Caley Thistle chairman Kenny Cameron wants business concluded before summer break
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CALEY Thistle chairman Kenny Cameron wants the majority of club business done before the end-of-season break.
The league draws to a close this Saturday, following Inverness’ lunch-time kick-off against Dundee, and Cameron is hoping to complete contract negotiations with a number of players.
Danny Devine, Owain Fon Williams and Aaron Doran have all been offered new deals to stay at the club, while the contracts of Nat Wedderburn, Jordan Roberts and Andrea Mbuyi-Mutombo include one-year options weighted in Inverness’ favour.
At present, manager John Hughes has just eight players signed up for next season, with Dean Brill and David Raven both set to depart the club. Interest in Partick Thistle trio Abdul Osman, Steven Lawless and Stuart Bannigan was abandoned as Hughes felt they were out of his price range, although the Caley Thistle board stressed a fortnight ago they hoped to tie up at least two pre-contract deals.
Cameron is no different from Hughes in that he wants a squad in place well in advance of the start of next season and avoiding a repeat of this one. An early start, due to Caley Thistle’s participation in the Europa League, saw only Nat Wedderburn signed before pre-season training began.
“Absolutely, we want it done as soon as possible. We’d like to get as much done as possible before the boys head off (for summer). Boys have got offers now – people think it just happens overnight but it doesn’t. There’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between agents but things are progressing well,” said Cameron, who conducted the Camanachd Cup second-round draw with his Ross County counterpart Roy MacGregor.
“We usually operate with a squad of 18 and this season it was 25
26, so the manager has obviously had a fair bit more money this season. But these things happen.”
In what has been a challenging season on the park, with the Caley Jags missing out on the top six for the first time in four years, Cameron was keen not to use the club’s “horrendous” injury record as an excuse.
With, at one time, casualties running into double figures, extra finance was given to Hughes to strengthen his squad. Over the course of the season, Caley Thistle have failed to field a full substitutes bench 18 games out of 45, an unprecedented record.
“We took more players in and backed the manager on that front, things just haven’t clicked this season,” Cameron said.
“We’ve learned in terms of injuries, they seem to come in cycles. It’s been about four years since the last time we had it this bad so hopefully next season we won’t have a repeat. It could have something to do with the short pre-season, the boys didn’t get a lot of rest.
“In a normal pre-season they’d get about five or six weeks off, to have a good chance to recover. I think they only got a week-and-a-half off, which isn’t great preparation for the season. But would you change it for the experience we had in Europe? No. All in all it’s been a reasonable season, so if we can finish seventh we’ll be happy.”
He added that he is relishing the return of Rangers to the top flight next year and has already set sights on pushing the club back into the top half.
“We’ll always look to be in the top six. We’ll go from there and see where it takes us,” said Cameron. “We’d be delighted to get to another cup final and the boys have experienced that. It’s a fantastic day out for the fans and the whole of Inverness, so we’d like to replicate that if at all possible.”
