Keith Curle on Alex Marrow and Danny Kearns
Manager Keith Curle spoke today about the return of midfielders Alex Marrow and Danny Kearns to training at the club this week.
“Alex Marrow is back with us after his sick note period expired,” he said. “The situation with him is that Alex wants to leave the football club. I also want Alex to leave the football club.
“We’re going through a process of finding the best way for him to leave the club which is financially beneficial to both parties. Fortunately for Alex, while he is here, and doesn’t want to be here, he still gets paid. Unfortunately for me while Alex is here, and doesn’t want to be here, I’ve still got to pay him.
“I’ve asked Alex to leave and not take the money he’s owed. That has been my negotiating strategy. We’ve obviously hit a stumbling block on that.
“In the short term the beauty of what we’ve got with working for a very honourable football club is that we will continue to pay Alex for his services, even though he doesn’t want to be here.”
“With Danny Kearns, he is also back in the building with us after his short break,” he confirmed. “He’s been handed straight to our strength and conditioning coach because the first thing we need to see is that he’s in the right frame of mind mentally.
“Once that’s been assessed, and we feel he’s in the right frame of mind, we then need to work on the physical attributes required to make sure the player can perform. That’s where Lee Fearn will work on getting him to a physical condition where he is able to join in the training sessions we do.”
“The situation with him wasn’t one where I asked him to go away for his break,” he explained. “To be completely honest, Danny wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t either. When you have two unhappy people you usually find there needs to be a separation.
“We were basically unhappy about the same things. He wasn’t happy that he wasn’t playing football. I wasn’t happy that he wasn’t playing football. I know the reasons why he wasn’t playing.
“He’s not in my thoughts for the weekend because he isn’t fit.”
And on the ongoing work to find players to add to the squad, he said: “What I’d like is to have four in by Saturday. In all honesty, I think two is a realistic target.
“One has already been done, but we’re not saying anything about his name, position or parent club until 2pm on Saturday.
“We’re waiting to hear back on two more today, and we have another one in the building which still needs to be negotiated. I expect that one to be a bit more drawn out.”
