Derek McInnes speaks to Dave
Derek McInnes spoke to Dave Macdermid for RedTV this afternoon. The manager discussed the difficult job of telling some of the players this week that they were not being offered a new contract and explained some of his reasons.
“The decision is always hard enough when you have had a good length of time to work with the boys. You can make those decisions with a lot more certainty. The fact of the matter was we had four weeks to work with the players. I have to say every player has been very honest and worked very hard. The majority have shown a commitment to stay and be part of something. No decisions like that are ever taken lightly but they are decisions that have to be made. What we feel we have done is make decisions that will allow us to reshape the squad a little bit.
“From my point of view, having worked with Isaac over the past couple of weeks, his level of performance has been excellent. You can see he has got a quality there. A fit Isaac Osbourne is a real asset to most clubs and to us. However his domestic situation has changed from when he signed and the situation was becoming more and more difficult for him. When I spoke to Isaac a few weeks back he indicated this. So the decision was really taken out of my hands. We both came to the agreement that although he liked playing for Aberdeen and being here, he wanted to be with his family more.
“I am no different to most managers in Scotland. I have to be very prudent with my work. We have to try and cut back where and when we can. That should not stop us though trying to bring the best players available to us to Pittodrie. We will try and bring good players to the club who we feel will help make a difference. We all want to see a successful team on the park.
“There are a lot of good players in the U20 side. You are never really sure how they will handle first team involvement. I think though the more that they train with the first team, the more they feel part of something and feel they belong there. It can only be good for their confidence. I certainly think there is a nucleus of boys there who have shown enough that they could and may well be good Aberdeen players in the future and we will give them every opportunity to be that. There will be a few of the young boys starting on Saturday and a few on the bench.
“I have spoken to Niall McGinn. I want to work with good players going forward and I certainly think Niall is a player who is very popular amongst the staff, amongst his team mates and amongst our support. That is something that he should not dismiss to readily. He is very important to us and we will try and get him on a longer contract.”
RedTV | to watch the interview in full please click here
