a case of culminating that together, you’ve got agents involved who you need to speak to and you now need to find out who is in your range and who isn’t, that sort of things.”
